CLAIM
COVID-19 vaccines caused as many deaths as the disease in young people
DETAILS
Inadequate support: Death reports in the U.S. VAERS database contain unverified information and cannot demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccines caused the death of recipients.Lack of context: The rate of COVID-19 survival alone is insufficient to estimate the risks of the disease. Even if a person only had mild symptoms, COVID-19 infections can lead to long-lasting effects after recovery, such as fatigue, cognitive issues, and tissue damage.
KEY TAKE AWAY
COVID-19 caused millions of infections and over 3.5 million deaths worldwide. Most children and young adults who get infected only experience mild symptoms of the disease. However, a small proportion of people younger than 24 can still develop severe COVID-19 and die. Even those that survive the disease can suffer from persistent health problems after recovery. Despite the high survival rate among young people, COVID-19 vaccines can help protect them from risks associated with the disease. In parallel, COVID-19 vaccination can help reduce the spread of the virus, especially among vulnerable people who arent able to take the vaccine for medical reasons.
REVIEW The U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a surveillance system that helps ensure the safety of vaccines used in the U.S. However, VAERS reports have been commonly misused to spread misinformation about vaccine safety, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. One example is this image, posted on Facebook by Wendy Bell on 24 May 2020, that used VAERS reports to claim that COVID-19 vaccines caused as many deaths among young adults as COVID-19 itself.
This comparison is misleading because VAERS reports alone dont demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccines caused deaths, as Health Feedback explained in previous reviews here, here, and here. Furthermore, COVID-19 poses serious health risks to people besides death, including potentially long-term health problems in survivors, as we explain below.
Under the title COVID vaccine deaths, the post presented data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), implying that COVID-19 vaccines caused the death of 0.0017% of the people who received them. This figure comes from multiplying the number of deaths reported to VAERS as of 17 May 2021 (4,647 death reports) by 100 and dividing it by the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the U.S. at that time (273 million doses).
While the data are accurate, the implication that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for these deaths is incorrect and misuses VAERS reports.
VAERS is an open-access system that allows reporting of any health problems that occur after vaccination, from mild symptoms to serious medical events. The system collects information from anyone who wants to submit a report, regardless of what caused the adverse event. Hence VAERS contains incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable information, as the website clearly warns. This means that VAERS reports alone cannot demonstrate that a vaccine caused an adverse event, contrary to what the post claimed.
Because of the Emergency Use Authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines, healthcare providers bear the legal responsibility of reporting any serious adverse event following their use. This includes any deaths among vaccinated individuals, even if they are clearly unrelated to the vaccine. Then, the CDC and the FDA investigate each death report to determine whether it might be associated with the vaccine.
As of 26 May 2021, the U.S. administered almost 290 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. During that time, VAERS received 4,863 reports of death (0.0017%) among COVID-19 vaccine recipients. As the CDC explains, none of these deaths has been definitively attributed to the vaccine.
Safety monitoring identified a type of severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis in about two to five people per million vaccinated against COVID-19 with an mRNA vaccine. This reaction generally occurs within 30 minutes after vaccination and can be effectively treated. Recently, VAERS received 32 confirmed reports of blood clots with low platelets among individuals who received the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. Despite a possible causal link between the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and rare cases of blood clots, the CDC concluded that the vaccines known and potential benefits outweighed its known and potential risks.
While the CDC and FDA will continue to monitor the safety of all COVID-19 vaccines, serious safety problems are rare. Safety data from clinical trials and monitoring of ongoing vaccination campaigns are reassuring and demonstrate that FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing COVID-19[1-3]. Most people experience no or mild side effects, which may include pain or swelling at the injection site, fever, chills, tiredness, and headache. But in general, these effects go away in a few days.
Based on VAERS reports, the post also claimed that from 3 May to 17 May 2021, COVID-19 vaccines caused 469 deaths, which equates to 34 deaths per day. Apart from the fact that this is a misuse of VAERS reports as explained above, this claim lacks important context, making it misleading.
The reality is that many people die every day for many reasons. To put this number in context, the U.S. reported in 2017 an average of 7,708 daily deaths. Assuming that the U.S. population is similar to that in 2017 and considering that 49.7% of them received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, we would expect about 3,830 deaths per day. Comparing that figure with that presented by Bell shows that 34 deaths each day dont indicate a problem with vaccine safety.
