A male deer trots through the underbrush. New research has found that more than 30 percent of blood samples from White-tailed deer in several US states contained antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: Whwthunts via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Since making the leap to people, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has wrought havoc on human populations. Now the virus appears to be surging among some wild animals as well. A new US government study of white-tailed deer reported that many had been infected, raising the potential that even if the virus is eventually controlled or even eradicated in humans, another common animal could provide it a reservoir and spawn future outbreaks.
The US Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service tested 481 samples collected between January 2020 and March 2021 from deer in Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and found that 33 percent tested positive for antibodies to the COVID-19 virus. While many animals appeared to have been infectedmore than 60 percent of samples in Michigan tested positive, for examplethe agency said there were no reports of deer appearing clinically ill.
Researchers want to know how the deer got infected in the first place. Linda Saif, a virologist at The Ohio State Universitytold Nature that a critical question is how the virus spread to deer and if it will spread from infected deer to other wildlife or to domestic livestock such as cattle. The animal and plant health service said the deer could have been exposed to the virus by people, other deer, other animals, or the environment.
Laboratory experiments have shown that deeralong with several other animals, including cats, nonhuman primates and deer miceare susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. For the most part infected animals dont get very sick.
Researchers want to know which species are susceptible to the virus in part to better understand the potential for spillbackor the reverse of the natural spillover from animals to people that many scientists believe caused the pandemic. With spillback, infected people could spread the disease to other species and create a new reservoir for the virus. Transmission among animals could also lead to new variants. In experiments, researchers have shown that the virus begins to mutate quickly after spreading among just a handful of animals.
While its not known whether deer can spread the virus to peoplethe government researchers believe the risk is lowthere have already been documented cases of farmed minks spreading the disease to workers. Hundreds of people in the Netherlands were infected with mink-related variant viruses last year.
White-tailed deer are common in North America.
Exhortations to get a coronavirus vaccine are all around, but Brad Offutt has decided to reject them.
The 53-year-old is a pain therapist in Marble Falls, a town of about 6,000 people in Burnet County, and he said he wants to see the vaccines get full approval rather than the current emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration before he gets one. But even then, Offutt said that the chances of him doing so are slim since he doesnt feel threatened by COVID personally.
Instead hes made the decision to take the risk of getting COVID.
The coronavirus vaccines have been thoroughly tested and found to be safe and effective. More than 340 million doses have been given in the U.S., and side effects have been determined by the FDA and independent researchers to be extremely rare and far less substantial than the dangers of getting COVID-19, which has killed more than 52,000 Texans as of Aug. 2.
Public health experts say getting as many people vaccinated as possible is the best and fastest way to end the pandemic but Offutts hesitancy is common. He is one of 14 million Texans as of Aug. 1 who, about eight months after the first batch of vaccines first rolled out, have remained unvaccinated.
Many of those unvaccinated are children who are ineligible to receive the shots; around 5 million Texans are under 12. But still 83% of Texans, or 24 million residents, are eligible for the vaccine. With 15 million Texans who have received at least one shot as of Aug. 1, that leaves 9 million eligible Texans who have not gotten their vaccine yet.
This places the states vaccination rate at 36th in the country and has helped drive another troubling wave in the pandemic. COVID hospitalizations in Texas quadrupled in July. Preliminary data from the state indicates that more than 99.5% of people who died due to COVID-19 in Texas from Feb. 8 to July 14 were unvaccinated. The percentage of fully vaccinated residents has gone from 3% to 42% in that time span.
The Texas Tribune analyzed the demographic and geographic trends of Texans who have not gotten their shot yet. Here are some of our main findings:
Offutt lives along Lake Marble Falls with his wife, Dr. Amy Offutt, an integrative medicine physician who is also choosing not to get vaccinated. He said they have enough space there not to have to worry about being in large crowds where the likelihood of being exposed to the virus is high.
Marble Falls is a conservative stronghold; 76% of its voters cast their ballots for Trump in 2020. The city is part of Burnet County, where 40% of residents are fully vaccinated far behind the rates of neighboring Travis and Williamson counties, which are both around 56%.
It matters if you live in a city which is more densely populated, versus where we live which is not that populated and most of what we do are outdoor things, Brad Offutt said.
Data shows thats not necessarily true. Across Texas, the counties with the highest case rates are outside the urban centers.
