The novel coronavirus hasnt gone away just yet. In fact, its still very much out there. So much that experts have figured out how the spread will continue in the United States dense outbreaks.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, recently said on CBS News Face the Nation that the U.S. is primed for dense outbreaks to hit regions of the country.
Gottlieb said low vaccination rates and low immunity from previous infections might be a recipe for a large outbreak of a new variant.
Experts remain concerned about the spread of the dangerous delta coronavirus variant, which could dominate the United States pretty soon, as I wrote for the Deseret News. Theres concern that delta variant cases are on the rise, outpacing the alpha variant, which was originally discovered in the United Kingdom.
Vivek Cherian, an internal medicine physician in Baltimore, told Insider that the vaccinated are protected against the variants, for the most part. But the unvaccinated could be hit hard with the variant, causing more variants to be born.
The thornapple, a sweetly perfumed plant with trumpet-shaped flowers, is named for its spiky, spherical fruit. Last year, the curiously shaped fruit took on new meaning because of its uncanny resemblance to a coronavirus particle. As COVID-19 began infecting thousands of people in early 2020, a viral TikTok video claimed the thornapple's seeds could protect against the virus.
It was untrue. Thornapples are highly poisonous, and eating their seeds can result in hallucinations, muscle fatigue, paralysis and even death. But the TikTok video convinced families in the large Indian village of Baireddipalle to ingest a mixture of the plant's seeds and oils, resulting in 12 people being rushed to hospital.
When Netha Hussain, a medical doctor from Kerala, India, first read about the poisonings, she decided to compile a list of unproven methods against COVID-19 on the world's largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Hussain, who has been editing Wikipedia articles for a decade, dutifully edited pages relating to the coronavirus' spread in India during the early days of the pandemic, but the thornapple story forced a rethink.
"That was when I decided to change route and write a little bit about misinformation," she says.
The thornapple's seed pod resembles a coronavirus particle (virion).
Hussain, and an army of over 97,000 volunteers from around the world, have been monitoring and editing the thousands of COVID-19 pages created on Wikipedia since the virus first emerged. Pages cover everything from coronavirus variants to vaccination and monthly timelines.
Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, strengthened by its two decades online, ensure misinformation and vandalism are snuffed out with great speed. Those who try to post conspiracy theories or pseudoscience are struck down by eagle-eyed editors surveying incremental, unsourced changes. With almost two edits made to COVID-19 pages every minute throughout 2020, the efforts of Hussain and Wikipedia's volunteer army have proven invaluable, helping the encyclopedia become a bastion for truth in an era where lies run rampant online.
But behind the scenes, contributors have been locked in a year-long battle over one contentious aspect of the pandemic: Where did the new coronavirus come from? The prevailing hypothesis is that the virus arose naturally in bats. Another suggests it may have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which has long studied bat-borne coronaviruses and lies in close proximity to the location of the first cases.
Just as scientists and the popular press have wrestled with data, conspiracy theories and speculation around the theory, so have those dedicating hours to maintaining one of the world's most popular repositories of human knowledge.
Wikipedia has not been immune to the squabbles, politicking and bad faith arguments engulfing other platforms. In recent months, dissenting voices have become louder as thelab leak theory has garnered more mainstream attention andscientists have pushed for a "proper" investigation. It has become a political issue as much as a scientific one.
On Wikipedia, disruptive "edit wars" have broken out. Users have been caught operating multiple accounts and pushing their own point of view. And while editors have held back the most spurious claims through much of 2020, a different atmosphere has descended over the debate in 2021. The community is divided, and some fear the endless discussions could tear a hole in the encyclopedia's ironclad guidelines.
The question of where the coronavirus came from is one of the most politically sensitive areas of discussion related to the pandemic, both on and off Wikipedia.
In recent weeks, increasing press coverage from the likes of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post has seen the lab leak hypothesis endlessly debated on social media, talk radio and primetime TV. It's become unavoidable.
Unless you visit Wikipedia's COVID-19 pandemic page.
The words "lab leak" aren't mentioned anywhere. To find them, you have to know where to look: the "Talk" page. The Talk page is like a collaborative Google Doc, a place where the legion of volunteer editors can raise queries and kick around new ideas on how articles might be improved. Even veteran Wikipedia users might not notice the small tab at the top left of every article that takes you behind the curtain.
These pages can sometimes become battlegrounds -- and that's a good thing. They're critical to Wikipedia's success. One of the site's three key principles is to represent "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." You don't need any special qualifications to write about COVID-19 (or any other topic) on Wikipedia, so these talk pages help editors reach the right conclusions.
"Without this kind of discussion, we would not come to any neutral point of view," notes Hussain.
For instance, the page for Avernish, Scotland, is only three sentences long. Its Talk page is empty -- there's not a lot of controversy about Avernish. But at CNET's Talk page, Wikipedia editors have been presenting for and against arguments on whether the page should be titled "CNET," "Cnet" or "CNet" for years. For what it's worth, we like to capitalize it (except in our logo, it seems).