We can only infer that the vaccine might cause deaths if the number of deaths among vaccinated individuals exceeded the expected number of deaths in unvaccinated individuals. However, public health authorities havent observed higher rates of death among vaccinated individuals than in the unvaccinated population, as Health Feedback covered in this previous review.
The post claims that COVID-19 survivability of people under 24 years is 99.998%. This number comes from dividing the number of COVID-19 deaths in people under 24 by 50.5 million. It is unclear what the 50.5 million represents as we couldnt find a source that matches this number.
The implication that a disease with a high survival rate poses a minor health risk is misleading because it fails to consider other important factors that impact the burden of a disease. For example, a virus with low lethality but high transmissibility may cause more infections and deaths than a more deadly virus that only infects a few people. Such is the case of COVID-19, where its rapid spread caused more than 33 million infections and 590,000 deaths in the U.S, as of 27 May 2021.
Such a simplistic view also overlooks the potential long-term consequences of a COVID-19 infection. Growing clinical evidence shows that COVID-19 outcomes go far beyond death or recovery. While children and young people are indeed less likely to develop severe COVID-19, some of them do, particularly those with underlying health conditions like obesity.
One study published in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that COVID-19 caused over 11,000 hospitalizations and 178 deaths among children between March and December 2020. Furthermore, among the COVID-19 patients aged 18 to 34 that required hospitalization, 21% needed ventilation, and 2.7% died[4].
Though young people have a high chance of surviving COVID-19, some continue suffering long COVID, even if they only had mild or no COVID-19 symptoms. Symptoms include loss of smell and taste, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive issues that can last for weeks or months[5]. As Health Feedback explained in this earlier review, COVID-19 infections might also cause lifelong problems in some survivors, including permanent lung and heart damage and neurological issues[6,7]. These long-lasting symptoms can significantly impair a patients recovery and highly impact their quality of life.
Finally, the post suggests that only 5% (29,317) of the total reported COVID-19 deaths (586,335 as of 23 May 2021) were actually caused by COVID-19, according to the CDC. This claim is inaccurate and misinterprets how deaths are certified. As the CDC explains on its website, 5% is the percentage of deaths in which COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. However, just because other death certificates listed additional conditions, it doesnt mean that these conditions caused the death. As Health Feedback explained in previous reviews, deaths are classified as COVID-19 deaths only if the sequence of clinical events leading to the patients death is compatible with COVID-19. Furthermore, some of the conditions listed on death certificates, such as respiratory failure, may not be pre-existing conditions but a consequence of COVID-19 itself.
In summary, the claim that COVID-19 vaccines are as unsafe to children and young adults as the disease itself is unsupported and misleading. VAERS death reports alone dont demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccines caused an adverse event, and therefore, dont provide evidence that COVID-19 vaccines caused deaths or are unsafe. Although children and young adults are very unlikely to die of COVID-19, the disease poses other health risks, such as long-lasting effects, even in people who only had mild or no COVID-19 symptoms.
Latino Coalition of Weld County and Sunrise Health to host COVID-19 vaccine clinics Greeley Tribune
TREMONT (HOI) The Tazewell County Health Department will be hosting its last drive-through COVID-19 vaccine clinic starting June 4.
The clinic will provide the Pfizer vaccine for those 12 and older at its Tremont Campus at 21306 Ill. Route 9 at Tremont.
Heart of Illinois ABC Coronavirus Vaccine Information Page
According to a press release by the TCHD, this will be the last drive-through clinic, but vaccines will still be available from the local health department.
The clinic will be hosted from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on June 4, 5, 9 and 10. No appointment or registration is required.
What you will need:
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) Faculty members at LSU recently voted on a resolution to make studentsget the COVID-19 vaccine before coming back to school at the end of August.
Attorney General Jeff Landry is weighing in on the possibility of LSU students having to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
AG Landry released this statement saying that any mandate would not be legal:
Citing federal and state law protections for employees and students, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is urging Louisiana State University to not mandate COVID vaccines at the school.
In a letter to Interim President Thomas Galligan, Attorney General Landry says LSU should not require COVID vaccinations for students or condition participation in education programs or continued employment on taking COVID vaccines authorized under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
Attorney General Landry explained that some people hold sincere religious beliefs against taking vaccines in general, or taking those derived from aborted fetal cell lines or sold by companies that profit from the sale of vaccines and other products derived from abortion. He also noted that other people are concerned regarding the potential long-term health effects on their bodies of COVID vaccines, which have not been subject to long-term testing.
