Covid-19 vaccine in the US live updates: vaccination lottery, card, rate, side effects... AS English
By: James Colgan June 6, 2021
The Memorial Tournament hosted the first-ever vaccine clinic at a PGA Tour event this weekend.
James Colgan
DUBLIN, Ohio There is a cruel irony in the news of Jon Rahms positive Covid-19 test and subsequent withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament, and it can be found no more than 200 yards from the spot where Rahm folded over in shock after PGA Tour officials delivered the news.
It is the OhioHealth vaccine pop-up site, a small, green tent located between the main gate and the short-game area. Before Rahms devastating withdrawal on Saturday afternoon, the pop-up site was supposed to serve as the headline in the Tours ongoing efforts against the virus. The site is the first of its kind ever to be held at a PGA Tour event, an idea orchestrated and executed by public health officials from the state of Ohio, with approval from Memorial Tournament officials. For three days this weekend, fans have been invited to receive their free, one-shot Covid-19 vaccine at any time during the course of play.
Dr. Genevieve Messick is the sites medical director, and shes been on-site for all three days this weekend as a liaison, answering questions for members of the public who might be considering receiving a shot.
Its always good to be a source of truth, because now with how fast the vaccines were developed, people have a lot of questions, so we try to give good information based on clinical evidence, Messick said. Our team got together and said, What can we do where wed see a group of people? and I said, How about the Muirfield Tournament?'
Messick says the site has administered roughly 20 vaccines per day, including one to a PGA Tour caddie. The pop-up clinic comes as the PGA Tour and the nation as a whole begins to move past a vaccine inflection point. The number of daily doses administered throughout the country has steadily dropped from earlier in the spring, and the pace of vaccinations has slowed noticeably. The Tour has offered vaccines to players for several months and has incentivized those who undergo a full vaccine course by lifting many of the restrictions required of unvaccinated players. A spokesman for the Tour shared Saturday that north of 50 percent of pros are fully vaccinated, and that number is expected to grow.
We have strongly encouraged our players, our caddies, our staff, and anyone involved with our competition to be vaccinated, and we have presented educational materials and resources to educate them on that, completely understanding that it is an individual choice, said Andy Levinson, the Tours senior vice president of tournament administration. We just want to make sure that people have the proper facts, the unadulterated facts related to that. We have also been out quite a bit at Tour events having one-on-one conversations with people who have questions about the vaccine and are hesitant. And our advisor has been out every week for the last nine or t10 weeks or so doing just that, having one-on-one conversations and thats I think been extremely helpful. So we have strongly encouraged but not mandated.
But those restrictions on unvaccinated players are set to expire at the end of June. Under the new rules, Rahm who tested positive only after entering the PGA Tours contact-tracing protocols for confirmed close contacts likely would not have needed a test until he began presenting symptoms, which could have expanded the risk of infecting others.
This is a particularly prescient point given the makeup of those who have not received the vaccine to date a group Messick says is uniquely in need of motivation, and affected by convenience.
Initially, there was a group of people who wanted to get the vaccine and they all came early on, but what were seeing now is there was a group of people who werent really opposed to getting the vaccine, but it had to be convenient, she said. It was a younger population, theyre busier, they dont have much free time. So the strategy has changed now to make it as convenient as possible. To take the vaccine to where people are.
In the aftermath of Rahms asymptomatic positive test, its fair to wonder whether the Tour rule changes could disincentivize the vaccine process for the group of unopposed but still unvaccinated. After his round with Rahm on Saturday, Patrick Cantlay said since he already had Covid, he didnt feel too concerned.
Obviously it is somewhat of a concern, but I got to imagine that I had it earlier this year, so Im feeling pretty OK about it. Cantlay said.
Perhaps Rahms positive test will be what it takes to convince a large swathe of the PGA Tours vaccine holdouts, but if the golf public is any indication, the early returns at Muirfield Village havent been promising.