The number of words on CNET's Talk page is dwarfed by the mountain of text lurking behind "COVID-19 pandemic." Dozens of editors have devoted thousands of words to the lab leak theory there, questioning how it should be presented to readers -- or if it should be presented at all.
In May 2020, Roberto Fortich, an economist and volunteer editor on Wikipedia from Bogota, Colombia, issued a "request for comment," a mechanism he says calls for Wiki contributors to "resolve contentious issues by presenting their arguments and voting." He wanted to know whether the lab leak theory should be explained on the COVID-19 pandemic page.
Of the 19 editors who responded to his request, 13 opposed including the theory. A consensus was reached that holds to this day: "Do not mention the theory that the virus was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the article."
It was designed to put a full stop on the debate. It didn't.
Arguments over the lab leak theory have spilled into Talk pages at the periphery of Wikipedia's pandemic coverage. The pages for "SARS-CoV-2," "the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and "COVID-19 misinformation" are filled with walls of text about contested material, news reports and quotes. Many of the pages are locked by Wikipedia's administrators, preventing them from being edited by new or inexperienced users.
In February, an entirely new page was created under the title "COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis." A month after its creation it was listed for "speedy deletion." Normally, content disputes are settled on the Talk page but sometimes editors create an entirely new article on the same subject. The hypothesis page attempted to do this. After nine days and heated discussions, it was deleted.
The exclusion of the lab leak theory from Wikipedia predominantly rests on established guidelines. Chief among them is one known by editors as WP:MEDRS. It refers to the referencing of "biomedical" information on Wikipedia, stating sources must be "reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge."
It's the guideline that launched a thousand Talk page disputes.
There are two battalions here: One suggests MEDRS is the appropriate guideline when it comes to sourcing information around the origins of a virus, and the other argues it's being wrongly applied. The guideline, as it reads, was established to prevent medical misinformation from being propagated through Wikipedia. Because millions of people turn to the site for health advice and guidance, it's critical Wikipedia get this correct -- publishing the wrong advice could have deadly consequences.
The discussion over how to apply biomedical sourcing guidelines stretches on and on and on...
For instance, the thornapple COVID-19 cure would never have survived Wikipedia's editorial process. There are no sources that back up those claims.
The source of a virus is a little different, though. Should investigations relating to the source of the coronavirus be classified as "biomedical" information? It depends who you ask. "Epidemiology is a core biomedical science field," says Catherine Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University in Australia. "The source of the virus sits within the field, so [it] should also be covered."
Not all Wikipedia's editors agree. Some argue that the origin of the virus is a matter of history, rather than epidemiology. Others say MEDRS is not being applied appropriately, that sources refuting the lab leak have been misrepresented and there is now enough reporting from reliable sources (like The New York Times) that the lab leak theory deserves to be included across the entire encyclopedia. They suggest upholding one of Wikipedia's five pillars -- that the encyclopedia is written from a neutral point of view -- can only be maintained if the lab leak theory is given due weight in COVID-19 pages.
In May 2021, a request for comment was opened on the MEDRS page to determine if "disease and pandemic origins" are "a form of biomedical information." Around 70% of the respondents opposed the idea.
But the endless to-and-fro extends beyond Wikipedia's content guidelines. A user by the name of Colin, who helped create MEDRS in 2006, summed up the situation perfectly in a response to the request for comment.
"This isn't a content problem. It is a people problem. And a hard one," Colin wrote.
The disruptions to COVID-19 Talk pages have led to accusations, bullying and harassment on site. The behavioral issues became so fraught the dispute was raised with Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee. ArbCom, as it's known to Wikipedians, is the encyclopedia's version of a Supreme Court. The last stop in resolving disputes.
Kevin Li, who studies public policy and computer science at Stanford University and goes by the name L235 on Wikipedia, is an ArbCom member. At 20, Li is younger than the encyclopedia but was elected to the committee in 2021 after five years editing the site. He notes the disputes around the lab leak theory are not necessarily unique. Article pages for abortion, Scientology and the Troubles in Northern Ireland have also spiraled out of control in the past.
Editing bans have been implemented for those who routinely push the lab leak hypothesis and engage in "wars" where contributors constantly override changes to a page. Some editors have been recruited off Wikipedia to join the cause and push for the lab leak's inclusion -- they, too, have been banned.
On the other side of the divide, editors have expressed concerns about Chinese state actors preventing discussion of the lab leak theory on COVID-19 pages, though they have not provided definitive evidence for this. They also see the bans as censorship or stifling discussion of the lab leak theory, which they now suggest is widely regarded as plausible, rather than a fringe theory. Some bans have been overturned as more sources report on the lab leak theory.
Despite the constant disruptions, Li says Wikipedia has "actually gotten pretty good at dealing with this over the years."