LSU employees and students are protected against mandated COVID vaccines, under 21U.S.C. 360bbb-3, which provides that EUA products require (as a condition of emergency approval) that people have the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, wrote Attorney General Landry. FDA has an obligation to ensure that recipients of the vaccine under an EUA are informed that they have the option to accept or refuse the vaccine.
Louisiana law recognizes the right of students to be free from creed discrimination, which includes discrimination based on religious beliefs and nonreligious beliefs, continued Attorney General Landry. Louisiana requires postsecondary institutions to recognize religious and other personal reasons as exemptions to vaccine mandates.
Attorney General Landry concluded his letter requesting a written response from LSU that no COVID vaccine mandates will be issued.
A 16-year-old in Tel Aviv, Israel, receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine on 23 January.
By Gretchen Vogel, Jennifer Couzin-FrankelJun. 1, 2021 , 1:55 PM
Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
The COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech appears to put young men at elevated risk of developing a heart muscle inflammation called myocarditis, researchers in Israel say. In a report submitted today to the Israeli Ministry of Health, they conclude that between one in 3000 and one in 6000 men ages 16 to 24 who received the vaccine developed the rare condition. But most cases were mild and resolved within a few weeks, which is typical for myocarditis. I cant imagine its going to be anything that would cause medical people to say we shouldnt vaccinate kids, says Douglas Diekema, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Seattle Childrens Hospital.
Israeli health officials first flagged the issue in April, when they reported more than 60 cases, mostly in young men who had received their second dose of vaccine a few days earlier. Around the same time, the U.S. Department of Defense began to track 14 such cases. In mid-May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it, too, was reviewing myocarditis cases. Officials at the European Medicines Agency said on 28 May they had received 107 reports of myocarditis following the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, or about one in 175,000 doses administered. But relatively few people under age 30 have been vaccinated in Europe.
The Israeli panels findings come as Israel and many European countries are debating whether younger adolescents should be vaccinated against COVID-19. Israel has been vaccinating teenagers 16 and older since late January, and the Ministry of Health is scheduled to announce tomorrow whether vaccinations will be opened to children 12 and older.Other countries, including the United States and Canada, began vaccinating children 12 and older in mid-May.
From a parents perspective, this really comes down to risk perception, assessment of the data, says Diekema, who has studied risk-benefit trade-offs. Even if a link between myocarditis and the vaccine holds up, the condition is usually mild, requiring treatment only with anti-inflammatory drugs, whereas COVID-19 infection can also cause serious disease and long-term side effects, even in young people. As suspicion has percolated about a possible connection, I dont know many physicians who are changing their minds about vaccinating their kids, Diekema says.
In Israel, which relied almost exclusively on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in its early and fast vaccination drive, the Ministry of Health in January assembled a panel led by Dror Mevorach, head of internal medicine at the Hadassah University Medical Center, to investigate the issue. Mevorach tells Science he and his colleagues identified 110 myocarditis cases among 5 million people in Israel who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the month before their diagnosis. That translates to about one in 50,000 vaccine recipients, a number that isnt concerning given the background rate of myocarditis in the general population, where it is typically triggered by viral or bacterial infections, including COVID-19.
But the rate of myocarditis following vaccination among young men was higher. Ninety percent of the cases picked up in Israel appeared in men, and although myocarditis is normally more common among young men, the rate among those vaccinated was somewhere between five and 25 times the background rate, the report says. (Two cases of fatal myocarditis have also been reported in Israel, but the panel says investigations of those deaths were inconclusive; one patient may have had a more generalized inflammatory syndrome, and the other diagnosis was "not verified," the report says.)
The new analysis is very suggestive of a causal nature, between the vaccine and myocarditis, Mevorach says. I am convinced there is a relationship.
It does suggest that this is, at least statistically, a real phenomenon, says Peter Liu, a cardiologist and chief scientific officer of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Diekema says its important to investigate even a hint of a signal, but cautions that while this report is suggestive it requires validation in other populations by other investigators before we can be certain the link exists. Other factors may be in play, Diekema says. Now that children are back to socializing and playing sports, his hospitals emergency room is seeing more viral diseases than weve seen in a year, and as a result, I would expect to see a little bump in myocarditis versus a year ago. Ideally, scientists should compare cohorts of vaccinated and unvaccinated youngsters at the same time, Diekema says, and hes heartened that such studies are now gearing up.
