ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) Maryland reported 853 new COVID-19 cases and 8 new deaths, according to state health department data released Sunday morning.
Doctors say the new cases are fueled by dangerous strains targeting the unvaccinated. During an August press conference, Governor Larry Hogan said the Delta variant, a strain that is reportedly two to four times more contagious than the original virus strain, accounts for nearly every new confirmed case in Maryland.
Hogan also saidless than 0.01% of vaccinated Marylanders have been hospitalized with COVID-19, and less than 0.001% of vaccinated Marylanders have died from the virus.
More than 3.5 million Maryland adults are fully vaccinated. State officials also reported that the state positivity went up to 4.01%.
Hospitalizations increased by nine to 374. Of those hospitalized, 280 remain in acute care and 94 remain in the ICU.
Since the pandemic began, there were 473,969 total confirmed cases and 9,637 deaths.
There are 3,599,139 Marylanders fully vaccinated. The state has administered 7,273,682 doses. Of those, 3,674,543 are first doses with 6,800 administered in the past 24 hours. They have given out 3,322,860 second doses, 3,795 in the last day.
The state began to administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine again in April, after the CDC and FDA lifted their pause on the vaccine due to a rare blood clot found in some women.
A total of 276,279 Marylanders have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, 239 in the last day.
The state reported 78.4% of all adults in Maryland have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES:
Here are the latest numbers in Maryland:
By County
By Age Range and Gender
By Race and Ethnicity
The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness headed above 202.7 million on Monday, while the death toll climbed above 4.29 million according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with a total of 35.8 million cases and in deaths with 616,829 as the highly infectious delta variant continues to spread fast, especially in states with low vaccination rates. The seven-day average of cases stood at 110,360 on Sunday and is averaging more than 100,000 a day, according to a New York Times tracker, marking the highest level since February. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical officer, said Sunday that he was hopeful the Food and Drug Administration will give full approval to the coronavirus vaccine by month's end and predicted the potential move will spur a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as schools and universities, as the Associated Press reported.India is second by cases at 31.9 million and third by deaths at 428,309 according to its official numbers, which are expected to be undercounted.Brazil is second in deaths at 563,151, but is third in cases at 20.2 million. Mexico has fourth-highest death toll at 244,420 but has recorded just 2.9 million cases, according to its official numbers. In Europe, Russia continues to pull ahead of the U.K. by deaths at 162,860, while the U.K. has 130,630, making Russia the country with the fifth-highest death toll in the world and highest in Europe.
Bayou COVID-19 crisis: Deaths begin to pile up on the Cajun coast The Tennessean
CNN
Covid-19 vaccines are protecting more than half the US population from current strains, experts say. But if too few people get vaccinated, the virus will be allowed to continue to spread and the result could be an even more dangerous variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
Then all of us who are protected against delta may not be protected against zaida (zeta), the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a Q&A with USA Today published Sunday.
If an overwhelming majority of the population is vaccinated, the virus will disappear in the country, Fauci said. But having only a partially vaccinated population means that smoldering levels of infection will carry into the fall, be confused as the flu in the winter and pick back up in the spring, Fauci told USA Today.
And if the rest of the world isnt vaccinated over the next couple of years, more circulation could mean more variants, Fauci warned.
Already, states are struggling to fend off the Delta variant, a strain believed to be significantly more transmissible than others. In 47 states, the seven-day average of new cases is surging by at least 10% more than the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And the US is averaging more than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases every day the highest in almost six months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In many parts of the country, particularly the South, hospitalizations are surging. Louisiana set a new record for Covid-19 hospitalizations last week, Floridas hospitalizations jumped 13% over the previous peak in 2020, and a hospital in Houston said Sunday morning there are no more beds left in the facility.
Over the last 12 hours, we have lost more patients than in the last five to six weeks, Houstons United Memorial Medical Center Chief of Staff Dr. Joseph Varon said.
And though the impacts of the pandemic are worsening once again, some continue to engage in activities that health experts worry are high risk for spread, like the 10-day motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, that began over the weekend. Fauci told NBCs Meet the Press he worries the event could cause a rapid surge in cases.
There comes a time when youre dealing with the public health crisis that could involve you, your family and everyone else, that something supersedes that need to do what you need to do, Fauci said. Youre going to be able to do that in the future, but lets get this pandemic under control before we start acting like nothing is going on. Something bad is going on. Weve got to realize that.
The answer to stopping or slowing the virus could be vaccine mandates, which Fauci told NBC he would support once the vaccines get full approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Fauci added that while he cant predict when a Covid-19 vaccine will receive full FDA approval, he hopes it will be within the next few weeks.
The good news, experts say, is that data shows that vaccines do protect against the strains the US is currently grappling against.
Some concerns have risen with the emerging Lambda (C.37) variant, first identified in Peru. But the teams that study emerging variants vigorously dont yet have anxieties about vaccines not working against Delta or Lambda, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health told George Stephanopoulos on ABC on Sunday.