Were well aware of what happened yesterday, Messick said. At this point, I dont think its actually brought more people in, but its definitely brought more attention to the whole vaccination process.
James Colgan is an assistant editor at GOLF, contributing stories for the website and magazine on a broad range of topics. He writes the Hot Mic, GOLFs weekly media column, and utilizes his broadcast experience across the brands social media and video platforms. A 2019 graduate of Syracuse University, James and evidently, his golf game is still defrosting from four years in the snow, during which time he cut his teeth at NFL Films, CBS News and Fox Sports. Prior to joining GOLF, James was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, where he is from.
Rural employers should offer paid time off to employees who are getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Vaccine information needs to be offered from trusted sources, and opportunities to get the vaccine need to be omnipresent.
Those were among the recommendations of experts at an online event Thursday that brought together government, business and community leaders specializing in the needs of rural communities. The National Rural Business Summit event included discussion of the barriers people in rural communities face to getting vaccinated, the range of attitudes toward vaccinesand the best ways business and political leaders can address people's concerns.
Rural areas have lagged behind cities and suburbs when it comes to vaccinations. That's in part because, as numerous public opinion polls have shown, vaccine hesitancy is highest in rural areas. In Wisconsin, the counties with the lowest proportion of residents vaccinated are sparsely populated Clark, Taylor and Rusk counties.
But there are also structural factors that are keeping some rural residents from getting their shots, panelists said.
"Not always in small towns are you going to have the opportunity to leave at lunch to go to the local hospital to get vaccinated and come back,"said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. "For a lot of these communities that have lost hospitals, lost health clinics over the past year or haven't had them, it's going to necessitate driving half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half"if mobile or employer-based clinics aren't available.
"It comes down (to) us as business leaders to talk to our employees,"Morgan said. "'Have you gotten vaccinated? Do you have transportation to get vaccinated? And can I give you a couple hours off so you get that and keep our business safe?'"
Vaccines protect individuals from infection, but they also have been shown to dramatically slow the spread of COVID-19, which protects both those who've been vaccinated and those, including children younger than 12, who can't be yet.
President Joe Biden has called June a "month of action"on vaccines and is offering incentives including free beer and sports ticketsto try to encourage more people to get theirs. At Thursday's event, White House vaccinations coordinator Dr. Bechara Choucair said people this month will see "vaccines in barbershops, baseball games (and) NASCAR races,"and that the administration would be leading canvassing and phone-banking efforts focused on areas with low vaccination rates, including rural areas.
One thing experts say doesn't work to reach vaccine-hesitant populations is threats. In public opinion polling presented at the summit, people who said they're unsure whether or not to get vaccinated said their biggest fear is that they'll be forced to get one whether they want to or not. But employers such asthe Minnesota-based Land O'Lakes, which has multiple plantsin Wisconsin, said they've seen success reaching their employees by making information and on-site vaccinations available and by offering workers time off.
"We are offering not just the mass vaccination clinics but also walk-ins at certain locations, and we're continuing to see that steady drumbeat of requests for vaccine,"said Tina May, the company's vice president of rural services.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Biden administration is seeking a balance in its rural outreach efforts.
"We recognize and appreciate at USDA that there are multiple reasons why folks may be reluctant to be vaccinated, and that has to be acknowledged and that has to be respected,"Vilsack said. "But I think it is important for us to do what we can to educate individuals, to remind them of the responsibility they have to themselves, to their family, to their community and to their country. People out in rural America have a particular connection to family and community and country, and I think each of thosethe family, the community and the country benefit when more of us get vaccinated."
There are also signs in public opinion polling that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has declined considerably in the last six months. There is still a segment of the population who is strongly opposed to getting vaccinated, but it's a distinct minority compared to those who say they have already gotten their shots or are open to it.
Rural communities have a higher proportion of people who say they will "definitely not"get vaccinated. In May, polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation found this described 15 percent of all respondents nationally, but 24 percent of rural residents.