Still, attitudes like Offutts are common among white conservative rural folks, said Dr. David Lakey, the chief medical officer of the University of Texas System. According to the Tribunes analysis, 33% of people in rural or nonmetropolitan counties are fully vaccinated as of Aug. 1, behind the states rate of 44%.
In the states biggest cities, the story is different. Vaccination rates are higher in the metropolitan areas, but the cities poorer neighborhoods and the neighborhoods with more people of color tend to have much lower vaccination rates. Overall, Black and Hispanic Texans hold the lowest vaccination rates among racial groups statewide, at 28% and 35% respectively.
In an area like Houston or Dallas or Austin, the overall rates may look good, but you can have significant differences and disparities between one ZIP code and another, Lakey said. ... one part of town can be very different from another part of town.
For example, in Dallas County, 58% of the people in neighborhoods that are majority white were fully vaccinated as of July 26. Those rates are far ahead of neighborhoods that are majority Black and Hispanic, which are 37% vaccinated.
Lakey added that East Texas vaccination rates have been lagging behind the rest of the state since it tends to be older, and its an area of the state that has a significant African American population and also a significant conservative white population, and is also a more rural area.
Mistrust is the leading cause of vaccine hesitancy, Lakey said, and the core of the mistrust usually depends on a persons culture.
Hesitancy for white conservatives, he said, hinges on distrust of government, while for Hispanic and Black residents its often a lack of trust in the health care system because of generations of disparities in the American system.
For some individuals who have not had a lot of experience interacting in the health care system perhaps they dont have a primary care physician this might create further doubt when we start talking about a vaccine because these kinds of experiences are new, said Dr. John Carlo, CEO of Prism Health North Texas.
He added that while he wishes fewer people were hesitant about the vaccine, he understands the uncertainty.
I think the big thing that I would say is that we just have to continue to listen and see where people are on this because oftentimes, people arent completely opposed to it, Carlo said. Theres a lingering concern and maybe questions could be answered.
Alma Pea, a 40-year-old Austin resident, didnt trust the coronavirus vaccine when it first came out and resisted getting it all of spring.
I was afraid that something would happen to me when I got the vaccine, she said in Spanish.
But the recent surge of cases and hospitalizations made being unvaccinated scarier than the shots potential side effects for Pea. Shes a housecleaner, and since she spends most of her days hopping from home to home, she pushed her apprehensions aside and rolled up her sleeve in July.
Im afraid, Pea said.
She got her shot in early July through the University of Texas School of Nursings Vaccine Administration Mobile Operations, or VAMOS, which strives to vaccinate vulnerable populations in Austin. She went to one of their weekly clinics held at the parking lot of First Spanish Seventh Day Adventist Church, which is just around the corner from her house.
She took her 13-year-old son Joseph to get his first dose on July 21 at the same church, right before he starts seventh grade in August.
The way to convince more families like the Peas to get vaccinated, Carlo said, is to make sure we have one message with many voices.
Of the six ZIP codes in Travis County in which Hispanics make up more than half of residents, all but one ZIP code has a fully vaccinated rate lower than that of the countys 56%, according to the Tribunes analysis.
The gap is also seen when comparing neighborhoods by median income. Of the 14 ZIP codes that have median incomes lower than that of the countys, 10 are also under the countywide fully vaccinated rate. Of the 20 Travis County ZIP codes with incomes above the countys median income, just four are below the countys rate.
Ana Todd is the director of the VAMOS clinic where Joseph got his shot, and said a lack of easy access to health care and transportation are also key reasons why some Black and Hispanic residents havent received a vaccine. But above all, mistrust is one of the biggest reasons Texans are turning away from the shot, she said.
Todd said efforts that take the time to meet and talk to residents are crucial to mending the relationship between Austins Hispanic and Black communities and the health care system. And thats why the organization hosts clinics at local churches.
People trust the churches, Todd said.
Every Wednesday since May, VAMOS partners with the Central Texas Food Bank to make its weekly food drive at First Spanish Church a vaccination clinic as well. Some regulars for the food bank stop by not knowing about the vaccine clinic. While they wait in line to pick up food, a volunteer for VAMOS asks them if they would like to get vaccinated.
Sometimes, Todd said, hesitant residents decline. But theyll come back the following week, and shell ask them again if they want to consider getting the vaccine. That was the case a couple months ago when a mother and daughter were in line for the food drive. Todd said she asked the duo if they wanted to get their vaccine and the mother immediately declined, but the daughter said, let me think about it.
