As holidays return to normal, here's how to de-stress

A return to a more normal holiday season may also mean higher stress levels, so an expert offers some coping tips.

* This article was originally published here

Missing nature during COVID took a mental toll on young adults’

Two new studies link declines in outdoor activities and park use during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to reductions in mental health measures for teens and young adults from middle school through college.

The studies build evidence for the mental health benefits of nature’s medicine—and the potential hazards of restricting access, researchers say.

“This is an opportunity for anyone concerned about the health and well-being of future generations to focus on the power of parks when it comes to mental health promotion, and to figure out what we can do to make sure all segments of the population have access to enjoy the health-related benefits that parks can provide,” says Lincoln Larson, an associate professor of parks, recreation, and tourism management at North Carolina State University.

Larson is the lead author of a study looking at factors linked to emotional distress in college students. Published in the journal Environmental Research, the study involved a survey of 1,280 college students at four large public universities in the United States, including at NC State.

Researchers wanted to understand why and how students’ outdoor recreation and park use changed in March through May of 2020, and how that related to their mental health. They asked students to rate their use of parks and other outdoor spaces and their levels of emotional distress before and during the pandemic.

They found 54% of students said they reduced their park use during the pandemic, and about two-thirds reduced outdoor activities. College students more worried about COVID-19 were more likely to limit outdoor recreation. Students who identified as Asian or Black were more likely to limit their park use than students of other ethnicities or races.

“It is becoming apparent that historically marginalized populations are having an even harder time enjoying the benefits that come from outdoor recreation during the pandemic,” Larson says.

Emotional distress was “widespread,” researchers report. Reducing park use was one of the factors linked with higher levels of emotional distress, along with knowing someone who had COVID-19, and other factors. Students who lived in counties with larger areas of national or state parks per capita were likely to report lower levels of emotional distress.

“Reducing park use was one of the stronger predictors of emotional distress; people who stopped using parks suffered worse mental health impacts in the early stages of the pandemic,” Larson says. “Other studies have shown that any contact with nature, whether or not it’s in a park, can be beneficial.

“For college students, public parks may be particularly important. If parks are available where students live, especially if students are visiting these parks, then they are likely to experience more positive mental health outcomes.”

In a second study published in the journal Sustainability, another team of researchers found that as young people’s outdoor activity participation decreased during the pandemic, their connection to nature decreased as well.

“Connection to nature” is a measure of a person’s comfort and enjoyment of time in nature. They also saw that this plays a role in their mental well-being.

Researchers surveyed 624 youth aged 10 to 18 years from across the United States between April and June of 2020. They asked them how often they participated in outdoor activities like bicycling outside, playing sports, or going for walks or runs, and how often they participated in nature-based outdoor activities like hiking, hunting, and fishing. They also asked youth about their connection to nature, and about their mental well-being.

They found that 55% of young people reported they reduced their nature-based activities during the pandemic, and 64% reported reducing their outdoor activities. Thirty-four percent of teens reported a decline in their connection to nature—which is how much they like or feel comfortable being in nature. Fifty-two percent reported declines in their mental well-being. Teens who lived in rural areas, as well as older adolescents, had higher connection-to-nature scores.

When researchers analyzed factors related to teens’ well-being, they found that strength of their connection to nature was tied to how much of a mental health boost they got from outdoor activities both before and during the pandemic.

“This study highlights the importance of getting outside for adolescents,” says first author S. Brent Jackson, a former graduate student at NC State. “If you get them outside, they can develop that connection to nature, and that could help buffer them from declines in mental health.”

They also found the strength of their connection to nature played a lesser role in their mental well-being during the pandemic, when kids were getting outdoors less overall, and engaging less in outdoor and nature-based activities.

“The advocates of putting kids in nature are saying there’s a lot of research that shows that if you put kids in nature, they’re happier, and they have better mental well-being, but if you’re thinking about this during the pandemic, we find that this treatment is more like a vaccine than a pill,” says study coauthor Nils Peterson, a professor in the NC State Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology program.

“If you’ve prepared students, and they’re comfortable in nature, then it works in helping them maintain their well-being.”

The studies are part of a growing body of evidence outlining the role of outdoor activities in the mental health of kids and young adults, researchers say. “The good news is that parks promote mental health, but the bad news is, there are a whole lot of people who stopped or reduced their park use during the pandemic,” Larson says.

“In the wake of COVID-19, how can we communicate the benefits of parks to make sure everyone has the opportunity to enjoy outdoor spaces that fuel active, healthier lifestyles?”

Source: NC State

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* This article was originally published here

COVID-19: Compliance to household mixing restrictions in England decreased with each lockdown

Household mixing significantly decreased in the first lockdown in England and remained relatively low in the second lockdown, but increased during the third lockdown, reports a study published in Scientific Reports. The authors observed that the increase in household mixing by mid-February 2021 during the third lockdown coincided with the wider COVID-19 vaccine rollout across England.

* This article was originally published here

'Active Grandparent': Humans Evolved to Exercise in Old Age

Title: 'Active Grandparent': Humans Evolved to Exercise in Old Age
Category: Health News
Created: 11/23/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 11/23/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

An Anti-viral Pill to Treat Covid?

* This article was originally published here

What can you expect from another COVID winter?

The US appears to be on the brink of a winter surge in COVID-19 cases, but experts from Johns Hopkins University offer hope that this winter will be better than the last.

COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in the United States after dipping just three weeks ago. Vaccine effectiveness is waning and without widespread boosters, shots given six months ago remain at least 80-85% effective against serious illness but will only prevent two out of three possible infections for those vaccinated early in the pandemic—all signs pointing to the very real possibility of a winter surge here in the US.

Yet, there is reason for hope that this winter will be better overall than last winter, even if cases continue to rise, thanks to vaccines and new oral antiviral medications that will reduce cases of severe COVID, preventing hospitalization and death, says David Dowdy, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a physician with Baltimore Medical Services.

“It’s worth remembering where we were at this time last year: Many schools were not in-person, many businesses were operating at partial capacity, and many gatherings had strict size limits, yet COVID-19 cases were rising more than twice as fast as they are today,” Dowdy says.

“Now we have extremely safe vaccines with long-lasting effectiveness against serious disease, oral antivirals that could soon make COVID-19 a highly treatable disease, and we’re living our lives much more like in pre-pandemic times. The COVID death rate in the US is still falling and is now only half of what it was two months ago.”

So how do we make sure Dowdy’s optimism gains traction?

Here, Dowdy and Rupali Limaye, a social and behavioral scientist and health communication scholar at the School of Public Health who studies vaccine behavior and decision-making, offer a roadmap, with a caveat that “no one can fully predict the future of this pandemic,” Dowdy says.

Vaccinate everyone—including kids

If this winter is better than the last, it will be thanks in large part to vaccines. The new antivirals are great, but they aren’t a preventative measure like the safe, effective vaccines, Dowdy says.

“While we still are susceptible to getting cases of COVID-19, I think that the amount of serious illness and death is going to be much less, especially because of all the efforts that people have put into to getting vaccinated and getting their families and communities vaccinated as well,” he says. “So even if cases go up this winter, we’re very unlikely to see a return to the overcrowded ICUs and makeshift morgues of a year ago.”

The continued push to vaccinate against COVID-19 includes ensuring newly eligible children get vaccinated as soon as possible, with research indicating that vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds may prevent 600,000 infections over the next four months alone, Limaye says.

“The COVID-19 vaccine is recommended for children even if they’ve had COVID-19 infection. And that’s simply because the vaccine can better provide longer-lasting protection than natural infection.”

Kids can even get a COVID-19 vaccine dose near or at the same time as other childhood vaccines, like HPV or a flu shot. The benefits of vaccination in children outweigh the risks, especially when we don’t yet know how the long-term effects of COVID-19 infections will affect brain development, Limaye says.

And the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine extend beyond any individual child: “Vaccinating our children, specifically in that age range, can have immense benefits to reduce infection of others who may be at more risk,” Limaye says. “This includes grandparents that you may see at Thanksgiving, for example, teachers, and other family members as well.”

Build trust among people with vaccine hesitancy

With so much riding on COVID-19 vaccines, convincing people in our lives to get a shot is of paramount importance when we still have a little over 40% of the eligible population—excluding 5- to 11- year-olds—who have not yet gotten the vaccine, Limaye says.

“I think what we are starting to see now is that if you have not gotten the vaccine, there’s essentially two reasons why you will get the vaccine. One is that you will see either a close friend or a family member who ends up getting severe COVID and ends up in the hospital or passing. That has been a nudge that has forced people to think about the vaccine decision,” Limaye says.

“The second is [vaccine] mandates. That is one thing that we know will change vaccine behavior. As we’re starting to see different employers think about mandates, that is changing vaccine coverage in specific populations.”

Unvaccinated people account for the majority of new COVID-19 infections, for severe cases, and for spikes in states like Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. “With regards to specific socio-demographics where we’re seeing hesitancy, it tends to be individuals that tend to be white and that might live in more rural areas,” Limaye says, adding that vaccine disparities have narrowed in the last year among the Hispanic and African-American communities.

“I think the goal here is going to be to continue to be empathetic, to be compassionate, and to continue to have one-on-one conversations with these individuals because it’s important to not be dismissive of people’s concerns,” Limaye says. “That’s the only way that we’re going to be able to nudge those individuals into vaccine acceptance.”

Accept that COVID-19 isn’t going away

It’s human nature to want to know exactly when the COVID-19 pandemic will be over, but Limaye and Dowdy say it’s not that simple. In reality, it’s time to shift our thinking from the endgame toward how we’ll live our lives alongside COVID-19 going forward.

“Everyone wants there to be a day that we declare, ‘This pandemic is over,'” Dowdy says. “But nobody asks, ‘When is the end of the flu?’ for example. This is a disease that’s going to be with us for the foreseeable future. It’s going to come and go.” That could mean we get COVID-19 booster shots annually or in tandem with occasional spikes in community transmission, Limaye says.

Limaye agrees that we should think about COVID-19 as we do with any other pathogen like a cold or a flu. “COVID is here to stay,” Limaye says. “What we really need to be messaging around is that people can still get COVID, there can still be breakthrough infections, but the great news is if you have been vaccinated, you are very much less likely to be hospitalized or have severe COVID compared to those that are unvaccinated.”

“The question is, when can we get this to a point where it’s tolerable to us as a society,” Dowdy says. “And I think that we may be closer to that point than we imagine. If we already look at how we’re living our lives today as opposed to how we were living our lives a year ago, we’ve made great strides. So, we’re not at the pandemic end date and we never will be, but we are making real progress. And I think there’s a lot of reason for optimism going forward.”