Myocarditis cases following the Moderna vaccine, which isnt in use in Israel, are also being investigated in the United States. Its not clear why the two vaccines, which both rely on messenger RNA (mRNA), might heighten the risk. One possibility is that the very high antibody levels that both generate in young people may also, in rare cases, lead to a sort of immune overreaction that inflames the heart. Theres no question these [vaccines] are extremely immune-generating, Liu says. Mevorach says he suspects the mRNA itself might be playing a role. The innate immune system recognizes RNA as part of the bodys defense against microbesincluding RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, he notes. I think that actually the mRNA is a kind of natural adjuvant, which ramps up the immune response, he says.
Diekema says the medical community is now on alert for youngsters with chest pain and other symptoms soon after vaccinationallowing them to be quickly identified, treated, and reported to health departments. Mevorach agrees that awareness among vaccinees, their parents, and their doctors is important for prompt and effective treatment. He says he and his colleagues treated about 40 cases. Only a few needed corticosteroids, he said, and most have recovered fully.
One important question is whether delaying the second vaccine dose might reduce any potential risk. There may be an opportunity to find out: Several countries have stretched the interval between the two doses from the 3 weeks tested and recommended by Pfizer to 12 or even 16 weeks, because they want to give as many people as possible at least one shot. A drop in myocarditis cases among those whose second dose was delayed might show up in data in the months ahead. Lowering the dose in young people may also be worth considering, Liu says. Pfizers and Modernas vaccines are now being tested at lower doses in children under 12, with results expected in the coming months.
Even if the link between the shots and myocarditis firms up, Liu says the vaccines benefitbeing well-protected from COVID-19outweighs the risks, even for young people, who are generally at lower risk of severe disease. But Mevorach says the trade-offs may be different in Israel, given its extremely low numbers of SARS-CoV-2 infectionsjust 15 new cases were diagnosed yesterday. He hopes the Ministry of Health will leave the decision on whether to vaccinate younger teens to their parents and doctors. At the moment, we no longer have an emergency, he says.
Update, 1 June 2021, 4.55 PM: Text has been added to this story about two reported fatal cases of myocarditis; the expert panel said investigations of those cases were inconclusive.
Los Angeles, USA, June 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- COVID-19 Pipeline Diversifies as the COVID-19 Cases Soar and Demand for Effective Therapies Balloons | DelveInsight
Efforts in clinical development are being continuously made to advance toward finding safe and effective treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. After the approval of vaccines across the world, new anti-viral combinations and anti-inflammatory (including monoclonal antibodies) are under investigation.
DelveInsights COVID-19 Pipeline Insights report offers exhaustive coverage of the emerging therapy landscape in different stages of development from pre-clinical till a late-end stage, along with dormant, inactive and abandoned therapeutic agents.
The COVID-19 Pipeline reports lay down a complete picture of the ongoing clinical trials, partnerships taking place in the domain, recent happenings in space and growth prospects across the COVID-19 domain.
Some of the key highlights from the COVID-19 Pipeline report:
Request for Sample to know more about the therapies that are set to grab maximum patient pool @ COVID-19 Emerging Therapies and Forecast
A Pandemic that started in late 2019, COVID-19 has affected more than 160 million people worldwide. It is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. It affects the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, and throat) or lower respiratory tract (windpipe and lungs) and spreads the same way other coronaviruses do, mainly through person-to-person contact.
For more information on emerging drugs, visit COVID-19 Pipeline Analysis
COVID-19 Pipeline Drugs
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COVID-19 Therapeutic Assessment
The COVID-19 Pipeline report proffers detailed insights into active pipeline assets segmented by Stage, Product Type, Route of Administration, Molecule Type, Target, and Mechanism of Action.