We all worry about the day when a variant arrives that the vaccines stop working as well, Collins said. The best way to reduce that from happening is to reduce the number of infections. Thats how variants happen.
All the more reason why we should be doing everything possible to cut back the wild spread of Delta so we dont get something even more dangerous.
But public health officials are watching vaccine protection closely, Fauci told CNNs Fareed Zakaria, including how protection may wane over time.
When data shows protection goes below a certain threshold, health officials will recommend boosters for the general population, Fauci said.
Pfizer has said that protection of its Covid-19 vaccine appears to drop to 84% after six months. Moderna said last week that its Covid-19 vaccine showed 93% efficacy against symptomatic disease through six months, CNN has previously reported.
Houston Cofield/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A patient in the ICU Covid-19 ward at NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on Wednesday.
Concerns over vaccine protection are different for people who are immunocompromised, have had a transplant or are undergoing cancer therapy.
We know for sure that they never did get an adequate response most of them, not all of them, but most of them, Fauci said. We need to look at them in a different light than the durability for a normal person, which means that we will almost certainly be boosting those people before we boost the general population thats been vaccinated.
Research published in JAMA Network Open estimates that 6 million people in the US are taking immunosuppressants that could interfere with the vaccine a number the researchers say is likely an under-estimate.
The FDA is moving quickly to make a decision on Covid-19 vaccine boosters for people with compromised immune systems, and a decision could come sometime before early September, a Biden administration official told CNN.
Even if the decision comes soon, it may not be soon enough for people who are immunocompromised amid the spread of the Delta variant, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the FDA.
Because by the time you actually make that decision and you start operationalizing a booster campaign, youre talking about maybe late October if the decision comes in September, that you can start getting a sizeable number of people boosted, Gottlieb told CBS Sunday.
It takes time to get that stood up and get people into the doctors offices to get injections. And it will take a couple of weeks for the immunity to mature.
CNNs Jessica Firger, Holly Yan, Aya Elamroussi and Lauren Mascarenhas contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON With a new surge of coronavirus infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTechs coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people familiar with the effort said.
President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to the work.
Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.
A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.
Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizers vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7. I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
Although 192 million Americans 58 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the nations adults have received at least one vaccine shot, many remain vulnerable to the ultracontagious, dominant Delta variant. The country is averaging nearly 86,000 new infections a day, an increase of 142 percent in just two weeks, according to a New York Times database.
Recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, have found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot with a fully approved vaccine. But the pollsters warned that many respondents did not understand the regulatory process and might have been looking for a proxy justification not to get a shot.
Moderna, the second most widely used vaccine in the United States, filed for final approval of its vaccine on June 1. But the company is still submitting data and has not said when it will finish. Johnson & Johnson, the third vaccine authorized for emergency use, has not yet applied but plans to do so later this year.
Full approval of the Pfizer vaccine will kick off a patchwork of vaccination mandates across the country. Like most other employees of federal agencies, civilians working for the Defense Department must be vaccinated or face regular testing. But the military has held off on ordering shots for 1.3 million active-duty service members until the F.D.A. acts.
The City of San Francisco has said its roughly 44,500 employees must be fully vaccinated within 10 weeks of F.D.A. approval. The State University of New York, with roughly 400,000 students, is on a parallel track.
A number of health care systems have issued similar mandates to employees, including Beaumont Health, the largest health provider in Michigan, with 33,000 employees, and Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts, with about 80,000 workers.
Aug. 9, 2021, 6:53 a.m. ET
Full approval typically requires the F.D.A. to review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents roughly 10 times the data required to authorize a vaccine on an emergency basis. The agency can usually complete a priority review within six to eight months and was already working on an expedited timetable for the Pfizer vaccine. The F.D.A.s decision to speed up was reported last week by Stat News.
In a guest essay in The Times last month, Dr. Peter Marks, the agencys top vaccine regulator, wrote that undue haste would undermine the F.D.A.s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.
The regulators want to see real-world data on how the vaccine has been working since they authorized it for emergency use in December. That means verifying the companys data on vaccine efficacy and immune responses, reviewing how efficacy or immunity might decline over time, examining new infections in participants in continuing clinical trials, reviewing adverse reactions to vaccinations and inspecting manufacturing plants.
At the same time, senior health officials at the F.D.A. and other agencies are grappling with whether at least some people who are already vaccinated need booster shots. Several officials are arguing that boosters will be widely needed before long, while others contend that the scientific basis for them remains far from settled.
Two people familiar with the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that if booster shots are needed, the administration wants a single strategy for all three vaccines currently authorized for emergency use.
Different recommendations on boosters for different vaccines, they said, could confuse the public. Fully approving a vaccine and then authorizing a booster for it soon after might also offer conflicting messages about its effectiveness.
Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
While research is continuing, senior administration officials increasingly believe that at the least, vulnerable populations like those with compromised immune systems and older people will need them, according to people familiar with their thinking. But when to administer them, which vaccine to use and who should get shots are all still being discussed.
