The study reports on the first 100 patients to participate in Mayo Clinic's COVID-19 Activity Rehabilitation program (CARP), one of the first multidisciplinary programs established to evaluate and treat patients with post-COVID-19 syndrome. The patients were evaluated and treated between June 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. They had a mean age of 45, and 68% were female. They were evaluated a mean of 93 days after infection.
The most common symptom of patients seeking evaluation for post-COVID-19 syndrome was fatigue. Of the patients in the study, 80% reported unusual fatigue, while 59% had respiratory complaints and a similar percentage had neurologic complaints. More than one-third of patients reported difficulties performing basic activities of daily living, and only 1 in 3 patients had returned to unrestricted work activity.
"Most patients in the study had no preexisting comorbidities prior to COVID-19 infection, and many did not experience symptoms related to COVID-19 that were severe enough to require hospitalization," says Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, medical director of Mayo Clinic's COVID-19 Activity Rehabilitation program and first author of the study. "Most of the patients had normal or nondiagnostic lab and imaging results, despite having debilitating symptoms. That's among the challenges of diagnosing PCS in a timely way and then responding effectively."
Nonetheless, the symptoms often resulted in significant negative effects as patients tried to return to normal daily activities, including work. "Most patients with whom we worked required physical therapy, occupational therapy or brain rehabilitation to address the perceived cognitive impairment," Vanichkachorn says. "While many patients had fatigue, more than half also reported troubles with thinking, commonly known as 'brain fog.' And more than one-third of patients had trouble with basic activities of life. Many could not resume their normal work life for at least several months."
Mayo Clinic developed the COVID-19 Activity Rehabilitation program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester in June 2020 to care for patients experiencing persistent symptoms after COVID-19 infection. In addition to Vanichkachorn, Mayo Clinic staff from many specialty fields are involved in diagnostics and treatment. Among services provided are psychosocial support for patients who frequently report feelings of abandonment, guilt and frustration during initial evaluation.
Mayo Clinic is conducting intensive research on post-COVID-19 syndrome, in part to better define how the condition presents across different socioeconomic groups and ethnicities. Prolonged symptoms, such as those experienced with post-COVID-19 syndrome, have been reported in prior epidemics.
"As the pandemic continues, we expect to see more patients who experience symptoms long after infection, and health care providers need to prepare for this, know what to look for, and know how to best provide for their patients' needs," Vanichkachorn says.
Patients who have recovered from acute infection shouldn't wait to be evaluated if they are experiencing prolonged symptoms, though Vanichkachorn says providers should be judicious in recommending expensive diagnostic tests, which often aren't covered by insurance and don't reveal significant information.
The authors of the study have no conflicts of interest to disclose, Mayo Clinic News Network noted.
"There is only this way that we have established over the months of performing together, and what it is congruent with isn't 'ourselves' but past performances -- we're has-beens at heart, routinely trotting out the old, old act."
-- Philip Roth, The Counterlife
The counterfactual is a term for what would have happened if not for some intervention, action, or policy. Here, I want to explore the COVID-19 counterlife. What would have happened if. Obviously, this is an act of imagination, but anchored by over 10 years of studying science, medicine, and policy, and how people respond.
So, what would have happened if...
Twitter and Facebook Did Not Exist
If social media did not exist, the pandemic would have been fundamentally different. The selection of "experts" given airtime on popular media, such as cable news and newspapers, would have been turned on its head. Instead of the current cast of characters, researchers with longer histories and reputations would have been chosen. Op-ed submissions would have swelled even more, and successful writers would have been featured on TV.
Instead, in our world, there is a strange reciprocity. News outlets select visible Twitter personalities whose inclusion leads them to retweet the story. The paper gets the clicks, the Twitter personality gets the exposure, and polarizing and illogical views that get likes and retweets drive the conversation. Nuance and reflection die; sensationalism and groupthink thrive.
Without social media, the news itself would have been less extreme and drifted to consensus. Without the seduction of clicks, the media would have acknowledged trade-offs. Centrist policy positions, such as those espoused by former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, would be favored. Zero-COVID and vaccine passports would have gotten little airtime -- as these are positions driven by one extreme worldview.
