You can slice it any number of ways, but the bottom line is clear: The coronavirus is again on the move in New Jersey.
One figure the state watches closely is rate of transmission (Rt), or the number of people to whom an infected person is expected to spread the virus. If you hold that number below 1 for long enough, as logic would dictate, the virus will eventually die out.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Businesses that are open | Homepage
Unfortunately, that is not the case at the moment in New Jersey. Of the states 21 counties, 18 as of Wednesday had an Rt above 1, with the statewide figure at 1.25, according to an NJ Advance Media analysis. Only Salem, Monmouth and perhaps surprisingly given recent struggles Ocean counties are seeing the virus slowing.
The state does not release Rt by county, so NJ Advance Media analyzed the data to look at the figure on a smaller scale. Its important to note that in areas with smaller numbers of cases, the Rt can jump with only a few new infections added to the count.
Is the map not displaying? Click here.
The rates are most alarming in Warren and Essex counties, where one infected person is spreading COVID-19 to more than one and a half others, on average.
Deaths have climbed in recent days as well. On Aug. 6, the seven-day average for new daily deaths dropped below 10, and thats where the figure remained for about two and a half months. Until Friday. The state has averaged more than 10 new deaths per day for the past couple of weeks.
For now, it remains a far cry from the hundreds of deaths per day that were being recorded at the height of the pandemic in New Jersey.
Is the chart not displaying? Click here.
Given the way hospitalizations are climbing, more deaths could follow. The number of people in New Jerseys 71 hospitals due to confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 popped up over 1,000 on Wednesday.
Thats a threshold for hospitalizations that the state had not seen since July 3. The number dropped as low as 349 on Sept. 21, just over a month ago, and has now nearly tripled since.
Is the chart not displaying? Click here.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
NJ Advance Media developer Arjun Kakkar contributed to this report.
Nick Devlin is a reporter on the data & investigations team. He can be reached at ndevlin@njadvancemedia.com.
A store displays a sign before closing down permanently following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 4, 2020 in Arlington, Va. The Small Business Administration's inspector general office said billions of dollars in relief loans may have been handed out to fraudsters or ineligible applicants. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A store displays a sign before closing down permanently following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 4, 2020 in Arlington, Va. The Small Business Administration's inspector general office said billions of dollars in relief loans may have been handed out to fraudsters or ineligible applicants.
The Small Business Administration may have handed out billions of dollars in loans to businesses that falsely claimed to have been damaged by the coronavirus lockdowns, a report from the agency said on Wednesday.
Officials at the agency were so inundated with requests for disaster aid starting last March that they couldn't adequately vet the applicants, according to the report from the Office of SBA Inspector General Michael Ware.
In one case, the agency approved 10 loans for 10 different bathroom renovation companies in the same city as part of the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.
"However, we were not able to locate any bathroom renovation companies in that company's name in that city. Additionally, the email address indicates it is for a burrito restaurant, which we did locate in that city. SBA disbursed $1.4 million for these potentially fraudulent companies," the report said.
In another case, applicants using the same email address at a fish market applied for 85 loans "in various company names of jewelry stores, psychiatric services, construction, gas stations, and other non-seafood businesses." All but one of the loans were approved.
Overall, the report says the SBA approved $78 billion in program applications to potentially fraudulent or ineligible applicants, although not all of that was ultimately disbursed.
The inspector general's report said the level of fraud was partly due to the speed with which the agency had to operate after the economy seized up in March because of the pandemic.
In days, an unprecedented number of loan applications came in. On March 31, more than 680,000 applications came in, the highest number applications ever received in a single day. By April 10, more than 4.5 million loan applications had come in.
"[The] SBA has now approved and disbursed more loans for COVID-19 relief than for all other disasters combined in the agency's history," the report said.
As a result, loan officers were given just 15 minutes to process each application, which "resulted in cursory reviews rather than the deeper reviews required to ensure loans were given to eligible businesses," the report noted.
The fact that some amount of fraud took place is not a surprise.
The Justice Department has charged several dozen people with fraudulently applying for loans under the main coronavirus assistance programs, and law enforcement officials say investigations are continuing.
The suspected fraud took place as scammers and others took advantage of the programs set up by Congress to provide assistance to small businesses and others in the midst of the pandemic.
SBA officials quickly took issue with the report, saying it had mischaracterized many of the applications.
SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said many of the "potentially fraudulent" loans were legitimate transactions that had been mischaracterized.
Many of the examples of shared IP and e-mail addresses involved loan applications by people who relied on certified public accountants, law firms, loan packagers, or religious and cultural centers to submit their loan applications, she said.