On Wikipedia, a "sock puppet" is an account created by a member who pretends to be someone else. Sometimes this is used to circumvent blocks or push certain points of view.
But as good as Wikipedia has become at resolving content disputes, there may be a more pernicious issue here. The talk pages are useful for discussion, but the harassment and soapboxing have become a massive time sink for editors. Some users have been caught setting up secondary accounts (known as "sock puppets") to reinforce their own point of view, pushing forward dubious sources to make their argument. The same debates are happening over and over again, with the same conclusions.
The discussions have become so labyrinthine and complex, stretching across dozens of pages, that it's practically impossible to figure out where Wikipedia actually stands on the lab leak theory. The impenetrable walls of text that make up each page are "intimidating" to both experienced editors and newcomers, says Netha Hussain, the medical doctor from India.
"[U]sers spend more time arguing with each other than they do writing an encyclopedia," Colin wrote on one COVID-19 talk page.
And that's a problem. While Wikipedia states that more than 280,000 volunteers make edits every month, Li says that in practice it's just a core group of contributors numbering around in the tens of thousands, at most. Disputes can leave people "disillusioned with the project" and cause them to abandon editing Wikipedia altogether, he notes. Combined with a lack of new volunteers joining the cause, and a woeful onboarding process, there's potential for brain drain.
"That does real, long-lasting damage," Li notes. "Not just to COVID-19 articles, but to the rest of the encyclopedia."
How Wikipedia deals with the lab leak theory may seem trivial. After all, practically every major newspaper, website (including this one), social media network and ex-late night TV host has wrangled with it in the past few months.
But there's something uniquely powerful about Wikipedia.
Writing history while living through history should not work. A crowd-sourced encyclopedia anyone can edit seems like it's destined to fall apart during a fast-moving pandemic. But it hasn't. Even as battles rage behind the scenes of many COVID-19 Talk pages, the machine continues on. A thornapple cure could never survive.
"In this day and age, where journalists and social networks are debating how to present information, I think that Wikipedia is the gold standard in terms of a neutral point of view," Roberto Fortich, the editor from Colombia, says.
But Wikipedia isn't perfect. The lab leak debate has clearly divided Wikipedia's volunteer editorial team. Editors on both sides have derailed discussions time and again and argued over some of the foundational principles of the encyclopedia's mission. There have been calls to change long-standing guidelines for just this single issue. Those battles have been raging for 18 months.
On June 17, 2021, ArbCom passed a motion to place all COVID-19 pages under "discretionary sanctions," which effectively moves the impetus for sanctioning users from the community of volunteers to administrators -- a group of editors with the ability to perform special actions on the encyclopedia, like blocking users or protecting pages from editing.
Is the end in sight? It seems unlikely.
Even Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has weighed in on how the lab leak debate should be covered.
Thanks to a resurgence in the popular press, the pressure to include the lab leak theory on Wikipedia's COVID-19 pages will only intensify. There may be growing circumstantial evidence for the theory, but there are still very few biomedical sources lending it weight. For that reason, editors have been able to knock it back. Is it plausible the coronavirus leaked from a lab? Yes. Is it the majority view of scientists? Not yet.
As the theory gains currency as a noteworthy element of the pandemic, it's hard to see Wikipedia's stance holding forever. Even Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has weighed in, stating that the consensus in the mainstream media around the lab leak theory seems to have shifted from "this is highly unlikely, and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative" to "this is one of the plausible hypotheses."
Editors pushing to include the leak on site have a myriad of opinions about what should happen. Some say the theory should be linked in most, if not all, COVID-19 pages. Others suggest a dedicated page to the lab leak theory would be prudent and reinstating the page deleted in early February might help put an end to the bickering. As long as such a page is neutral and well sourced, Wikipedia's guidelines allow for it. After all,Flat Earth has its own page, discussing how that theory evolved over time.
That's process. There have been stumbles but, for the most part, it works.
"I enjoy editing Wikipedia," Fortich says, "because ultimately the truth prevails."
Originally published with the headline "Inside Wikipedia's endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory"
Avera Health, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has been at the forefront of virtual care since the mid-1990s. But with the arrival of COVID-19, the organization was challenged with revisiting its telehealth strategy to reduce virus spread while still providing essential care services to its rural communities.
Avera undertook a multifaceted approach to safer coronavirus diagnosis and treatment through telehealth, including a COVID-19 hotline, virtual visits and a hospital-at-home program. Its internationally recognized eCARE model helped to protect clinicians and staff in the emergency department, even when they were performing high-risk procedures.
There are a few keys to Avera's approach to promptly diagnosing and treating patients during a pandemic, said Dr. Andrew W. Burchett, chief medical information officer at Avera Health.
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, Avera, like many healthcare organizations, was challenged with maintaining a high level of care for its community, while reducing the risk of disease spread among patients and hospital staff," he said.
