Published on July 30, 2021
The City of Fort Worth continues to host community vaccine clinics at convenient locations across the city. Most sites are available for adults 18 years and older only. Parents of youth ages 12-17 should call 817-392-8478 to learn about additional options.
Register onlineor use a smartphone to scan the QR code. The clinic dates for the week of Aug. 2 are below:
Tuesday, Aug. 3
Wednesday, Aug. 4
Thursday, Aug. 5
Friday, Aug. 6
Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex, 505 W. Felix St., is also available 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Friday.
A pop-up clinic is available at First Street Methodist Mission, 801 W. First St., from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, July 28. MedStar Mobile Healthcare is hosting a pop-up clinic 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Aug. 6 at 2900 Altamere Drive. Register for the MedStar clinic.
To learn more, call 817-392-8478 or email the hotline.
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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the COVID-19 response on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 18, 2021. Susan Walsh/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Friday there will be no nationwide mandate for Americans to get a COVID-19 vaccine, clarifying comments she made earlier during a televised interview.
"To clarify: There will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government," Walensky wrote in a Twitter post. "There will be no federal mandate."
Earlier on Friday, when asked by a Fox News Channel interviewer, "Are you for mandating a vaccine on a federal level," Walensky said: "That's something that I think the administration is looking into."
President Joe Biden's administration has been seeking ways to increase vaccination levels in the United States at a time when some Americans have persisted in their refusal to get the shot. Biden on Thursday urged local governments to pay people to get vaccinated and set new rules requiring federal workers to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing, mask mandates and travel restrictions.
The United States is experiencing rising numbers of COVID-19 cases, especially in areas with lower rates of vaccination. In particular, there have been growing numbers of cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, and health authorities this week introduced new measures to encourage vaccination and told fully vaccinated Americans to wear masks in COVID-19 hot spots.
Asked in the Fox News interview whether she understood the resistance a federal mandate would face from many people who think the decision on getting vaccinated should be made by them and their doctors, Walensky said: "I completely understand the pushback."
But Walensky added that "this is not unlike ... other vaccines that are mandated" such as for school children and for healthcare staff working in hospitals.
"So I understand both perspectives in that story," Walensky said.
Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses have been saved from the trash after U.S. regulators extended their expiration date for a second time, part of a nationwide effort to salvage expiring shots to battle the nations summer surge in infections.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to shot maker Johnson & Johnson declaring that the doses remain safe and effective for at least six months when properly stored. The FDAs move gives the shots an extra six weeks as public officials press more Americans to get inoculated.
Similar efforts are happening in multiple states as public health officials try to ensure that soon-to-expire shots are put into arms before they must be discarded.
The surge in infections is largely due to the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, which has spread rapidly, particularly among unvaccinated people. Inoculation rates have climbed only slightly after a steep fall from their April peak.
Its a critically important time we have children headed back to school in just a few weeks time, said Juliann Van Liew, director of the public health department in Wyandotte County, Kansas.
Federal health officials have shipped an additional 8 million doses of the J&J shot to states that have not yet been used, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions vaccine-tracking website. The company did not share specific expiration dates.
The J&J vaccine is not the only one facing expiration. States also report that many Pfizer and Moderna doses are approaching expiration, which is set at six months from the manufacturing date. In Louisiana, about 100,000 Pfizer doses are set to expire in about a week, for example.
Governors are pleading with the public to get vaccinated, and some are offering cash incentives $100 payments in New Mexico and New York City, among other places.
Some states have set up marketplaces for shot providers or dedicated staff to redistributing about-to-expire vaccines to places that need them. Such efforts are underway in New Jersey, Washington and Wisconsin.
In Iowa and North Dakota, officials say they send vaccines approaching expiration to locations where they are most likely to be used.
We have a lot of interest from the public in receiving J&J, so if we find doses that may go unused, we will transfer them to providers in need, said Molly Howell, North Dakotas immunization director.
Lacy Fehrenbach, deputy director for COVID-19 response for the Washington state Department of Health, said officials want the doses used as efficiently as possible.