The report "does not fully and accurately portray SBA's highly successful delivery of an unprecedented volume of disaster assistance. Rather, the [report] grossly overstates the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse in the ... program," she said.
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 44.4 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed deaths stands at over 1.17 million.
Italy has registered a one-day record number of new coronavirus cases - 24,991. Cases are spreading especially quickly in the northern Lombardy region.
Colombia will extend its so-called selective quarantine until at least the end of November.
Cases are doubling every nine days in England, according to a new study by Imperial College.
A poll of economists has warned there is a high risk that the recent rise in cases will halt the global economic recovery by the end of the year.
Demand is down 19% from the third quarter of last year.
Image: Reuters
2. France and Germany introduce new lockdowns
New lockdowns have been announced in France and Germany as a result of surging cases, with restrictions almost as severe as earlier in the year.
Germany will shut bars, restaurants and theatres throughout November. Schools will remain open, but shops will only be allowed to operate with strict limits on access.
We need to take action now, Chancellor Angela Merkel said. Our health system can still cope with this challenge today, but at this speed of infections, it will reach the limits of its capacity within weeks.
Cases have accelerated in both countries.
Image: Our World in Data
In France, people will be required to stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical care or exercise for up to one hour a day. As in Germany, schools will remain open.
The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address. Like all our neighbours, we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of the virus.
We are all in the same position: overrun by a second wave which we know will be harder, more deadly than the first, he said. I have decided that we need to return to the lockdown which stopped the virus.
Global stock markets slumped on the news.
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is hosted by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, with the support of Yunus Social Business and GHR Foundation and integrates the perspectives of social entrepreneurs through a strategic partnership with Catalyst 2030.
It identifies five principles that should lie at the heart of any COVID-19 response effort:
The Alliance has released a COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlining 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups to support social entrepreneurs during COVID-19. These align around the following streams:
1. Intermediaries and networks to surface the needs of the social entrepreneurs they serve on the ground and provide them with fitting support2. (Impact) investors to adapt their investment priorities and processes, and provide flexible capital and must-have technical assistance 3. Corporations to stand with the social entrepreneurs in their supply chains and ecosystems, and join forces with them to shape a new tomorrow 4. Funders and philanthropists to expand and expedite their financial support to social entrepreneurs and intermediaries, taking risks reflective of todays unprecedented times 5. Government institutions at all levels to recognize social entrepreneurs as a driving force in safeguarding jobs and in building a greener and equitable society, and to back them accordingly
3. India passes 8 million confirmed cases
India has passed the milestone of 8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, after reporting a rise of 48,881 new infections. New cases have fallen from a peak in September.
It's the second highest cumulative total in the world, after the United States, although the death toll has been low relative to the number of infections.
120,527 deaths have been reported in total.
MINOCQUA, Wis. When coronavirus cases began to spike in Wisconsin this fall, Rob Swearingen kept his restaurant open and let customers and employees decide whether they wanted to wear masks.
Mr. Swearingen, a Republican seeking his fifth term in the Wisconsin State Assembly, didnt require other employees at his restaurant in Rhinelander to be tested after a waitress and a bartender contracted the virus because, he said, nobody from the local health department suggested it was necessary.
Kirk Bangstad, Mr. Swearingens Democratic opponent, took the opposite approach at the brewpub he owns in Minocqua, 30 miles away. He has served customers only outdoors, and when a teenage waiter became infected after attending a party, Mr. Bangstad shut down for a long weekend and required all employees to get tested.
Mr. Bangstad has since turned his entire campaign into a referendum on how Republicans have handled the coronavirus. On Facebook, he has served as a town shamer, posting lists of restaurants and stores in Wisconsins Northwoods that have disregarded state limits on seating capacity and dont require masks.
With just days until the election, the contest for Mr. Swearingens Assembly seat in this lightly populated area in the Northwoods of Wisconsin serves as a microcosm for the way coronavirus politics are playing out across America. Mr. Bangstad is unlikely to prevail in a Republican-heavy district that covers parts of four counties stretching south from Michigans Upper Peninsula, but his effort to make the campaign a referendum on the virus echoes that of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has sought to make President Trumps handling of the pandemic the central issue in the presidential contest.
Mr. Bangstad, a 43-year-old Harvard-educated former professional opera singer, moved back to Wisconsin six years ago from Manhattan, where he was a technology consultant and served as the policy director for Anthony Weiners 2013 mayoral campaign. Like Mr. Biden, he has eschewed traditional campaigning. He has moved his entire effort online, including in email and on the Facebook page of his brewpub, the Minocqua Brewing Company.
But unlike the former vice president, Mr. Bangstad has made little effort to win over voters who arent already appalled by Republicans handling of the coronavirus. Many of them, he said, are being duped by false or misleading statements by the president and the conservative news media.