In a study posted online last week, Pfizer and BioNTech scientists reported that the effectiveness of Pfizers vaccine against symptomatic disease fell from about 96 percent to about 84 percent four to six months after the second shot, but continued to offer robust protection against hospitalization and severe disease.
Administration officials said Moderna and Johnson & Johnson needed to present data as well and Moderna had been asked to do so quickly. Officials have said other studies will also influence their decision-making, including data that the government is collecting on the rate of breakthrough infections among tens of thousands of people, including health care workers.
Pfizer is expected to submit an application for a booster shot to the F.D.A. this month. While the F.D.A. could authorize such shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would need to recommend them after a meeting of its outside committee of experts.
A decision to fully approve Pfizers vaccine will give doctors more latitude to prescribe additional shots at least for certain Americans, including those with weakened immune systems. The C.D.C. had been exploring possible special programs for that group, but administration officials said it became clear that by the time any such initiative got underway, the Pfizer vaccine would already be fully approved and doctors could prescribe a third shot.
Roughly 3 percent of Americans or about 10 million people, by some estimates have compromised immune systems as a result of cancer, organ transplants or other medical conditions, according to the C.D.C. While studies indicate that the vaccines work well for some of them, others do not produce the immune response that would protect them from the virus.
Some people are trying to get booster shots from pharmacies or other providers on their own, without waiting for the federal governments blessing. Officials in Contra Costa County, home to 1.1 million people in Northern California, were so eager to offer boosters that on July 23 they told vaccine providers to give extra shots to people who asked for them without requiring further documentation or justification.
Then, realizing that policy violated the F.D.A. rules on vaccines authorized for emergency use, the county reversed it this week.
Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Even though they can contract the delta variant, vaccinated people are far less likely to end up in the hospital.
The US is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 infections, with the highly contagiousdelta variant driving up numbers-- especially in areas with low vaccination rates. But the variant is also breaking through to infect vaccinated people. Arecent studyreleased by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the delta infection has similarly high viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. So what does that mean asmore of these breakthrough casesare happening?
Currently,165 million peoplein the US have been fully vaccinated, a little over half the country's total population. The CDC's researchsuggesting that vaccinated people infected with delta can also easily transmit the virus was the key factor motivating the new federal guidance that fully vaccinated individuals continue to wear masks indoors. At the same time, the CDC report underlines that the number of cases and deaths among fully vaccinated people is very small compared with the unvaccinated.
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Should you be concerned about getting COVID-19if you've already been inoculated? Since there's more community spread and there are more breakthrough cases despite vaccination, new data suggests yes. We'll explain what a breakthrough coronavirus infection is, how it's possible for fully vaccinated people to become infected and what it all means. This information comes from the CDC, the World Health Organization and other experts.
A breakthrough COVID-19 infection is when a fully vaccinated person becomes infected with the coronavirus without any symptoms or experiences symptoms, is hospitalized or dies from the infection. A small percentage of fully vaccinated people can get COVID-19 if exposed to the virus, but they're much less likely to become sick, according to the CDC.
If someone's fully vaccinated and does test positive for coronavirus, it's likely they'll have milder symptoms (see below) or be asymptomatic, Dr. Clare Rock, a Johns Hopkins medical professor, told me.
Now that it's been found that fully vaccinated people can be infected with high viral amounts of the delta variant, the CDC is concerned they can transmit the virus. If you do become ill, experts urge you to isolate yourself to prevent others from getting sick, especially people with medical vulnerabilities.
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Someone can become infected with COVID-19 just before or right after they get the vaccination, because it takes roughly two weeks before the vaccine is most effective. However, even after the immunity builds up, there's still a chance they can become infected, according to the WHO, since the vaccines aren't silver bullets against disease (though they're highly effective).
With millions of unvaccinated people around the world, new variants will emerge, Rock says. For example, the delta variant can pose a threat to people who are fully vaccinated -- especially those who have high-risk medical conditions (see the next section).
Someone who's fully vaccinated has a much smaller risk of experiencing severe symptoms from COVID-19. People who've received all their doses of a vaccine are less likely to be hospitalized or die than those who haven't been vaccinated,the CDC says. Vaccinated people typically see symptoms like a runny nose, which they mistake for a sign of a common cold, Rock said.
But that's not to say serious cases can't happen. The CDC says some fully vaccinated people can still be hospitalized and die. This can include people who have medical conditions that make them immunocompromised, Rock said, including those with cancer and people who've had organ transplants -- in general, people who are more vulnerable.
It's possible for a fully vaccinated person to become infected with COVID-19.
If you're fully vaccinated but worried about getting sick, you can take the following precautions.
At this time, there's not a clear answer. Though some people say a booster shot may be necessary down the line, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration don't agree with that, at least not yet. Scientists are continuing to study the immunity of fully vaccinated people to get a better idea of how well the vaccines protect them.
Moderna is currently researching if and when a booster shot may be necessary. For instance, vulnerable people who don't have a robust immune system, such as those with serious medical conditions, may need an additional shot, Rock said.