Source: Johns Hopkins University

The post What can you expect from another COVID winter? appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

FDA Approves a New Virtual Reality Device to Help Ease Chronic Pain

Experts say a new virtual reality device can help people understand and ease their chronic pain. David Espejo/Getty Images

• It’s estimated that chronic pain affects 50 million U.S. adults.
• Treatments, including medications and cognitive behavioral therapy, are used to ease the pain.
• Federal regulators have now approved a virtual reality device that in a recent clinical study was effective in reducing chronic pain.
• The EaseVRx device works by immersing users into a 3D world.

About 50 million adults in the United States live with chronic pain.

Help, however, may be on the way.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a breakthrough device that could improve the daily lives of people with chronic pain. 

The EaseVRx is a virtual reality (VR) headset that uses techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy to help with pain reduction in adults.

“The inspiration behind the EaseVRx was to create a standardized, standalone, high quality behavioral intervention where people could acquire a critical skills set that has been shown through various different types of treatment modalities to both reduce pain and its impacts. But now they can receive it on demand in the comfort of their own home and in doing so, transcending so many barriers to effective pain care,” said Beth Darnall, PhD, the director of the Stanford Pain Relief Innovations Lab in California as well as the chief science adviser and co-creator of the EaseVRx.

“Individuals turn on the headset and they’re in an immersive 3D world where they can see a new environment around them and be directed to interact within the context of that environment to learn various information such as the role of pain in the brain, how pain exists in the central nervous system, and what can be done to soothe or calm one’s nervous system within the context of pain,” Darnall told Healthline.

Success in a study

The VR device takes users through a treatment program of 56 sessions done daily over an 8-week period.

The FDA reported that in a clinical study of the device, 66 percent of those who used EaseVRx reported a higher than 30 percent reduction in their pain, compared with 41 percent of other participants who didn’t use the device.

About 46 percent of those who used the device reported a greater than 50 percent reduction in their pain.

“It’s really exciting. It is a breakthrough device, it’s also a breakthrough in terms of how we’re conceptualizing pain and pain treatment,” Darnall said.

“It’s not to say it will obviate the need for medication or other interventions, but it can nicely work alongside any other medical treatment that a physician or clinician will determine to be appropriate for any patient,” she added.

How the device could help

Lora L. Black, PhD, MPH, a licensed psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Kansas Health System, said the device could be useful in improving access to treatments.

“This appears to be a good use of technology to enhance self-regulatory techniques that have been shown to be helpful for chronic pain in multiple studies,” she told Healthline.

“There is also research showing that VR technology can increase adherence to other treatments, such as exercise, so use of similar technology may be useful in increasing adherence to the self-regulatory techniques as well,” she added.

“A device like this may help to reduce access barriers many patients experience when trying to find psychologists trained in pain-focused psychotherapy,” Black noted. “Such a device may also serve as a helpful supplement to those already engaged in psychological treatment for chronic pain.”

Utilizing behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psychological treatment that can be used in a variety of conditions to improve daily function and quality of life.

CBT works by helping you change patterns of thinking and develop effective ways to cope.

It can be used in the treatment of pain to change how people feel and experience pain.

“The medical definition of pain is that it’s both a physical and an emotional response, so the brain responsibility in that is on both sides. The brain processes the physical aspects of pain and brings them to our attention, and it’s also the center for the emotional aspects of pain. CBT is a method of using the brain’s ability to influence those things to change the pain experience,” Dr. Matthew Smuck, chief of physical medicine & rehabilitation at Stanford Health Care, told Healthline.

Dr. Gene Tekmyster, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at Keck Medicine of USC, said that pain can change the way people think.

“Pain is multifactorial. There is an incredibly large psychological component. There are so many things involved in people feeling pain and how much they feel pain,” Tekmyster told Healthline.

“Because pain changes your psychology, your stress levels, and actually changes your behaviors, not only do you have to change how people perceive the pain but also how it affects them and how they perceive it affects them,” he said.

“It’s how we deal with pain that CBT helps to control, not really controlling pain in and of itself,” he added.

Some alternatives

Darnall said the VR device is one more addition to the treatment options available to treat chronic pain. Other options include physical therapy, exercise, yoga, and acupuncture.

Medications may also be used, but Smuck said they’re often not useful for the long-term management of chronic pain.

“Studies have shown they can be useful most often in the short term, but very few studies show that medications are useful for managing chronic pain in the long term and that’s particularly true for medications that have more risk, like opioids,” he said.

“The amount of benefit that is derived from opioids is small. It’s really not any better than what you can get from CBT. Those benefits tend to be short lived because of the way the body responds to opioids. There’s a substantial amount of risk to taking opioids, including addiction, overdose, and death,” he added.

Darnall is hopeful the VR device will make lower risk treatment options such as CBT more easily accessible to the public.

“Some people of course definitely need pain medication and we never want there to be barriers to a particular treatment that a person may need,” she said. “However, it is well appreciated and has been stated for chronic low back pain but also chronic pain generally, we want to apply lowest risk treatments first.”

“In this case, we are giving people that option, access to home-based, on-demand pain care,” she said.

* This article was originally published here

Why researchers are turning to music as a possible treatment for stroke, brain injuries and even Parkinson's

You probably don't realize it when you're listening to your favorite song, but music has an incredibly powerful effect on the human brain. Singing, playing an instrument or listening to music have all been shown to activate numerous areas of the brain that control speech, movement and cognition, memory and emotion—often all at the same time. Remarkably, research also suggests that music can physically increase brain matter, which could help the brain repair itself.

* This article was originally published here

Rural ERs, despite threat of closure, save lives at similar rate as urban hospitals

Hospitals in the nation's more remote areas are constantly under threat. Since 2010, over 100 rural U.S. hospitals have closed, resulting in the loss of emergency department care.

* This article was originally published here

Grandmother's Brain In Sync With Her Grandkids': Study

Title: Grandmother's Brain In Sync With Her Grandkids': Study
Category: Health News
Created: 11/17/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 11/17/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Could engineered gut bacteria guard our mood?

Researchers are working toward genetically engineered bacteria that monitor chemical production from inside a person’s gut and fix any imbalances.

Some of the trillions of bacteria living in your gut—among viruses, eukaryotes, and archaea—synthesize some of the neurotransmitters that are responsible for your nerves, anxiety, and euphoria.

When you don’t have enough—or you have too much—of any of these hormones, your mental health can suffer.

Tae Seok Moon, associate professor in the department of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, says he’s experienced this imbalance himself. And he’s working on a fix.

His latest work appears in the journal Cell Systems.

“It is a difficult job to do,” Moon says, “to keep your neurotransmitters balanced.” But he has already begun. In 2017, Moon received a grant to engineer a probiotic specifically aimed at protecting people from the negative health effects of adrenaline surges.

Moon’s method involves the development of a “bacterial sensor” that can detect certain chemicals in a person’s gut. He has been working on similar sensors in his lab with the goal of ultimately genetically engineering a type of modular system with different sensors. He had already developed sensors for temperature, pH, oxygen levels, light, pollutants, and other disease-related chemicals.

Moon isn’t the first person to develop such sensors, but until now, they have mostly suffered from lack of specificity. Sensors can have difficulty when it comes to differentiating between similarly structured molecules.

“Specificity in engineering is one of the big challenges,” Moon says. “But we have proved that this can be done.”

The proof is in the genetically engineered Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN) bacterium, which has a sensor for one—and only one—type of molecule.

The team was able to start with a sensor pathway found naturally in bacteria. First author Austin Rottinghaus, a PhD student in Moon’s lab, and other lab members used computer modeling to explore how mutations would affect the pathway’s sensitivity. The researchers were able to develop a sensor pathway that was sensitive to the molecules they were interested in—and only those molecules.

The sensors were incorporated into EcN, turning the bacteria into precision hunters. They could discriminate between phenylalanine (Phe) and tyrosine (Tyr), two structurally similar molecules associated with the disorders (PKU) and type 2 tyrosinemia, respectively.

The team also developed sensors for the similarly structured phenylethylamine (PEA) and tyramine (Tyra)—both found in food and in the gut.

With this proof of concept, Moon’s lab can now work on developing an actuator—a protein that will act based on information gathered by the sensor. For instance, PKU is a genetic disease which causes babies to accumulate too much phenylalanine. A completely engineered bacteria might have a sensor to detect the amino acid and an actuator that can degrade it if the levels of phenylalanine are too high.

These kinds of engineered organisms can be useful beyond a medical setting. They also can be used to monitor food quality or to regulate pathways for microbial metabolic engineering, the processes used to create many pharmaceuticals, fuels, or other chemicals.

Because of his experiences, however, Moon is personally most interested in bacteria that can sense the levels of neurotransmitters in the gut. “If the levels are too high, the bacteria produce an enzyme that degrades the target chemical. If it’s too low,” he says, “the bacteria produce an enzyme that can synthesize more of it.”

About 95% of the hormone serotonin is synthesized by bacteria in the gut. When this and other neurotransmitters are out of whack, a person can suffer greatly, Moon says. He wants to put an end to this suffering. “This is the beginning of our engineering solution.”

This work had support from the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

The post Could engineered gut bacteria guard our mood? appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

Language Can Make the Difference Between Home, Hospital Care: Study

Title: Language Can Make the Difference Between Home, Hospital Care: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 10/29/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 10/29/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Use of Ritalin, Other Stimulants Can Raise Heart Risks for Older Adults

Title: Use of Ritalin, Other Stimulants Can Raise Heart Risks for Older Adults
Category: Health News
Created: 10/28/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 10/29/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Does the New Weight Loss Drug Wegovy Lead to Weight Loss?

* This article was originally published here

Should You Get a Covid Vaccine Booster?

* This article was originally published here

U.S. will miss 5% smoking prevalence target by 2030 without more cigarette tax hikes, research claims

The US will miss its 5% smoking prevalence target by 2030, known as Healthy People 2030, without hiking taxes on cigarettes, finds an analysis published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

* This article was originally published here

Don’t pressure a picky eater, ARFID survey shows

Forcing a picky eater doesn’t help, survey results indicate.

In a large national survey, adults who struggled with picky eating habits as children overwhelmingly said they benefitted more from positive and encouraging strategies their parents used than forceful or coercive approaches.

The research involved people from a generation that struggled with food avoidance before it was identified in 2013 as a psychiatric condition called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).

The researchers say their findings, appearing in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, provide guidance for both families and behavioral health professionals for developing best practices to deal with extreme food aversions.

When picky eating is severe, it is diagnosed as ARFID. The condition is characterized by health problems such as weight loss and nutritional deficiencies and it can also lead to social and emotional problems when mealtimes become a source of shame, friction, and/or conflict.

“It’s not surprising that positive approaches were favored, but it is surprising how overwhelming that position was among this group of adults,” says Nancy Zucker, professor in the Duke University’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. Zucker is co-senior author of the study with Guillermo Sapiro, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering.

Zucker, director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders, says the broad consensus is validation for the current treatment approach that emphasizes positive interactions: “It is robust confirmation for what had been out there in the literature and reinforces the concept that children feeling forced or pressured to eat is not helpful.”