But Mollyann Brodie, executive director of Kaiser's polling division, said there is evidence that many people who once had questions about the vaccine have gotten satisfactory answers.
In December, 39 percent of all respondents and 38 percent of rural residents said they would "wait and see"whether to get vaccinated. As vaccinations have become more widespread about 51 percent of Americans have now received at least one dose that number shrunk in May to just 12 percent among all respondents and 11 percent of rural residents.
Brodie said those data suggest that the national campaign has succeeded in persuading some people in the "movable middle"that COVID-19vaccines aresafe and effective. And notably, that group makes up the same proportion of people in both rural and non-rural areas.
"Rural communities have the exact same opportunities as other communities in the nation,"Brodie said. Depending on measurements, she said, there are 12 to 15 percent of people who are "interested in the vaccine, they have questions about the vaccine, but they're ready and they're willing to think about making the choice for them and their families."
There are several COVID-19 vaccines out right now, including one from AstraZeneca. Although it has been approved for use in other countries, it has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Knowing more about the AstraZeneca vaccine can help you make informed decisions about which vaccine to get if it does get approved for use in the United States.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, now called Vaxzevria, is a viral vector vaccine, just like the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
The vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus to carry spike proteins from the coronavirus into your body to create an immune response. It can be produced on a large scale and inexpensively, which is crucial during a pandemic. It can also be kept in a regular refrigerator, unlike the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
Despite initial pauses about its safety with blood clots, it has been deemed safe by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and is still recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Right now, no coronavirus vaccine is fully approved by the FDA. The vaccines in use have been granted emergency use authorization. This means that the known and potential benefits of the vaccine outweigh the known and potential risks.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is not yet approved in the United States because the FDA has asked AstraZeneca to show results from a large-scale trial.
The FDA found that in initial trials, some participants mistakenly got half doses of the vaccine. They also found that the trial did not include enough people over age 65. They asked the company to do a larger trial so they could get clearer data.
In March 2021, several European countries paused the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after several reports of blood clots. The clots that are linked to this vaccine have very specific characteristics:
It was found that people with these blood clots showed some symptoms similar to a condition called heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). HIT is usually a rare side effect seen in people who have used the anticoagulant medication heparin, though these people had never taken the drug.
At this point, researchers arent sure what part of the vaccine is causing an immune response against a platelet factor involved in this reaction. Because a similar response has been seen in the J&J vaccine, which also uses an adenovirus, and not seen in the vaccines that use mRNA, this may be an issue with vaccines using adenovirus.
Although this is a serious adverse effect, its also important to look at the context.
Over 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been given in the United Kingdom. The risk of a serious blood clot is about 1 in 250,000 people or 4 in a million. COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of blood clots: 7.8 percent of people who have had COVID-19 also have pulmonary embolism and 11.2 percent experience deep vein thrombosis.
The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a common cold-causing chimpanzee adenovirus, or a vector, to transport some of the coronavirus DNA to your cells. Your cells then take that DNA and convert it into the spike protein of the virus, which is what the virus uses to enter cells and cause an infection.
Your cells mount an immune response but the amount of actual virus is so small, you dont actually get an infection with the disease.
The vaccine is given in two doses, with a suggested gap between doses of 8 to 12 weeks.
While Moderna and Pfizer are based on mRNA, the AstraZeneca vaccine is a viral vector vaccine. This means it uses a different mechanism to induce an immune response. The second dose is also given at a longer interval, instead of the 3- to 4-week suggested interval with the others.
Both the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are viral vector vaccines. These kinds of vaccines use a modified, harmless version of a virus as a vector a carrier to the cells in the body. Your body then acts accordingly and mounts an immune response to the virus.
The viral vector in these two vaccines is an adenovirus. This vector carries the information that is needed for the body to produce an immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Studies of the efficacy of this vaccine have been wide-ranging. A pooled analysis of four large studies found that in groups that received two standard doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the overall efficacy was 70.4 percent.