Pfizer says it's working on a booster shot for its COVID-19 vaccine (PDF) to enhance immunity for those who've already received both doses. The UK is also prepping for booster shots, with vaccine experts in Britain saying a booster shot may be needed before winter.
The variant causing the most concern right now is thedelta variant, which is now thedominant strain in the USand other countries. This variant has caused an increase in COVID-19 cases, which is also affecting people who are fully vaccinated.
In comparison with the alpha variant, researchers have found delta to be60% more transmissible, and hospitalization risks are much higher in unvaccinated people.
In most instances, the cases are happening in areas with low vaccination rates. For instance, US states like Louisiana and Florida havelow vaccination ratesand their COVID-19 cases are surging again.
Wearing a mask can help you protect yourself from COVID-19.
The breakthrough infections don't mean the vaccines aren't powerful.
"The effectiveness against severe disease is still substantial," Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a White House press briefing July 22. "Get vaccinated. It offers good protection against disease."
The main reason for breakthrough cases is the number of people who still haven't been vaccinated. Once more people are fully vaccinated, the virus likely won't infect as many people. Until then, the virus can continue to mutate and spread, creating new variants.
For more information, here's everything to know about the delta variant. Also, here are more details about a potential COVID-19 booster shot, and here's info on the debate over whether fully vaccinated people should wear masks.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
CNN
A year and a half since the first Covid-19 cases were identified, many countries in Asia-Pacific feel right back where they started.
While Britons hit the nightclubs after a long winter of coronavirus restrictions, millions of people in Australia and China are back in lockdown. Health systems in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are overwhelmed. And countries like the Pacific island nation of Fiji, which last year had only reported a handful of cases, are now battling major outbreaks.
To some, its hard to understand why Asia-Pacific is being hit so hard. Many Asia-Pacific countries turned themselves into hermit nations, closing off borders to almost all foreigners, imposing strict quarantines for arrivals, and introducing aggressive testing and tracing policies to catch any cases that slipped through their defenses. They lived with these tough border rules so cases could be brought down to zero and keep people safe.
And it worked until the highly contagious Delta variant took hold.
Now the fresh outbreaks are throwing the zero Covid strategy favored by China and Australia into question, and prompting a larger debate about just how sustainable the approach is.
Con Chronis/AFP/Getty Images
A quiet street in Melbourne during the city's sixth lockdown on August 6, 2021.
In Australias Covid hotspot New South Wales the state thats home to Sydney authorities have said reaching a 50% vaccination rate could be enough to start easing the states strict lockdown, a shift from the countrys previous attempts to bring cases down to zero.
In China, where a handful of cases can prompt mass testing, a growing number of public health experts are now favoring a mitigation, rather than zero-tolerance, approach, according to Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The shift away from the zero Covid approach is one that other fortress territories like New Zealand and Hong Kong will likely have to make eventually, experts say they cant stay shut off from the world forever. Hong Kong has confirmed about 12,000 cases since the start of the pandemic, while New Zealand has confirmed just over 2,880 cases and neither currently have any confirmed local cases, according to their respective authorities.
The zero Covid strategy obviously has been successful in some parts of the world over the last 18 months. I dont think anyone wants it to be the future, said Karen A. Grpin, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kongs School of Public Health. The choice now is: when do you want to start letting people die? It wont be a perfect transition, there will be parts of the population that will get this and will die.
While Covid-19 was rampant in Europe and the US, countries like China and Australia took an elimination approach they wanted zero local Covid-19 cases.
There was some cost involved. Tourism-dependent countries like New Zealand and the Pacific islands, for instance, saw their travel industries take a huge hit. Thousands of Australians couldnt come back due to limited flights and quarantine spaces and Australians couldnt go overseas without an exit visa.
But there was also a huge benefit. China and Australia never saw the same catastrophic outbreaks that hit the US and the UK. And up until a few weeks ago, life was largely back to normal, with people gathering for music festivals and sports events.
The Asia-Pacific countries, by and large, have had an incredibly successful year and a half responding to Covid, Grpin said. It would be very difficult to say that the strategies adopted in this region were not good ones.
James D. Morgan/Getty Images
Singer Tina Arena at the end of the first concert of her National Enchant Tour on May 2, 2021, in Brisbane, Australia.
Dale Fisher, a professor in infectious diseases at Singapores National University Hospital, said Australia and Chinas strategies were focused on tight border closures and quickly tracking any cases that leaked through with mass testing. But those approaches have been sorely challenged by Delta, which is estimated to be as transmissible as chickenpox, and is between 60% and 200% more contagious than the original strain first identified in Wuhan.
I believe that (China and Australia) overrated the integrity of their borders, Fisher said. It just may not have been such a big problem with the Wuhan version. But then you get something much more transmissible, and then any breach is exposed.
Once Delta arrived in Australia, it exposed a major flaw in the countrys strategy a slow vaccine rollout. When other countries frantically rolled out vaccines earlier this year, Australias leader seemed to be in no rush.
We have a front-row seat on the roll out of the vaccine in many other countries where they have had to (roll them out) because of their urgent crisis situation, Australias Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March. And the learnings from that have been taken into account.