AI sorts the data

The study launched more than a decade ago as severe food avoidance was gaining attention and research into the disorder was limited. The online survey was aimed at adults who self-identified as current picky eaters to help understand their perceptions and experiences.

More than 19,200 people were included in the survey; 75% were female and 25% were male, and 89% were white. Respondents were asked to describe the food presentation strategies their parents or caregivers used that they found to be helpful or not helpful in increasing food variety.

Survey participants were subsequently classified as either likely having an ARFID diagnosis or not, based on their degree of impairment from food avoidance. Those who reported that eating problems led to significant weight loss, nutritional deficiency, interference with job functioning, and/or interference with social relationships were categorized as likely having ARFID.

Interpreting the narrative responses from the huge cohort of participants created a logistical challenge, which the researchers solved with artificial intelligence tools.

Using a computational tool to characterize the perceived helpfulness of parent feeding strategies, the researchers applied an algorithm to interpret the meaning and/or sentiment of survey responses to characterize them as helpful or not helpful.

“From a technical perspective, this study used an AI application that understands language, not just words and sentences, but concepts of paragraphs, which was imperative here,” says J. Matías Di Martino, co-lead author with doctoral student Young Kyung Kim. Both are in Duke’s department of electrical and computer engineering. “By getting the positive and negative emotions, it enables us to analyze the comprehensive memories of nearly 20,000 people.”

What helped people with ARFID?

The researchers found that 39% of the themes regarding helpful strategies mention a positive emotional context, such as using food to teach cultural or nutritional lessons, being flexible about the approach to food, providing plenty of “safe” foods, helping with food preparation, or presenting foods from specific food groups.

Forty percent of the helpful comments noted the importance of structure around eating. Clearly defined expectations around eating were deemed to be helpful in the context of distinguishing between feeling “forced” vs. being asked to do something.

While positive and encouraging strategies were perceived as helpful in improving attitudes towards food and minimizing social discomfort around eating, many adults still struggled with a degree of avoidance/restriction. The researchers note that parents are perceived as having a positive impact despite their children’s food avoidance persisting into adulthood.

The researchers say survey participants clearly found some foods aversive, not merely unpleasant. This likely intensified their feeling of being trapped and made to do something disgusting if they were asked to eat that food.

“To our knowledge, there is no published research that identifies effective feeding strategies for those with ARFID,” Zucker says. “Figuring out the best way to feed a child with severe food avoidance can be exhausting and stressful for parents, so providing guidance is essential to improve the social and emotional eating environment for their children and reduce the distress that both parents and children have at mealtimes.”

The study received support from the National Institutes of Health.

Source: Duke University

The post Don’t pressure a picky eater, ARFID survey shows appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

Nearly 3 in 10 U.S. Adults Say They Have a Disability

Title: Nearly 3 in 10 U.S. Adults Say They Have a Disability
Category: Health News
Created: 11/4/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 11/4/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Small primary care practices that received training in quality measures to enhance care improved patient outcomes

A team of family medicine researchers conducted an assessment to determine if the implementation of policies and workflows designed to improve quality of care in smaller primary care practices was associated with improved health outcomes for patients with cardiovascular disease. The study also examined whether enhancements in quality improvement capacity are associated with a change in clinic performance.

* This article was originally published here

Planning to Visit Another State for the Holidays? What to Consider Before You Go

Before traveling to another state for the holidays, here’s what experts say you should consider first.

You can enjoy traveling to other states this holiday season, but you’ll have to do your homework to determine what trip might be the best to take at this time. Edwin Tan/Getty Images

As the holiday travel season approaches, you might be planning to visit relatives in a different state for that Thanksgiving Day meal or holiday season reunion. What should you do if you’re concerned about COVID-19 exposure in that area?

Experts say you should assess your risks and own sense of safety around protection from the virus before booking a trip.

You’ll want to determine state transmission rates, consider your level of comfort with the type of gatherings you might be attending, and also navigate the tricky waters of visiting relatives who might not share your views about COVID-19 safety.

Assess state and local transmission rates before booking that trip

You have to do your research to determine how safe a given state may feel to you as a holiday season travel destination, said Dr. George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology, preventive medicine, pediatrics and history, as well as the acting executive director of the Institute for Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

“Are there raging epidemics in that area? What proportion of the population is vaccinated? It totally ends up being about what are you going to do there. If you go to see your 95-year-old parents who are living in a place where there is a ton of transmission, well, that might be one consideration. It might be something to give you some pause,” Rutherford explained.

“If you go to see your kids, and everybody is totally vaccinated, then that creates another dynamic. Of course, small children who can’t be vaccinated adds another dynamic,” he added.

“It’s dependent on who is going, who you are going to see, and where are you going. Those are the three variables I would be most interested in,” he said.

Alex Butler, senior editor at Lonely Planet, told Healthline that it’s essential to know the COVID-19 regulations in your given destination and get a sense of “local attitudes toward them.”

“While masks or social distancing may not be required by law, you may still want to research restaurants or cultural sites in that area that still require them and stick to visiting those establishments,” Butler said.

She pointed to resources provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that detail levels of community transmission by county and state. This way, “you can see at a glance how COVID-19 is spreading in your destination,” Butler explained.

“It’s also good to check the local vaccination rate and the situation in nearby hospitals. If hospitals are already experiencing capacity issues due to COVID-19, that could impact your ability to receive care for any health issue that could arise along the way,” she added.

According to the CDC state tracker, no continental state has a “low level” of community transmission. At the time of publication, no state is even at a “moderate” level.

Level of community transmission is defined as “the number of cases in the last 7 days per 100,000 population and the number of tests in the last 7 days that have a positive result,” according to the CDC website.

Determining your own safety threshold

Rutherford said transmission rates remain high in many areas of the United States. In states where transmission rates currently may be lower, they may also have lower vaccination rates.

If you are generally concerned about COVID-19, have an underlying condition, aren’t fully vaccinated, or are worried about visiting someone in a high-risk group, weigh travel plans carefully, he said.

When asked what to consider if traveling to a state with high COVID-19 transmission and low vaccination rates, Butler said it’s important to keep in mind that, right now, “all U.S. states are currently experiencing high or substantial levels of community transmission.”

“That means you should be cautious no matter where in the country you’re traveling. If you want to get away this holiday season, get vaccinated ⁠— if you aren’t already ⁠— and always take the necessary health precautions to protect yourself and others,” she said.

Also, she reiterated that you should be mindful of the local rules and attitudes toward masking and social distancing and follow “whatever precautions you need to feel safe — even if they aren’t required by law.”

If this still doesn’t assuage your fears, Butler said that now might be the time “to plan a holiday where you can be outside and explore the outdoors” if a trip to a state that would involve indoor gatherings with high COVID-19 rates and low vaccination adherence gives you pause.

Travel tips from the experts at Lonely Planet

• Assess your risks and sense of safety regarding COVID-19 before booking trips to other states, especially if you plan to visit friends or relatives who may not adhere to COVID-19 safety guidelines as strictly as you do.
• Current levels of COVID-19 transmission in every county and state are regularly updated via the COVID-19 tracker on the CDC website.
• If you have an underlying condition, aren’t yet fully vaccinated, or if you’re worried about visiting someone who is in a high-risk group, it may be best to postpone holiday travel plans until COVID-19 cases are at lower levels.
• If you do decide to travel out of state for the holidays, it’s essential to know the COVID-19 regulations of your given destination and have a sense of local attitudes about them before you go.

Navigating differing family attitudes to COVID-19 safety

One delicate matter that might come up this holiday season is traveling to a family reunion where not everyone practices the level of adherence to COVID-19 safety protocols that you do.

If you’re going somewhere that doesn’t feel safe to you, Rutherford was blunt: “Don’t go.”

Suppose you’re thinking of attending a large family gathering with unvaccinated relatives, and you have an underlying condition that puts you at risk of either more rapid progression to illness or of not being protected by the vaccine. In that case, you may want to reconsider, Rutherford added.

“You will need to be careful. It remains to be seen whether we have another winter surge or not, but these are all things to keep in mind,” Rutherford said.

Essentially, it comes down to individual choice and a sense of safety.

Butler and Rutherford stressed that you have to research what states might be safer to travel to at this time, where transmission rates may be lower than other places, where vaccine adherence is up, and pinpoint your safety threshold.

You can enjoy traveling to other states this holiday season, but you’ll have to do your homework to determine what trip might be the best to take at this time.

* This article was originally published here

After clocks 'Fall back' this weekend, watch out for seasonal mood changes

(HealthDay)—As clocks are turned back an hour this weekend and it gets dark earlier, many people will begin grappling with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

* This article was originally published here

Medicare Could Negotiate Drug Prices Under Democrat Proposal

Title: Medicare Could Negotiate Drug Prices Under Democrat Proposal
Category: Health News
Created: 11/3/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 11/4/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Would Medicare for All Increase Your Wages?

* This article was originally published here

Brain’s immune system may not be to blame for FASD

Researchers continue to find evidence that the brain’ immune system may not be the culprit behind fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

It has long been thought that cells in the brain’s immune system called microglia are responsible for the neurological damage that occurs when this type of exposure happens.

“We looked for more subtle changes in microglia function this time,” says Ania Majewska, professor of neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester and lead author of the study in Developmental Neurobiology.

“We were not able to detect a difference in function leading us to believe that the defect may exist in other cell types. However, given the heterogeneity and complexity of microglial function, we are also exploring how different populations of microglia in different parts of the brain respond to alcohol.”

One out of every 100 babies born in the US is diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), which occur when a child is exposed to alcohol in the womb. FASD can cause lifelong physical and cognitive impairments, such as poor impulse control and attention, learning disabilities, compromised fine motor skills, and delays in the ability of the brain to process visual and auditory information. There is no available treatment for FASD.

Majewska’s research initially poked holes in the idea that FASD is driven by damage caused in the brain by impaired microglia when her lab found no difference in brain activity in the area among mice exposed to alcohol early in development when compared to those who were not exposed.

In this recent work, researchers exposed mice to alcohol early in development and looked beyond the baseline of microglial movement. Using advanced imaging technology called two-photon microscopy the scientists observed how the microglia interacted with neuronal dendrites—part of the connection between neurons that enables neighboring nerves cells to communicate. They found no difference in this connection when comparing brains exposed to alcohol to brains that were not.

“The brain is made up of many neuronal types so it is possible other microglia-neuron interactions are changing, but it is not a general phenomenon,” Majewska says. “But just because these are immune cells doesn’t mean that they will be involved in every disorder or developmental perturbation. Narrowing down their exact roles is important in terms of targeting these cells for therapies for neurodevelopmental disorders.”

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism funded the work.