A lot of them, I feel, havent been equipped with the tools of media literacy or critical thinking skills to be able to discern if theyre being told something that doesnt quite jell or is not true, he said during an interview this week at his shuttered restaurant overlooking Lake Minocqua.
Oneida County, which includes Minocqua and Rhinelander, where Mr. Swearingen operates the Al-Gen Dinner Club and has lived his entire life, has a virus rate nearly twice the state average over the past two weeks.
Keep up with Election 2020
Scott Haskins, whose wife, Pamela, is a waitress at the Al-Gen, is among the countys recent fatalities. Ms. Haskins contracted the virus after working a restaurant shift in mid-September and was hospitalized in early October. Mr. Haskins, 63, checked into the hospital with the virus four days after his wife, according to his daughter, Kelly Schulz.
Two days later, Mr. Haskins suffered a stroke and died.
The day after my dad passed, Governor Evers put in the 25 percent capacity limit, and they werent abiding by it, Ms. Schulz said of the Al-Gen. People were posting pictures of themselves there on Facebook and it was pretty busy for a Friday night.
Republicans who control the state legislature this month successfully sued Mr. Evers to overturn the capacity limits on bars and restaurants he ordered. In Oneida County, local sheriffs and town police departments werent enforcing them anyway.
Before winning election to the Assembly, Mr. Swearingen, 57, was the president of the Tavern League of Wisconsin, the powerful lobbying group for the states bars. He fought the states efforts to ban smoking indoors at businesses, lift the drinking age to 21 from 18 and lower the legal blood alcohol limit to drive.
He said his restaurant is not responsible for employees who caught the coronavirus. No one from the local health department ever called with questions, he said, and no contact tracers contacted the restaurant. Mr. Swearingen said he has not had a test himself.
Theres been no connection to the restaurant to all these cases, he said during an interview in the dining room of the Al-Gen, which is bedecked with taxidermied heads of deer and black bears. These people are part-time, coming from different jobs and different things.
Of all the places where Democrats barely bothered to compete in 2016, Wisconsins Northwoods may have been the most neglected. Not only did Hillary Clinton skip Wisconsin altogether, county Democrats in this region didnt even have yard signs to distribute, not that there was much demand for them.
Mrs. Clinton was a polarizing candidate, said Matt Michalsen, a high school social studies teacher who ran against Mr. Swearingen in 2016. Personally, did I support her? No.
Four years later, Mr. Bangstad has few expectations that he will win. He sees his campaign largely as an effort to increase Democratic turnout for Mr. Biden and cut into Mr. Trumps margins by focusing attention on the impact of the coronavirus on northern Wisconsin.
Oct. 29, 2020, 7:49 p.m. ET
Mr. Bangstad wrapped the side of his restaurant in a giant Biden-Harris sign that attracted the ire of the Oneida County Board, which sent a letter informing him that it exceeded the allowable size of 32 square feet. After Mr. Bangstad used the fracas to raise money and get more attention for himself in the local press, the board backed down.
At the same time, the Biden campaign and local Democrats have put far more resources into northern Wisconsin than they did four years ago. There are twice as many organizers focused on the area than in 2016. And though the Clinton campaign swore off yard signs as an unnecessary annoyance, the state party has made efforts to get them in every yard that would take one.
We distributed approximately 50 Hillary yard signs four years ago, and were at more than 1,200 so far for Joe, said Jane Nicholson, the party chairwoman in Vilas County, just north of Oneida County.
Theres some evidence that Mr. Biden is making up ground. A poll taken for Mr. Bangstads campaign this month found Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden in the district by five percentage points a far cry from his 25-point margin of victory in 2016. The same survey found Mr. Swearingen ahead by 12 points, less than half his 26-point margin over Mr. Michalsen four years ago.
Mr. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by less than 23,000 votes statewide. His gap in Mr. Swearingens district alone was 14,000 votes.
If were in the low 40s there, that means that we have blocked Trumps path to pulling in the votes that hed need to cancel out other areas of the state, said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
The Assembly race has engendered hurt feelings and worsened political divisions in Minocqua, a town of about 4,000 full-time residents. Down the street from the Minocqua Brewing Company, Tracy Lin Grigus, a Trump supporter who owns the Shade Tree bookstore, shook her head at Mr. Bangstads attempts to shame local businesses.
On his Facebook, hes calling all of us up here idiots, like a mini Joe Biden, said Ms. Grigus, who doesnt wear a mask in her store and doesnt ask her customers to do so. Its insulting to people that share the space with him and other business owners. Hes like the only one in this town and surrounding towns that went this far.