Todd continued to tell the daughter about the importance of the vaccine, and she eventually agreed to get the shot. After watching her daughter get vaccinated, the mother told Todd she would take the week to think about getting hers as well.
We have been consistently working to build trust, Todd said. And even more importantly, weve been listening to why they dont want to get the vaccine or why they havent.
She added that being Venezuelan and treating a majority Hispanic neighborhood helps her build trust with residents.
I understand when somebody says to me Dios me va a proteger God is going to protect me, Todd said. So when they tell me that, I know the context. I know how to guide the conversation and talk about how weve been given the tools to take care of ourselves. ... And so its about framing the conversation so that its person-centered and patient-centered.
Dr. Lane Aiena, the director of Walker Countys COVID-19 medical response team, said he has a similar approach to convincing his rural community to get them vaccinated: having one-on-one conversations with his patients.
I have to be very mindful that Im frustrated with the situation but not the person, Aiena said, who is also a doctor in Huntsville. No one is anti-vaccine just because they woke up one the morning and decided Im not going to take this shot. They heard something somewhere. They have a reason to be hesitant and Im asking them to put something in their body, and they have the right to want to know about that.
A note on methodology:
Higher- and lower-income ZIP codes are defined as ZIP codes with median incomes above or below the countys median after accounting for margin of error. ZIP codes were included in a demographic majority if more than half of its residents are in that demographic group after accounting for margin of error. Income and racial demographic data was taken from the 2019 U.S. Census Bureaus American Community Survey.
Disclosure: University of Texas System has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
The spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus in some U.S. states is leading to the possibility that the economy may be heading into a stagflation-like cycle that could complicate the Federal Reserves options for tightening monetary policy in the face of the recent rise in inflation.
Not only could the coronavirus variant delay the return of many Americans to the workforce, it might reinforce the upside risk to inflation if the wage gains used to lure workers back prove to be durable, according to BMO Capital Markets strategists Ian Lyngen and Ben Jeffery. And that, in turn, would provide a challenge for the central bank which may miss its employment objectives amid persistently higher inflation.
Its a turnabout in sentiment from earlier this year, when the development and rollout of vaccines drove much of the optimism in financial markets, allowing investors to price in a post-pandemic U.S. recovery in stocks and bonds. Now, the possibility of stagflation an economic environment marked by high unemployment, high inflation, and low economic growth, experienced in the U.S. in the 1970s or something close to it has moved onto the radar screen of analysts.
Read: Stagflation is a legitimate risk that would be painful for U.S. markets
The new wave has not only brought into question the timing of next steps toward returning to normal, its also raised concerns that this might be the new normal, Lyngen and Jeffery wrote in a note Tuesday.
While avoiding the use of the word stagflation in their commentary, they said that since policy makers June meeting any hints that the timing of the first rate increase might occur sooner than expected have been met with a so-called bull flattening in Treasuries, a classic policy error response, in which long-term yields fall faster than short-term rates.
Should there be a meaningful acceleration in investors expectations for normalization of the Feds policy interest rate, three- and five-year Treasuries would see the majority of the selloff while the lower-rate environment in 10s and 30s would be once again reinforced.
Worries about rising numbers of new Covid cases weighed on the Treasury bond market again on Tuesday. The 10-year Treasury yield, TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.187% remained near the lowest level in six months. Meanwhile, stock investors shrugged off the concern, sending both the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.80% and the S&P 500 Index SPX, +0.82% slightly higher.
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) The Utah Department of Health is reporting 728 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, August 3.
There are five new virus-related death reported.
A total of435,439 Utahns have tested positive for COVID-19.
Lab reports from the Utah Department of Health show 2,938,515people have been tested. This is an increase of 6,018.
UDOH reports a total of 5,346,752 total tests, an increase of 10,576 since yesterday.
In total, 3,041,947vaccines have been administered, which is 6,830 more than yesterday.
The rolling7-day average for positive tests is 877 per day.
The rolling 7-day average for percent positivity of people over people is 15%.The rolling 7-day average for percent positivity of tests over tests is 10.6%.
There are 395 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Total hospitalizations from the beginning of the outbreak are 18,770.
UDOH is reporting 2,471 total deaths.