Source: University of Rochester

The post Brain’s immune system may not be to blame for FASD appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

Almost 1 in 3 U.S. Seniors Now Sees at Least 5 Doctors Per Year

Title: Almost 1 in 3 U.S. Seniors Now Sees at Least 5 Doctors Per Year
Category: Health News
Created: 11/2/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 11/2/2021 12:00:00 AM

* This article was originally published here

Epidurals Don’t Increase Risk of Developmental Issues for Children, Study Finds

ER Productions Limited / Getty Images

• Epidurals are the standard for mitigating pain during labor.
• Almost 75 percent of U.S. women used epidurals during labor in 2015.
• A new study finds that epidurals do not affect child development in later years.

Administrating an epidural is one of the earliest actions you can take to prevent pain during labor.

Epidurals are a medication injected into the epidural space around the spinal cord. The purpose is to stop the feeling of pain in that part of the body, and is often associated with pain relief during childbirth. 

Epidurals have become commonplace and help many people be able to give birth with less pain.

There are some clear side effects or risks, including fever, headache, low blood pressure, and lower fetal heart rate. In rare cases, injury to the spinal cord or nerves and breathing issues may occur.

But the research on the long-term effects of epidurals on children themselves has been limited. People have been concerned about getting an epidural in case it could affect their child later on.

But now a new study published last week emphasizes that the use of an epidural during labor is not associated with neurodevelopmental issues for children later in life.

What is an epidural?

Epidurals are the standard for mitigating pain during labor. In 2015, almost 75 percent of U.S. women used epidurals during labor. Their use is approved by the World Health Organization.

Epidurals can be requested by the birthing parent or their healthcare team.

“The medications for an epidural are directly placed into the epidural space in the mom’s back around the spinal cord. They basically block pain fibers to make moms more comfortable,” said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, an OB-GYN and clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale University School of Medicine.

What this study found

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, included a total of 435,281 live births from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2016, with the use of a labor epidural in Scotland.

Among these births, 94,323 had labor epidurals administered, and 340,958 did not.

The babies represented a range of ethnicities. Researchers looked at key info from when the children were toddlers and found there were no associated findings of neurodevelopmental issues.

Getting an epidural was associated with a reduction in spontaneous vaginal deliveries, an increased risk of neonatal resuscitation, and an increased risk of the infant being admitted to the neonatal unit.

But researchers did not see significant developmental issues 2 years after the children were born.

“Children of mothers who received an epidural were less likely to be identified as raising concerns about communication, fine motor function,” or have abnormal development according to certain analyses, the study authors wrote.

“This nicely confirms that epidurals really have no significant adverse effects on babies,” Minkin said.

“They do not give any significant systemic absorption into the mother’s bloodstream. The major potential side effect is to lower the mother’s blood pressure transiently, and we monitor that quite carefully, and treat the mother with fluids and medications if the blood pressure falls,” she added.

Minkin said this research can help expectant parents make important decisions about their birth plan with more confidence.

“The major effect is that moms relax, and that can also help the uterine contractions help to dilate the cervix,” Minkin said. “I have delivered thousands of babies for moms who had epidurals, and they have done quite well.”

In an associated commentary from Dr. Alexander J. Butwick, MS, professor of anesthesiology and perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, Butwick says the study adds to a large body of research that epidurals are safe.

“These findings add further evidence to suggest that epidural pain relief does not influence the risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring,” Butwick wrote.

Butwick also pointed out there were limitations to that study, including the fact that it was not clear the level of neonatal care available at the hospitals where the births occurred.

Butwick wrote more should be done to research the effects of epidurals.

What do the findings mean?

The study adds further evidence to the argument that epidurals are safe for both the birthing parent and the baby during labor.

Of course, every person must do what is right for their own body and baby when giving birth. This study does suggest, however, that concerns over neurological development after the use of an epidural may be alleviated.

“I had epidurals for both of my pregnancies, and the kids turned out fine,” Minkin added.

“I think this paper gives extra reassurance to mothers who might be hesitant about taking an epidural in labor,” she said.

* This article was originally published here

Does more fast food in the neighborhood up diabetes risk?

Living in a neighborhood with higher availability of fast-food outlets across all regions of the United States is associated with higher subsequent risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.

Increasing number of studies suggest a link between a neighborhood’s built environment and the likelihood that its residents will develop chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancers.

The findings of the new study in JAMA Network Open also indicate that the availability of more supermarkets could be protective against developing type 2 diabetes, particularly in suburban and rural neighborhoods.

The study—notable for its large geographic breadth—uses data from a cohort of more than 4 million veterans living in 98% of US census tracts across the country. It counted fast-food restaurants and supermarkets relative to other food outlets, and is the first, according to the researchers, to examine this relationship in four distinct types of neighborhoods (high-density urban, low-density urban, suburban, and rural) at the hyperlocal level nationwide.

“Most studies that examine the built food environment and its relationship to chronic diseases have been much smaller or conducted in localized areas,” says lead author Rania Kanchi, a researcher in the Department of Population Health at New York University Langone.

“Our study design is national in scope and allowed us to identify the types of communities that people are living in, characterize their food environment, and observe what happens to them over time. The size of our cohort allows for geographic generalizability in a way that other studies do not.”

Prevalence of diabetes

The research team used data from the US Veterans Health Administration (the largest single-payer healthcare system in the country) that captures more than 9 million veterans seen at more than 1,200 health facilities around the country.

Using this data, the researchers then constructed a national cohort of more than 4 million veterans without diabetes from the VA electronic health records (EHR) between 2008 and 2016. Each veteran’s health status was followed through 2018 or until the individual either developed diabetes, died, or had no appointments for more than two years.

Within each of four distinct neighborhood types, the proportion of restaurants that were fast food and the proportion of food outlets that were supermarkets were tabulated within a one-mile walk in high-density urban neighborhoods, a two-mile drive in low-density urban neighborhoods, a six-mile drive in suburban communities, and a 10-mile drive in rural communities.

Researchers followed veterans for a median of five and a half years. During that time, 13.2% of the cohort were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Males developed type 2 diabetes more frequently than females (13.6% versus 8.2%).

Non-Hispanic Black adults had the highest incidence (16.9%), compared to non-Hispanic Whites (12.9%), non-White Asian and Hispanics (12.8%), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (15%), and Native American and Alaskan Indians (14.2%). When stratifying by community types, 14.3% of veterans living in high-density urban communities developed type 2 diabetes, while the lowest incidence was among those living in suburban and small town communities (12.6%).

Would more supermarkets help?

Overall, the team concludes that the effect of the food environment on type 2 diabetes incidence varied by how urban the community was, but did not vary further by region of the country.

“The more we learn about the relationship between the food environment and chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, the more policymakers can act by improving the mix of healthy food options sold in restaurants and food outlets, or by creating better zoning laws that promote optimal food options for residents,” says senior author Lorna E. Thorpe, a professor in the population health department.

One limitation of the study, according to the authors, is that the study may not be fully generalizable to non-veteran populations, as US veterans tend to be predominantly male and have substantially greater health burdens and financial instability than the civilian population. They are also at greater risk of disability, obesity, and other chronic conditions.

The next phase of the research, say Thorpe and Kanchi, will be to better understand the impacts of the built environment on diabetes risk by subgroups. They plan to examine whether or not the relationships between fast-food restaurants, supermarkets, and community types vary by gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Additional coauthors are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, George Mason University, and NYU. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health supported the work.

Source: Sasha Walek for NYU

The post Does more fast food in the neighborhood up diabetes risk? appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

COVID lockdowns gave some teen girls a break from stress

While lockdowns in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were challenging for teen girls’ mental health, they also offered a respite from their packed everyday lives.

That’s a warning sign for how stressful the lives of teens have become, researchers say.

Even before the pandemic, experts sounded the alarm about teen mental health. “Over the last decade, we’ve been seeing these really skyrocketing increases in rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality in teens in general, but especially in girls,” says Jennifer Silk, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of the paper in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

So when parts of the country shut down in March and April 2020, Silk and her colleagues jumped to take advantage of what they saw as a natural experiment: By putting a pause on school and extracurriculars, shutdowns released girls from pressures that researchers believe may contribute to depression and anxiety.

The team conducted a daily diary study with 93 teen girls across 10 days in March and April 2020, finding that girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression while in lockdown, especially on days they struggled with online learning.

Quality time with family, however, was linked to better mental-health days, and girls were more likely to spend time doing healthy and creative activities that school and extracurriculars would normally leave no time for.

“Three quarters of the girls were engaging in creative hobbies, and about two thirds were reading and writing for fun, which we never see,” Silk says. “They were getting nine hours of sleep—unheard of.”

Although other researchers have looked at the mental health effects of lockdowns, Silk says, this is the first study able to break down what girls were doing from day to day. That allowed the team to tease apart some of the many abrupt, interrelated changes that came with shutdowns.

The results may not apply to everyone. Girls in the study tended to be middle or upper class, so other teens who had to support their family or help with childcare may not have seen the same benefits.

Silk also emphasizes one negative side-effect of the pandemic shutdowns: Girls consistently reported worse mental health on days when they struggled with remote learning. And while technical challenges that surfaced during those early pandemic days may have later been resolved, other issues are less likely to fade.

“Kids’ problems with engaging and learning through online schooling, from families I spoke to, only got worse as closures stretched throughout the year in many schools,” Silk says, adding that the finding should be a sign to lawmakers and school administrators about the importance of keeping kids back in schools. And taken together, the results have even broader implications for the pressure that teens feel to perform in and out of the classroom.

“There’s just increasing expectations for adolescents to be the top in everything they do,” Silk says. “We really need to think about finding ways to reduce some of these school- and achievement-related pressures.”

Source: Patrick Monahan for University of Pittsburgh

The post COVID lockdowns gave some teen girls a break from stress appeared first on Futurity.

* This article was originally published here

Car crash deaths involving cannabis increasing and more likely to involve alcohol

New research indicates that between 2000 and 2018, the percentage of car crash deaths in the United States involving cannabis have doubled, and the percentage of deaths involving both cannabis and alcohol, have more than doubled. Researchers from Boston Medical Center, Boston University, and University of Victoria found people who died in crashes involving cannabis had 50 percent greater odds of also having alcohol in their system. Published in the American Journal of Public Health, these results suggest that as states have loosened cannabis policies, cannabis and alcohol have increasingly been used together when driving.

* This article was originally published here

What is stuttering?

Disfluency in speech, including stumbling over words, and word or phrase repetition, likely affects up to 5% of all children at some point in their development, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. And it's typical for children to experience alternating periods of fluency and disfluency as they develop. For most children, though, most disfluencies go away on their own.

* This article was originally published here

Burning or Tingling in Your Feet May Be Small Fiber Neuropathy: What You Should Know

The symptoms of small fiber neuropathy often will appear first in the feet. ALTO IMAGES/Stocksy

• The number of people with small fiber neuropathy has been increasing over the past 20 years.
• The increase could be due to greater awareness as well as the increase in obesity.
• People with small fiber neuropathy should be screened for diabetes and heart disease.

The incident rate of small fiber neuropathy (SFN) seems to have increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published today in the journal Neurology.

And one of the first signs that you might have this condition could be in your feet.

