Austin's "inclination is towards making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory" for active duty troops, a defense official told CNN.
If the secretary makes that final recommendation, he could seek a presidential waiver to allow the vaccine to be administered to troops before full approval by the Food and Drug Administration. A Pentagon decision and recommendation on how to proceed could come this week, several officials say.
Biden announced on July 29 that he was asking the Defense Department to "look into how and when" it will add the Covid-19 vaccine to the list of mandatory military vaccinations. Biden specifically said he knew that Austin is "open to it."
Since then, the Joint Chiefs have met to discuss how a mandatory vaccination plan might work. Austin has also been consulting with military medical authorities, the defense official said. Austin's current view is to "seek authorization to make it mandatory."
'We'll get after it'
The Pentagon previously indicated it was likely to wait for FDA approval before making inoculation against Covid-19 mandatory, but Biden's push for greater vaccination levels created pressure to move more quickly and will likely lead the Pentagon to request a presidential waiver.
Traveling in the Philippines last week, Austin told a news conference that he would consult with medical professionals and the services on a timeline for implementing a new policy. "But we won't let grass grow under our feet," he said. "The President directed us to do something and we'll get after it."
The current thinking at the Pentagon is to have the military services and geographic commanders work together to establish new schedules for vaccination of troops around the world. Troops scheduled for upcoming deployments could be among the first to have mandatory vaccines, officials say.
Defense Department civilians would fall under any rules established for federal employees. National Guard forces would only be covered by the mandate when they are activated by federal, not state, authorities.
Biden announced last week that all federal employees must attest to being vaccinated against Covid-19 or face strict protocols including regular testing, masking and other mitigation measures. At the time, the Pentagon said the new requirements would apply to military and civilian Defense Department personnel, and that it was also considering adding Covid-19 vaccines to the list of required vaccines for military personnel.
CoronavirusA health care worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Boston Medical Center. Adam Glanzman / Bloomberg
Would you approve of the government requiring people to get the COVID-19 vaccine?
Apparently in Massachusetts, most people would answer, yes.
A new survey found that 81.1 percent of respondents in Massachusetts would approve of such a mandate a higher percentage of people than anywhere else in the United States.
The study, conducted by The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Publics Policy Preferences Across States a multi-institutional project that includes Harvard University and Northeastern University surveyed over 20,000 people across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., between June 9 and July 7.
The survey, published on July 30, found that nationally, support for the government requiring people to be vaccinated is very strong, ranging from 61 percent to 70 percent, depending on the specific type of mandate.
No government vaccine requirement for citizens currently exists, although employers, including the federal government, have rolled out new vaccination rules for employees in recent weeks as virus cases swell due to the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19. Meanwhile, some Boston businesses are requiring customers and patrons to display proof of vaccination as they enter.
Overall, 64 percent of Americans support a vaccine mandate, according to the study, while 70 percent support requiring a vaccine in order to board an airplane.
Additionally, 61 percent of survey respondents supported requiring children to get a vaccine in order to be allowed in school, and 66 percent backed requiring college students to be vaccinated to attend classes.
Public support for such mandates has increased since April/May, both overall and in specific circumstances, like for getting on an airplane and returning to school or a university, the consortium wrote in its report. These over-time increases in support emerge across nearly all partisan and demographic subgroups we investigated.
In Massachusetts, 82.2 percent of survey respondents supported requiring passengers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in order to fly on an airplane, while 76.6 percent backed mandating vaccines for children to be allowed in schools and 82.3 percent support requiring the shots for college students so they may return to school, too. (The margin of error was 6.4 percent.)
As of July 30, 4,356,202 people in Massachusetts were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the state Department of Public Health.
While the survey found that a majority of residents in nearly every state support the government requiring a COVID-19 vaccine, support was also the strongest in Washington, D.C., with 80.5 percent of those surveyed backing the idea, and in New York, with 76.8 percent in support.
Wyoming, with 45.7 percent; South Dakota, with 49.5 percent; and North Dakota, with 49.8 percent, were the only states with less than 50 percent of residents supporting a mandate.
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Description of Metrics:
These metrics have been established based on guidance from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Department of State, andother public health experts. The metrics will be considered both individually and in their totality to assess whether regions can safely move through the four phases of reopening, or whether additional policy measures to contain the virus are required. The investigation of new cases, clusters, and contacts will provide substantial information on the drivers of transmission, which will in turn guide these policy decisions.