As of Sunday, just 17% of Australias population of 25 million people have been fully vaccinated well below the UKs 58% or 50% in the US meaning there is little immunity in the community to stop Deltas spread.
(That) was a huge mistake, said Alexandra Martiniuk, a professor at the University of Sydney school of public health. So we are stuck in this position (in Australia) where theres very few people vaccinated and a very dangerous variant.
Chinese authorities have clamped down on domestic transport and rolled out mass testing after more than 300 cases were detected in more than two dozen cities across the country. Theyre familiar strategies in China and they will probably work again, said Ben Cowling, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Hong Kong University.
For this outbreak, I think theyll be down to zero fairly soon, but it does illustrate the risks of Covid still in a zero Covid strategy, Cowling said. This wont be the last outbreak there will be more outbreaks in the months to come.
For months, the zero Covid strategy has worked well. While other countries have battled overburdened health care systems and high numbers of deaths, China and Australia have reported just 4,848 and 939 deaths respectively. Thats allowed them to resume life as normal within their borders, and meant their economies have taken less of a hit.
03:25 - Source: CNN
Wuhan takes drastic action to stop Delta outbreak. See what city looks like
Longer term, though, many experts think a zero Covid strategy isnt sustainable. Eventually, all countries will want to open up to the world again and when they do, they may need to accept that some people would likely get ill, a hard shift in Asia-Pacific countries used to keeping the virus out altogether.
Unless youre prepared to cut yourself off from society forever, youre going to have Covid in your country. So its a question of when you let it in, and when you live with it, Fisher said.
That shift could be tough politically.
In China, for instance, officials and state media have praised the countrys strategy and its success as a sign of Chinese superiority, said Huang, from the Council on Foreign Relations. The government would need to justify its decision if it moves from a zero Covid to a mitigation approach, he said.
This containment-based approach is still popular among the Chinese populous, in a way thats a reflection (of) how this has been so internalized among the Chinese people. They accepted it as the only effective approach in coping with the pandemic, he said. So were not talking not just about the shift of the incentive structure of the government officials, but also to change the mindset of the people, to prepare them for a new strategy.
Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Police, security guards and volunteers help enforce a cordon around a neighborhood placed under lockdown after a resident tested positive for Covid-19, in Shanghai, China, on August 3, 2021.
But ditching the zero Covid strategy isnt something Australia and China should necessarily be thinking about right now, said Grpin.
When more than 80% of people are vaccinated, countries can loosen borders, Fisher said.
China relies on homegrown vaccines, including Sinovac, which had about 50% efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19, and 100% effectiveness against severe disease, according to trial data submitted to the WHO, and Sinopharm, which has an estimated efficacy for both symptomatic and hospitalized disease of 79%, according to the WHO. Thats lower than both Pfizer/BioNTech and Modernas vaccines, which are more than 90% effective against symptomatic Covid-19.
In China, they may need to add additional shots to increase immunity, Grpin said.
Opening borders too early could mean the death that they fought so hard to avoid will happen, she added.
The collective experience of China and Australia also highlights the risk that other countries with tough border restrictions might not be able to keep out Delta or another variant forever.
Fisher said Delta outbreaks would likely happen in other countries that had so far not experienced it, such as New Zealand.
Lynn Grieveson/Newsroom/Getty Images
An abandoned luggage trolley in front of the Jetstar terminal at Auckland Airport domestic terminal on October 7, 2020, two days before the lifting of restrictions for the Auckland region that were put in place following the re-emergence of Covid-19 in the community.
Like Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong have comparatively low vaccination rates with 16% and 39% respectively fully vaccinated, as of Sunday. If Delta gets in, they are also vulnerable to outbreaks.
There should be the same urgency to vaccinate when you dont have Covid because its just a matter of time, and we know the social and economic impact when you have to lock down and mass test as a response, Fisher said.
He recommended maintaining some restrictions like wearing masks indoors even when a country had sealed off borders, and no local cases were reported.
Every country should pretend theres cases in their borders, and at least have mask wearing indoors, limit gatherings, he said. Sure that bothers people, but I can tell you, when you get a case, suddenly lifes a lot easier.
Countries needed to keep learning from other countries about how to handle the pandemic, Fisher added.
If anyone thinks this is over, theyre wrong, Fisher said, Everyones got to face up to it and live with it someday and its not over for any country yet.
CNNs Jadyn Shum, Kristie Lu Stout and Nectar Gan contributed to this report.
CNN
Pfizers Covid-19 vaccine is currently only authorized for emergency use in the United States, but its full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration could happen within weeks.
The ramifications could alter the course of the pandemic in several ways.
First, full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine could persuade more people to get vaccinated.
More than 30% of the eligible population in the United States still hasnt gotten a vaccine.
To qualify for emergency use authorization, Covid-19 vaccine makers submitted about three months of clinical trial data. This included at least 2 months of safety data on fully vaccinated participants, since most vaccine side effects occur 2-3 months after the vaccination.
For some Americans, that hasnt been enough data to convince them to get the shot.