Extreme feelings on vaccines, including staunch opposition, would likely have been diminished. These poles have been fueled by social media platforms for years. Finally, there would be much less public discussion of long-COVID, and instead it would be viewed principally as an ongoing research topic. This is because long-COVID gained traction from social media advocacy.
Trump Had Not Been President
I am not here to judge former President Trump, but merely to point out that he generates strong feelings. Some love him, others loathe him. And, we must acknowledge that a sizable subset of the academy is strongly opposed to him, and vocal about it. This fact alone affected the pandemic in numerous ways, apart from the specific decisions made during his presidency.
Although it is clear that Trump played a role in popularizing hydroxychloroquine without good evidence, his advocacy also generated a backlash, and the harms of hydroxychloroquine were broadcast loudly, and at times exaggerated. Both unjustified optimism and unnecessary pessimism diminished interest in clinical trials. Some wanted the drug, and others wanted no chance of getting it. Ironically, the best path is always to be quiet about investigational agents while trials are ongoing.
School closures would have been dramatically different had Trump never advocated to reopen them. Some opposed this (sensible) policy simply because he said it. Indeed, we saw school closures disproportionately in liberal strongholds and regardless of virus-related factors such as cases per 100,000, hospitalizations, or deaths.
Countless other decisions may have been different with a different administration, and I imagine entire books will be written on this topic. I wish to highlight just one more: Had former President Obama, a Democrat, been in office at the time, I imagine that far left progressives would have felt differently about restrictions without resources. Lockdowns protect the rich more than the poor; had a Democrat enforced these restrictions, a vocal backlash would have emerged from within the academy. But because Trump was reluctant to advocate for prolonged use of these measures, many progressives demanded more restrictions, perhaps in part to oppose him.
In short, replacing Trump with a more typical politician would have led to different policy decisions, and also, would have changed the academy's response. Those who opposed his recommendations merely because he said so would not have done so in the counterlife.
There Was No Uber, Amazon Prime, or Zoom
Many hail these technologies as services that allowed us to survive the pandemic, but were it not for their existence, we might have fared better. If COVID-19 were COVID-99 or even COVID-09, the use of telework for more than a year would not have been tenable for most white-collar workers (Internet was too slow!). Layoffs would have resulted, and as such, white-collar workers would have rebelled against continued restrictions. In fact, many workers would have embraced the harm-reduction philosophy. We would have gone back to work in the summer of 2020 in larger numbers, with rotating schedules, ventilation, and masks. Anxiety and depression would have been lower, and we could have been open about trade-offs.
Ironically, the upper-middle class would not have been able to construct a delivery service moat around their castles, and as such, the well-being of the poor, the marginalized, the destitute, and the neglected would have been more on their minds. Their own lives would be more tied to that. I imagine we would have spent far more on resources. Free hotels for folks with fever. Better paid sick leave. We would truly all be in it together. We might even have had fewer cases and deaths.
The services that many hail as our salvation accelerated our doom. They allowed folks with money to separate further, grow more anxious and angry, and more indifferent to the well-being of the least well off. Long-lasting school closures were only tolerated because of these services. If adults had to go back to work twice a week (with mitigation) then schools would have to perform their duty as well.
Ironically, these technology platforms censored the opinion of legitimate scientists who were critical of some aspects of lockdown or who favored loosening restrictions. This is a fundamental conflict of interest. If your product is addicting people to their screens and stopping them from being participants in the world, you are not the best arbiter on the truth in matters of policy that would keep people glued to their screens and as non-participants in the world.
We Reacted Proactively in January 2020
The biggest COVID-19 question might be, what if we reacted strongly in early January 2020? What if we were able to deploy a multinational team of experts into China. Could we have stopped the virus before it escaped? This technical question has no easy answer, and will likely also be the topic of many books. I wish only to suggest that the answer is not immediately obvious. It is not "we definitely could have stopped spread" or "it was hopeless from day one," but something that requires a great deal of detective work. A mix of science and investigative journalism from a place of open-mindedness. We are not ready to do this work right now.
What If Anthony Fauci or Scott Atlas Did Not Exist?