Several months later, AstraZeneca announced it was 76 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease. In a group that received a lower dose initially, the surprising result was a finding of 90 percent efficacy. The reasons for this are unclear, and more research needs to be done.
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine offers another option for vaccination against COVID-19 in some countries. The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is not approved for use in the United States.
Although more research is being done regarding blood clots, it seems this is a very small percentage of reactions. If the FDA grants emergency use authorization for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, it could be helpful in getting more people vaccinated, especially because it is cheaper and able to be kept at lower temperatures.
Share of U.S. adults who have received at least one vaccine dose
25% 50% 100% of adults70% by July 4 is the White House goal
Jan. 14June 2July 4
At current pace
At leastone dose
Note: The projection is based on a 7-day rolling average of new vaccinations of people 18 or older.
The United States is roughly on track to meet President Bidens goal of getting at least one Covid-19 shot into the arms of 70 percent of adults by July 4 if the current vaccination pace holds. But demand for vaccines has decreased in much of the country in recent weeks, and the promising national numbers (about 63 percent of adults have received at least one shot) do not reflect the uneven rates among states.
Even if the country as a whole reaches the national target, at least 30 states probably will not. And a handful are unlikely to reach the 70 percent mark before the end of the year, a New York Times analysis shows, potentially prolonging the pandemic.
You reach a certain rate nationally, which looks excellent and would really suggest that you are in a place to reduce the likelihood of infectious spread, but that can be misleading, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which represents state health agencies.
You still have these significant pockets and states where the rates of immunity are much lower, he added. So we could have another wave pop up.
In many states in the Deep South and Mountain West, vaccinations have leveled off both because of limited access and shot hesitancy. Fewer than half of all adults have received at least one shot in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Wyoming, and projections show that the rate is unlikely to reach much higher than 50 percent by early July.
70% goal
At leastone dose
By July 4
70% goal
At leastone dose
By July 4
70% goal
At leastone dose
By July 4
Note: The C.D.C. is working with New Hampshire to correct data transmission errors from recent weeks.
Public health experts and officials in states with lower vaccination rates say the presidents benchmark will help reduce cases and deaths but is somewhat arbitrary even if 70 percent of adults are vaccinated, the virus and its more contagious variants can spread among those who are not.
But they are still concerned that their residents are more susceptible to infection as restrictions ease across the country, the sense of urgency to get vaccinated declines and many Americans in warmer climates avoid the heat by heading indoors, where the virus spreads more efficiently.
Weve got a significant percentage of Louisiana that has initiated, but its not herd immunity, Dr. Joseph Kanter, the top health official in Louisiana, said in mid-May, referring to the share of the total population that needs to acquire resistance to the virus to slow transmission. Its nowhere close to it.
Its not insignificant, but its not herd immunity, he added. So were very cognizant of that, and we feel great urgency with the vaccine campaign.
Even statewide figures that appear promising can gloss over local problem areas, Dr. Kanter said. In Louisiana, less than 20 percent of people in some parishes have received a first dose.
State vaccination rates during previous U.S. vaccination campaigns show some similar patterns.
For example, much of the South had lower vaccination rates than the rest of the country during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 and 2010, and in the flu season just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Note: Covid vaccination data is through June 2 and represents those with at least one dose.
Public health experts point to persistent challenges in this region of the country, including lower than average access to health care, especially in rural areas, and higher rates of vaccine hesitancy. Politics may also play a role.
Youre also looking at states that relaxed mandates faster, said Dr. Jodie L. Guest, an epidemiologist at Emory University. Leadership matters. If you set the tone that this isnt serious, its hard to convince people that it is.
Officials in lagging states have said they are hopeful that they can continue to vaccinate more people, but caution that it may take months to work with doctors, employers and community leaders to make inoculations more convenient and to persuade those who are unwilling to get a shot.