Otherwise, were working with our providers to move them around, or, of course, the federal government to get them to other places that need it, she said.
Dr. Clarence Lam, interim executive medical director of occupational health services at Johns Hopkins University, was encouraged by the extension for the J&J shots.
We hate to see this supply go to waste, especially when there are areas of the world where this is needed, Lam said. But now I think well be able to better utilize the supply thats already been distributed here in the U.S.
The J&J vaccine was eagerly anticipated because it involves just one shot and has easy refrigeration requirements.
But use of the vaccine has been hurt by several rare possible side effects. This month, U.S. health regulators added a warning about links to a potentially dangerous neurological reaction. That followed a break in its use in April after the shot was linked to a rare blood clot disorder. Government health advisers said the overall benefits of the shot still greatly outweigh the risks.
Also in April, a Baltimore vaccine factory was shut down by the FDA due to contamination problems, forcing the company to trash the equivalent of tens of millions of doses being made under contract for Johnson & Johnson.
Pfizer and Moderna have already supplied more than enough doses to vaccinate all eligible Americans. More than 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with the companies two-dose shots. By comparison, just 13 million, or 9%, have been vaccinated with the J&J shot.
All told, nearly 164 million people have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, or just over 49% of the U.S. population.
___
Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Roxana Hegeman in Belle Plaine, Kansas; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; James MacPherson in Bismark, North Dakota; and Matthew Perrone in Washington contributed to this report.
The U.S. government will cover the costs of regular coronavirus testing for unvaccinated federal workers, one component of the Biden administrations new vaccination requirements.
President Biden announced new rules Thursday that amount to a two-tier system for the countrys four million federal employees. Those who do not get vaccinated against coronavirus will have to social distance, wear face coverings and face limits on official travel. Those who do get vaccinated will not fall under such requirements.
Unvaccinated workers will also need to be regularly tested for the virus. Each federal agency will come up with a plan for testing its unvaccinated work force, Karine Jean-Pierre, the deputy White House press secretary. The costs and procedures for testing will depend on how many unvaccinated individuals there are at each agency.
The agencies are going to be implementing this program themselves so theyll be in charge of how that moves forward, she said.
The federal decision to cover coronavirus testing for unvaccinated workers could set a benchmark for state governments and companies now grappling with the same issue.
New York and California rolled out similar testing requirements for unvaccinated state workers this week, but neither has specified who will pay for the service. Some companies and universities have already announced that unvaccinated workers themselves will have to pay for their own tests.
Many states and cities still have free coronavirus testing sites that they started earlier in the pandemic. But many Americans also get tested at doctor offices and pharmacies, which will typically bill patients and their insurance for the service.
Federal law requires insurers to fully cover coronavirus tests ordered by health care providers, meaning the doctor cannot apply a deductible or co-payment to the service. Routine workplace testing, however, is exempt from that requirement and it is legal to charge patients for that service.
Some patients have faced surprise medical bills for coronavirus tests, which can range from a few dollars to over $1,000.
A number of employers, particularly large ones, may just offer on-site testing to unvaccinated workers, said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown Universitys Center on Health Insurance Reforms. But they dont have to. They can require employees to pick up the tab.
Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting.
A batch of early coronavirus data that went missing for a year has emerged from hiding.
In June, an American scientist discovered that more than 200 genetic sequences from Covid-19 patient samples isolated in China early in the pandemic had puzzlingly been removed from an online database. With some digital sleuthing, Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, managed to track down 13 of the sequences on Google Cloud.
When Dr. Bloom shared his experience in a report posted online, he wrote that it seems likely that the sequences were deleted to obscure their existence.
But now an odd explanation has emerged, stemming from an editorial oversight by a scientific journal. And the sequences have been uploaded into a different database, overseen by the Chinese government.
The story began in early 2020, when researchers at Wuhan University investigated a new way to test for the deadly coronavirus sweeping the country. They sequenced a short stretch of genetic material from virus samples taken from 34 patients at a Wuhan hospital.