Full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine requires much more data, including safety and efficacy data generated in the real-world, outside of a clinical trial. The CDC has been tracking real-world data on the vaccines and more than 165 million people in the US are now vaccinated against the virus.
The extra data may help convince more people that the vaccines are not dangerous.
For some, getting a full FDA approval will help allay that fear. Even if its just a relatively small number of people. Every little bit helps against this virus, Dr. David Dowdy, an associate professor in the division of infectious disease epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said.
Three in ten unvaccinated adults said they would be more likely to get vaccinated if one of the vaccines moves to full approval, according to a survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
However, Kaiser cautioned that some people it surveyed were confused about the shots. Two-thirds thought the vaccines already had full approval or they were unsure about it. This finding may just mean that full approval is a proxy for general safety concerns.
Dr. Michael Wolf, the Associate Vice Chair for Research, Department of Medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine expects approval would get about 5-10% more individuals worried about safety to get vaccinated.
The FDA is currently working around the clock on approval of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to Dr. Paul Offit, a prominent member of the FDAs vaccine advisory committee and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.
I think from the standpoint of the public, it really shouldnt matter, Offit said. Its been given to half of the American population. We have more than 300 million doses out there. This is far from experimental. We have a tremendous safety and efficacy portfolio on these vaccines I mean, its more than most licensed products that are out there now.
And yet he recognized that, at least for some, it does matter. He said the FDA knows that, too.
I think they realize that at least theres a psychological issue with how these vaccines are viewed, in terms of whether theyre a licensed product or just approved through EUA, Offit said.
Full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine could also make workplace mandates easier. Many unvaccinated people would face a financial reason to get one; theyll need it to keep their jobs.
FDA approval alone is not going to make many individuals run out and get it now, but youre going to start seeing health systems and employers feel more emboldened to require them, Wolf said. Theres precedent for mandatory vaccinations and immunizations.
Workplaces already have the legal authority to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But full approval could give any legal challenge less potency.
FDA approval is the gold standard. The worlds regulators look to our FDA as the beacon when it comes to such issues as this, George Karavetsos, a legal expert who had worked at the FDA and now provides strategic advice to FDA regulated companies as an attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney, said. I can assure you, theyre going to make sure they got this right.
Erik Nisbet, the Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy in the School of Communication at Northwestern University, agreed.
If you ever want to get beyond 70% threshold of people who have gotten a vaccination so far, you need to have carrots and you have to have sticks, Nisbet said. The only way to do that is the mandate. Authorization takes out one of the impediments to more widespread mandates.
Full approval may also provide political cover to get more people vaccinated. On Wednesday, Louisianas Governor John Bel Edwards said he would not consider requiring the vaccine for state employees unless and until the FDA grants full licensure to one of more of the Covid vaccines. The state has the highest per capita number of cases of any state and one of the lowest vaccination rates.
San Francisco announced that it would require all city employees to be vaccinated no later than 10 weeks after FDA full approval.
Full approval may even be able to override laws like the one in Ohio that bans vaccine mandates under emergency use authorization, according to Nisbet.
Approval kicks that out of the way, he said.
Full approval may also mean that the fully vaccinated could get an additional vaccine, even before boosters are approved.
Approval will make it easier for physicians to give the vaccine off label, Dowdy explained. If people can convince their doctor they need one.
Many scientists hope people wont do that. While a number of clinical trials are underway, boosters are not yet recommended by the FDA and the CDC.
Trials have shown immunocompromised people may not respond as well to the vaccines and may need a booster. There is an effort to make boosters for that population available very soon, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday.
Right now, what we really want to do is get the patient population here in the US to at least get one shot and not get ahead of the data, said Melissa Tice, program director of regulatory affairs and assistant professor of clinical research and leadership at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Hopefully, approval will at least get more people to get their first dose.
It remains unclear how having a fully licensed coronavirus vaccine may impact the timeline of authorizing or approving the coronavirus vaccines for children younger than 12 if at all, Offit said.
The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-29 vaccine is currently authorized for ages 12 and older, whereas the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are authorized only for adults 18 and older.
Does getting full approval for an adult vaccine, does that matter in terms of speeding up the process for approval for the childhood vaccines? I think the answer to that question is probably no, Offit told CNN on Friday.
Overall, this is all sort of new territory the notion of emergency use authorization obviously is new, certainly for vaccines that have been used to this extent. We had EUAs for anthrax vaccines, but thats not this, he said. Im not sure how the FDA views this.
CNNs Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.
Some people are reportedly disguising themselves while getting the Covid-19 vaccine so that their ... [+] friends and families don't know. This isn't an example of that. It's a nurse injecting a performer in a bear costume with the Sputnik V vaccine in Russia. (Photo by Gavriil GrigorovTASS via Getty Images)
There havent been any high school genre movies entitled The Fully Vaccinated Breakfast Club or Mean Antivaxxers just yet. But apparently some people who want to get vaccinated against Covid-19 may be facing high school-type peer pressure or even bullying. In the following video, Priscilla Frase, MD, the chief medical information officer for Ozarks Healthcare, described how her patients said they actually had to don disguises while getting vaccinated so that their family members and peers wouldnt find out:
Ozarks Healthcare is based out of West Plains, Missouri. As of today, only 42.1% of the total Missouri population and 49.3% of the 12 years and older population are fully vaccinated, according to Missouris Covid-19 Dashboard. So if you are fully vaccinated in Missouri, you still may be in the minority in your community.