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. Florida is not shutting down and COVID-19 "hospital admissions have slowed," Gov. Ron DeSantis emphatically declared on Tuesday, despite yet another day of record coronavirus hospitalizations in the Sunshine State.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 11,515 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida on Monday, including 2,400 in ICU beds.
RELATED: Florida hits record with 11,515 COVID-19 hospitalizations
In the face of that staggering number, DeSantis on Tuesday argued that statewide lockdowns have "failed time and time again throughout this pandemic" and "they have not stopped the spread."
"In terms of shutting down, we're not shutting down," DeSantis said during a news conference at Everglades National Park. "We're gonna have schools open. We're protecting every Floridian's job in this state. We're protecting people's small businesses."
WATCH NEWS CONFERENCE:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives COVID-19 update
For the second time in just three days, Florida has recorded a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
On Sunday, HHS reported that 10,593 people were hospitalized with confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Now on Tuesday, that number has climbed by 922 patients.
While DeSantis admitted that emergency room visits for COVID-like illness (CLI) went up "sharply" in July, he seemed to dismiss the record spike in hospitalizations, instead claiming they're now "plateauing."
"We are watching the CLI. That is plateauing. The hospital admissions have slowed. I don't think we've reached the peak yet. But I think we're gonna settle in hopefully this week or next week," DeSantis said.
Florida Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried -- who's running against DeSantis in the 2022 election -- quickly took to Twitter on Tuesday, saying the governor's claim that COVID-19 hospitalizations have slowed is simply "not true."
The governor on Tuesday said hospitals in Florida are seeing a lower median age of COVID-19 patients because more older residents are vaccinated against the virus.
According to the Florida Department of Health, 85% of Floridians ages 65 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of July 29.
Between 12-to-39-year-olds, the highest percentage of those vaccinated is just 49%.
WPTV
During Tuesday's news conference, DeSantis touted his administration's "Seniors First" vaccination strategy -- which started in late December and early January -- as a major factor in reducing COVID-19 mortality rates in Florida by 70% to 75% from this same time last year.
While the governor said almost 25,000 fully vaccinated Floridians have tested positive for COVID-19, he said their symptoms have been less severe.
"Yes, there are positive tests among vaccinated. At the same time, the mortality and all that data is very, very clear," DeSantis said. "We think that even amidst a lot of positive tests, you still see much less mortality than we did year-over-year. That's important."
RELATED: Palm Beach County health director compares current COVID-19 surge to worst of 2020
With DeSantis vehemently opposed to any type of coronavirus-related restrictions in the Sunshine State, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday urged the governor to do more to encourage people to get vaccinated and wear face masks, including allowing school districts to mandate facial coverings for students, which Psaki said is "not the current state of play in Florida."
"At a certain point, leaders are gonna have to choose whether they're gonna follow public health guidelines or they're going to follow politics," Psaki said. "And we certainly encourage all governors to follow the public health guidelines."
Psaki added that 20% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide are in Florida.
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Boris Johnson hints at U-turn on amber watchlist
Scotlands proposed Freedom Day will be going ahead, first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced today.
The First Minister also suggested that 16 and 17 year olds in the UK may soon start to receive doses of the Covid-19 vaccination.
Most legal coronavirus restrictions in the country are to be lifted on 9 August, next Monday.
Legal requirements for social distancing and limits on the size of social gatherings and access to venues will be removed, but, unlike England, indoor mask-wearing will still be necessary and will be legally mandated for some time to come, the first minister said.
Workers in Scotland will still be advised to work from home wherever possible, she said.
Ms Sturgeon did not, however, rule out the potential for restrictions to be reimposed.
We all hope - I know I certainly do - that the restrictions we lift next Monday will never again have to be re-imposed. But no-one can guarantee that, she told MSPs.
A health commentator, meanwhile, has said England could be over the edge of the third wave of Covid-19 infections.
Jamie Jenkins, former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), told LBC cases in England and Wales have been falling since 19 July and we might start being over the hill now when it comes to deaths.
We probably are over the edge of the wave at the moment, he said, but added: Lets have a bit of caution as we go into the autumn period.
Good morning and welcome to The Independents live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Well be bringing you rolling updates on the latest news and statistics throughout the day.
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:09
Ministers have abandoned plans to add a new amber watchlist category to the UKs Covid travel rules, after Boris Johnson said the traffic light system should stay as simple as possible.