Many lament that national policy would have played out differently if not for Scott Atlas, MD, or Anthony Fauci, MD; the Great Barrington Declaration or the John Snow Memorandum; if we didn't have Deborah Birx, MD, or Robert Redfield, MD. The truth is that all these people were secondary characters, and if you remove any of them, the void would be filled by other people. I doubt any of them uniquely changed policy.
After it became clear that this virus has a massively steep age gradient of risk -- the risk to an 80-year-old is thousands of times greater than it is to an 8-year-old -- it was only a matter of time before someone argued that our policies should leverage this difference, an idea at the center of the Great Barrington Declaration. It was also inevitable that other scientists would oppose this view, believe it impossible to target this age group, and advocate that the risk to younger age groups is intolerable and broader measures are needed (the John Snow View).
Recognizing that these characters are replaceable -- and the bench is a thousand deep -- can provide humility. There is no need to have strong emotions about any of these people. Pick whomever you wish, without them, we'd be right where we are today.
We Did a Cluster RCT of Masks
Early in the pandemic, Margaret McCartney, MD, writing in The BMJ, said we need better evidence for non-pharmacologic interventions, such as face shields, masking, plexiglass, and other restrictions. Imagine if we did this. What if the U.S. did for restrictions what the U.K. RECOVERY trial did for drugs? What if we performed a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) of regions (or even a stepped-wedge roll out), and tested all of these interventions?
I believe that these results would have defused the mask polarization bomb. The mere fact that the trial was ongoing would have relaxed some of the most ardent proponents and opponents of these interventions. It's harder to become an impassioned anti-masker (indoors in a grocery store) or a zealot masker (outdoors, with a rare passerby, on a run) if one knew that randomized data was coming to show if one is right or wrong. The mere presence of a well-done, large, clean study would result in temperance and humility. Contrary to the many vociferous and passionate critics of RCTs, I believe that a meaningful cluster trial could have been conducted. If launched in early March 2020, contamination (use of mask in the control group) would have been so low, it would be a non-issue. Instead, we settled for mannequin mask studies a year into the pandemic -- a.k.a. a useless study.
The Counterlife
The COVID-19 counterlife illustrates that so much of our unique and unprecedented response to the pandemic was contingent on our times. Technology was supposed to liberate us, but it divided us and chained us to this response. Changing leadership might have changed outcomes, but it so easily might have shifted allegiances and tribes and resulted in different battles and partnerships. I am confident that had we had a Democratic president, the left-most progressives would have viewed these choices differently. And, at last, if one can rewind the tape to the early days in China, could we have stopped the virus before it was too late? That is the toughest question of all, and I have no answer for now. Instead, I merely ponder what might have been.
Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, is a hematologist-oncologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, and author of Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People With Cancer.
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by: Moriah Davis, Nexstar Media Wire
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) There have been a lot of questions concerning booster shots and a possible third dose for two of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Health professionals are still working to answer those questions, but heres what they do know.
We are finding out as we go. As we all know this is a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Dr. Jessica McColley, Chief Medical Officer of Cabin Creek Health Systems said.
With 117,000,000 Americans fully vaccinated as of this Monday, questions are still circulating about how long the vaccine will protect against COVID-19.
We dont know yet how long those antibodies will last in your system. We anticipate that will likely become a seasonal thing kind of like the flu shot, McColley said.
What scientists do know is a shot in the arm is better than nothing as health professionals fight to reach heard immunity and break through vaccine hesitancy as the virus continues to take American lives.
Its not something that has been out for very long and we just had it out for this year, but I think once they get to know that COVID is actually killing more we need to get people vaccinated, Melinda Embrey, a registered nurse, said.
Experts remind people that Moderna and Pzfizer vaccines are up to 95% effective against severe COVID-19 infection, while Johnson and Johnson vaccine is up to 75% effective. All three vaccines decrease the risk of transmission and getting ill from the virus.
In case people do need booster shots soon, health professionals dont expect it to be a problem.
Gov. Cuomo: 1.08% positivity rate is New Yorks lowest since October 10
I dont think it will gum up the system trying to cover boost doses for people who are already fully vaccinated to have initial vaccination doses needed because we do have so much supply and have the ability to have more, McColley said.
Just before 3 p.m. Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control approved the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 12-15, and health organizations are going to be targeting that age group starting as early as Thursday morning.