The reasons for the increase aren’t entirely clear, but there are some theories.

“I have noticed an increase in SFN over the past decade,” Dr. John Markman, a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, told Healthline. “This might be attributable to rising rates of obesity, which is associated with SFN. There is also a greater awareness of SFN as a specific, painful condition, and that might be a factor.”

Researchers say increasing levels of obesity could also contribute to the rising number of diagnoses.

The symptoms of SFN include:

• numbness
• tingling
• “pins and needles” feeling
• pain
• dizziness
• fainting

Symptoms usually begin in the hands or feet and move to other areas of the body. They often worsen at night or while you’re resting.

One of the leading causes of neuropathy is diabetes. Researchers reported that about 50 percent of participants in their study with neuropathy had diabetes compared to 22 percent of those without neuropathy.

Other causes include:

• autoimmune disorders such as Sjogren’s syndrome, lupus, or Celiac disease
• genetic factors
• vitamin deficiencies
• chemotherapy drugs

However, researchers said about two-thirds of study participants with the condition had idiopathic SFN, meaning there was no known underlying cause.

Despite the potentially severe symptoms, most people do not develop significant impairments, loss of mobility, or disability from SFN.

However, they are more likely to have other health conditions. For people with SFN, there is an increased risk of heart attack, so prevention and treatment are essential.

The study by the numbers

Researchers looked at medical records of everyone diagnosed with SFN in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and the adjacent counties over 20 years.

There were 94 people with SFN and 282 participants without the condition in a control group. Researchers compared the two groups and followed them over 6 years.

The incident rate was 13 per 100,000 people, with the rate increasing throughout the study. Study findings for people with SFN include:

• an average BMI of 30, which is considered obesity
• more likely to have insomnia
• more likely to have a heart attack
• about one-half had diabetes
• more likely to take opioids for pain

“Based on these findings, people with SFN should be screened for heart problems, and their blood glucose should be monitored for signs of diabetes,” said Dr. Christopher J. Klein, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

“While diabetes has long been known to be the most common cause of peripheral neuropathy, obesity has more recently been demonstrated to be associated with peripheral neuropathy,” Dr. Brian C. Callaghan and Dr. J. Robinson Singleton wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in Neurology. “Treatment of metabolic risk factors is one potential intervention.”

Diagnosis

The most definitive test when diagnosing SFN is a skin biopsy.

Medical professionals count the number of nerve fibers in the sample to determine whether SFN is present. Another diagnostic analysis is an EMG nerve conduction test. However, this is typically used to rule out large fiber neuropathy.

Many people are diagnosed based on clinical features without further testing or biopsies.

What should you do if you think you have small fiber neuropathy?

“People who think they might have SFN should consult with a neurologist as there are rare cases for which there are specific treatments that could improve or even reverse the symptoms,” explained Markman. “For patients with SFN, diagnosis of possible diabetes mellitus is particularly important as involvement of the small nerve fibers is associated with more widespread involvement with other organs, such as the heart.”

For the pain caused by idiopathic SFN, anti-seizure medication, antidepressants, or analgesics, including opiate drugs, often helps. Some people might find help with ongoing treatment at a chronic pain clinic.

“Some patients will require symptomatic treatment for neuropathic pain,” Markman noted. “Few studies have been conducted in idiopathic SFN populations, so patients and clinicians must rely on studies in other nerve pain conditions like diabetic neuropathy and postherpetic neuralgia to inform treatment decisions related to symptoms such as pain.”

* This article was originally published here

If Economists Chose the Health Care System

* This article was originally published here

COVID-19 Updates: FDA Panel Recommends Vaccines for Children 5 to 11

Liao Pan/China News Service via Getty Images

• More than 4.9 million people globally have died from COVID-19.
• More than half of U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated.
• COVID-19 booster shots are now available for some people in the United States.

Update on COVID-19 numbers

Globally, there have been more than 244.3 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 4.9 million associated deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The United States has reported more than 45.5 million confirmed cases and more than 738,000 associated deaths.

Currently, more than 220.5 million people in the United States have received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with more than 190.6 million people fully vaccinated.

Healthline updates this page on weekdays. For up-to-date information about the virus, go here.

10/26/21 3:51 p.m. PDT — FDA panel recommends vaccines for children 5 to 11

A key advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that children 5 to 11 be able to get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, according to the New York Times.

Currently, only children over age 12 are authorized to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA doesn’t have to take the panel’s recommendations on, but it usually does.

Another expert panel convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet next week to discuss COVID-19 vaccines for children 5 to 11.

Study finds cash lotteries for vaccines didn’t boost immunization rates

A new study finds that cash lotteries to boost COVID-19 immunization rates didn’t work. The research published in the JAMA Health Forum found that vaccine rates didn’t increase in the 19 states that started cash lotteries.

Ohio had the first lottery with a $1 million prize every week for 5 weeks.

Massachusetts lawmakers propose bonus for low-income earners who worked through pandemic

Lawmakers on Beacon Hill in Massachusetts have proposed millions of dollars toward bonuses for low-income workers who stayed on the job during the worst of the pandemic, reported WCVB News.

According to the news outlet, this would include workers at grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations who worked through the pandemic state of emergency.

The bonuses would range from $500 to $2,000 and be reserved for state residents who earn up to 300 percent above the federal poverty line.

That would include individuals with an annual income of nearly $39,000 or a family of four earning $79,500, reported WCVB.

10/25/21 2:47 p.m. PDT— Vaccination for 5- to 11-year-olds possible by early November, says Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci predicts that children between ages 5 and 11 could be eligible for COVID-19 vaccination by early November.

“So, if all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it’s entirely possible, if not very likely, that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of November,” Fauci told ABC’s “This Week.”

Biden administration to speed authorization of at-home COVID-19 tests

The Biden administration has announced a multistep plan to speed authorization of at-home tests for the coronavirus, according to NBC.

Using funds from the American Rescue Plan, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will spend $70 million for a program to accelerate test makers through regulatory hurdles, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to streamline its authorization process.

“Working hand-in-hand with FDA, NIH will produce the precise data needed to make authorization decisions quickly,” NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins said in a statement, reported ABC.

CDC study finds that vaccinated people have lower death rates from any cause

According to a new report published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are less likely to die from any cause.

The study involved 6.4 million vaccinated people and 4.6 million unvaccinated people.

Researchers found that vaccinated people were less likely to die from any cause, not just COVID-19.

Study authors say this robust data reinforces the fact that vaccines are safe and effective.

10/22/21 12:00 p.m. PDT — CDC expands booster shot eligibility

Today, the CDC announced expanded eligibility for who received a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the CDC, the following groups are eligible for a booster shot at 6 months or more after their first shots:

• 65 years and older
• 18 years and older who live in long-term care settings
• 18 years and older who have underlying medical conditions
• 18 yeas and older who work or live in high-risk settings

Boosters are also recommended for those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine who are over 18 years old and were vaccinated 2 or more months ago.

Also, people may choose which vaccine they receive as a booster dose, since the CDC’s recommendations currently allow for this type of “mix and match” dosing for the shots.

“These recommendations are another example of our fundamental commitment to protect as many people as possible from COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.

“The evidence shows that all three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States are safe — as demonstrated by the over 400 million vaccine doses already given,” she continued.

“And, they are all highly effective in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the midst of the widely circulating Delta variant,” she said.

Pfizer vaccine over 90% effective against symptomatic infection in children ages 5 to 11

Drugmaker Pfizer said its mRNA vaccine is safe and 90.7 percent effective against symptomatic infection in children ages 5 to 11 in documents released by Pfizer-BioNTech ahead of a key meeting of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisers, reported CNN.

These results come from a clinical trial that included about 2,000 children. There were only three cases detected among the group receiving the vaccine, compared to 16 cases in the placebo group.  

Pfizer is currently seeking FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) to allow children in this age group to receive a reduced dose version of its COVID-19 vaccine.

“COVID-19 is a serious and potentially fatal or life-threatening infection for children,” Pfizer said in a briefing document. “The pediatric population remains vulnerable to COVID-19, and pediatric cases have increased in the US, especially with widespread dissemination of the highly transmissible B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant.”

10/21/21 2:54 p.m. PDT — White House announces more vaccine doses will be donated

The United States donated its 200 millionth COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to fight the pandemic, reported The Associated Press (AP).

The donated vaccines include more than 120 million from the U.S. stockpile of surplus doses, and the initial deliveries of 1 billion doses purchased from Pfizer by the Biden administration for international donation by September 2022, according to the news service.

“These 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have helped bring health and hope to millions of people, but our work is far from over,” U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power said in a statement, reported AP.

India celebrates vaccination milestone

India has administered 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of today, according to Reuters.

India’s vaccination campaign started slow in the middle of January.

India has recorded 34.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 451,000 deaths since the pandemic began. Experts have said that India’s death toll is actually far higher than the recorded amount.

10/20/21 3:01 p.m. PDT — The FDA has authorized the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 booster shots

The fight to stop COVID-19 reached a key milestone today when the FDA authorized booster shots for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.

The FDA also will allow a “mix-and-match” strategy for the COVID-19 vaccines in the hopes of bolstering people’s immunity against the coronavirus even further.

There are some restrictions on who has access to booster shots. People who had Moderna will only be eligible if they’re over age 65 or at high risk for developing a severe case of COVID-19 due to health conditions or where they work.

Anyone over age 18 who had Johnson and Johnson is eligible for a booster shot.

People will also be able to “mix and match” booster doses, so someone who had the Johnson & Johnson will be able to get the Moderna booster.

“Today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to public health in proactively fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD.

“As the pandemic continues to impact the country, science has shown that vaccination continues to be the safest and most effective way to prevent COVID-19, including the most serious consequences of the disease, such as hospitalization and death,” Woodcock said. “The available data suggest waning immunity in some populations who are fully vaccinated. The availability of these authorized boosters is important for continued protection against COVID-19 disease.”

White House plans vaccine rollout for children ages 5–11

Today, the White House announced their plan to get children ages 5 to 11 their COVID-19 vaccine doses from healthcare professionals and potentially in schools, once given the OK by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Biden administration has detailed plans for a vaccine authorization in this age group, as authorization for the shots is expected within weeks.

“The start of a vaccination program for children ages 5–11 will depend on the independent FDA and CDC process and timeline, but our planning efforts mean that we will be ready to begin getting shots in arms in the days following a final CDC recommendation,” reads the White House brief.

The administration also confirmed that they’ve procured enough COVID-19 vaccine doses for the country’s 28 million children that are 5 to 11 years old.

Reinstate pandemic measures to avert winter crisis, UK health officials warn

The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) warned that without “preemptive action over winter from the government and the public,” the country’s recovery from the pandemic could be at risk.

The NHS also requests the government enact a “Plan B,” that’s part of the organization’s recently unveiled winter strategy. Measures included in the plan involve mandatory mask wearing and COVID-19 certification.