The researchers posted their findings online in March 2020. That month, they also uploaded the sequences to an online database called the Sequence Read Archive, which is maintained by the National Institutes of Health, and submitted a paper describing their results to a scientific journal called Small. The paper was published in June 2020.
Dr. Bloom became aware of the Wuhan sequences this spring while researching the origin of Covid-19. Reading a May 2020 review about early genetic sequences of coronaviruses, he came across a spreadsheet that noted their presence in the Sequence Read Archive.
But Dr. Bloom could not find them in the database. He emailed the Chinese scientists on June 6 to ask where the data went but did not get a response. On June 22, he posted his report, which was covered by The New York Times and other media outlets.
At the time, a spokeswoman for the N.I.H. said that the authors of the study had requested in June 2020 that the sequences be withdrawn from the database. The authors informed the agency that the sequences were being updated and would be added to a different database. (The authors did not respond to inquiries from The Times.)
But a year later, Dr. Bloom could not find the sequences on any database.
On July 5, more than a year after the researchers withdrew the sequences from the Sequence Read Archive and two weeks after Dr. Blooms report was published online, the sequences were quietly uploaded to a database maintained by China National Center for Bioinformation by Ben Hu, a researcher at Wuhan University and a co-author of the Small paper.
On July 21, the disappearance of the sequences was brought up during a news conference in Beijing, where Chinese officials rejected claims that the pandemic started as a lab leak.
According to a translation of the news conference by a journalist at the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency, the vice minister of Chinas National Health Commission, Dr. Zeng Yixin, said that the trouble arose when editors at Small deleted a paragraph in which the scientists described the sequences in the Sequence Read Archive.
Therefore, the researchers thought it was no longer necessary to store the data in the N.C.B.I. database, Dr. Zeng said, referring to the Sequence Read Archive, which is run by the N.I.H.
An editor at Small, which specializes in science at the micro and nano scale and is based in Germany, confirmed his account. The data availability statement was mistakenly deleted, the editor, Plamena Dogandzhiyski, wrote in an email. We will issue a correction very shortly, which will clarify the error and include a link to the depository where the data is now hosted.
The journal posted a formal correction to that effect on Thursday.
It is not clear why the authors did not mention the journals error when they requested that the sequences be removed from the Sequence Read Archive, or why they told the N.I.H. that the sequences were being updated. Nor is it clear why they waited a year to upload them to another database. Dr. Hu did not respond to an email asking for comment.
Dr. Bloom could not offer an explanation for the conflicting accounts, either. Im not in a position to adjudicate among them, he said in an interview.
On their own, these sequences cant resolve the open questions about how the pandemic originated, whether through a contact with a wild animal, a leak from a lab or some other route.
In their initial reports, the Wuhan researchers wrote that they extracted genetic material from samples from outpatients with suspected Covid-19 early in the epidemic. But the entries in the Chinese database now indicate that they were taken from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University on January 30 almost two months after the earliest reports of Covid-19 in China.
While the disappearance of the sequences appears to be the result of an editorial error, Dr. Bloom felt that it was still worthwhile looking for other sequences of coronaviruses that might be lurking online. It definitely means we should keep looking, he said.
People wearing face masks cross Shibuya crossing on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo has seen day-on-day record increases in COVID-19 infection rates over the last three days causing concern amongst officials in Tokyo. Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images hide caption
People wearing face masks cross Shibuya crossing on July 30, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo has seen day-on-day record increases in COVID-19 infection rates over the last three days causing concern amongst officials in Tokyo.
Japan extended a state of emergency to areas around the capital, Tokyo, and to its second largest city, Osaka, on Friday, following a record-setting surge in COVID-19 cases.
Japan saw new COVID-19 cases surpass 10,000 for two days in a row, while Tokyo cases broke records for three days in a row through Thursday. The capital's seven-day rolling average jumped 80.5% over the previous week.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has doubled over the past month, and experts estimate that the current fifth wave of infections still has a week or two to go before reaching its peak.
Following requests from local officials, the central government extended the emergency to Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures, bordering Tokyo, in addition to Osaka. The emergency will run from Monday through the end of August.