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Get in touch with our Business executive for Informative Business Decisions, Licensing Services and Consulting Solutions
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Coverage: GlobalKey Players: Sorrento Therapeutics, Molecular Partners, Amgen, Maxwell Biosciences, Frontier Biotechnologies, Galera Therapeutics, AbbVie, Synairgen, Capricor, Kinarus, IMV, RedHill Biopharma, SAb Biotherapeutics, Adagio Therapeutics, Valneva, Novavax, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, VBI Vaccines, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Translate Bio, Evelo Biosciences, Cocrystal Pharma, Icosavax, Atea Pharmaceuticals, NovaLead among others.Key COVID-19 Pipeline Therapies: PSC 04, Ensovibep, Otezla, MXB-009, FB-2001, GC4419, ABBV-47D11, SNG001, CAP-1002, KIN001-CV, DPX COVID 19, PTC-299, RHB-107, SAB-185, ADG20, VLA2001, NVX-CoV2373, INO-4800, VBI-2902, Fostamatinib, MRT5500, EDP-1815, CDI-45205, IVX-411, AT527, NLP21 among others.
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News Release
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
A new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and their colleagues has found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, does not appear to pose a threat to the safety of the nations blood supply. The analysis, published in Transfusion, supports current donor screening guidelines, including those used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, that do not require testing blood samples for the SARS-CoV-2 virus but do require that donors be screened for physical symptoms of COVID-19 and for infections that occurred within 14 days of the blood donation. The blood of donors with recent COVID-19 infections, or who develop infections after recent donations, cannot be used.
After reviewing test results for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in thousands of blood donations across the country, researchers found no reason to alter the current blood donor screening practices that are in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This finding is good news for thousands of patients who may need a blood transfusion because of surgery or a disease that causes anemia, such as a rare blood-related condition or leukemia, said Simone Glynn, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the Blood Epidemiology and Clinical Therapeutics Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which conducted the study along with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The new analysis is based on 17,995 pools of donated blood, representative of 257,809 single blood donations collected between March and September 2020 from six U.S. metropolitan regions. Researchers concluded the likelihood of a transfusion recipient receiving blood with trace amounts of SARS-CoV-2 was approximately .001% a little over 1 in 100,000 and that the likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 transmission by blood transfusion was insignificant compared to airborne transmission.
Highly sensitivenucleic acid amplification tests, which have been documented to be 99.96% effective at detecting genetic components of the virus in blood, were used to screen blood donations. Of the thousands of samples tested, just three came back positive, all with very low concentrations of the virus.
Other studies have shown that in rare cases where a blood sample tested positive, transmission by blood transfusion has not occurred, said Sonia Bakkour, Ph.D., a scientist at the Vitalant Research Institute and part of the research team that analyzed the blood. She is also a scientist at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Therefore, it appears safe to receive blood as a transfusion recipient and to keep donating blood, without fear of transmitting COVID-19 as long as current screenings are used.
Bakkour and researchers started testing blood samples from blood collection centers to determine if SARS-CoV-2 could be detected in the blood of healthy donors and potentially transmitted to patients. Blood donors may donate only if they have no disease symptoms, but it was possible that they could be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and have no symptoms, be infected but not yet show physical symptoms, or have recovered from COVID-19, but still have lingering traces of the virus. Researchers wanted to know if any of these possibilities posed concerns for the blood supply.
The conclusion that SARS-CoV-2 does not threaten the safety of the nations blood supply under current guidelines mirrors results of similar studies conducted in Korea, Pakistan, China, and France. Those studies found that among the rare cases in which SARS-CoV-2 was detected in a blood donation, it contained a low viral load and did not result in transmission of COVID-19.
The study was conducted by the NHLBI Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study (REDS) Program. The NHLBI REDS Program conducts research to evaluate and improve the safety and availability of the nations blood supply, as well as the safety and effectiveness of blood transfusion therapies.
In addition, the program also addresses potential emerging threats to the blood supply, which is why early in 2020, the REDS Epidemiology, Surveillance and Preparedness of the Novel SARS-CoV-2 (RESPONSE) project
About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI):NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visitwww.nhlbi.nih.gov.
About the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): NIAID conducts and supports research at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. For more information, visit https://www.niaid.nih.gov/.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery Into Health
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One month ahead of the target date set by the Biden administration, California has now at least partially vaccinated 70% of its adult residents against COVID-19.
Clearing that hurdle is a vital development as the state prepares to fully reopen later this month.
The progress, however, comes alongside a significant drop in the number of people seeking their first vaccine shot.
At the peak, providers statewide were administering about 400,000 vaccine doses per day. Over the last week, an average of about 141,000 shots have been doled out daily, according to data compiled by The Times.