To bolster the nations progress, the White House has announced an incentive to give parents and caregivers free child care while they get vaccinated.
I think the question is whether were getting to a place where weve just leveled out, and were just not going to get that many more people, Dr. Plescia said, or whether in a lot of these states it will take longer for people to get vaccinated, and we will continue to make progress, but it will be slow progress.
I just dont know how that will play out, he added.
SINGAPORE - Cows, scholarships and million-dollar lottery draws - governments around the world have dangled these and other incentives in front of their citizens to help them overcome vaccine hesitancy and give national Covid-19 vaccination drives a booster shot.
While Singapore has been making steady progress on the vaccination front, some observers have asked whether offering people additional incentives could help accelerate its pace.
At least one organisation here has embarked on a campaign to offer benefits to Singapore residents who have been vaccinated.
The Minmed Group, which runs four Covid-19 vaccine centres here, has launched an online platform - iamvaccinated.sg - where local businesses can offer discounts and promotions to those who have received their shots.
While some observers believe incentives could nudge those who are still hesitant, others said implementing such a scheme now could be seen as rewarding late adopters and that it could diminish the intrinsic motivation to get the jab out of a sense of social responsibility.
The Singapore Government has so far relied mostly on providing up-to-date and accurate information on the vaccine to convince Singaporeans to take the jab.
Leaders here have also urged citizens to go for the shot. Last Monday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in his national address, made a direct appeal to 280,000 seniors who have yet to book a slot to do so.
But other countries have not stopped at educational and information campaigns to convince their citizens to get vaccinated.
In the US state of Ohio, for instance, the state government is incentivising Americans to get vaccinated with cash prizes from a Vax-A-Million lottery totalling US$5 million (S$6.6 million) and another US$600,000 going to scholarships for vaccinated teens.
The idea of providing incentives, including lottery draws, has gained traction among some here, including Associate Professor Jeremy Lim from the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.
Noting that Singapore is grappling with its most severe challenge since independence, he said offering incentives would allow the Government to make the vaccine benefits tangible, short of mandating the shots.
Prof Lim added that such incentives are complementary to robust public health education and engagement.
Albert Winsemius Chair Professor of Economics Euston Quah of Nanyang Technological University said an economic argument can be made to provide incentives for vaccination, as people who have been vaccinated reduce medical and health costs for society.
"The more people are vaccinated, the greater the likelihood that the pandemic will end. Thus, this group of vaccinated people confers a positive external effect on society compared with people who do not get vaccinated," he said.
Some observers have asked whether offering people additional incentives could help accelerate its pace. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
"(Such incentives) reduce a possible market failure in not leaving such important public health implications and costs to individual decisions per se."
Other observers, such as Associate Professor Lim Poh Lian, director of the High Level Isolation Unit at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, were more cautious about the signals that incentives could send.
She noted that there are currently more than 40 active Covid-19 clusters in Singapore and that cases have been recorded in malls, tuition centres and public housing. "So, the urgent need to get vaccinated has become quite obvious to most people," she said.
Prof Lim added that financial incentives, as an extrinsic motivator, tend to weaken intrinsic motivation.
"When those who got vaccinated out of a sense of duty (intrinsic motivation) see other people getting cash in order to get vaccinated, they get cynical. The next time you call on them to do something out of duty, they may well ask, 'How much are you going to pay me?'"
NUS sociologist Tan Ern Ser said that while cash would likely help nudge people into doing what they might be reluctant to do, it could also establish an unhealthy expectation.
Yio Chu Kang MP Yip Hon Weng added that offering an incentive for vaccination might send a signal that the vaccines are somehow undesirable or unsafe, hence needing incentives to encourage uptake.
Instead of incentives, he suggested that the Government consider bundling health check-ups with vaccination appointments, or offering the remaining unvaccinated members of the household to be vaccinated together, so that household transmission could be further reduced.
But NUS' Prof Jeremy Lim said concerns about unhappy precedents being set and the public expecting future incentives are unwarranted.