"It did this by undertaking a multifaceted approach to diagnosis and treatment, using technology to serve its community's needs while minimizing unnecessary in-person interactions."
This strategy included four main elements.
"First, the COVID Clinic, a process for coronavirus screening," Burchett said. "Patients seeking testing call a hotline nurse who then triages patients based on symptoms, exposure history and medical problems, and directs qualifying patients to a drive-up COVID testing center. Patients are swabbed in their vehicles by an employee in appropriate PPE."
Second is hospital-at-home remote monitoring for mild-illness COVID-19 patients who are recovering at home.
"Patients are given a thermometer and pulse oximeter and report data from these devices to the hospital-at-home program run by Avera physicians and nurses," he explained.
"Select patients deemed higher risk are given an HRS remote patient monitoring device and home oxygen if needed. The HRS platform provides more comprehensive data, including oxygen saturation, weight, blood pressure and temperature. It also presents patients daily questions regarding their symptoms.
"If patients begin to decompensate, physicians are immediately able to triage them for direct admission to the hospital, allowing them to bypass the emergency department and minimize exposure to other patients and staff," he added.
Third is virtual visits for non-COVID-19 patients to continue receiving routine care at home.
"Telemedicine for routine patients has become the new standard in primary care and subspecialty clinics at Avera," Burchett explained. "Endocrinology, psychiatry, dermatology and cardiology are a few specialties where virtual care has been critical."
And fourth is Avera eCARE, which allows carefor severe COVID-19 patients in the emergency room while minimizing risk to hospital staff.
"Avera has embraced this approach in subspecialties clinics, as well, protecting physicians who may be one of only a few doctors providing care in their field throughout the region," he noted.
"Endocrinology, psychiatry, dermatology and cardiology are a few specialties where virtual care has been critical. It is clear from Avera's model that telemedicine can and should be embraced in all areas of medicine, not just primary care, in order to prevent the spread of the virus, cancellation of appointments, and delays in care for patients."
Other services, like chaplaincy, social work, case management and music therapy,have been able to use virtual platforms to continue interacting with patients.
"By embracing multiple forms of technology and having a commitment to adaptability, Avera has been able to provide compassionate care to these most vulnerable patients and protect them and their caregivers from exposure and disease," he said.
When a patient presents to the emergency department at Avera, they are first triaged by a staff member at the front door to determine if their visit is coronavirus-relatedor if the patient is experiencing symptoms of coronavirus.
"Patients triaged as potentially suffering from COVID-19 are put in designated rooms in the emergency department specifically, rooms in a single hallway to prevent non-COVID patients from as much exposure as possible," Burchett said.
"From there, the patient waits until a nurse enters the roomwearing goggles or a face shield, an N95 mask covered by a surgical mask, a surgical gown, and double gloves.
"This nurse uses the Avera eCARE system to call a physician outside the room, who can then speak with the patient and do a full history," he continued. "This physician can either be on site using an iPad, or one of the physicians off site at the Avera eCARE telemedicine hub. The nurse can provide initial vital signs, as well as obtain the COVID-19 swab."
Once the history and swab are obtained, the physician on site typically dons the same PPE to do a physical exam or perform any necessary procedures.
"If a patient is very low risk and has only mild symptoms, the physician may not need to enter the room at all," he said. "This initial triage system allows for the minimum exposure possible for both the physician and that physician's non-COVID emergent patients. It also saves PPE by allowing for minimal visits into the patient's room, as the gown and gloves must be doffed before exiting.
"The physician can still regularly check in with the patient, answering their questions and providing instructions as needed via the video system," he added.
Burchett will offer more detail during his HIMSS21 session, "Virtual Care in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond." It's scheduled for August 11, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in Venetian Marco Polo 701.
Twitter:@SiwickiHealthITEmail the writer:bsiwicki@himss.orgHealthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
Last May marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. That her bicentennial fell during a worldwide pandemic is both illuminating and ironic. Nightingales experience as a nurse during the Crimean War in the mid-1850s led her to three insights that came to define her professional life, insights as revolutionary as they were unpopular:
Nightingale is best known for her work illustrating the first two tenets. When she arrived at the British military hospital in the Scutari region of the Ottoman empire in November 1854, a year after the war had begun, she was horrified to learn that far more soldiers were dying of infection and poor medical care than were dying on the battlefield. Her rigorous reforms of the wretched medical conditions reforms which rankled the military higher-ups slashed the hospital mortality rate from 33% to 2% over the course of a single year.
Nightingales approach to nursing education was equally meticulous, professionalizing a field whose standards until then had ranged from uneven to abysmal. (The nursing higher-ups at the time were similarly irritated by her ruffling of the status quo.)
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The third tenet of Nightingales lifes work that medical care does not exist in a vacuum from the world around it has received less historical attention.