An emergency already in effect in Tokyo and the island prefecture of Okinawa will be extended from its current end-date of Aug. 22nd through until the end of the month. And five other prefectures, including the northernmost island prefecture of Hokkaido and the Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures near Osaka, will go under looser quasi-emergencies.
Opinion polls have shown Japanese respondents are not convinced by official reassurances that the Games will not spread the coronavirus to the general population. Prime Minister Yoshide Suga insists that the Games have nothing to do with the spike in infections and that canceling the games, which began a week ago, is not an option.
As in other countries, emergencies and other social distancing measures are becoming less effective at keeping Japanese citizens at home; as a proportion of cases, the highly infectious delta virus has been growing, and vaccinations are failing to keep pace.
Experts say tougher measures are needed.
There is barely any prospect that we can curtail this outbreak.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, Japan's top COVID-19 adviser
"I feel a great sense of danger," Dr. Shigeru Omi, the government's top COVID-19 adviser said Thursday. "There is barely any prospect that we can curtail this outbreak."
"The medical care system is on the brink of the collapse in some areas," Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa warned. An increasing number of COVID patients in Tokyo and elsewhere are unable to get hospital beds, and await treatment at home.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike has urged the capital's young people to get vaccinated, but a shortfall in supply means that many young people who want the jabs can't get them. Just over a quarter of the population has been fully vaccinated.
The current emergency has reduced pedestrian traffic, but to a lesser degree than the previous one. Like the three previous emergencies, this one simply requests bars and restaurants serving alcohol to shut down.
But a government plan to punish pub owners who failed comply by telling wholesalers to cut off their supply of liquor backfired, resulting in some bars openly flouting restrictions.
Illinois health officials on Friday reported 11,682 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, along with 39 additional deaths and more than 154,000 new vaccine doses administered.
COVID cases statewide have increased 46% over the last week, with hospitalizations up 35%, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Intensive care unit admissions also increased by 24% and there was a 41% increase of COVID patients on ventilators.
In all, 1,419,611 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state since the pandemic began. The additional deaths reported this week bring the state to 23,440 confirmed COVID fatalities.
The state has administered 289,433 tests since last Friday, officials said, bringing the total to more than 26 million tests conducted during the pandemic.
The states seven-day positivity rate on all tests rose to 4% from 3.3% the week before and 1.9% two weeks prior. The rolling average seven-day positivity rate on individuals tested rose to 4.7%, up from 3.5% last week, officials said.
IDPH noted, however, that the regional seven-day positivity rate ranges from 2.8% to 9.5%.
Over the past seven days, a total of 154,447 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered to Illinois residents. That brings the states average to 22,064 daily vaccination doses over the last week, down from the figures reported last Friday, per IDPH data.
State officials in Illinois have administered more than 13 million vaccine doses since vaccinations began in December. More than 58% of adult residents in the state are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 74% receiving at least one dose.
As of midnight, 903 patients are currently hospitalized due to COVID in the state. Of those patients, 167 are in ICU beds, and 62 are on ventilators. All three metrics are a reported increase since last Friday.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 196.6 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.19 million. More than 4.01 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
300 Australian army personnel are being lined up to help Sydney police door-knock those who've tested positive to check that they are self-isolating.
Britain's UN ambassador has warned that half of Myanmar's 54 million people could be infected with COVID-19 within the next two weeks.
The Philippines is set to introduce lockdown restrictions in its capital region.
China has reported 64 new COVID-19 cases in the mainland, compared with 49 the day before.
Almost 690,000 people in England and Wales were told to isolate by the official COVID-19 health app in the week to 21 July, official data shows.
The Federated States of Micronesia - a Pacific island nation - has mandated its adult population to be inoculated against COVID-19.
Thailand has received 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine donated by the US government.
Meanwhile, Phuket will ban travel from the rest of Thailand from 3-16 August in a bid to stop cases from spreading. However, overseas visitors will remain largely unaffected.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.