For months, officials and health experts have been urging Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, to thwart severe illness, and support the countrys continued fight against the ubiquitous virus that has killed over 582,000 people across the U.S.
Since the first coronavirus vaccinations were authorized for emergency use in December 2020, nearly 154 million Americans have been administered with at least one dose. And although the U.S. has experienced plateauing, and even increasing cases rates at times, the number of new infections has dropped significantly since January, and precipitously in recent weeks.
So how much of an effect are the vaccines having and what accounts for rising case loads and hospitalizations in some places?
A recent ABC News analysis of data from the CDC of all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico found that there does indeed appear to be a correlation between the rate of vaccination in a given state and the decline in the number of new COVID-19 infections.
Vaccination Rate vs. COVID-19 Case Load
With the country experiencing fluctuating case trends in the late winter and early spring, this correlation had not been evident until states began expanding vaccination access to larger swaths of the population late last month.
Most states have experienced a decline in daily cases over the past four weeks, including some where the drop has been dramatic.
Experts say the drops can be in part attributed to the widespread rollout of vaccines, but some say that other factors may be at play too -- at least in tandem, including restrictions and other ongoing mitigation measures, which have been relaxed in some places.
Despite similar levels of vaccine uptake, other states have struggled with plateauing or even increasing cases, which may be the result of pockets of unvaccinated residents or the effects of relaxed mitigation measures.
One in every three Americans is fully vaccinated, which is contributing to our improving trends. The higher we can push vaccine coverage, the better well be able to maintain control of the virus, Caitlin M. Rivers, an American epidemiologist and Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center told ABC News.
However, as states move to reopen, there are growing concerns among health officials that some of the countrys progress could be stymied as vaccination rates wane, virus variants spread, and pockets of the country potentially see upticks in cases and hospitalizations.
States' vaccination success
In analyzing vaccination rollouts, ABC News compared the percentage of total residents with at least one dose of vaccine with the percent change in a states daily case average over the span of four weeks, and found that the states with the steepest drops in daily cases were among those with the highest vaccination rates.
Fourteen states already have at least 50% of their population having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Although one dose of a two-dose vaccine series does afford some protection, it does not offer the full protection received after the second dose. An individual is considered to be fully protected two weeks after administration of the second dose.
With over 44% of its total population fully vaccinated, Connecticut has seen its case rate plummet since it expanded vaccinations to anyone over the age of 16 on April 1 -- 60% in the last four weeks alone.
Between early March and April, Massachusetts experienced a small spring surge. However, after the state opened up vaccinations to residents 55 and older, and then to all adult residents two weeks later, the states numbers subsequently began to drop. Since April 10, the states daily case average has dropped by over 57%.
A man receives a shot of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up vaccination center at the beach, in South Beach, Fla., May 9, 2021.
Vermont, which currently leads the country in vaccinations administered per 100,000 residents, has seen the largest percent change in its daily case average over the last four weeks, with a nearly 61% decline.
"We can suppress the virus with better vaccine coverage. Disease transmission is local. We want communities to understand the low vaccination rates means higher risk for you and your neighbors, Rebecca Weintraub, faculty director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University, told ABC News.
Even states with the lowest vaccination rates, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, have shown improvements in the number of new COVID-19 cases. Only a quarter of Mississippi residents are currently vaccinated, but cases are still down by over 30% from a month ago.
However, experts warn that small surges could appear in states with low vaccination rates next fall. Although the role of vaccines in influencing the decline in community transmission is significant, other potential factors also come into play.
I think the falling cases are in part due to increasing vaccinations, but not exclusively, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, told ABC News. Other factors will be community-dependent, and will depend on both policies and restrictions in place to reduce transmission, as well as the behavior of people within those communities.
Pockets of local concern
Although state case and vaccination trends can provide a general understanding of how a state is doing, it may mask local variations, with pockets of low vaccine uptake leading to increased coronavirus cases, despite a states overall high volume of inoculations.
Testing for the virus has also declined significantly in recent months, leaving the possibility that states are missing potential infections. The U.S. is currently averaging just over 1 million tests a day -- down by the nearly 2 million tests a day the country was conducting in January.
Slowing vaccination rates will really depend again on immunization at the community level, explained Rasmussen.