After the Crimean War, Nightingale turned her attention to the health of the British military in India, this time from her London home. The scope of death and suffering dwarfed what had transpired in Scutari, and these soldiers werent even fighting a war. While the British public muttered disdainfully about Indias miasmas, Nightingale focused instead on data documenting sanitation drainage, water quality, housing construction, food quality, alcohol use, and physical activity. Extending her observations to the civilian population of India, she recognized the need to target education, housing, and the legal system things we now call social determinants of health.
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Though Nightingale never budged an inch from her insistence on scrupulously trained nurses as the backbone of good medical care, she knew that this could never be enough. The conditions that people lived in were equally important if not more so for achieving the best medical outcomes.
As Covid-19 begins to recede in the U.S., Nightingales observations could hardly be more prescient. The staggeringly uneven toll of infection and death we have witnessed is a bitter confirmation of the interrelationship between health care and society. The reasons for the disparity are in plain sight: unequal distribution of economic and housing stability, jobs without sick leave or options for telecommuting, crowded homes that render social distancing elusive, long commutes to jobs and grocery stores that preclude sheltering in place, and heavier burdens of chronic disease that contribute to more severe outcomes with Covid.
There has been much talk about how to re-envision the health care system once weve achieved the much-coveted settling of the dust. Theres no doubt that the U.S. health care system needs to be more flexible and nimble in nearly every aspect medical care, public health, research, supplies, prevention, communication, vaccination. The list goes on! But even at our creative best, the medical disparities will remain entrenched unless society is re-envisioned as well. Medical care does not exist in a vacuum from the world around it.
Contagious illnesses like Covid-19 bring into stark relief the fact that health is a both a communal good and community effort. Outbreaks can neither be created by individuals or tamed by them. It takes the oft-quoted village.
One the one hand, such interdependence goes against the grain of the rugged individualism supposedly embedded in American DNA. On the other hand, Americans exhibit a strain of community engagement thats especially prominent on the neighborhood and local level. Witness the strengths of PTAs, dog runs, community bulletin boards, sports leagues, houses of worship, neighborhood watches, and local libraries. These institutions exemplify the ethos of public health: How we inhabit our shared community has far-reaching effects on everyones health.
Florence Nightingales efforts presaged the challenges that face us today. Even though her day job was as a nurse, she recognized that her mandate, by necessity, extended to educating the public and lobbying the government at all levels. (She cannily delivered her book, Notes on Hospitals, directly to Queen Victoria.) Like outspoken health care workers today, she was often told to stay in her lane. Luckily for the untold number of people who lived longer because of her efforts, she did not.
Perhaps the most apt metaphor for the Covid experience is the burning house. Everyone in the neighborhood has a vested interest in getting the fire controlled. Moreover, everyone has a vested interest in understanding why the house caught fire to begin with. What were the conditions that made it vulnerable? How can we build houses to make fires less likely? How can we structure the fire department to respond more effectively?
Remaking health care will mean focusing on the lanes that relate to educational quality, job security, housing stability, and paid sick leave (to name a few), in addition to the more traditional medical lanes like expanding primary care, enhancing mental health and addiction treatment, improving care coordination, controlling drug prices, detoxifying electronic medical records, improving patient safety, and achieving universal, equitable access to health care.
Florence Nightingale was a boots-on-the-ground clinician as well as a hands-on administrator. She worked in Scutari under grueling circumstances, up to her neck in infectious risks, much as health care workers have been doing during the coronavirus pandemic. These feats of heroism, regretfully, arent enough then or now. Improving health for all citizens will indeed require major reconfiguring of the U.S. health care system. But well only see success if we simultaneously tackle the societal conditions that foster unequal heath.
Danielle Ofri is a primary care physician at Bellevue Hospital, clinical professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error (Beacon Press, April 2020).
General view of old Muscat in Muscat, Oman, January 12, 2020. REUTERS/Christopher Pike
DUBAI, June 29 (Reuters) - Oman on Tuesday said it was expanding its COVID-19 vaccination drive to anyone over the age of 18, as it accelerates what has been the slowest rollout in the Gulf.
The wider coverage takes effect on Sunday, the health ministry said in a statement on state media. Previously, people over 45 had been eligible for COVID shots, alongside special categories such as frontline workers and pregnant women. read more
Media reports have said recently that hospitals nationwide were straining amid a rise in cases since January. The country has recorded 266,536 cases and 3,056 deaths in total.
Oman aims to vaccinate everyone 12 and over by the end of the year.
By mid-April, Oman had given at least one dose to around 5% of the eligible population. This had increased to 24% by June 26, according to health ministry data. A quarter of those vaccinated so far have had two doses, it showed.
Data shows 854,274 doses have been given in the country of around 4.5 million people.
Writing by Lisa Barrington;Editing by Bernadette Baum
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Maine reported 32 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. There were no additional deaths.