According to the NHS, these measures should be implemented “sooner than later so that if cases of coronavirus still rise to worrying levels, the government can then introduce tougher measures, if needed.”

New York’s municipal employees must be vaccinated to stay employed

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Oct. 20 that all unvaccinated city workers must have received their first shot against COVID-19 by the end of October or lose their jobs.

As an added incentive, city workers will get a $500 bonus for receiving their first dose at a city-run vaccination site, an offer that expires at the end of next week.

“Vaccinations are critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This mandate is a bold step that protects our families, friends, and communities, including those that are not yet eligible for the vaccine such as our City’s youngest residents,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Melanie Hartzog, in a statement.

10/19/21 1:52 p.m. PDT — FDA likely to OK vaccine mixing for booster shots

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may allow vaccine mixing for COVID-19. This means that regardless of the vaccine you first received, your booster can be any of the available vaccine brands. 

People familiar with the plan told The New York Times that no shot would be recommended over another, but the government may advise using the same vaccine as your initial doses.

“If you look at the data, it certainly looks like it might be better,” Dr. Paul A. Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Times regarding Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech boosters for Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients.

“I think we should move quickly on this, because it’s already happening,” he continued.

According to the Times, tens of millions more people could be eligible for extra shots in the United States after a CDC advisory committee takes up the booster issue this Thursday before issuing its own recommendations.

Colin Powell was vulnerable to COVID-19 due to age, cancer

The death of former Secretary of State Colin Powell from complications of COVID-19 has put a spotlight on vaccine effectiveness.

Although Powell was fully vaccinated against COVID-19, he was still vulnerable to the disease due to his advanced age and multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infections or respond well to vaccines.

“It’s been repeatedly shown in patients with hematologic malignancies that the response to COVID-19 vaccine has been limited,” Dr. Craig Devoe, chief of hematology-oncology in the department of medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital, told Healthline.

“The reason for this modest response is because both the disease and the treatment itself are highly immunosuppressive,” he continued.

Research from July confirms that some people with weakened immune systems may not develop substantial levels of COVID-19 vaccine-induced antibodies.

Rise in U.K. COVID-19 cases due to slow vaccine distribution

COVID-19 transmission among children in the United Kingdom has fueled a recent rise in the nation’s cases. It’s causing concern among scientists that vaccines are being distributed too slowly to schools, risking the health of both children and adults, according to Reuters.

“The concern at the moment is that it is clear that the vaccination schedule between the ages of 12 and 15 is not going very well,” Lawrence Young, PhD, a virologist at the University of Warwick, told Reuters.

He added that the transmission of other viruses could lead to a “perfect storm” in winter for the National Health Service (NHS) if older, more vulnerable adults contract an infection.

Cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom as a whole are much higher than in other European countries and still on the rise, reported Reuters.

10/18/21 3:28 p.m. PDT — Colin Powell, who was undergoing cancer treatment, dies due to COVID-19

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has died at age 84, reported The New York Times.

Powell, also the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, which weakened his immune system.

He then contracted the coronavirus even though he was fully vaccinated.

He had been unable to get a booster shot, since he developed COVID-19.

Older adults and people undergoing cancer treatment are some of the most vulnerable to COVID-19.

Cancer treatment can cause the immune system to weaken, therefore making vaccines less effective.

‘Get vaccinated,’ Fauci tells police

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), reminded police officers that they, and other public workers, have a responsibility to get vaccinated.

“I’m not comfortable with telling people what they should do under normal circumstances, but we are not in normal circumstances right now,” Fauci said.

“Take the police. We know now the statistics, more police officers die of COVID than they do in other causes of death. So, it doesn’t make any sense to not try to protect yourself as well as the colleagues that you work with,” Fauci said.

His statement comes as police push back against vaccine mandates nationwide, with the most recent protest happening in Chicago.

According to CNN, up to half of Chicago police officers may face discipline due to a dispute between their union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot over a mandate requiring city employees to be vaccinated and disclose their vaccine status.

“Think about the implications of not getting vaccinated when you’re in a position where you have a responsible job and you want to protect yourself because you’re needed at your job, whether you’re a police officer or a pilot or any other of those kinds of occupations,” Fauci said.

Japan becomes COVID-19 success story

Japan has unexpectedly become a COVID-19 success story, according to The Associated Press (AP).

Japan, unlike many countries worldwide, never implemented lockdowns. Instead, the country relied on a series of states of emergency, reported AP.

Daily new COVID-19 cases in Tokyo have now fallen from a peak of nearly 6,000 in mid-August to an 11-month low of fewer than 100.

Possible factors for the island nation’s success include a late but rapid vaccination campaign.

“Rapid and intensive vaccinations in Japan among those younger than 64 might have created a temporary condition similar to herd immunity,” Dr. Kazuhiro Tateda, a Toho University professor of virology, told AP.

10/14/21 11:15 a.m. PDT — Pfizer or Moderna booster might be best option for J&J vaccine recipients

A new study that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed from the National Institutes of Health found that people who received the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine experienced a stronger immune response after getting a Pfizer or Moderna booster shot.

According to Reuters, the study looked at more than 450 adults who were given their first shots with Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. The findings suggest it’s safe to mix boosters for adults.

Using booster doses differing from the initial vaccine “may offer immunological advantages to optimize the breadth and longevity of protection achieved with currently available vaccines,” researchers wrote in the study.

President Biden speaks today about White House COVID-19 response

CNN reports that President Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s COVID-19 response today.

“After the President receives a briefing from his COVID-19 response team, he will deliver an update on the progress the United States is making in its pandemic response. He will highlight that thanks to his ‘Path out of the Pandemic’ plan and the administration’s urgent push for vaccine requirements, the country is seeing a strong uptick in vaccinations, while cases and hospitalizations continue to decline,” a White House official told the network.

The White House has recently announced “tremendous progress” with COVID-19 vaccinations, as cases trend downward across the country, underscoring success through private sector efforts to institute vaccines.

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters these mandates have increased vaccination rates by more than 20 percent, “with organizations routinely seeing their share of fully vaccinated workers rise above 90 percent.”

10/13/21 2:12 p.m. PDT — Biden vaccine or testing mandate nearing approval

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Labor Department took another step toward implementing President Biden’s vaccine mandate that requires all private sector workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested regularly.

On Tuesday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) submitted initial text of the proposed standard to the White House for approval, signaling its release could soon follow, reported the Journal.

Two dozen Republican attorneys general are threatening to sue the administration over the vaccine mandate, claiming it’s “disastrous and counterproductive” in a joint letter from Sept. 16, reported Fox News.

Moderna did not meet all criteria for COVID-19 boosters, says FDA

On Tuesday, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Moderna hadn’t completely met the agency’s criteria to support booster doses of the drugmaker’s COVID-19 vaccine, possibly because its efficacy after two doses has remained strong, Reuters reported.

According to Reuters, staff at the agency said in documents that data for Moderna’s vaccine showed that while a booster dose did increase protective antibodies, there wasn’t a wide enough difference before and after the shot.

“There was boosting, sure. Was it enough boosting? Who knows? There’s no standard amount of boosting that is known to be needed, and nor is it clear how much boosting happened in the study,” John Moore, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, told the news outlet in an email.

CDC says number of new deaths from COVID-19 is likely to decrease in next few weeks

As COVID-19 cases decline in the United States, the CDC released a new report predicting that new deaths from COVID-19 will decline in the coming weeks.

The CDC said new deaths are not likely to exceed 13,100 in the week ending Nov. 6, and 740,000 to 762,000 total COVID-19 deaths are expected by that point.

10/12/21 1:34 p.m. PDT — Texas governor bans vaccine mandates

Texas governor Greg Abbott announced on Monday, Oct. 11, he would ban vaccine mandates in the state by executive order (EO), reported CNN.

Abbott’s EO was issued even as daily COVID-19 deaths in the state surge.

“No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19. I hereby suspend all relevant statutes to the extent necessary to enforce this prohibition,” reads the order.

Governor Abbott has also sent a message to the Texas State Legislature requesting them to consider passing a law banning vaccine mandates.

“The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced,” Governor Abbott said in a statement.

According to CNN, Abbott’s policies have drawn the ire of President Joe Biden, who stressed the importance of vaccine mandates as a valuable tool to contain the pandemic.

“We’re facing a lot of pushback, especially from some of the Republican governors. The governors of Florida and Texas are doing everything they can to undermine the life-saving requirements that I’ve proposed,” Biden said last month, referring to both Abbott and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, reported the network.

Vaccine-induced immunity in children superior to natural infection, study finds

A new, not yet peer-reviewed, study finds that children vaccinated against COVID-19 have significantly higher antibody levels than children who naturally contract the virus.

Researchers looked at children between ages 7 and 11 who received the Moderna vaccine.

Findings suggest that children vaccinated with the mRNA vaccine elicit a stronger immune response than observed in children who experienced natural infection. Critically, this protection extended across all COVID-19 variants of concern.

“We observed comparable SARS-CoV-2 titers and neutralizing activity across variants of concern,” the study authors wrote. “Our data indicate that mRNA vaccination elicits robust antibody responses and drives superior antibody functionality in children.”

Britain’s lockdown came too late, report finds

According to the Associated Press (AP), the U.K.’s first comprehensive report on its pandemic response finds thousands of people died unnecessarily due to failure to impose lockdowns early in the pandemic.

“The UK did significantly worse in terms of COVID deaths than many countries — especially compared to those in East Asia, even though they were much closer geographically to where the virus first appeared,” reads the report.

The report suggests the most serious failures at the start of the pandemic include “groupthink” among scientists and government officials, as well as not considering different approaches to border controls, and test and trace efforts.

“Painful though it is, the UK must learn what lessons it can of why this happened if we are to ensure it is not repeated,” reads the report.

AstraZeneca says drug helps reduce risk of severe COVID-19

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said Monday that their antibody treatment AZD7442 was effective at preventing severe COVID-19 in a phase 3 trial.

The double-blind study looked at 903 people. Half were given the antibody treatment, while the other half were given a placebo.

Those given the drug were half as likely to develop a severe case of COVID-19.

Massive study finds vaccines drop risk of severe COVID-19 by 94 percent

A large study based out of France is adding to the large body of evidence that vaccines are effective at preventing symptoms of severe COVID-19, according to Business Insider.

The study looked at more than 24 million people between ages 50 and 74. They found in the 5 months after being vaccinated, people were 94 percent less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 compared to people who were unvaccinated.

10/11/21 4:19 p.m. PDT — Merck requests molnupiravir emergency use authorization

Drugmaker Merck announced on Monday that the company submitted an emergency use authorization application to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its oral antiviral medication called molnupiravir.

According to Merck, this submission is based on positive results from planned interim analysis from the Phase 3 MOVe-OUT clinical trial.

The trial evaluated Molnupiravir in non-hospitalized adult patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 at increased risk of progression to severe COVID-19 or hospitalization.