For example, with 44% of its population fully vaccinated, Maine currently leads the country along with Connecticut for the highest percentage of its total population that is fully vaccinated. However, with 42% of its population still unvaccinated, Maine has recently seen a surge in hospitalizations, particularly among younger, unvaccinated populations.
Although cases are still lower than they were a month ago, Maine is still averaging about 300 cases a day. On Saturday, 47% of the states new cases were among residents under the age of 30.
Percentage of the Total Population Fully Vaccinated by State
In Oregon, daily cases have increased by 44% over the last month, despite the fact that 48% of residents are now vaccinated with at least one coronavirus vaccine dose. And in Hawaii, nearly 59% of the state's total population has received at least one dose, however, in the last two weeks, cases have increased by approximately 12%.
Rising cases in these states may be due to a number of factors, including the effect of more contagious virus variants on largely younger, unvaccinated populations.
GOTV: Get out the vaccine
In order to keep case rates falling, experts say it will be critical for vaccinations efforts to reach unprotected individuals.
In the states with a lower vaccination rate there is a greater risk that variants continue to emerge, evolve, said Weintraub. Therefore, it will be crucial to accelerate access to the vaccines. Our work ahead, similar to getting out the vote -- we need local campaigns to answer questions and help sign up the vaccinated.
Many states are now refocusing their efforts to bring vaccines to their residents, using mobile vaccination vans to reach more rural or other traditionally underserved communities, door-to-door canvassing, and community education to address hesitancy.
A vaccination check in offered at the ball park prior to the game between the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies at Truist Park, May 7, 2021, in Cumberland, Ga.
"The most successful states have used a wide variety of techniques This is not something that will be solved through a single strategy. It takes targeted outreach to communities, Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and professor at Brown University.
The White House continues its push to get 70% of all U.S. adults inoculated with at least one shot by July 4. To date, nearly 59% of U.S. adults have received their first dose.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced that anyone in need of a ride to get their COVID-19 vaccine would be able to get a free trip through ride-sharing companies Lyft and Uber for the next two months.
We have reached the people who really wanted the vaccines already. Now it is a matter of the ground game to reach the people who would be interested, but wont go out of their way every vaccine in an arm makes a difference," Ranney concluded.
Ellen Futter, the president of the museum, said in April before the site opened: In years to come I really can imagine this we will look at images of New Yorkers getting vaccinated under the whale, and it will be a snapshot of New York and New Yorkers fighting back, caring for themselves, caring for one another, and of the time when things started to turn for the better.
Free Pfizer vaccines will be offered to new and returning students and anyone who meets eligibility requirements. Participants can receivetheir first or second Pfizer vaccine on either day.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham will offer free Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations for new and returning students from 3-7 p.m. Tuesday, May 18, and Tuesday, June 8.
The vaccinations will be administered inside Bartow Arena, 617 13th St. South. No one will be turned away as long as they meet the vaccine ageeligibility requirement.
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine requires two separate shots separated by 21 days. Participants will be able to receivetheir first or second Pfizer vaccine on either Tuesday, May 18, or Tuesday, June 8. However, anyone who receives their first shot on June 8 will need to follow up at another location for the second shot.
Parking with no ticketing will be available in zones B, D and E around Bartow Arena. Grab-and-go food and UAB swag will be offered, and students who get vaccinated will have a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card.
Students who receive the COVID-19 vaccination off-campus are asked to add their immunization information in the UAB Student Health and Wellness patient portal. More information on that process is available online, or email studenthealth@uab.edu.
Getting a vaccine is much more likely to protect ones health than masking or social distancing, says Suzanne Judd, Ph.D., professor in the UABSchool of Public Health.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they received their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a fully vaccinated person is 94 percent less likely to be hospitalized compared to an unvaccinated individual, if exposed to the coronavirus or a mutation of it.
Read more about the vaccine, including safety, how long it takes to build immunity and how the immune system responds.
UAB experts say fully vaccinated people can:
To learn more about COVID-19 on UAB's campus, visit UAB United.