The seven-day average of daily new cases was 25.1, compared to 34.9 a week ago and 192.9 a month ago. During the pandemics peak in mid-January, Maine was often topping 600 new cases per day.
Since the pandemic began, Maine has recorded 69,021 cases of COVID-19, and 858 deaths.
On the vaccination front, 775,491 people in Maine have received their final doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, representing 57.7 percent of the states 1.3 million population.
To try to further boost vaccination rates, Maine has launched a sweepstakes called Dont Miss Your Shot: Vaccinationland Sweepstakes where the winner, to be announced on July 4, will receive $1 for every person in Maine with at least one shot. The deadline to register is midnight Wednesday.
Through Monday, 285,452 people had signed up for the sweepstakes. Only those who have received at least one dose are eligible for the prize.
However, immunizations in Maine have slowed to a crawl, with 8,816 doses given in the most recent week, through Monday, compared to 19,699 the previous week. In late April, when Mainers were clamoring for shots, the state was giving about 85,000 to 90,000 weekly.
Meanwhile, the Maine Hospital Association is advocating for the state to mandate that all health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, once federal regulators give full approval for the vaccines.
The vaccines currently in use Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were approved in 2020 and early 2021 by the FDA under an emergency use authorization. Studies showed the vaccines worked and have worked safely and effectively as theyve been given to millions of people worldwide starting in December.
The full approval process takes longer, but the vaccines were given the green light by the FDA for emergency use because of the worldwide pandemic.
Health care worker vaccination data published by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention last week shows wide variations in vaccination rates among the states hospitals and nursing homes.
This story will be updated.
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UK Athletics (UKA) and the British Olympic Association have begun an investigation into 5,000-meter runner Andy Butchart after he claimed to fake a negative COVID-19 test in order to return to Britain following an international event.
The investigation was launched after the 29-year-old revealed how he faked a negative test result on a podcast.
"You have to get a COVID test to get into the UK, so you went to a place to get a PCR test before 48 hours -- and I'm with check-in and I don't have my PCR test back," he told the Sunday Plodcast.
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"So you have to quickly, like, get an old PCR test, go on to Instagram, f---ing scribble out the time and the date, change the time and the date, and like change it so you can get into the country."
The British Olympian would later go onto backtrack on his previous statements, telling the Times: "I never faked it, the test came through in time, but I've heard rumours of others faking tests."
A UKA spokesperson told ESPN: "UKA and the BOA are aware of comments made as part of a podcast by a selected athlete today.
"Throughout the pandemic, elite sport has been privileged to receive exemptions from various guidelines to enable athletes to continue to train and compete.
"We take very seriously any suggestion that an athlete has not followed these guidelines correctly and broken any COVID-related protocols.
"As a result, this selection will stand subject to further investigation by UK Athletics. No further comment will be made until this investigation is concluded."
Butchart has already found himself in hot water previously, having criticised both Joanna Coates -- the chief executive of UKA -- and an athletics coach on social media.
The investigation follows his inclusion into the Team GB squad that will compete in Tokyo Games.
As the COVID-19 vaccination rate slows down in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 54 percent of the eligible population was fully vaccinated as of Monday morning red states are falling behind. The lowest vaccination rates are in deep-red states like Mississippi and Alabama, while deep-blue states like Vermont and Massachusetts have had far more success in vaccinating their residents.
This widening gulf between red and blue states has reignited fears that politics is seriously undermining the nations vaccination efforts. And for good reason: There is a stark and growing divide in the vaccination rates in Republican- and Democratic-leaning parts of the country. But the singular focus on politics ignores the critical role that social pressure plays in deciding whether to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
For starters, Republicans are simply less likely to have friends who have been vaccinated. In a May survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institutes Survey Center on American Life, where I serve as director, less than half of Republicans (46 percent) said that most or all of their friends had received at least a single dose of the vaccine. For Democrats, meanwhile, vaccination is the norm among their peers. Two-thirds said that most or all of their friends had been at least partially vaccinated.
Moreover, Republicans were far less likely than Democrats in this survey to have received any encouragement from friends or family members to get vaccinated (28 percent versus 55 percent, respectively). In fact, one in three Republicans reported that friends or family had advised them not to get the vaccine or that they had received mixed messages about the importance of getting one.
This finding is noteworthy because while partisanship is a factor in influencing our behaviors, social science research consistently shows that our friends exert a profound and often invisible influence on us. For instance, if you have friends who smoke or are obese, your chances of smoking or being obese increase significantly.
So it may be for getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Americans whose immediate social circle was entirely vaccinated were far more likely than those with fewer vaccinated friends to have gotten the vaccine themselves per the study by the Survey Center on American Life. And despite reporting higher rates of vaccine hesitancy overall, this was true among Republicans as well. Ninety-three percent of Republicans whose friends were at least partially vaccinated had also been vaccinated. By contrast, only 19 percent of Republicans with just a few or no friends who were partially vaccinated said that they had gotten the jab.