Across Oneida Street, the main drag through Minocquas small downtown, Casie Oldenhoff, an assistant manager at the Monkey Business T-shirt shop, where signs instruct customers to wear a mask, said Mr. Trump was to blame for the current wave of the pandemic.
Hes just not taking care of us, Ms. Oldenhoff said. He doesnt care about whats going on with the pandemic.
Mr. Swearingen said he had little doubt that Mr. Trump would do just as well in the Northwoods on Tuesday as he did in 2016. Enthusiasm for the president is higher, he said, as evidenced by the regular boat and car parades adorned with Trump flags and carrying young men concerned foremost about a Biden administration taking away their guns.
But he said he had never been involved in a campaign as ugly as his own this year.
Weve been targeted by my opponent as a den of Covid and all sorts of rumors in Facebook, he said. Ive never quite had to fight against Facebook in an election. He went after a couple of other bars in the area, and one of the bar owners was livid that that bar was on the list. Its like, Well, who are these people? Its the mask police or something.
For Mr. Bangstad, shaming Mr. Swearingen and other Republicans who have fought against public health guidelines is exactly the point.
If youre a citizen in this state, and theres one branch of government thats trying to keep people healthy from Covid, and you have the legislative branch and the judicial branch trying to stymie him every single time he does it, its the saddest thing youve ever seen, he said. As a Wisconsinite, Im just completely ashamed.
Andy Mills and Luke Vander Ploeg contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON The resurgence of coronavirus cases engulfing the United States and Europe is imperiling economic recoveries on both sides of the Atlantic as millions of individuals and businesses face the prospect of having to hunker down once again.
Growing fear of an economic reversal coincided with a report Thursday that the U.S. economy grew at a record 33.1% annual rate in the July-September quarter. Even with that surge, the worlds largest economy has yet to fully rebound from its plunge in spring when the virus first erupted. And now the economy is slowing just as new confirmed viral cases accelerate and rescue aid from Washington has dried up.
If many consumers and companies choose or are forced to retrench again in response to the virus as they did in the spring, the pullback in spending and hiring could derail economic growth. Already, in the United and Europe, some governments are re-imposing restrictions to help stem the spread of the virus.
In Chicago, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois has banned indoor dining and drinking, Grant DePorter, who runs Harry Carays Restaurant Group, worries that the blow to restaurants and their employees could be severe.
When indoor dining was first shut down in the spring, he noted, employees could get by thanks to a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit. That benefit has expired.
Everyone is incredibly disappointed by the states decision, DePorter said.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron has declared a nationwide lockdown starting Friday. And in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a four-week shutdown of bars, restaurants and theaters. Merkel warned of a difficult winter as Germanys daily reported coronavirus cases hit a new high Thursday.
In Rheinberg, Germany, Michael Boehm had set up plastic igloos outside his restaurant to welcome guests during the winter. But Germanys new restrictions, Boehm said, will threaten businesses like his by forcing them to provide only take-away meals through November.
People prefer to sit outside, he said ruefully. We do everything possible, my colleagues do everything possible, too, to ensure that our guests come home healthy.
A major uncertainty is whether most people will abide by government directives or whether the resistance to lockdowns and other restrictions that have emerged in parts of the United States and Europe will slow progress in controlling the pandemic. President Donald Trump, facing an election in five days, has loudly denounced states and cities that have imposed restrictions on businesses to help control the pandemic. And many of his supporters have registered their agreement.
In Spain, some regions have closed bars and restaurants. But the government hasnt provided subsidies to aid the proprietors, triggering protests in Barcelona this week by business owners who banged pots, waved cocktail shakers and chanted, We want to work!
The U.S. governments estimate Thursday of third-quarter growth showed that the economy has regained only about two-thirds of the output that was lost early this year when the eruption of the virus closed businesses, threw tens of millions out of work and caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
The economy is now weakening again and facing renewed threats. Confirmed viral cases are surging. Hiring has sagged. Federal stimulus has run out. With no further federal aid in sight this year, Goldman Sachs has slashed its growth forecast for the current fourth quarter to a 3% annual rate from 6%.
Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, noted that the record-high third quarter growth in the nations gross domestic product tells us little, if anything, about momentum heading into the current quarter.
The strong GDP performance gives a false impression of the economys true health, Daco wrote in a research note. We anticipate a much slower second phase of the recovery.
Likewise in Germany, Europes largest economy, Oxford Economics has raised the possibility that its already pessimistic forecast of 1.2% growth for the fourth quarter will have to be downgraded. Oxfords forecast is based on an index that reflects credit card payments, online restaurant reservations, health statistics and mobility data.