"We are in a crisis situation and we should be bold, doing whatever it takes to get us to the required population vaccination numbers," he said.
Sembawang GRC MP Mariam Jaafar said that while incentives can provide a "short-term boost" to the vaccination rate, multiple strategies including subsidising some alternative vaccines and tailoring communication to specific needs are needed.
A retired tuition teacher, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Chia, disagreed with handing out cash vouchers or lottery tickets to encourage vaccinations.
The 68-year-old had hesitated taking the jab due to concerns about its safety. She decided to get it only in late April after being repeatedly urged by her children.
"I will be very disappointed with the Government if it takes such an approach. The decision to take the vaccine is a serious matter, and we should be educating the public properly about it instead of treating it like some kind of game," said Mrs Chia.
Ohio is offering lottery draw chances for those who get inoculated against Covid-19, and some other American states have followed suit.
California is offering US$100 million (S$132 million) in US$50 prepaid cards for the next two million newly vaccinated people and US$16.5 million in cash prizes for all vaccinated Californians.
In Oregon and Colorado, those who have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by a prescribed date are automatically entered into lottery draws where they can win up to US$1 million.
The Hong Kong authorities have also dangled a vaccine lottery featuring a new flat worth HK$10.8 million (S$1.84 million), which has reportedly led to a surge in vaccine bookings since the lottery was announced on May 28.
Not to be outdone, the mayor of a farming town near Manila has promised to raffle a cow each month from September to get his constituents to take vaccine shots from Russia or China.
Here in Singapore, the Minmed Group recently launched an initiative where residents can enjoy special privileges such as discounts and cash vouchers from merchants by showing their HealthHub vaccination record. The initiative is supported by public healthcare technology agency Integrated Health Information Systems.
At least 40 merchants have joined the initiative so far.
Ms Inez Lim, the founder of Kittea, a tea retailer which is a participating merchant under this scheme, believes life could start going back to a new normal when a significant proportion of the population has been vaccinated.
"Everyone loves a good discount, and if enough brands come on board, the pull factor can be appealing enough to overcome any minor fears people may have about getting their jabs," she said.
PITTSBURGH -- Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Sunday he believes the team will be at the 85% threshold for COVID-19 vaccinations by the end of the coming week.
Cherington made the announcement on his Sunday morning radio show on 93.7 The Fan.
In some cases, were still getting through that two-week waiting period after the second shot and things like that, Cherington said. But by the end of the week, we expect to be at 85%.
Clubs were informed that MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to relax certain health and safety protocols contained in the 2021 Operations Manual for fully vaccinated Tier 1 Individuals and for clubs where 85% of their Tier 1 Individuals are fully vaccinated. As part of that memo, players and staff were again strongly encouraged to receive one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines when eligible.
The Pirates have encouraged their players to get the vaccination as a safety measure, Cherington said, but he reiterated on Sunday that it has never been a mandate. Through answering questions and addressing concerns raised by players and staff on an individual basis, he believes it could have some deeper effects on the club, too.
In some respects, I think our relationships internally have grown from that, Cherington said. I believe that just because weve had to work through some of these challenging issues together, and I think and hope that that will have benefits for us down the road.
In the short term, it will open up a lot of benefits for the players. Theyll be able to have family join them on the road; catcher Jacob Stallings spoke earlier this week about the effect that having his family around at home games has had on his mental well-being. The team will be able to unmask in the dugout, use saunas in the training area and utilize game rooms to relax before games.
Small steps, but ones that could have a big impact on the Pirates players and staff.
We think about the pandemic as a medical issue -- and it is, Cherington said, but we also know that there is a mental-health impact that comes from all of the things that the coronavirus has induced in our society and the changes its forced in our lives and other things.
Some of these things may sound small but they add up to helping players and staff feel a little bit better about themselves over the course of a season.