Share of respondents who are at least partially vaccinated by how many of their friends are also at least partially vaccinated, overall and by party
Respondents self-reported the vaccination status of their social group.
Source: Survey Center on American Life
Of course, self-selection may play a role in this relationship, as our friends generally share our values, but even when this study controlled for personal factors such as age, gender, race, ethnicity and political affiliation, the results indicated that the vaccination status of our friends strongly predicts our own.
We should not dismiss the role of politics in vaccine hesitancy, but among Republicans, this reluctance is not universal. Nor are the reasons for this reluctance uniformly political. A May Kaiser Family Foundation survey found, for instance, that the political gap among people age 65 and older was relatively modest. Older Americans in Trump-voting counties did not lag far behind those in Biden-voting counties in getting vaccinated (63 percent versus 71 percent). Rather, the age group expressing the greatest level of vaccine hesitancy was younger adults: A June Morning Consult survey found that 43 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds were unwilling to get or uncertain about getting vaccinated.
Because COVID-19 is so much more dangerous for older people, they likely have greater personal incentives to get vaccinated, but they also probably face more social pressure as well. Again, the Survey Center on American Life study found that older Americans Democrats and Republicans alike were far more likely than younger Americans to have vaccinated friends.
Americans experience widely different levels of social pressure to get the COVID-19 vaccine. And for better or worse, our friends exercise considerable influence over the information we have and the decisions we make.
WARSAW, June 29 (Reuters) - Poland could make vaccinations obligatory for some people at high risk from COVID-19 to help fend off a potential new surge of infections from August, the health minister said on Tuesday.
The country of around 38 million has fully vaccinated 12.8 million people, but authorities have warned of problems with convincing those not yet vaccinated to get a jab.
"Unfortunately we have the impression that we have reached a certain ceiling - it is hard to convince those who are unconvinced because all the arguments and other types of actions have already been taken," Adam Niedzielski told Catholic radio station Radio Plus.
"We are talking about such scenarios as making vaccination obligatory for those most exposed to the serious consequence of COVID - we are talking here about senior citizens, but first of all doctors," he said.
Niedzielski noted infections driven by the highly infectious Delta variant had been increasing in Britain.
"What happens in Britain happens here about two months later... in our case, there is a possibility of a fourth wave appearing in the second half of August," he said.
Niedzielski said later that vaccination rates in various regions would be a factor in deciding about further restrictions if case numbers increase.
"So far, the map of restrictions has been based on the number of new infections... now a parameter that we will consider additionally will be the level of vaccination," he told a news conference.
Poland reported 123 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, a fraction of the number at the peak of the third wave in spring, when daily cases exceeded 35,000.
In total, Poland has reported 2,879,811 COVID-19 infections and 75,005 deaths.
Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz; editing by Philippa Fletcher
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
(Salt Lake City, UT) The number of people getting tested for COVID-19 in Utah has decreased dramatically in recent months and public health officials want to remind everyone testing is still important in this response. COVID-19 testing has declined from 32,536 tests done statewide during the week of November 19, 2020 to only 5,894 tests done statewide the week of June 14, 2021. Even though much of the focus is now on vaccines, there are still several good reasons to make sure you get tested.
1.The pandemic isnt over yet. In fact, now that new variants are circulating and some are even more transmissible, finding out if youre positive and isolating can prevent you from exposing others.
2.If you have symptoms and test positive, you can isolate and stay away from others. Stay home except to get medical care. Visithttps://coronavirus.utah.gov/protect-yourself/for more information.
3.You should be tested if youve been in close contact with someone who tests positive.
4.Some employers may require a negative test before you return to work.
5.Hospitals are offering elective surgeries and you may need to be tested for COVID before you have the procedure.
6.Travel restrictions are different in various parts of the world and you may need proof of a negative test before traveling.
The following testing sites are offered this week throughout Utah.
All of these testing sites offer PCR and rapid antigen tests.
All of these testing sites offer testing for children ages three and older.
Many testing locations will be closed Saturday, July 3, and Monday, July 5, in observance of Independence Day.
Locations selected for testing this week include:
TestUtah sites:
Box Elder County:
Brigham City Community Hospital, 950 Medical Dr., Brigham City (drive-through), Friday, 7/212 p.m. to 7 p.m.Registerhere.
Cache County:
Hyrum (drive-through),695 E Main St., Logan, Thursday, 7/112 p.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.
Davis County:
Ellison Park, 700 N. 2200 W., Layton (drive-through), Monday, 6/2812 p.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Grand County:
Southeast Utah Health Department, 575 S. Kane Creek, Moab (drive-through),Friday, 7/212 p.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.
Iron County:
Fiddlers Canyon, 170 E. Fiddlers Canyon, Cedar City (drive-through), Wednesday, 6/308 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Friday, 7/212 p.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.
Juab County:
Juab High School, 802 North 650 East, (southeast parking lot) Nephi, Tuesday, 6/298 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.