Another setback for the U.S. economy would again most likely imperil front-line service companies from restaurants and bars to hotels, airlines and entertainment venues. Boeing, for example, said this week that it will cut 7,000 more jobs because the pandemic has smothered demand for new planes.
Perhaps no economic sector is under a darker cloud than the bar and restaurant industry, which is both vulnerable to the spread of the virus and deeply affected by government restrictions.
Dr. Emily Landon, a medical director at the University of Chicagos medical school, said two factors facilitate the viruss spread in winter, especially at restaurants: Colder air is drier, and the droplets that transmit the virus become even smaller.
Add to that, she said, what people do in a bar or restaurant.
There are only a couple activities where you have to take your masks off around other people, and that is dining in a restaurant and going to a bar, Landon noted. There is just no way to escape the risks (of COVID-19) when you go into a restaurant.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, warned that the job market might not fully recover until perhaps 2023 because many of the jobs in retailing, leisure and airlines have been permanently lost, and those folks will have to find different work, and that will take time.
In contrast to the hospitality sector, some industries are actually faring well, pointing up the unevenness of the pandemic economy. From Amazon and Walmart to delivery services like UPS, Grubhub and DoorDash, some companies have benefited from evolving consumer demands. So have companies involved in streaming or cloud computing services, like Netflix, Microsoft and Comcast.
But for the U.S. economy as a whole, the prospect that the virus could roar back is a growing fear. Add to that the failure of Congress to pass another rescue aid plan now that the package it enacted back in spring has expired. That $2 trillion package managed to ease the pain of the recession by boosting incomes and spending and supporting small businesses. Without additional aid, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has warned, those dynamics could re-emerge.
The $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit and $1,200 stimulus checks that went to most individuals under last springs federal aid package enabled many of the jobless to rebuild savings, allowing them to keep spending even after the $600 supplement expired in July. Both are now long gone.
Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, envisions a slowdown to GDP growth to 4.8% annual rate in the current quarter and a 3.7% rate in the first three months of 2021. But he said he might have to reduce his forecasts if either pandemic worsens or Congress fails to provide more economic stimulus early next year.
If many states felt compelled to impose shutdowns in response to an acceleration of the virus," Faucher said, the economy could even fall back into recession.
I am concerned, Faucher said, that the longer it takes to get a stimulus bill, the more structural damage we will see to the economy with more businesses closing.
___
AP Writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany; Daniel Niemann in Rheinberg, Germany; Don Babwin, Kathleen Foody and Sophia Tareen in Chicago; John OConnor in Springfield, Illinois; and Christopher Rugaber, Darlene Superville and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
The oil company worker wondered why he had to keep his vaccination a secret. Questions raced through his head as he read the confidentiality agreement, which threatened he would be disciplined if he told anyone outside company management about the COVID-19 shot he was waiting to get.
What if something went wrong? Who would take responsibility? The worker knew the vaccine maker, China National Biotec Group part of the state-owned pharmaceutical group Sinopharm was conducting trials of this vaccine on hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the United Arab Emirates, Peru, Morocco and other countries.
At least theyre in a monitored, controlled situation, he said of those trials, watching as hundreds of his co-workers lined up around him to get their injection at a clinic in Beijing. But for us, they cant make any guarantees. This is us making a sacrifice for the nation.
The employee who did not give his name for fear of reprisal is one of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens who have received COVID-19 vaccines before they have been proved safe in clinical trials. Chinas military began getting vaccinations in June. Medical workers and employees of state-owned companies working abroad were soon included in an emergency use program. In September, a China National Biotec executive said 350,000 people outside clinical trials had already received the vaccine.
Early vaccinations of high-profile people have become a way to show trust in Chinas medical system after a 2018 scandal in which children were exposed to faulty vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus.
In March, images of Chen Wei, a military general and epidemiologist leading one of the coronavirus vaccine efforts, were widely shared by social media users, praising her for receiving an injection before it had been tested on animals. Yin Weidong, chief executive of biopharmaceutical company Sinovac, told reporters last month that he was one of the first to take the vaccine after it passed the first two trial phases. About 90% of Sinovacs employees have voluntarily taken the vaccine early, the company said.
This month, China National Biotec Group reportedly began offering free vaccines to Chinese students planning to go abroad, according to a company website that was later taken down. More than 93,000 people had signed up for the free vaccine, the website said. Students who had been vaccinated also spoke to local and foreign media about their experiences. But state media later reported that the free vaccine offer was not real.
Several cities in Zhejiang province have also reportedly begun offering vaccines made by Sinovac. In Yiwu city, Chinese media found a clinic offering vaccination shots for about $30 each on a first come, first served basis. Most of those receiving shots were people planning international travel, though they did not have to prove it, according to local reports.