Percent of Hospital Beds Available (7-day Rolling Avg):Average share of hospital beds available for the most recent 7 days, which is defined as available acute care beds within 7-days under surge plan divided by total acute care capacity within 7-days under surge plan.
Percent of ICU Beds Available (7-day Rolling Avg):Average share of ICU beds available for the most recent 7 days, which is defined as total ICU beds available divided by total ICU beds in a region
The New York Department of Taxation and Finance has finally provided guidance regarding telecommuting tax liability for nonresident employees working outside of New York because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In short: employees telecommuting because of COVID-19 will generally still be required to pay New York taxes on income they earn.
By way of background, for telecommuters, New York applies the convenience of the employee/necessity of the employer test to determine if an out-of-state telecommuting employee working for an employer with its principal place of business in New York would also be subject to New York income taxes. In applying this test, the Department of Taxation and Finance uses factors from a 2006 bulletin to determine if the employees telecommuting location is an established office of the employer (a bona fide office of the employer) that is whether the employees assigned or primary work location is at an established office or other bona fide place of business of the employer inside or outside of new York State. Although an employees home office could meet the eligibility factors laid out in the bulletin, generally it would not qualify as a bona fide employer office outside of New York. Thus, for tax purposes, an employee working from his or her home office would be considered to be working in New York. The October 19, 2020 guidance restates the same bona fide employer office rule and offers no special rules or exceptions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove numerous New York-based employees to work outside the state (with many still continuing to do so). But because the rule remains the same, employers in this situation should expect to continue withholding New York income taxes for their telecommuting employees working outside of the state because of the pandemic. And, although the prospect of double taxation remains, in some cases employees may receive tax credit from their state of residence (for example, in New Jersey).
We also note that others states have adjusted their tax liability rules to account for the changing telecommuting landscape due to the pandemic (which we discuss more here).
We will continue to monitor tax liability guidance in New York and other states and provide updates as applicable, including whether other states challenge New Yorks recent rule. Employers are encouraged to consult with employment and tax counsel before making tax decisions relating to telecommuting and COVID-19.
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With COVID-19 infections surging in the United States because of the more contagious delta variant, some have downplayed the number of deaths from the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines.
To minimize the importance of vaccination, an Instagram post claimed that the COVID-19 survival rate is over 99% for most age groups, while the COVID-19 vaccines effectiveness was 94%.
The posts alleged survival rate for COVID-19:
0 - 19 years, 99.997%
20 - 49 years, 99.98%
50 - 69 years, 99.5%
70+ years, 94.6%
The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
A problem with the post is that it improperly used the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions statistics for modeling pandemic scenarios, not for calculating COVID-19s survival rate.
The CDC recommends the COVID-19 vaccines because they are safe and effective, even against the delta variant. Although the delta variant has slightly decreased the effectiveness of vaccines, experts still encourage vaccination as it provides a high level of protection against hospitalization and death.
An incorrect use of data
The Instagram post misrepresents data from the CDCs COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios document published in September 2020. It was created so public health officials who use mathematical models could help hospitals and policymakers react to different levels of severity of the pandemic. The data does not show the likelihood of surviving COVID-19.
These numbers are meant to be used for estimates of death over time, said Dr. Ruth Etzioni, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
PolitiFact in December fact-checked another claim that also misused the CDC data. We found that survival rates are usually calculated over a longer period of time, because death data can sometimes lag for months behind new cases.
How many people are surviving COVID-19?
Most people who get COVID-19 will survive. Of roughly 35.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, around 614,300 people, or 1.7%, have died, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys mortality data as of Aug 6.
The CDC issues provisional death counts for COVID-19, but that data should not be used to infer a survival rate. Experts say that during a pandemic, its difficult to determine survival rates such rates are usually calculated for a longer period of time, rather than as a snapshot.
The CDC data shows that most people who have died from COVID-19, about 79%, have been people ages 65 and older. People between 45 and 64 years old account for about 18% of COVID-19 deaths, and people under 45 years account for 2.8% of such deaths, according to the CDCs data as of Aug. 6. (The CDC data isnt broken down in the same age groups offered in the Instagram post.)
Experts believe theres likely an undercount of COVID-19 deaths.
Etzioni said that its not useful to just look at the rate that people die, even if it's low, because it doesnt tell the whole story. "If more and more younger people are getting COVID, then the total number of young people who die is going to skyrocket," Etzioni said.
Also, people should not use data on how many people have survived COVID-19 to predict their own chances of surviving infection, experts say. Someone's chances of surviving COVID-19 can vary depending on their age, health, and vaccination status national statistics dont account for these factors.