The government has been considering a new category to let travellers know which amber-list countries are at risk of turning red, but the idea sparked backlash from the travel industry and MPs.
My colleague Adam Forrest has more on this story:
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:10
The nation could be "over the edge" of the third wave of Covid-19, a health commentator has said.
Jamie Jenkins, former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics, told LBC: "(Cases) in England and Wales have been coming down since July 19, the cases have been falling for a couple of weeks there, then you get that time-lag effect when cases start coming down you get, around five or six days later, you start seeing hospital admissions come down, and then you start seeing deaths come down.
"I think looking at the data, we normally see deaths peaking around 14 days after cases come down, I think we might start being over the hill now when it comes to deaths."
Mr Jenkins added: "We probably are over the edge of the wave at the moment but let's have a bit of caution as we go into the autumn period."
He said that hospital admissions were around 80 per cent lower than what they would have been in the past and deaths were 90 per cent lower, adding: "The vaccine effect has kicked in as well - if you look at the same number of cases to what we had in the winter, it would have been 800 deaths rather than 65-70."
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:12
Gillian Keegan, the skills and apprenticeship minister, appeared to confirm that the government amber watchlist plan had been ditched.
Asked on LBC radio whether an amber watchlist had been discussed, she said: Everything is discussed before saying the government wanted the traffic light system to stay simple.
The minister said: The important thing when were designing this [travel list] system, and where we came down on, in the end, is to make sure the system is simple enough for people to understand.
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:20
Lifestyle changes driven by the coronavirus pandemic have been linked to a possible rise in short-sightedness among children in a new study.
Analysing children in Hong Kong between the ages of six and eight, researchers found a potential increase in cases of myopia after the pandemic struck.
My colleague Andy Gregory has more details in this piece for Independent Premium:
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:36
A leading behavioural scientist has praised the British public for consistently being ahead of the government in terms of their awareness of the dangers of Covid-19.
Stephen Reicher, professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews and Member of Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (Spi-B), told Sky News: "The public have always been behaving responsibly.
"The remarkable thing when you look at the data is that people have always been ahead of the government in being aware of the dangers (of Covid).
"The problem, to some extent, is that the government is not matching the public with its own responsibilities.
"It does seem as if the changes in the Covid rules come as quickly as medals come to the UK team (at the Tokyo Olympics).
"We've got to use the summer, we squandered it last year.
"We should be installing ventilation in public spaces. In New York, they're going to have two air purifiers in every classroom.
"If the government showed the same responsibility the public is showing, I think we'd be in a far better place in the autumn."
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:45
Gillian Keegan, minister for apprenticeships and skills, has said it is her understanding that the director general of the Joint Biosecurity Centre has resigned, following reports.
Asked on LBC to confirm if Clare Gardiner has resigned, Ms Keegan said: "Yes I believe that she has.
I mean I don't have any responsibility for that area, but you know, all of these things - there is a group of experts who are basically there that are looking at data, analysing data and then giving advice to the government, and so I guess they will be looking for a new chair."
Asked why Ms Gardiner has quit, Ms Keegan said: "I don't have any understanding at all of that, no, I have only heard what you have heard."
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 08:52
Jeremy Clarkson has criticised Covid scientists and politicians while sharing what he thinks should happen next in a post-pandemic world.
The TV presenter said that he disagrees with the idea of lockdowns designed to keep people safe, calling scientists those communists at SAGE who should get back in their box.
Our culture reporter Jacob Stolworthy has more on this story:
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 09:02
A new study is being launched to determine what the best gap is between coronavirus vaccine doses for pregnant women, with scientists hoping findings will reassure expectant mothers on the safety of the jabs.
Researchers are aiming to recruit more than 600 pregnant women for the trial, which will monitor the vaccine's effectiveness and follow the development of children up to one year old.
The launch comes less than a week after research revealed the vast majority of pregnant women admitted to hospital with Covid-19 are unvaccinated.
England's chief midwife has written to GPs and fellow midwives across the country urging them to encourage expectant mothers to get a jab.
Those behind this latest Preg-CoV trial said while there are currently no safety concerns when it comes to pregnant women having Covid-19 jabs, they hope it will give expectant mothers and those caring for them "the highest quality of data about these vaccines".