A technician works in a lab at Sinovac Biotech in Beijing on Sept. 24, 2020. The lab is working on a potential coronavirus vaccine.
(Kevin Frayer / Getty Images)
None of the vaccines have completed Phase 3 trials, which often catch rare side effects that go undetected in earlier phases.
Chinese health authorities have said that the vaccines are safe, with no severe adverse effects, and that their emergency use is justified to protect against imported infections or a domestic resurgence of COVID-19. But health experts outside China are questioning the safety and ethics of such a strategy, especially when China has largely contained the COVID-19 pandemic.
Its a huge gamble, because youre giving the vaccine to people who are healthy, said Lawrence Gostin, director of the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.
Such a risk might make sense in a country where the virus was rapidly spreading and front-line workers were constantly exposed to COVID-19 as in in the United States but Western health experts and vaccine makers have been wary of prematurely rolling out a vaccine.
I would not expect a country with a highly developed regulatory and safety system like the United States, the European Union [states] or Japan to allow that kind of wide access to an unproven vaccine, Gostin said. Its unethical, and its dangerous.
The oil company worker, who is usually based in a Persian Gulf country but has been stuck in Beijing since January, sent copies to The Times of the consent forms and confidentiality agreement he had to sign before receiving the vaccine. He also provided screenshots of WeChat discussions about vaccinations among his colleagues.
The worker said he received the vaccine in September as a requirement for all staff working abroad. He worried about the lack of transparency or scrutiny in Chinas mass vaccination of state-owned company employees and other citizens. There was no written document forcing them to receive the vaccine, he said, but workers were not being cleared to return to their jobs abroad unless they were vaccinated.
Are you afraid of the vaccine? Of course. But are you afraid of getting the sickness? Yes, youre always afraid, the oil company worker said.
It was politically incorrect to question the vaccine at his company, he said. Most of his colleagues were eager to get it. They were more afraid of catching COVID-19 abroad than of safety concerns with the vaccine.
Workers package rabies vaccine at a lab at the Yisheng Biopharma company, where researchers are trying to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, in Shenyang, China, on June 9, 2020. China has mobilised its army and fast-tracked tests in the global race to find a coronavirus vaccine, and is involved in several of the dozen or so international clinical trials currently underway.
(Noel Celis / AFP/Getty Images)
Some project managers were rushing the vaccinations, he said, by encouraging employees to receive two shots at once instead of waiting the recommended 14 or 28 days between injections.
I saw that some people got two shots together. But you have to say youre urgently departing the country, a colleague who appeared to be coordinating staff vaccinations wrote in one of the WeChat screenshots. Im thinking the three of you can save a trip and get back to the project earlier. Ask them if you can get both shots at once, the colleague said.
A consent form shared by the employee appears to verify this account: If you urgently need to go abroad and truly cannot complete the two-shot vaccination, you can consider receiving two injections at once, one each on the left and the right, the form says.
Although severe adverse effects had not been observed in this vaccine, the form warns of possible fever, fatigue, diarrhea and headaches. Other vaccines on the market sometimes caused severe reactions such as anaphylactic shock. If that happened to a vaccination subject, they should seek timely treatment, the form says.
Vaccine doses are usually spaced out so that the first priming dose sensitizes a bodys immune system to recognize a new pathogen, while the second booster dose stimulates higher antibody levels, said Keiji Fukuda, director of the University of Hong Kongs School of Public Health and a former World Health Organization official.
Giving two doses on the same day is an attempt to drive antibody levels higher by giving more vaccine, he said: The prime-boost approach takes advantage of how the immune system works naturally. The large dose approach is more like applying brute force.
Premature vaccine use can also create a false sense of safety, said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. China calls its emergency use vaccines effective because they produce antibodies, he said: But that is a low threshold.
Syringes of the potential vaccine CoronaVac are seen at Sinovac Biotech.
(Kevin Frayer / Getty Images)
More testing is needed to show how effective the antibodies are, how long they last, and whether they can protect against different strains of the coronavirus questions that cannot be answered in China, where the lack of an active outbreak makes it hard to prove whether a vaccine is working.
A representative of the oil company said over the phone that he could not disclose any information regarding vaccinations. Sinopharm did not pick up phone calls or respond to faxed requests for comment.
A Times reporter visited the site where the oil company worker was vaccinated, a clinic near Beijings Olympic Park, in late September. Medical staff there confirmed that they were giving out coronavirus vaccines, but only to employees of designated state-owned enterprises, and said all their appointment slots for the coming month had been filled.
Sinovac, the company whose vaccines are reportedly being distributed in Zhejiang, did not pick up phone calls or respond to emailed requests for comment.