At an Aug. 2 press briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussed three different studies on the Pfizer vaccine's effectiveness against the delta variant. Fauci said the studies showed the vaccine was highly effective in protecting people against symptomatic infection and hospitalization, although the vaccines overall effectiveness had decreased since the delta variant emerged.
"The vaccines are doing exactly what were asking them to do when it comes to keeping you out of the hospital, out of serious disease, and certainly preventing your death," Fauci said.
Our ruling
An Instagram post claimed that the COVID-19 survival rate is over 99% for most age groups.
The data it cited does not show the likelihood of surviving COVID-19. The posts claim is based on data used to model pandemic scenarios. Experts say a person cannot determine their own chances at surviving COVID-19 by looking at national statistics, because the data doesnt take into account the persons own risks and COVID-19 deaths are believed to be undercounted. Survival rate data is not yet available from the CDC.
We rate this claim False.
Florida shattered its own COVID-19 records this week reporting the highest rate of infections since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
In the week from July 30 to Aug. 5, the Sunshine State recorded 134,506 new cases of coronavirus, averaging over 19,000 per day with a positivity rate of 18.9 percent, according to the latest data released by the Florida Department of Health on Friday evening.
That was the states highest infection rate in a single week since March of 2020, driven by the newer, more contagious delta variant, the Tampa Bay Times reported. It was also about 22 percent higher than the states numbers reported the previous week.
Floridas new cases account for well over one-fifth of the countrys seven-day moving average of 96,511, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.
The states hospitalizations also reached their highest point in the pandemic this week, with more than 12,864 confirmed COVID-19 patients as of Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services reported. Thats a daily average of 1,837 hospitalizations per day.
A roundtable of Floridas Agency for Health Care Administration and healthcare leaders met with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday to discuss the increase in hospitalizations which are nearly exclusively from those who are unvaccinated.
Despite the information thats coming out about people that are fully vaccinated still getting COVID, those numbers are low, saidDr. George Ralls, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Orlando Health in a statement shared by the Governors office. And they are absolutely still in a better situation than they would have been had they gotten COVID without the vaccine. So really, really important to drive that message to everybody.
DeSantis has pledged not to shut down businesses or impose a mask mandate amid the surge in cases, predicting that it seasonal outbreak and adding that lockdowns have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic.
We are going to have schools open, he said Tuesday. We are protecting every Floridians job in this state. We are protecting peoples small businesses. These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States.
The governor has also passed legislation banning local k-12 school districts from mandating masks.
On Friday, the University of Florida in Gainesville announced that masks would be mandatory for all its students while indoors at all times when it reopens this fall, even those who are fully vaccinated.
The school has asked all students returning to receive at least their first dose of the vaccination by July 22.
As previously communicated, UF cannot be responsible for that risk, given the ready availability of vaccine, and cannot modify the operation of the entire university for a minority of people who may choose not to be vaccinated, the statement added.
According to the Florida DOH, roughly 63 percent of the state has been vaccinated so far.
The seven-day average for new daily COVID-19 infections has surpassed 100,000 in the U.S., returning to levels not seen since the winter surge
ByThe Associated Press
August 7, 2021, 6:28 AM
3 min read
The U.S. is now averaging 100,000 new COVID-19 infections a day, returning to a milestone last seen during the winter surge in yet another bleak reminder of how quickly the delta variant has spread through the country.
The U.S. was averaging about 11,000 cases a day in late June. Now the number is 107,143.
It took the U.S. about nine months to cross the 100,000 average case number in November before peaking at about 250,000 in early January. Cases bottomed out in June but took about six weeks to go back above 100,000, despite a vaccine that has been given to more than 70% of the adult population.
The seven-day average for daily new deaths also increased, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. It rose over the past two weeks from about 270 deaths per day to nearly 500 a day as of Friday.
The virus is spreading quickly through unvaccinated populations, especially in the South where hospitals have been overrun with patients.
Health officials are fearful that cases will continue to soar if more Americans dont embrace the vaccine.
Our models show that if we dont (vaccinate people), we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said on CNN this week.
The number of Americans hospitalized with the virus has also skyrocketed and it has gotten so bad that many hospitals are scrambling to find beds for patients in far-off locations.
Houston officials say the latest wave of COVID-19 cases is pushing the local health care system to nearly a breaking point, resulting in some patients having to be transferred out of the city to get medical care, including one who had to be taken to North Dakota.