Although dose figures gathered over the weekend might be low due to reporting lags because of the holiday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that the state was seeing a significant drop in people starting their vaccine regimens. He noted the trend meant an even larger drop was on the horizon.
Its those first doses, those first shots, that are way down, he said. And so you can see that cliff coming in the next week or two.
Although 70.1% of residents 18 and older in the Golden State have received at least one dose, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 54.6% are fully vaccinated having received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine or both required doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.
Roughly 4.7 million California adults are due for a second inoculation in the days and weeks ahead, federal figures show.
At any rate, California falls short of 80% people vaccinated. To achieve herd immunity, the point at which the larger population is protected against the virus, 80% of residents need to have been vaccinated or have natural immunity.
And with the inoculation campaign now more than 5 months old, gains are harder to come by.
As Newsom recently noted, achieving an initial baseline level of vaccine coverage 10%, 20%, 30% was easy compared to getting from 60% to 70%. Getting from 70% to 80% will be even more challenging.
We cant afford to run ... the 90-yard dash, he said during a briefing Thursday. Weve got to finish the job.
To reverse the downward trend in first vaccination shots, state officials have unveiled a $116.5-million vaccine incentive program called Vax for the Win.
All Californians who have received at least one vaccine dose will be automatically entered into a series of drawings this month for the chance to win one of 10 $1.5-million prizes, or one of 30 $50,000 awards.
And 2 million vaccine recipients (those with a first shot as of May 27 or later) will also be eligible for either a $50 prepaid gift card or a $50 grocery card.
The first drawing will be held Friday, when 15 Californians will win $50,000.
Increasingly, youre seeing a number of states, five or six, with these larger cash grants, and we have seen some enthusiasm in those states, Newsom said. And we want to see if we can replicate that enthusiasm here.
Despite the recent slowdown in the pace of vaccinations, California continues to measure up well when compared with other states.
California ranks 12th in terms of the share of its adult population that is at least partially vaccinated, according to the CDC. At the top of that leader board are Vermont with 82%; Hawaii, 80.5%; and Massachusetts, 78.7%.
Roughly 71.2% of Pennsylvania adults have received at least one dose, as have 67.9% of those in New York, 59.9% in Florida and 57.1% in Texas.
Early last month, President Biden called for 70% of American adults to receive at least one dose by July 4, and for 160 million adults to be fully vaccinated by that point.
Lets celebrate our independence as a nation, and our independence from this virus, he said at the time.
According to the latest CDC data, more than 133 million adult Americans, including 16.7 million Californians, have been fully vaccinated.
California is also continuing to see progress in its pandemic metrics, boasting as it has for weeks one of the lowest coronavirus case rates in the country.
The number of Californians hospitalized with COVID-19, which peaked above 21,000 during the height of the states fall-and-winter surge, is also receding.
On Monday there were 1,069 such patients statewide a roughly 23% decrease from two weeks prior.
The most powerful protection you can have is the vaccine, so please consider getting the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as you can, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a recent statement.
As the pandemic recedes, California continues to reopen its economy.
In the penultimate weekly update of the states COVID-19 reopening roadmap, four more counties Marin, Monterey, San Benito and Ventura moved into the least-restrictive yellow tier.
Counties within that category, of which there are now 19, can allow most businesses to operate indoors with some modifications.
Reaching that level requires counties to record for two consecutive weeks an adjusted daily case rate of fewer than 2 per 100,000 people, a rate of positive test results of less than 2%, and a less than 2% rate of positive test results in communities heavily impacted by the virus.
Another four counties Nevada, Sacramento, San Joaquin and Solano also progressed Tuesday into the orange tier, the second-least-restrictive tier on the reopening ladder.
Thirty-five of Californias 58 counties now call the orange tier home. Four remain in the more restrictive red tier, which is the second-most-restrictive tier, but none are in the strictest purple tier.
The tier system is slated for retirement on June 15, when state officials say they will lift coronavirus-related capacity restrictions and physical distancing requirements for attendees, customers and guests at almost all businesses and other institutions, and allow people who are fully vaccinated to go without masks in most situations.
Though it is only two weeks until full reopening, every day matters for our businesses, Ventura County Executive Officer Mike Powers said in a statement Tuesday. Expanded customer capacity will help impacted businesses. We appreciate the hard work of our community members in getting us to this point.