Almost 52,000 pregnant women in England have been vaccinated to date - with no safety concerns reported.
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 09:30
A minister has estimated about 25 per cent of staff at the Department for Education (DfE) are in the office on any one day at the moment.
Gillian Keegan, minister for apprenticeships and skills, told Times Radio: "I have been in the office four days a week since June last year, as have many of us you know because obviously we have had to navigate these very difficult decisions during the pandemic.
"And many of the civil servants are also back now, more and more are coming back, and quite frankly they are all excited to come back."
She said the Government has said "use the summer to sort of reintroduce people coming back".
Asked how many civil servants are back in the office, she said: "In the DfE, I would say probably 20-25 per cent at the moment on any one day, obviously different people are coming in different days."
Chiara Giordano3 August 2021 09:45
At their regular pandemic response meetings over the past year, officials in Suffolk County, N.Y., found themselves returning, again and again, to questions of geography.
One of the common questions I used to get was, Where is it bad? said Dr. Harsha Rajashekharaiah, the senior project coordinator for the countys Covid-19 response. Where is the Covid transmission bad? Where is the testing bad? Where should we improve? Where should we invest our resources?
To find answers, Dr. Rajashekharaiah used geospatial data, brandishing brightly colored maps that pinpointed the exact neighborhoods where cases were rising or where testing rates were lagging.
And after inoculations began, he started using digital mapping tools commonly known as geographic information system, or G.I.S., software to explore how vaccination rates varied across the county and how they correlated with a variety of demographic factors.
Several patterns soon emerged on the color-coded maps. In March, for instance, magenta splotches on the western side of the county made it clear that vaccination rates were low in neighborhoods with a high share of residents who did not speak English well. After he presented the map to his colleagues, they quickly added Spanish and Haitian Creole language assistance to their county vaccine hotline.
Over the next few months, as vaccination rates rose in these neighborhoods, portions of the map turned to yellow or even green. I cannot sit here and conclude that our G.I.S. system is the reason that this has happened, Dr. Rajashekharaiah said. But, he added, G.I.S. has been a very, very powerful tool for us to communicate these barriers.
Amid the highly uneven rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, many health officials and community organizations are drawing upon geospatial data to plan their vaccination campaigns and track their progress in fine-grained detail. Esri, a California-based company that makes widely used G.I.S. software, says that hundreds of organizations around the world including many U.S. states and more than 20 national governments are using its digital mapping tools to help them get shots into arms.
G.I.S. and mapping tools have been really important to helping these health departments get people vaccinated to be more organized in the process, more streamlined and strategic and even tactical, said Dr. Este Geraghty, the chief medical officer of Esri.
By allowing officials to quickly spot vaccine deserts, pinpoint high-risk populations and target their resources more efficiently, digital maps have become crucial tools in the effort to ensure that vaccination campaigns leave no neighborhood behind.
Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy
As the virus raced across Wisconsin in the spring of 2020, officials in Milwaukee County became concerned about its unequal toll. In late March and early April, for instance, Black residents accounted for 69 percent of the Covid deaths in the county despite making up just 27 percent of its population, according to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee report.
These disparities were front of mind when the Covid-19 vaccines were finally authorized. We wanted to make sure that we were equitably distributing this vaccine, said David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive.
They began categorizing census tracts according to their vaccination rates and their scores on a national social vulnerability index. The index uses data on 15 different social, economic and demographic factors including the age, minority status and education levels of residents, as well as local poverty and unemployment rates to calculate how susceptible a given community would be in the event of some kind of disaster, like a hurricane or a pandemic.
Then the officials displayed the results online on a color-coded map. In mid-March, when the county first released it, much of the city of Milwaukee was colored dark orange, signaling that the area had high levels of social vulnerability but low vaccination rates.
On the other hand, the suburbs, where the population is wealthier and whiter, were shaded a pale yellow, indicating that they had low scores on the vulnerability index but climbing vaccination rates. And so there was this story of the haves and have-nots, or two different cities, said Dr. Ben Weston, who oversees the medical aspects of the countys Covid-19 response.
County and city officials began pouring resources into deep orange neighborhoods, prioritizing those residents for vaccine appointments, adding more vaccination sites in those areas and creating pop-up sites and events at churches, food pantries, libraries, schools and cultural centers. They also started a community ambassador program the Crush Covid Crew to train volunteers from those deep orange census tracts to talk to their neighbors about the vaccines and dispel misinformation about them.