Interim analysis found Molnupiravir reduced risk of hospitalization or death by about 50 percent.

“The extraordinary impact of this pandemic demands that we move with unprecedented urgency, and that is what our teams have done by submitting this application for molnupiravir to the FDA within 10 days of receiving the data,” said Robert M. Davis, the chief executive officer and president of Merck, in a statement.

A new poll finds parents split on getting younger children vaccinated

A new poll from CBS and YouGov asked parents of children ages 5 to 11 whether they plan to vaccinate their children once the vaccines are approved for that age group.

The poll found 37 percent of parents plan to get their child vaccinated against COVID-19, while 35 percent do not.

Another 26 percent are not sure if they will vaccinate their children against the disease. The FDA and CDC are expected to meet about vaccinations for children this month. If the vaccines are given emergency use authorization, they may be available by November for children ages 5 to 11.

10/8/21 2:08 p.m. PDT — Some hospitals see surge of rare COVID-19 complication that affects children

Yesterday, the CDC announced it has seen reports of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) increase by 12 percent since late August, reported CNN.

“We had a nice long break from those cases over the summer and even into the fall where we could get an occasional MIS-C case here and there,” Dr. Amy Edwards, an infectious disease specialist at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, told CNN.

“But in the last three or four weeks, there has definitely been an uptick. And I would anticipate that to continue through the next several weeks,” she said.

According to the CDC, the average age of patients with MIS-C is 9 years old, with half of MIS-C cases in children between ages 5 and 13. There have been 46 deaths so far.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) has also seen an increase in MIS-C cases in late September, occurring roughly 9 weeks after the region saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, reported CNN.

However, Jennifer Burkhardt, a CHOA spokesperson, told CNN that the condition is still considered rare, and has developed in less than 5 percent of more than 7,000 children treated for COVID-19 at CHOA.

San Francisco to ease some indoor mask mandates, announces mayor

San Francisco will start easing certain indoor masking rules beginning Oct. 15, as long as new coronavirus infections and hospitalizations decline or remain stable, city officials said, reported The Washington Post.

“I’m excited that we’re once again at a place where we can begin easing the mask requirements, which is the direct result of the fact that we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, our cases have fallen, and our residents have done their part to keep themselves and those around them safe,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a statement.

The full criteria for eased mask mandates can be found at SF.gov.

According to a press release from the mayor’s office, even as masking restrictions lift, indoor masking will remain in effect where required under state or federal rules.

This includes public transportation, hospitals, jails, homeless shelters, and schools, as well as a recommendation for everyone to mask in large, crowded outdoor settings, and as a requirement if there is an outbreak of cases.

10/7/21 1:55 p.m. PDT — Over 140,000 children lost caregivers during pandemic

New research published in the journal Pediatrics finds the number of U.S. children orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic is larger than previously believed. Black and Hispanic children experienced the greatest loss.

According to the CDC, these findings underscore “orphanhood” as an ongoing secondary tragedy caused by the pandemic.

The findings emphasize that caring for these children is a “necessary and urgent part” of our pandemic response, for as long as the pandemic continues, and in the post-pandemic era.

“We found that from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, over 140,000 children in the US experienced the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver,” the study authors wrote.

According to researchers, the risk of this loss was up to 4.5 times higher for children of marginalized racial and ethnic groups, compared with non-Hispanic white children.

The highest burden of COVID-19-associated deaths of parents and caregivers happened in Southern border states for Hispanic children and Southeastern states for Black children, as well as states with reservation areas for Indigenous populations.

“During 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 120,630 children in the US experienced death of a primary caregiver, including parents and grandparents providing basic needs, because of COVID-19-associated death,” researchers wrote.

Another 22,007 children experienced death of secondary caregivers, according to researchers, bringing the total number to more than 140,000.

Finland joins Sweden and Denmark to limit Moderna vaccine

Today, Finland joined Sweden and Denmark to pause use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for younger people, reported Reuters.

Finland will now limit the vaccine’s use in younger males due to reports of a rare side effect.

“A Nordic study involving Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark found that men under the age of 30 who received Moderna Spikevax had a slightly higher risk than others of developing myocarditis,” said Mika Salminen, PhD, director of the Finnish health institute, told Reuters.

According to Reuters, both Swedish and Danish health officials announced yesterday they would pause use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for all young adults and children, citing the same unpublished study.

Pfizer announces it will seek FDA approval to vaccinate 5- to 11-year-olds

Today, Pfizer and BioNTech announced on social media that they have submitted a request for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of their COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

“We and @BioNTech Group officially submitted our request to @US_FDA for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of our #COVID19 vaccine in children 5 to <12,” read the company’s tweet, posted this morning.

According to The New York Times, the FDA has promised to “move quickly” on the request and has scheduled a meeting on Oct. 26 to consider it.

The FDA may rule on the request sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

“With new cases in children in the U.S. continuing to be at a high level, this submission is an important step in our ongoing effort against #COVID19,” Pfizer posted on Twitter.

10/6/21 12:00 p.m. PDT — Sweden halts use of Moderna vaccine for younger people

Sweden is pausing the use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for people ages 30 and younger after reports of potential, rare side effects like myocarditis, the country’s health agency announced today, reported Reuters.

The health agency explained that data indicated an increase of myocarditis and pericarditis among previously vaccinated youths and young adults.

“The connection is especially clear when it comes to Moderna’s vaccine Spikevax, especially after the second dose,” the health agency said in a statement, reported Reuters, adding that the risk is still slight.

According to Reuters, the health agency will now recommend using Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine instead.

Also, those 30 or younger who received an initial Moderna dose, approximately 81,000 people, will not receive their second Moderna dose.

Virginia girl dies from COVID-19 at 10 years old

A 10-year-old girl died from COVID-19 after she developed symptoms in late September.

According to CNN, 10-year-old Teresa was a student at Hillpoint Elementary School in Suffolk, Virginia.

Although her parents, Nicole and Jeff Sperry, and her two older brothers are vaccinated, Teresa and a younger brother were not able to get vaccinated due to their age.

Teresa’s symptoms began Sept. 22. She had a headache followed by a fever the next day, reported CNN.

Four days later, Teresa developed a cough so bad she vomited, so she was taken to an emergency room where she tested negative for strep throat, but the results of a COVID-19 test were pending.

“They did her chest X-ray and when they came back, they said that there was no signs of COVID pneumonia, her lungs were perfect, beautiful,” her mother told CNN. “They didn’t seem concerned.”

After being discharged from the hospital, within 24 hours Teresa stopped breathing.

She was rushed to a local hospital and then transferred to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters Norfolk where she died, reported CNN.

As of last Friday, the Virginia Department of Health recorded 12 pediatric and adolescent deaths since the pandemic began, Logan Anderson, Virginia Department of Health’s spokesperson, told CNN.

Teresa’s death brings the total to 13.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said at a meeting hosted by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project that thousands of children have been hospitalized in the latest COVID-19 wave, reported CNN.

“Frankly, it’s an embarrassment in a developed country to have even 100 children, like we’ve had, die of infectious disease that’s preventable,” Marks said.

He added that no parent should have to lose their child to a vaccine-preventable illness if there is a safe and effective vaccine available.

“And we will only allow something to be authorized that we find to be safe and effective,” Marks emphasized.

10/5/21 3:32 p.m. PDT — New Zealand abandons COVID-zero policy amid Delta surge

New Zealand has abandoned its plans to completely eliminate the coronavirus amid a “persistent” Delta outbreak.

Instead, the island nation will consider COVID-19 endemic, and counter disease transmission with rising vaccination rates, according to Reuters.

“With this outbreak and Delta, the return to zero is incredibly difficult,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference, reported Reuters.

“This is a change in approach we were always going to make over time,” she continued. “Our Delta outbreak has accelerated this transition. Vaccines will support it.”

Arden added that strict lockdowns will end once 90 percent of the eligible population is vaccinated.

This policy change comes as New Zealand recorded 29 new infections yesterday, bringing the number of cases in the current outbreak to 1,357.

COVID-19 cases decline in U.S.

According to CNN, there are about 12,000 fewer COVID-19 cases than a week before.

Experts question whether the decline is an “ebb and flow of cases” or an end to high case counts.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, roughly 105,000 new cases are reported every day.

“What’s going to determine whether this is the end of this surge or not really is up to us,” Dr. Megan Ranney, associate dean of strategy and innovation for the School of Public Health at Brown University, told CNN.

She added that what’s needed is for more adults to get vaccinated, as well as masking indoors in high-transmission areas and vaccination of children.

Data published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shows there were 173,469 cases of pediatric COVID-19 reported from Sept. 23 to Sept. 30, and children represented almost 27 percent of weekly reported cases.

“I think we have underestimated the impact on children,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said yesterday, reported CNN. “Look at the pediatric hospitals throughout the country… they’re seeing a lot of children in the hospital with severe infection.”

Fauci added that the vast majority of people in the United States must be vaccinated to control disease transmission.

J&J seeks FDA approval for COVID-19 booster shots

Today, drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve booster shots of its vaccine, reported The Associated Press (AP).

According to AP, J&J said it filed a request with the FDA to authorize boosters for people ages 18 and older who previously received the company’s one-shot vaccine.

“The available data make clear that protection against symptomatic COVID-19 in certain populations begins to decrease over time, so it’s important to evaluate the information on the use of booster doses in various populations,” Peter Marks, MD, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

The FDA will convene an outside panel of advisers next week to review J&J’s booster data, the first step in a review process that includes approval from leadership at the FDA and CDC, the news outlet reported.

If given FDA approval, J&J boosters could be available later this month.

10/4/21 2:11 p.m. PDT — COVID-19 deaths top 700,000 in U.S.

The number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in the United States has now topped 700,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

The COVID-19 pandemic became the deadliest pandemic in the United States last month after it surpassed the number of deaths from the 1918 flu epidemic.

While cases and deaths have been dropping in recent weeks, experts say low vaccination rates and new variants could still leave people at risk.

Coronavirus evolution could mean new vaccines needed, says BioNTech CEO

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, BioNTech CEO Uğur Şahin cautions that we might need updated COVID-19 vaccines as the coronavirus has only “just started” to evolve in ways that evade immunity.

BioNTech is the German drugmaker that partnered with Pfizer to create the only currently approved Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine, Comirnaty.

“This year [a different vaccine] is completely unneeded. But by mid next year, it could be a different situation,” he told the Financial Times.

While booster shots seem to tackle current variants, he added, the virus could ultimately develop mutations that escape the vaccine-induced immune response, requiring a new version of the drug that specifically targets the new variant.

“This virus will stay, and the virus will further adapt,” he told the Times.

“We have no reason to assume that the next generation virus will be easier to handle for the immune system than the existing generation. This is a continuous evolution, and that evolution has just started,” he said.

Number of NYC teachers vaccinated jumps to 97%

Today, a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the country’s largest school system went into effect.

According to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), 97 percent of classroom instructors have complied, reported the New York Post.