Dr. David Persse, who is health authority for the Houston Health Department and EMS medical director, said some ambulances were waiting hours to offload patients at Houston area hospitals because no beds were available. Persse said he feared this would lead to prolonged respond times to 911 medical calls.
The health care system right now is nearly at a breaking point ... For the next three weeks or so, I see no relief on whats happening in emergency departments, Persse said Thursday.
Last weekend, a patient in Houston had to be transferred to North Dakota to get medical care. An 11-month-old girl with COVID-19 and who was having seizures had to be transported on Thursday from Houston to a hospital 170 miles (274 kilometers) away in Temple.
In Missouri, 30 ambulances and more than 60 medical personnel will be stationed across the state to help transport COVID-19 patients to other regions if nearby hospitals are too full to admit them, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Friday.
Just before his untimely death on Thursday at age 72, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka took an important and principled stand in favor of workplace requirements for COVID-19 vaccines, noting that rules requiring shots would make work safer for everyone. The issue of whether to embrace mandates, though, has divided the labor movement, with some unions bucking Trumkas advice and resisting mandates. As the labor movement mourns Trumkas passing, hopefully his example will help steer unions toward quickly embracing policies that will, as Trumka said, mean a safer return to work and will put labor on the side of bringing this crisis to a faster end.
In Massachusetts, and elsewhere, some unions have objected to mandates while insisting that prospective vaccine requirements go through collective bargaining, which has had the effect of slowing down their implementation. Take higher education. Many private colleges and universities have now mandated vaccines for students and staff. Theres no reason the public education environment should be any less safe than private campuses. But UMass has yet to institute a vaccine requirement for faculty and staff.
When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, theres no system-wide policy, said John T. Hoey, director of communications for UMass president Marty Meehan. However, all five UMass campuses are requiring undergraduate and graduate students to be vaccinated for the fall, with the usual medical and religious exceptions. Meanwhile, there is ongoing dialogue on each campus with unions and nonunion employees about the issue.
Meehan firmly believes all 24,000 UMass employees (faculty and staff) should be required to be vaccinated, except for those with medical and religious exemptions, said Hoey.
Meanwhile, Meehan issued a requirement that all 306, nonunion UMass Office of the President employees, except those with religious and medical exemptions, be fully vaccinated by September 13, the hybrid, return-to-work date. The university also intends to require vaccinations and other health and safety measures for visitors and vendors who will be in contact with the UMass community.
Each campus is negotiating with multiple unions, which represent everyone from faculty and other professional staff and clerical staff to groundskeepers and police. Some are reportedly closer than others to reaching agreement.
Whats happening with vaccine mandates in higher education is a microcosm of the bigger challenge from unions across the state. For example, Governor Charlie Baker recently issued an order requiring all nursing home and soldiers home workers to get fully vaccinated by October 10. Mandates in health care settings are especially crucial, but unions that represent nursing home workers are resisting the mandate. At a time when nursing home workers are short-staffed and healing from the trauma they experienced, they shouldnt suffer economic hardship due to delaying vaccination, Marlishia Aho, a spokesperson for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, told Commonwealth magazine.
Baker, so far, has resisted vaccine mandates for state workers. The idea that I would kick somebody out of a job especially in a kind of economy we have now because, quote unquote, they wouldnt get vaccinated right away on an [Emergency Use Authorization]-approved vaccine No, Im not gonna play that game, Baker said in May. Meanwhile, Attorney General Maura Healey, state Auditor Suzanne Bump, and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg recently implemented mandates for their own employees.
Last month, WBUR reported that at least 65 Massachusetts colleges and universities would require students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. According to WBUR, at least 23 would also require on-campus faculty and staff to be vaccinated. Vaccine mandates at public universities have been an issue across the country, sometimes because of the politics of an individual governor, but also because such a requirement is considered a change in working condition.
Yet some union leaders understand the larger issue at stake: International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and the teachers union in New York City, for instance, have both supported mandate policies. During a July 28 interview on C-SPANs The Washington Journal, Trumka said, Yes we do, when asked if the AFL-CIO supports vaccine mandates. If you are coming back into the workplace, you have to know whats around you. He went on to say that everybody in the workplace would be jeopardized if a worker is not vaccinated.
Thats Public Health and Safety 101. Recognizing the critical importance of one of Trumkas last decisions would be a fitting tribute to him.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us on Twitter at @GlobeOpinion.