Although vaccination rates in the most vulnerable areas still lag behind, they have more than tripled since mid-March. The darkest orange communities are now gone, Dr. Weston said. So were making progress.
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The Count Me In initiative in Georgia which was created by Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic candidate for governor has taken a similar approach. But instead of focusing on vaccination rates, it mapped vaccination sites across the state and then overlaid data on potential barriers to vaccination, including a lack of computer access and low rates of car ownership.
The map revealed numerous potential trouble spots, particularly in rural, southwest Georgia. We saw this very large concentration of folks that had very limited vaccine access, said Ali Bustamante, a senior research associate at the Southern Economic Advancement Project, which runs the initiative with the nonprofit organization Fair Count. There were very few vaccination sites, while at the same time they were facing huge access constraints.
The groups partnered with vaccine providers to send mobile clinics to some of these vaccine deserts and began an all-out canvassing effort, borrowing the tools of a political campaign to encourage people to get shots. Volunteers ultimately made 79,000 phone calls, delivered vaccine information to 17,000 doors and helped book 4,500 vaccine appointments. Particularly in rural areas, we have seen the vaccination gap close considerably, Dr. Bustamante said.
Geospatial data is also critical for logistics. Carto, a cloud-based platform for analyzing geospatial data, has helped dozens of logistics companies around the world optimize their vaccine storage and transportation networks to get the shots distributed more quickly and efficiently, said Luis Sanz, the companys chief executive.
And in Clackamas County in Oregon, G.I.S. data has become the backbone of efforts to vaccinate people who are homebound. Because we are a large county with somewhat rural areas, we do have some transportation issues and access is a challenge for many of our residents, said Kim La Croix, a public health program manager for the county. Those mass vaccination sites were just not accessible to homebound seniors and homebound people with mental, developmental or physical disabilities.
Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
When residents call or email the county to request an at-home vaccination, staff members log their location, which pops up on a digital map. Then, when assigning specific appointment slots, they review the map, which displays the number and type of vaccines that have been requested across the county. The goal is to reduce nurses travel time, maximize the number of shots they give in a day and to minimize waste, by ensuring that the number of doses a nurse gives in a shift matches the number of doses in a vial.
In low and middle-income countries, basic geospatial data about how many people need to be vaccinated and where they live has been critical to the success of prior mass vaccination campaigns. About a decade ago, for instance, government officials and global health experts realized that polio vaccination teams in northern Nigeria were using inaccurate, hand-drawn maps.
There were missing settlements, wrong settlement names, said Emilie Schnarr, the Nigeria project manager for the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development, or GRID3, program. And that was one of the reasons children were being missed.
Without reaching these children, the highly contagious polio virus was likely to continue circulating. So in the years that followed, the Nigerian government, in partnership with several global health organizations, used satellite imagery and local field teams to create detailed, high resolution maps, filling in missing buildings, settlements, and local points of interest.
The maps helped Nigeria eradicate polio, which the country finally achieved last year. And GRID3, which grew out of these efforts, recently distributed updated maps to local officials across Nigeria, who are using them to help plan and track their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns.
Theyre not alone. In March, five organizations that specialize in geographic data and information management Alcis, CartONG, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, iMMAP and MapAction joined forces to launch the Geographic Information Management Initiative for Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery. Their goal is to help 15 low-income countries, including Haiti, Sudan and Bangladesh, fill gaps in their geospatial data and then harness that information to get vaccines out to their residents.
The work, the say, will be of use not just for this pandemic, but for the delivery of all sorts of essential services, ensuring that local health authorities know where their citizens live and can help them meet their needs.
To be on the map is to be acknowledged, said Ivan Gayton, the senior humanitarian adviser to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Every community in the world should be able to put themselves on the map.
Even though they can contract the delta variant, vaccinated people are far less likely to end up in the hospital.
COVID-19 infections are surging throughout the US again (more than 95,000 new caseson Thursday) due to the highly contagiousdelta variant, with outbreaks particularly impacting areas with low vaccination rates. This week, anew 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,164 million peoplein the US have been fully vaccinated, nearly 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 number among the unvaccinated.
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Should you be concerned about getting COVID-19if you've 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, 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 cancontinue 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.