Welcome to the High School Musical thats America 2021, where grown adults actually have to hide doing something that may benefit themselves and others. Were in the middle of a Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, a public health emergency. The more contagious Delta variant is spreading. And there are people actually judging and stigmatizing others who get vaccinated?
OK, its not clear how many people have actually had to resort to wearing a disguise. Its also not clear how elaborate these disguises may have been. Wearing a hat or some glasses a la Clark Kent or Kara Danvers is one thing. Dressing up as a hot dog and telling others that your first name is Hot and your last name is Dog is something completely different.
Nonetheless, its not surprising that people may resort to disguising themselves. After all, political leaders and others pushing anti-vaccination messages have politicized and culturalized vaccination to a rather high schoolish degree. Its been sort of like how high school bullies try to arbitrarily label some activities as cool and others as loserish. Theyve turned getting vaccinated and taking Covid-19 precautions into us versus them cliques.
United States Representative Matt Gaetz has sidestepped questions about whether he's been vaccinated ... [+] against Covid-19. (Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)
So as a result, some people may be reluctant to admit whether theyve been vaccinated, sort of like how jock Mike Dexter hid that he hung out with nerdy guy William Lichter in the movie Cant Hardly Wait. On July 22, Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox and Sarah Fortinsky reported for CNN that nearly half of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have not revealed publicly whether theyre vaccinated against Covid-19. They quoted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) as responding that's very nosy of you, when asked about his vaccination status, and saying, I think we should be talking more about freeing Britney. So essentially, Gaetz seemed to be saying dont hit me baby one more time with that question.
Then theres Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whos been called a superspreader of Covid-19 vaccine fears by HBO TV host John Oliver, as I described previously for Forbes. Hes been quite a Tucker when talking about vaccines. Yet, as Charlotte Alter reported for Time, when she asked Carlson about his vaccination status, he wasnt exactly forthcoming. He reportedly replied: Because I'm a polite person, I'm not going to ask you any supervulgar personal questions like that. Supervulgar? Its not as if the reporter was asking Carlson whether he has autoplushophilia, which according to a HuffPost article is arousal to oneself dressed as a giant cartoon-like stuffed animal. Or xylophilia, which is arousal to wood and not the kind of wood that you might expect.
Tucker Carlson has sidestepped questions about whether he's been vaccinated against Covid-19. (Photo ... [+] by Janos Kummer/Getty Images)
As with high school cliques and bullies, you cant always tell if someone is taking a stance because he or she actually believes in that position or because it portrays a certain image.
Its one thing to not get vaccinated yourself because you have questions about the Covid-19 vaccine or dont want to feel pressured into getting vaccinated. Thats understandable. Not everyone has the same knowledge and level of comfort with the Covid-19 vaccine. In such a situation, it make sense to talk to a real legitimate medical expert to better understand the risks that you may face. After all, you dont want to be putting yourself in danger of getting Covid-19 just because you have a misconception about the vaccine.
However, its something completely different to pressure others to not get vaccinated. Someone around you getting vaccinated does not pose a risk to you. Theres no evidence that a Covid-19 vaccine alone will cause someone to shed the virus, despite what some anonymous social media accounts are trying to tell you. If you want others around you to not get the vaccine just because you dont want to, thats high schoolish. And if youre telling others to not get vaccinated even though you yourself got vaccinated? Well, theres plenty of high schoolish names for that with none of them being very nice.
After a Sunday service at the Church of God Christian Life Center in Dorchester, parishioners trickled into a pop-up clinic in the back room, where a nurse from Boston Medical Center prepared a dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine for Irlande Aime, who fidgeted nervously in a folding chair. The 34-year-old Dorchester resident said the vaccines fast-tracked development had made her hesitant about getting the shot for over a year now even as the virus tore through her community and she was treating COVID patients last year as a nurse at Carney Hospital.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
I wanted to wait because it was something that just happened so suddenly, it was too rapid, too fast, Aime said. Before theres new medication, you must have research, and the research must be for a period of time.
After the state's mass-vaccination clinics shut down in May, health officials focused on targeting harder-to-reach populations, opening pop-up clinics in houses of worship, senior centers, YMCAs and other community organizations. As of last week, the DPH Mobile Vaccination Program has delivered more than 85,000 doses via 1,577 community-based and state-sponsored vaccination clinics across the state, including the Vax Express, Market Basket clinics, school-based clinics, community-based clinics with centers of worship, community-based organizations and cultural groups all hosting events, according to the Office of Health and Human Services.