Salt Lake County:
Centennial Park, 5405 W. 3100 S., West Valley City (drive-through), Monday, 6/2812 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday, 6/298 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Kearns Oquirrh Park Fitness Complex, 5624 Cougar Lane, Kearns (drive-through in the east parking lot), Monday through Thursday, 6/28 to 7/17 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Summit County:
Park City High School, 1750 Kearns Blvd., Park City (drive-through), Wednesday, 6/3012 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday, 7/18 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.
Utah County:
Wride Park, 5806 Pony Express Pkwy., Eagle Mountain, Monday, 6/2812 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday, 6/298 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Utah County Health Department, 285 N. 1250 E., Payson, Wednesday, 6/3012 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday, 7/18 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.
Lehi Round-up Rodeo Grounds, 105 N 500 W, Lehi, Friday, 7/2 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.
Weber County:
North Shore Aquatic Center, 2480 N. 200 E., North Ogden (drive-through), Tuesday, 6/2912 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Wednesday, 6/308 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.
Results of tests from TestUtah sites will be emailed with a link to the patient portal where results can be accessed. For issues with accessing TestUtah results, please call (801) 783-1829.
UDOH/National Guard mobile test team sites:
Davis County:
5-C Freeport West (from Antelope Drive, enter at 300 W. and continue to C Street) Clearfield, Monday, 6/28, Wednesday, 6/30, Friday, 7/27 a.m. to 12 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Davis Technical College, 550 E. 300 S., Kaysville (testing location will be at 500 E. on the west side of the campus and use parallel parking along the street) Tuesday, 6/29 through Friday, 7/22 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registerhere.
Salt Lake County:
Cannon Health Building, 288 N. 1460 W., Salt Lake City, MondayFriday, 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Utah State Fair Park (building #51), 155 N. 1000 W., Salt Lake City (enter through the northwest corner at 300 N. and 1200 W.), Monday, Wednesday, and Friday11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Saturday, July 3 or Monday, July 5.)
Utah Public Health Laboratory, 4431 S. 2700 W., Taylorsville (drive-through in the west parking lot), MondayFriday, 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Maverik Center, 3200 S. Decker Lake Dr., West Valley City, (drive-through), MondayFriday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Cottonwood Heights City Hall, 2277 East Bengal Blvd., Cottonwood Heights (mobile van testing held in City Hall parking lot), Wednesday, 6/308 a.m. to 12 p.m. Registerhere.
Murray High School, 5450 South State Street, Murray (mobile van event to be held in the high school parking lot on the State Street side of the school), Monday, 6/28, and Wednesday, 6/308 a.m. to 12 p.m. (both days) Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Highland High School, 2166 South 1700 East (mobile van event in the high school parking lot, enter on 2100 S.), Salt Lake City, Tuesday, 6/29 Thursday 7/18 a.m. to 12 p.m. Registerhere.
Rio Tinto Stadium, 9256 S. State St., Sandy, Monday, 6/28 and Wednesday, 6/302 p.m. to 5 p.m. (both days) Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Utah County:
Utah Valley University, UVU L10 parking lot: northeast corner of 800 S. and 1200 W. by the athletic field (drive-through), Wednesday, 6/302 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registerhere.
Nebo School District Offices, 350 S. Main,(mobile van testing in the south parking lot), Spanish Fork, Monday, 6/28, Friday, 7/28 a.m. to 12 p.m. (each day) Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Grandview Learning Center, 1591 Jordan Avenue (mobile van testing in the east side parking lot), Provo, Tuesday, 6/29 and Thursday, 7/12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registerhere.
Westlake High School, 99 North Thunder Blvd., (mobile van testing in the south parking lot by the band trailer), Saratoga Springs, Monday, 6/28 and Wednesday, 6/302 p.m. to 5 p.m. (both days) Registerhere.(No testing Monday, July 5.)
Utah County Health Department, 354 E. 500 S., American Fork, Tuesday, 6/29 and Friday, 7/22 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registerhere.
Weber County:
Weber State University, 1348 E. 3850 S., (lower campus, right in front of the information booth) Ogden, Tuesday, 6/298 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Friday, 7/22 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registerhere.
Test results from these locations will be emailed to you in an encrypted file fromCV19result@utah.gov30 minutes to several hours after your test is done. If the testing location is extremely busy, it may take a while to process your results. If you dont see an email in your inbox, look in spam or junk mail. Or try to open the email on a non-app browser (chrome, firefox, etc.) and on a computer or non-phone device. If you have trouble opening the email or it doesnt come within a few hours, call (385) 273-7878 for assistance.
For the most accurate results, we recommend that people without symptoms receive a PCR test. PCR results are available within 2-3 business days. Antigen (rapid) results are available within two hours.
For other testing locations visit:https://coronavirus.utah.gov/covid-testing-locations-list.