Personnel from the Australian Defence Force and New South Wales Police Force patrol a street in the Bankstown suburb during an extended lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Sydney, Australia, August 3, 2021. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
MELBOURNE, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Australia saw a record daily number of new coronavirus cases this year on Saturday, with the country's most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland recording a total of 361 cases of the highly infectious Delta variant.
With about 15 million people in the three states, or 60% of Australia's population, under a strict lockdown, the country also reported five coronavirus-related deaths, one of the highest this year.
NSW suffered its worst pandemic day, reporting 319 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases, with Sydney and neighbouring regional centres spanning 200 km (120 miles) of coastline under a stay-at-home order for six weeks already.
There are 345 people admitted to hospital in NSW, with 56 in intensive care and 23 under ventilation.
NSW authorities, who had been reluctant to put Sydney into a lockdown, said lack of observance of rules has been a problem.
"What we have happening right now is some people are not complying," NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.
"Just stay at home - that is the circuit breaker. Stay at home and get vaccinated."
Neighbouring Victoria saw the highest daily jump in cases this year, with 29 new infections, as the state remains under a snap seven-day lockdown imposed earlier this week, the state's sixth since the start of the pandemic.
Victoria Premier Dan Andrews urged people to follow the public health rules that allow residents to leave their house only for essential work, shopping, care, vaccination or two hours of outdoor exercise.
"This Delta variant spreads so fast," Andrews said. "We don't have enough of people vaccinated, we will finish up with younger people in the hospital, otherwise fit and healthy people. Our system will be overrun if we don't bring this under control."
Queensland recorded 13 new cases, with all but one isolating while infectious, bringing hopes that the eight-day lockdown in parts of the state will be lifted as planned on Sunday afternoon.
With just over 36,000 COVID-19 cases and 937 deaths, Australia has avoided the high caseloads of other developed countries, but its vaccination figures are among the lowest, with only 20% of people aged over 16 fully vaccinated.
Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell & Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The baby has made "an amazing recovery," said Dr. Dominic Lucia, a pediatric emergency physician and chief medical officer at Baylor Scott & White McLane Children's Medical Center -- Temple, where the child was transported on Thursday.
"She's no longer requiring the breathing machine. She's actually off that right now... and she's actually resting with mom. She's looking great."
The child, Ava Amira Rivera, tested positive for Covid-19, according to Amanda Callaway, a spokeswoman for Harris Health System. Callaway said Ava was having seizures and needed to be intubated but Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, where she was first taken, does not offer pediatric services.
None of the major pediatric hospitals in the area had beds available, Callaway said.
In a video released by Harris Health, Ava is seen being lifted onto an air ambulance on Thursday morning for a flight to the hospital in Temple.
"Like us, a lot of the children's hospitals are at or near capacity," Lucia told CNN Friday. "That's where we are a lot of days right now. We, fortunately, once they reached out to us, although we're a long way away, were able to help her."
Lucia said doctors were able to wean Ava off life support measures and described her condition as "very stable."
"She's doing great and on our way back to full health," he said.
Last year, the hospital had two or three Covid-19 pediatric cases at any given time, compared to five to seven in the last week to ten days, Lucia said.
"With the Delta variant we certainly are seeing just more infectivity across the population that includes kids, that includes infants as well," the doctor said.
"And with this particular surge we are seeing more kids that are symptomatic that test positive, more babies that are symptomatic and test positive."
He added, "We're also hospitalizing more and a few of those unfortunately are requiring critical care services (though) that's not particularly common."
In the Houston area, Harris Health System has seen a huge increase in Covid-19 patients, and at least half of the patients in ICU have the virus, Callaway said.
"Couple that with normal emergency needs and it's overwhelming the system," Callaway told CNN.
Harris Health is part of the Texas Medical Center, the largest in the world, according to its website. There were 336 Covid-19 patients admitted on Thursday, the highest daily number of admissions since February, according to its latest update.
The cases are mainly in areas where vaccination rates remain low, Zients said at a briefing Monday.
Hospitals are once again filling up with patients as the virus tears through the unvaccinated population.
Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will not impose a statewide mask mandate and has previously banned local government entities from requiring vaccines.
Texans know "what the standards are, what practices they want to adopt to help protect themselves," he told CNN affiliate KPRC last week. "This is time for individual responsibility."
Lucia on Friday stressed the importance of getting vaccinated.
"We're worried as schools begin to start up and the fact that kids are going to be together again, we're happy about," he said. "But we certainly hope that that's done in a thoughtful way and we're in support of the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines of kids going back to school wearing masks."