In one sense, the world got lucky with the new coronavirus. By sheer chance, scientists just happened to have spent years studying coronaviruses, developing exactly the tools needed to make Covid vaccines as soon as the viruss genetic sequence was published.
But what will happen if the next pandemic comes from a virus that causes Lassa fever, or from the Sudan strain of Ebola, or from a Nipah virus?
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is promoting an ambitious and expensive plan to prepare for such nightmare scenarios. It would cost a few billion dollars a year, take five years for the first crop of results and engage a huge cadre of scientists, he said.
The idea is to make prototype vaccines to protect against viruses from about 20 families that might spark a new pandemic. Using research tools that proved successful for Covid-19, researchers would uncover the molecular structure of each virus, learn where antibodies must strike it, and how to prod the body into making exactly those antibodies.
If we get the funding, which I believe we will, it likely will start in 2022, Dr. Fauci said, adding that he has been promoting the idea in discussions with the White House and others.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, also thought it likely that the necessary funds would be allocated, calling the project compelling.
As we begin to contemplate a successful end to the Covid-19 pandemic, we must not shift back into complacency, Dr. Collins said.
Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy
Much of the financial support would come from Dr. Faucis institute, but a project of this scope would require additional funds that would have to be allocated by Congress. This years budget for the infectious diseases institute is a little over $6 billion. Dr. Fauci did not specify how much additional money would be needed.
If surveillance networks detected a new virus spilling over from animals into people, the logic goes, scientists could stop it by immunizing people in the outbreak by quickly manufacturing the prototype vaccine. And if the virus spread before the world realized what was happening, the prototype vaccines could be deployed more widely.
The name of the game would be to try and restrict spillovers to outbreaks, said Dr. Dennis Burton, a vaccine researcher and chairman of the department of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research Institute.
The prototype vaccines project is the brainchild of Dr. Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He presented the idea in February of 2017 at a private meeting of institute directors.
Year after year, viruses had threatened to turn into pandemics, Dr. Graham said: the H1N1 swine flu in 2009, Chikungunya in 2012, MERS in 2013, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016. Each time scientists scrambled to try to make a vaccine. Their only success was a partial one, with an Ebola vaccine that helped control the epidemic but would not work against other Ebola strains. The other epidemics waned before the vaccines could be made or tested.
Aug. 1, 2021, 3:54 p.m. ET
We were tired, Dr. Graham said.
But researchers had new tools developed over the past decade that could make a big difference. They allowed scientists to view molecular structures of viruses, isolate antibodies that block the viruses and find out where they bind. The result was an ability to do structure-based design for new vaccines that target the pathogen more precisely.
When he heard Dr. Grahams pitch in 2017, Dr. Fauci was inspired. It struck me and others in the executive committee as something that is really doable, Dr. Fauci said.
Dr. Graham published a review paper outlining the proposal in Nature Immunology in 2018. But without the urgency of a threatening pandemic, his idea remained just that.
Now, though, many think the time has come.
The allergy and infectious diseases institute has created a spreadsheet for each of the 20 virus families showing what is known about each pathogens anatomy and vulnerabilities, said Dr. John Mascola, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the institute.
Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
For each virus family we are in a different state of knowledge and vaccine development, Dr. Mascola said. Vaccines for Lassa fever and Nipah virus, for example, are in early stages. Vaccines for Chikungunya and Zika are further along.
The work to fill in the gaps in vaccine development would be done with research grants to academic scientists. There is a lot of enthusiasm among academic researchers, said Dr. Barton Haynes, director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. Although the proposal is not well known among the general public, Dr. Fauci said he has discussed it in talks to scientific audiences.
The program would also establish collaborative agreements with pharmaceutical companies to produce prototype vaccines quickly, Dr. Fauci said.
That is what happened with the shots for Covid-19. The SARS and MERS epidemics led scientists to work on a coronavirus vaccine. That led to the discovery that coronaviruses use a spike protein to infect cells, but the spike changes shape readily and needs to be held in one position to be useful as a vaccine. That could be done, researchers discovered, with tiny molecular changes in the spike protein.
Days after the new coronaviruss sequence was published, scientists had designed vaccines to fight it.
That, Dr. Fauci said, is what pandemic preparedness can do. Hed like to have prototype vaccines for 10 out of the 20 virus families in the first five years of work.
It would require pretty large sums of money, Dr. Fauci acknowledged. But after what weve been through, its not out of the question.