Cherington said No. 12 prospect Miguel Yajures symptoms are getting better after he was scratched from his most recent start due to right elbow discomfort and forearm tightness. Yajure has produced a 3.71 ERA at Triple-A Indianapolis and pitched five scoreless innings in his most recent Major League start on May 14 vs. the Giants.
He had been pitching with some sensation, and just eventually said hed like to let this calm down, Cherington said. So its not something he wasnt performing through, but once he told us that, we wanted to make sure it was right. So well take a little time and let him calm down.
No. 4 prospect Oneil Cruz has committed nine errors in 25 games at shortstop for Double-A Altoona, but Cherington attributes part of that to rust of not having a 2020 season, not to any lacking skills. However, he said Cruz, who entered Sunday with a 10-game hitting streak, wont stick at one spot all the time, as the Pirates value versatility.
Hes going to play other positions, but that has no bearing on whether hes a shortstop or not, Cherington said.
Vaccination in Bahrain Mazen Mahdi/AFP/Getty Images
The World Health Organization recently granted emergency use approval to China's Sinopharm and Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines, but the countries that have put the Chinese-made vaccines in the arms of their residents are reporting mixed results, at best.
"In the Seychelles, Chile, and Uruguay, all of whom have used Sinopharm or ... Sinovac in their mass vaccination efforts, cases have surged even as doses were given out," The Washington Post reports. And in Bahrain, one of the first countries to embrace the Sinopharm shot, The Wall Street Journal adds, "daily COVID-19 deaths have leapt to 12 per million people in recent weeks an outbreak nearly five times more lethal than India's prompting the island nation's government to shut down shopping malls and restaurants in an effort to limit the spread."
Dr. Waleed Khalifa al Manea, Bahrain's undersecretary of health, told the Journal that the recent upsurge in cases "came mainly from family gatherings we had Ramadan, which is a very social event in Bahrain," but he also said the country is urging older people and those with chronic illness to get a six-month booster shot with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Bahrain and the neighboring United Arab Emirates started offering booster shots in late May "after studies showed that some of those vaccinated had not developed sufficient antibodies," the Post reports.
"In Dubai, the most populous of the seven members of the UAE, the emirate's health authorities have also quietly begun revaccinating with Pfizer-BioNTech those residents who had been fully inoculated with Sinopharm," the Journal reports.
"Despite the concern about Sinopharm's effectiveness, experts say the vaccine still works as intended in most cases and that it could play a significant role in shortages of vaccine doses around the world," the Post reports. The WHO says it has a low level of confidence in the vaccine's effectiveness in older people, due to a lack of data.
A peer-reviewed study published May 26 found the Sinopharm vaccine was 78 percent effective against symptomatic illness, but the trial participants were mostly healthy young men, the Journal reports. "In a separate, unpublished, real-world study of Sinopharm in Serbia, 29 percent of 150 participants were found to have zero antibodies against the virus three months after they received the first of two shots of the vaccine. The average age of the people who participated in the Serbian study was higher than 65."
Abstract
A new high-throughput screening technique detected autoantibodies in COVID-19 patients specific for many different immunomodulatory extracellular and cell surface proteins, several of which were associated with disease severity and clinical outcomes.
Several different dysfunctional immune responses have been associated with COVID-19, including the presence of anti-type I interferon autoantibodies. In order to broadly characterize autoantibodies in patients with COVID-19, Wang et al. used a new high-throughput multiplexed detection technology they developed called Rapid Extracellular Antigen Profiling (REAP), in which serum IgG is panned against a genetically-barcoded library of 2770 human extracellular proteins displayed on yeast cells and binding is quantified by a sequencing readout. The investigators screened 172 patients with COVID-19, 22 SARS-CoV-2infected healthcare workers (HCWs) with mild or asymptomatic infection, and 30 uninfected HCWs. They discovered that the patients with COVID-19 had a greater number of autoantibody reactivities compared with controls, and the highest scoring was in patients with severe disease. Based on longitudinal REAP scoring of patients, it appeared that some of the autoantibodies were preexisting before infection, whereas others were newly acquired. Strikingly, autoantibodies specific for cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, complement components, and cell surface proteins were elevated in patients with severe disease, including anti-type I interferons. In vitro functional assays showed that some of these autoantibodies could inhibit the activity of the cytokines or chemokines that they bound, or enhance FcR-dependent phagocytosis, and autoantibodies specific for different blood leukocyte surface proteins were associated with decreased frequency of the cell types expressing those proteins.