The opacity of Chinas vaccine experiments has sparked backlash. Papua New Guinea complained in August when China sent mine workers whod received vaccines to their country without fully disclosing whether they were part of a trial or the risks involved in receiving vaccinated workers.
But many countries are also clamoring for Chinas coronavirus vaccines, which Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to make a global public good. Brazils health regulator approved the import of 6 million vaccines from Sinovac this week. The United Arab Emirates approved its own emergency use of a Sinopharm vaccine in September. Sinovac has agreed to supply 40 million doses of its vaccine to Indonesia by March.
China announced this month that it was joining COVAX, a global initiative to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to developing countries. Sinopharm also announced this month that it was preparing production lines in Beijing and Wuhan to produce 1 billion doses of its vaccines next year.
Such moves have bolstered Chinas soft power regardless of questions about vaccine transparency, especially in comparison to the United States, which has struggled to contain its COVID-19 outbreak, withdrawn from the WHO and refused to participate in COVAX.
We cannot claim that moral high ground when we accuse China of using the vaccine to achieve their foreign policy goals. No matter what they are doing, at least they benefit people in the developing world, Huang said. We like to talk about China exercising vaccine diplomacy, but the U.S. is not even part of the game.
TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
Kathy Strauss has always pretty good at math and science. But the 1974 Pine-Richland graduate didnt necessarily envision a career in the medical profession or ever imagine that she would someday work on groundbreaking research in the mission to find a vaccine for the coronavirus.
But Strauss, 64, recently was asked to serve as one of the laboratory specialists working with researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who are conducting covid-19 vaccine trials on behalf of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
Before entering my senior year of high school I was planning on getting into something related to biology, but I didnt have anything specific in mind, said Strauss, who lives in the Baltimore area. I thought maybe I would become a veterinarian. But honestly, I was more interested in having fun my senior year, so I took some art courses and played flute and drums in the marching band.
Those art courses helped Strauss uncover a hidden talent and a burning passion that she pursues today.
While studying at Westiminster College, a professor suggested that Strauss consider pursuing a career in art.
My immediate response was that my mom will hand me my head if I major in art, she said. So I studied biology and art with the thought that I could get into illustrating medical books and publications as a way to earn a living.
While Strauss has found success in the medical profession since relocating to the Baltimore area, her initial reasons for going there had nothing to do with the type of work she would do.
Baltimore is a lot like Pittsburgh, and I had friends from up there who were teaching sailing, she said. So I decided to come here to do that until I found a real job.
Strauss mathematics studies at the University of Marylands University College helped her land a job in a laboratory classifying nuclear waste from chemical plants.
Strauss said her entry into the medical field was something I totally lucked into when she was hired by the University of Marylands pediatrics department.
That post was followed by a five-year stint in the epidemiology department, which studies the spread and control of diseases.
Before joining the covid research team, Strauss worked for scientists developing a malaria vaccine at the universitys Center for Vaccine Development.
Strauss said she just happened to be at this place with the right skills when the invitation came to join Dr. Kirsten Lykes covid vaccine research team.
I worked for Dr. Lyke for years and would have been devastated if I hadnt been asked to join her, Strauss said. You have to be as hard-charging and focused as she is, which is one of the reasons I love working for her.
Strauss said while there are similarities between the covid vaccine trials and the work she did on the development of a malaria vaccine, there is one major difference that cant be overstated, she said.
With malaria, if we catch it, we can treat it, she said. Theres no threat of death hanging over you like there is with covid.
An in-depth story about the team working on the vaccine trials recently was published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Strauss said her role in the covid trials is to test people before they receive the vaccine to ensure that they are not infected with the coronavirus and are simply asymptomatic.
We cant give the vaccine to people if they already have the virus, she said. It has to be perfect, so Ive never known such pressure.
To help deal with the stress, Strauss turns to her art.
Its saving my life, she said. It helps me calm down and deal with the excess energy that builds up from working on the trials.
Strauss works have been displayed in a number of Baltimore area venues, including Maryland Art Place, the Creative Alliance, and at Baltimores annual arts festival ArtScape. She has also exhibited work in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and New York. She has produced art for textbooks and publications that are in the permanent collections at the Institute for Genome Sciences and Notre Dame of Maryland University.
Strauss also has demonstrated and lectured on fiber art techniques for the staff at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C.
Some of the pieces she has created can be viewed on her website.
While Strauss no longer has close family ties to the Pittsburgh area, she has returned a number of times for class reunions and holds fond memories of growing up here.
My experiences at Pine-Richland were great and Ive enjoyed visiting the area and seeing how much it has changed over the years, she said.