People with COVID-19 who have symptoms should wait to be vaccinated until they have recovered from their illness and have received clearance to discontinue isolation, and those with positive COVID-19 testing but without symptoms should also wait to be vaccinated until they have received clearance to discontinue isolation. More information about CDC criteria for discontinuing isolation can be found on the CDC site.If you were treated for COVID-19 with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma, you should wait 90 days before getting a COVID-19 vaccine. Talk to your doctor if you are unsure what treatments you received or if you have more questions about getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. On the first full day that West Virginians between the ages of 12 and 15 were able to receive a vaccination against COVID-19, dozens took advantage in the Charleston area.
The Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) held a mobile drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination clinic in the parking lot of the West Virginia Lottery Building and Lt. Col. John Snedegar, the Lt. in-charge, told MetroNews that the morning hours were busy with teens.
Weve got that approval and a lot of parents are taking advantage of it. They are bringing their kids down, Snedegar said.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) announced Wednesday that those 12-15 years old were able to receive the Pfizer vaccine following the decisions by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the vaccines use among younger people.
Snedegars crew, which is the Central team in the JIATF mobile clinic plan, has been to multiple events throughout Charleston but the Lottery building site was their first time there. He said his team covers Clarksburg and into southern West Virginia. Half of his team conducted a similar vaccination event in Huntington on Thursday and reported young people there.
He said he was happy with the turnout because teenagers are a key demographic to slowing the virus. He added many parents bringing children to the drive-thru were already vaccinated.
They are out, they are active, they are in activities and out with their friends doing things in groups, Snedegar said of teenagers. They can be carriers and not necessarily have issues with COVID itself. They can get positive and it normally doesnt entail hospitalizations or severe illness, but then they can be carriers and bring that back to grandma and grandpa.
The team will be back in the area for a return mission in three weeks for anyone who received a vaccine that needs a second dose. Teenagers are only allowed to get a Pfizer shot, which a second dose is recommended.
The clinic at the Lottery Building is also open Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., the same time as Thursday. No appointment is necessary and all three brands of vaccine will be available.
Elsewhere in Charleston on Thursday, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department (KCHD) vaccinated teenagers between 12 and 15 years old for the first time. The Kanawha County Commission said the first young person vaccinated at the event was a local Kanawha County teen named Houston, making their theme Houstonwe have a solution!
The KCHD reported to MetroNews this week that 1,400 young people 12-15 years old have signed up to receive a shot next week in the schools. The health department already vaccinated a few thousand teams at high school events in April for those 16-18 years old.
Young people have been the key demographic for vaccinations by Gov. Jim Justice and his administration in recent week. He said on Wednesday that he is giving anyone 35 years of age and younger a $100 gift card for getting a shot.
As of Thursday, the DHHR reported 60,744 West Virginians between the ages of 16-24 received at least one dose of a vaccine. More than 68,800 West Virginians between 25 and 34 have gotten at least one shot.
The states vaccination rate has slowed in recent weeks after leading the country in shots early in the process. Snedegar said hes noticed the slowdown at his clinics.
We saw this go along with the swabbing efforts. Initially, we were really busy doing the swabbing last year and then as the year progressed it slowed down, he said.
Justice has said the states mask mandate will end on June 20, when state health advisers project 65 percent of all West Virginians 12 years of age and older will have been vaccinated. 687,720, 38.4%, of West Virginians have been fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to the DHHR.
Tulane University has announced that all students returning to campus for the Fall semester will be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.Tulane posted on their website, saying, "Increasing campus immunizations will reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help us all return more quickly to normal lives with less restrictions."Tulane will be providing additional information to international students regarding the vaccine requirement.Students are able to opt out of receiving the vaccine for reasons consistent with Louisiana state vaccine laws by submitting a Vaccine Declination Form on the Tulane website.Tulane is encouraging its faculty and staff to receive the vaccine as well.
Tulane University has announced that all students returning to campus for the Fall semester will be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Tulane posted on their website, saying, "Increasing campus immunizations will reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help us all return more quickly to normal lives with less restrictions."
Tulane will be providing additional information to international students regarding the vaccine requirement.
Students are able to opt out of receiving the vaccine for reasons consistent with Louisiana state vaccine laws by submitting a Vaccine Declination Form on the Tulane website.
Tulane is encouraging its faculty and staff to receive the vaccine as well.