Using SARS-CoV-2infected human ACE2 transgenic mice, Wang et al. showed that blocking antibodies to several of the cytokine targets of the COVD-19associated autoantibodies, including type 1 interferon, IL-18 receptor, IL-1, IL-21, and GM-CSF, exacerbated disease. Other autoantibodies against various tissue antigens were associated with different clinical features and disease severity.
This study demonstrates the power of a new autoantibody screening technology and expands on previous studies by showing that many different immunomodulatory autoantibodies are associated with severe COVID-19 disease. Further work will be needed to sort out the relative role of preexisting versus post-infection induced autoantibodies in disease pathogenesis. Also of interest will be the analysis of autoantibodies associated with other viral infections.
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released theCOVID-19 Handbook Volume 3: Strategies for Safe Operation and Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Higher Education Students, Faculty, and Staffto provide additional strategies for higher education institutions (IHEs) and communities as they work to reopen for in-person instruction safely and equitably. The Department worked with public health officials and partners across the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure that the Handbook provides actionable strategies IHEs can use to implementCDC guidanceto prevent and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The Handbook also provides strategies on how higher education institutions can utilize funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and previous relief bills to meet the needs of all students, boost vaccination rates on campus, and address inequities exacerbated by the pandemic, among other topics covered.
"Many of our nation's postsecondary students have experienced the toughest year in their educational careers," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. "We must deploy every resource to bear to make sure all higher education students can reengage with their school communities, continue their education, and graduate ready to pursue their dreams. With the American Rescue Plan and key resources like Volume 3 of the COVID-19 Handbook, institutions of higher education will be able to not only protect the safety of students, educators, and staff, but also support those students who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic."
Today's release is part of the Administration's broader effort to provide schools and communities with the resources and support they need to return to in-person learning safely and quickly. Volume 3 of the COVID-19 Handbook addresses several priority areas of interest to the higher education community, with an eye towards both a response and a recovery that leaves our nation's students and institutions of higher education stronger than before the pandemic began. Areas include:
Volume 3 of the Handbook incorporated feedback from IHEs and over 40 organizations representing stakeholders and institutions across 15 listening sessions, and was developed in response to some of the most pressing questions the Department heard from colleges, students, families, educators, and others impacted by the pandemic. The Handbook incorporates a diversity of perspectives, experiences, and challenges facing our nation's postsecondary students, ranging from the full-time, on-campus recent high school graduate; to the older returning student seeking re-training through online, part-time programming while balancing work and parenting duties; to the middle-aged immigrant seeking English language skills, job training, and a high school equivalency with on-ramps into postsecondary education.
Under the ARP, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), approximately $76 billion in Higher Education Emergency Relief Funding (HEERF) has been made available to IHEs to support students and IHEs impacted by the pandemic.
Earlier this year, the Department of Education released Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the COVID-19 Handbook, both of which focused on strategies to support the safe reopening of K-12 schools and address the impacts of COVID-19 on K-12 students, educators, and communities. The Department also launched the "Safer Schools and Campuses Best Practices Clearinghouse," which highlights lessons learned and best practices that can help IHEs identify opportunities to best use ARP and other relief funds to support students, faculty, and staff impacted by the pandemic, particularly those in underserved communities and those hardest hit by the pandemic. The Clearinghouse also provides resources and guidance for institutions as they work to reengage with students who have temporarily opted out of postsecondary education.