Pine-Richland spokeswoman Rachel Hathhorn said sharing stories about district graduates is a great way to connect with the districts past while highlighting the success our future graduates can obtain.
Tony LaRussa is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tony at 724-772-6368, tlarussa@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Categories:Allegheny | Coronavirus | Local | Pine Creek Journal | Top Stories
TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.
More Pine Creek Journal Stories
PIERRE, S.D. South Dakota health officials said a COVID-19 vaccine is expected to become available in mid-November, though that timeline isnt set in stone.
Department of Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon said when the vaccine arrives it will be administered to vulnerable populations, such as health care personnel, other essential workers, people with underlying medical conditions, those over the age of 65, racial and ethnic minority groups, tribal community members, incarcerated individuals, homeless shelters, colleges and universities, persons living in or working in congregate settings, rural communities, persons with disabilities and uninsured or underinsured people, according to the states distribution plan.
South Dakota reported nine more deaths on Wednesday, Oct. 28, bringing the death toll to 384.
The deaths included one person in their 50s, one in their 60s, one in their 70s and six over age 80.
Current hospitalizations increased to 412, up 17 from Tuesday.
That leaves 31% of hospital beds and 34 % of intensive care unit beds available.
An additional 745 active cases were reported on Wednesday, for a total of 11,933 active cases in the state.
As a public service, weve opened this article to everyone regardless of subscription status. If this coverage is important to you, please consider supporting local journalism by clicking on the subscribe button in the upper righthand corner of the homepage.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. Cherry Health is conducting a vaccine trial for COVID-19, according to the health center.
The trial will be done under the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Study, says Nate Shurlow, a research assistant for Cherry Health. They ask interested participants to visit this link to see if they qualify.
Were told that upon qualification, volunteers will be contacted by one of Cherry Healths research assistants to schedule a visit, where they will address any questions that volunteers may have.
U.S. military personnel won't be administering any COVID-19 vaccines to the American people once the vaccines are approved for use. But the U.S. military will lend it's experienced hand in logistics to ensure the vaccine is available across the nation, said Paul Mango, the deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services.
"The overwhelming majority of Americans will get a vaccine that no federal employee, including the Department of Defense, has touched," Mango said during a Friday teleconference regarding Operation Warp Speed, the DOD and HHS effort to find a vaccine for COVID-19. "That said ... we have the best logisticians in the world at the Department of Defense, working in conjunction with the CDC, to guide ... every logistical detail you could possibly think of."
That effort, Mango said, involves things such as needles, syringes, swabs, adhesive bandages, dry ice and trucks, for instance.
"Gen. [Gustave F. Perna], and his team ... are guiding all of that with scores of folks from both the CDC and the DOD," Mango said. "We will have an operation center that will tell us at any given time exactly where every dose of vaccine is."
Those operations centers, he said, will be similar to those set up for things like hurricanes.
"We're going to have one just for vaccines that Gen. Perna, his team and the CDC are going to man 24 hours a day," Mango said. "They will know where every vaccine dose is. If a vaccine dose is at risk of expiring, they will guide the movement of that to someplace else."
What Mango also said, however, is that federal military personnel will not be involved in touching the vaccine or administering it to Americans. He did add that if state governors want their own National Guard personnel to be involved as part of a state-run effort, they will do that at their discretion.
"The federal military will not be involved in moving any doses or injecting any vaccines," he said.
Right now, there are six vaccine candidates that must be evaluated in clinical trials, and volunteers are needed to participate in those trials, said Dr. Matt Hepburn, vaccine lead for Operation Warp Speed.
"We are anticipating large-scale clinical trials 30,000 patients each for these products," Hepburn said. "Therefore, we do need more people to be willing to sign up... if people are looking for a way that they can help us, help us as a nation, fight this pandemic, one of the ways they can do that is volunteer for these clinical trials."
While more are needed to participate in trials for vaccine candidates, many have already signed up. Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general, said he's been impressed, so far, with the diversity of the candidates who've volunteered, and he said such diversity is important in a vaccine trial.
Vaccine candidate developer Moderna, for instance, announced it had completed enrollment on its Phase 3 clinical trial. Of the 30,000 participants, 37% are part of minority populations, with over 10% from African-American communities, Adams said.
"We want to applaud the recruitment outreach that's been done by Moderna," Adams said. "They were able to turn around what were initially low minority participation rates by removing barriers and meeting folks where they are and by harnessing relations with researchers who have long-standing trust with minority communities. ... We need this to continue for other trials."
Adams said those wishing to participate in trials for one of the COVID-19 vaccines can do so by visiting coronavirus.gov.
Operation Warp Speed is a partnership between the DOD and HHS. Specific HHS components involved include the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