Image: Our World in Data
US President Joe Biden has asked local governments to pay people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. New rules requiring federal workers to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing and mask mandates. Travels restrictions are also set to be introduced.
The measures are part of attempts to encourage reluctant Americans to get vaccinated as the Delta variant continues to surge across the United States. The US lags behind other developed countries in vaccination rates, despite having plenty of free vaccines on hand.
"Right now too many people are dying or watching someone they love dying," Biden told reporters at the White House.
"With freedom comes responsibility. So please exercise responsible judgment. Get vaccinated for yourself, the people you love, for your country."
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 85 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.
Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. In January of 2021, its members launched its 2021 Roadmap through which its members will roll out an ambitious set of 21 action projects in 10 areas of work. Including corporate access and policy change in support of a social economy.
For more information see the Alliance website or its impact story here.
India has reported 44,230 new COVID-19 cases, its biggest daily increase in 3 weeks. The southern state of Kerala announced a new lockdown yesterday, while movement restrictions are also in place in some other states.
The country has had more than 31.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 423,217 deaths.
Health experts are calling for faster vaccinations to prevent another big surge like the country saw in April and May, reports Reuters.
Government data shows that nearly 38% of the 944 million adults in India have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Add Disney to the lineup of companies that will require employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
At the Walt Disney Company, the safety and well-being of our employees during the pandemic has been and continues to be a top priority, the company said in a statement. Toward that end, and based on the latest recommendations of scientists, health officials and our own medical professionals that the COVID-19 vaccine provides the best protection against severe infection, we are requiring that all salaried and non-union hourly employees in the U.S. working at any of our sites be fully vaccinated.
Netflix, Google and Facebook also announced this week that employees working in their offices will need the coronavirus vaccine.
Disney employees have 60 days to complete their protocols and any employees still working from home will need to provide verification of vaccination prior to their return, the companys message said. Disney employees overseas are not included in the policy, and the company is still negotiating with its unions, a spokeswoman said.
All new hires will be required to be fully vaccinated before beginning employment, Disneys announcement said. Vaccines are the best tool we all have to help control this global pandemic and protect our employees.
Earlier this week, Walt Disney World announced that starting this weekend, all of its visitors will be required to wear a face mask when indoors, including in lines for rides, and on park transportation. Its a reversal from just last month, when the parks had dropped that requirement for vaccinated guests.
The policy change comes on the heels of new federal health guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that even vaccinated Americans should resume wearing masks indoors if they are in areas with high or substantial transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus.
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Another 111coronavirus cases have been reported across the state, Maine health officials said Friday.
That comes as Maine, and the rest of the nation, has seen a resurgence in virus cases following the steady fall in virus transmission after the springs vaccine drive. Health officials have largely attributed this most recent surge to the more infectious delta variant spreading among the large unvaccinated population.
Fridays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 70,372, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 70,261 on Thursday.
Of those, 51,345have been confirmed positive, while 19,027were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 999. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats up from 937 on Thursday.
The new case rate statewide Friday was 0.83 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 525.79.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 78, up from 69.4 a day ago, up from 58.7 a week ago and up from 23.9 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.
No new deaths were reported Friday, leaving the statewide death toll standing at 899.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases and deaths have been recorded in women than men.
So far, 2,141 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 41 are currently hospitalized, 16 in critical care and eight on a ventilator.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Friday was 16 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (8,494), Aroostook (1,976), Cumberland (17,510), Franklin (1,415), Hancock (1,420), Kennebec (6,732), Knox (1,193), Lincoln (1,113), Oxford (3,693), Penobscot (6,489), Piscataquis (605), Sagadahoc (1,487), Somerset (2,336), Waldo (1,120), Washington (962) and York (13,821) counties. Information about where an additional seven cases were reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 740 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Friday, 765,195 Mainers have received a first dose of the vaccine, while 809,888 have received a final dose.
New Hampshire reported 89 new cases on Friday and one death. Vermont reported 26 new cases and no deaths, while Massachusetts reported 905 new cases and eight deaths.
As of Friday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 34,756,006 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 612,135 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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