A spokesperson for the citys mobile vaccination effort told GBH News that the Boston Public Health Commission does not have public data on the number of people who have been vaccinated at clinics across the city.
At pop-up clinics like the one at the Church of God, Boston Medical Center has distributed 1,223 vaccine doses. Over a slightly longer period, since February, BMC has distributed roughly 41,000 vaccines at mobile clinics across Boston. Black and Latino residents have made up 68% percent of those vaccinated at the clinics.
The effort has been a slog in a hard-hit section of Dorchester and in Mattapan, the neighborhood with the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated residents in the city, 40.9%. In those neighborhoods, the clinics have fought against misinformation circulating among Haitian immigrants and a longstanding distrust of the health care system among Black Americans rooted in a history of mistreatment.
The Mattapan Community Health Center has been running a small vaccination clinic out of its Blue Hill Avenue facility since December and offers free walk-in vaccinations. More than 2,000 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, and unvaccinated patients are offered on-site doses during their doctors visits.
We find that most people say no, said Guale Valdez, the centers CEO. The majority of our patients, over 90%, identify as either Black or brown, and thats where the greatest hesitancy is.
The health center hosts town halls and distributes public service announcements that include testimonies from clinic staff who give their reasons for getting vaccinated: to protect family members, travel and visit their elderly relatives. Still, Valdez says hesitancy is pervasive and difficult to combat.
What were being told is, its going to cause infertility, that there are trackers in the vaccine, that not enough time has been was given to develop the vaccine, that its not safe, Valdez said. We counter that with very rational, very supportive facts. We always approach whoevers interested, whoever were talking to, in a culturally respective way also, in the languages that we speak here, English, Haitian Creole and Spanish.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
Emmanuel Dieujuste, a Dorchester resident who like Aime is Haitian, got his first shot at the Dorchester pop-up clinic after reports of rising cases of the Delta variant. But for over a year, he said he was frightened by what he saw on social media sites.
I saw on social, it was scary, Dieujuste said. People got different reactions and were warning about it.
In Mattapan, Rev. Dieufort Keke Fleurissaint runs a small clinic out of the Immigrant Family Services Institute on Blue Hill Avenue. The clinic has vaccinated 312 people, and an outreach team regularly fans out across Mattapan Square, urging people to come in and get the vaccine but Fleuressant says some residents are uncomfortable with the idea.
People say the vaccine was developed too fast, the AIDS epidemic has been happening for decades and they still dont have a vaccine to combat that, Fleurissaint said. People say the vaccine is designed to reduce the Black race, that it contains a tracking system. Some people say the vaccine is the mark of the beast, in the apocalypse, people who took the vaccine will be identifying with the beast. There are many myths about the vaccine.
Misinformation on social media exists in every culture, but Fleurissaint says hes wary of misinformation coming out of Haiti, which has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate of any country in the world, and its impact on Mattapan, which has the largest Haitian community in the state.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
We are facing many patients who definitely get the misinformation regarding the vaccine, especially information coming from Haiti regarding the vaccine, he said.
Another factor thats holding Mattapan back is a more general mistrust of the medical system within the predominately Black community, one thats rooted in history, including an infamous 1932 study of syphilis that left Black men in Tuskegee, Ala., suffering with the disease.
But it can make a difference if people see and hear leaders from their community advocating for the vaccine.
Trusted voices are extremely important, leaders in the community, pastors, priests, Fleurissaint said. I call into Haitian radio and invite people to join me, and then Ive had three or four people say, I wasnt going to take the vaccine, but the fact that you said, Come right now, Im taking the vaccine.
In a recent interview on a community station called Boston Praise Radio, Claudine Bruff-Lopes, a nurse from the New England Regional Black Nurses Association, spoke with local activist and City Council candidate Leonard Lee about the more general racial disparity in health care treatment that she says has affected the vaccine rollout.
We see disparities and the gaps in care with Black and brown people going to the emergency room, not receiving timely care in the emergency room and not getting the adequate care or medication as our Caucasian brothers and sisters, Bruff-Lopes said. That is real. It does happen. Cultural competency in health care providers definitely needs to be improved and not just with a Black and brown community, but also Asians and Guatemalans. We need to really be sensitive and educate ourselves on other cultures.
State officials say the roughly 900 small mobile clinics focusing on the 20 hardest-hit communities is also an effort to make getting vaccinated convenient for people like Cherlie Noel, a 35-year-old Brockton resident who doesnt speak English. Noel says she struggled to schedule and access a vaccine appointment until last month.
I just couldnt find the time, Noel said through a Spanish translator.
Tori Bedford / GBH News
Last month, Massachusetts state health officials reported a record-breaking uptick in COVID-19 vaccinations with more than 19,000 new doses administered. About 65% of the states residents have received at least one dose.
As long as its needed, state health officials and community leaders plan on operating smaller mobile clinics as a way to reach out to non-English speakers, immigrants and communities of color.
We have to make sure that every person who should get a vaccine has a vaccine available to them, Valdez said. Were just going to continue. We dont have a time frame. Were just, were just going to keep doing it for however long it takes.