This is an increase from Friday, reported the Post, when Mayor Bill de Blasio said only 93 percent of teachers had received at least one dose while issuing a last warning before enforcement of the mandate was set to begin.

Just under 4,000 Department of Education (DOE) staff, including 2,000 teachers, remained unvaccinated this morning. They will be put on unpaid leave, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Post.

10/1/21 2:11 p.m. PDT — CA mandates COVID-19 vaccine for all eligible students

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that all eligible students will need to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend school.

The requirement will only take effect after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted full approval for a vaccine for younger age groups.

Currently, the FDA has only given full approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people 16 and up. However, teens ages 12 to 15 are able to get the vaccine due to the FDA’s emergency use authorization.

BREAKING: CA will require our kids to get the COVID-19 vaccine to come to school.

This will go into effect following full FDA approval.

Our schools already require vaccines for measles, mumps and more. Why? Because vaccines work.

This is about keeping our kids safe & healthy.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 1, 2021

Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh tests positive for COVID-19

The U.S. Supreme Court announced that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s investiture today.

According to the court, yesterday evening, Justice Kavanaugh was told that he’d tested positive for COVID-19.

“He has no symptoms and has been fully vaccinated since January. Per current Court testing protocols, all of the Justices were tested Monday morning prior to conference, and all tested negative, including Justice Kavanaugh,” read the press release.

The court added that Justice Kavanaugh’s wife and children are also fully vaccinated, and they tested negative yesterday.

Merck announces pill to treat COVID-19

Merck announced interim trial results finding its experimental oral COVID-19 drug, called molnupiravir, reduced the odds of hospitalization or death by roughly half in people at risk of severe disease.

“With these compelling results, we are optimistic that molnupiravir can become an important medicine as part of the global effort to fight the pandemic and will add to Merck’s unique legacy of bringing forward breakthroughs in infectious diseases when they are needed most,” Robert M. Davis, CEO and president of Merck, said in a statement.

The drugmaker expects 10 million courses of treatment to be available by the end of this year, and expects to produce more doses in 2022.

9/30/21 3:01 p.m. PDT — CDC to pregnant people: Get vaccinated

The CDC issued a health advisory to increase COVID-19 vaccinations among people who are pregnant, recently pregnant, or trying to become pregnant to prevent serious illness and death from COVID-19.

According to the CDC, through Sept. 27, there were more than 125,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in pregnant people, with more than 22,000 of them hospitalized. 

The CDC warned that pregnant people with symptomatic infection have:

• a twofold risk of admission into intensive care
• a 70 percent increased risk of death
• an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, stillbirth, and admission of newborn with COVID-19 into the ICU

“Pregnancy can be both a special time and also a stressful time — and pregnancy during a pandemic is an added concern for families,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said in a statement.

“I strongly encourage those who are pregnant or considering pregnancy to talk with their healthcare provider about the protective benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their babies and themselves safe,” she said.

Kids may wait until November for COVID-19 vaccine

Pfizer and BioNTech submitted data this week to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety and efficacy of their COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than age 12, but kids may have to wait until November to get it.

The Wall Street Journal reported that an unnamed source told the news outlet that Pfizer would submit its application for emergency use authorization (EUA) in the coming weeks, even though it had targeted the end of September.

When asked by Reuters about the reported delay in expanded approval, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the FDA was working speedily and “if it [approval] goes into November, that’s because it’s necessary.”

Mu variant may no longer threaten U.S.

The Mu coronavirus variant may no longer be spreading through the United States.

Data from Outbreak.info, a website that tracks the coronavirus and its variants globally, reveals there have been no cases of Mu variant detected in the United States over the past 7 days.

“Virus strains are competing with one another, and it is definitely survival of the fittest, essentially the virus that can infect more people faster,” Dr. Anna Durbin, director of the Center for Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek. “It is likely that Mu was not able to out-compete delta.”

However, Mu is still spreading in other countries, but currently accounts for less than 0.5 percent of cases detected worldwide, reported Yahoo.

9/29/21 3:09 p.m. PDT — YouTube says they will pull videos with vaccine misinformation

Earlier this year, video-sharing platform YouTube deleted about 30,000 videos sharing vaccine misinformation.

Starting today, the platform will remove content claiming any approved vaccine is dangerous and causes chronic health defects, reported the Guardian.

Matt Halprin, YouTube’s global head of trust and safety, told the Guardian that vaccine misinformation is a global problem.

“Vaccine misinformation appears globally, it appears in all countries and cultures,” he said.

Halprin added that the ban will also apply to content claiming vaccines cause cancer, infertility, or contain microchips.

However, he confirmed that the new guidelines will allow personal testimonies on taking vaccines, discussion of vaccine policies, and references to historical failures in vaccine programs — as long there’s no “broad” misinformation or promotion of vaccine hesitancy.

Airline to fire nearly 600 who refused COVID-19 vaccine

According to Reuters, United Airlines (UA) became the first U.S. carrier to require COVID-19 vaccinations for all domestic employees in August. The airline set a September 27 deadline for staff to provide proof of vaccination.

With that date having passed, almost 600 UA employees face termination after failing to comply with the strict COVID-19 mandate, reported the BBC.

“Our rationale for requiring the vaccine for all United’s US-based employees was simple — to keep our people safe — and the truth is this: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated, and vaccine requirements work,” Chief Executive Scott Kirby and president Brett Hart said on Tuesday.

9/28/21 2:21 p.m. PDT — NY Governor endorses CDC recommendations regarding booster shots

On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a “robust” implementation of booster doses in New York’s COVID-19 vaccination program, to ensure efficient, equitable, and effective distribution of doses to eligible New Yorkers.

“Our top priority remains staying ahead of this constantly changing virus and protecting New Yorkers with effective, long-lasting vaccines,” Governor Hochul said in a statement.

“As we’ve heard from our federal and State medical and health experts, as with many other vaccines,” she continued. “The protection from the COVID-19 vaccine can wane over time. A booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will help particularly at-risk New Yorkers stay protected from the virus for longer.”

She emphasized that while the focus of New York’s vaccination effort remains “ensuring all unvaccinated New Yorkers get vaccinated,” those eligible for a booster should get their shot as soon as possible.

Pfizer submits data to FDA from vaccine trials for children ages 5 to 11

On Tuesday, drugmaker Pfizer announced that they’ve submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from vaccine trials in children aged 5 to 11 years.

According to Pfizer, these data were shared with the FDA for initial review, and a formal submission to request Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in children 5 to 11 years of age is anticipated in the coming weeks.

Pfizer also plans to submit data to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and other regulatory authorities.

According to CNN, FDA officials have said that once vaccine data was submitted, the agency could authorize a vaccine in a matter of weeks, but this depends on the timing and quality of the trial data.

9/27/21 2:25 p.m. PDT — Biden gets COVID-19 booster shot

President Joe Biden received his COVID-19 booster shot today in front of the press.

The president spoke to reporters while getting his booster shot. His booster eligibility is in line with new guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC.

People ages 65 and up, people at high risk of developing severe COVID-19, and people at high risk of infection, and who initially got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, are now eligible for booster shots.

“The bottom line is that if you’re fully vaccinated and — you’re highly protected now from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19,” Biden told the press. “Boosters are important, but the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated.”

NM authorities say 2 people have died from ivermectin misuse

Health officials in New Mexico say at least two people have died after misusing the antiparasitic treatment ivermectin.

Officials from the New Mexico Department of Health said at least 24 calls have come into poison control due to ivermectin misuse, according to The New York Times.

Of those 24 cases, at least 14 have resulted in hospitalization. 

The two people who died had COVID-19. They took ivermectin instead of proven treatments for the disease, like monoclonal antibody therapy.

Ivermectin is often given to livestock to treat parasites. It’s become the subject of COVID-19 misinformation campaigns on social media, where users falsely claim it can treat COVID-19. 

We have enough vaccine for boosters and to protect children, health authorities say

U.S. health authorities confirm that with more than 40 million COVID-19 vaccine doses available, they’re confident there will be enough vaccine to provide older people with booster shots and initial doses for younger children, who are expected to be approved for shots in the near future, reported The Associated Press (AP).

According to AP, health authorities confirmed that the available supply and steady production of more doses easily accommodates everyone seeking a booster or initial vaccination.

“I hope that we have the level of interest in the booster… that we need more vaccines,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said last week, reported AP. “That’s simply not where we are today. We have plenty of vaccines.”

Pandemic won’t end without vaccinating children, expert warns

Dr. Larry Brilliant, CEO of Pandefense Advisory, senior counselor of the Skoll Foundation, and part of the global team that helped defeat smallpox, spoke with Wired about vaccination and ending the threat of COVID-19.

“The problem we have right now is that people are continuing the myth that children don’t get it, don’t spread it,” Brilliant said.

He emphasized how in the last week, the United States had 250,000 children sick with COVID-19, while schools opened for the fall semester.

“Roughly on the first of September, plus or minus two weeks, 100,000 schools opened up,” he told Wired. “The three things that we know will keep kids safe are vaccination, testing, and masking. And of those 100,000 schools, how many do you think won the trifecta?”

According to Brilliant, by bringing children to school while they’re “unprotected and vulnerable,” we’re not doing our duty as parents and community members.

He pointed out that we should be demanding that schools open safely.

“This isn’t a time the United States has 5,000 cases a day, or 100 deaths a day,” Brilliant warned. “They’re opening at a time when we have 150,000 cases a day and 2,000 deaths.”

9/24/21 2:42 p.m. PDT — CDC director recommends booster shot for younger, at-risk workers

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine booster shot for younger, at-risk workers, in an unusual break with the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices panel.

“Today, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, MPH, endorsed the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP) recommendation for a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in certain populations and also recommended a booster dose for those in high risk occupational and institutional settings,” the CDC said in a statement.

The ACIP had recommended the booster only for Americans 65 and older and for those over 50 with underlying medical conditions — and voted against giving doses to younger at-risk workers, reported STAT News.

However, Walensky said that the CDC can best serve U.S. public health needs by also providing booster doses for “[t]he elderly, those in long-term care facilities, people with underlying medical conditions, and for adults at high risk of disease from occupational and institutional exposures to COVID-19.”

Pandemic might be over in a year, says Moderna CEO

Moderna’s CEO, Stéphane Bancel, told Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung that the COVID-19 pandemic might be over in a year due to increased vaccine supplies, reported Reuters.

“If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this earth can be vaccinated. Boosters should also be possible to the extent required,” he told the newspaper in an interview, reported the news service.

According to Reuters, he also said Moderna is currently testing “delta-optimized” variants in clinical trials that will form the basis for the booster vaccinations in 2022.

“We are also trying out delta plus beta, the next mutation that scientists believe is likely,” he said, adding that COVID-19 vaccines could soon be available for infants.

Nurse assaulted for giving COVID-19 vaccine

On Monday, a man entered a Brunet Pharmacy in Sherbrooke, a city in southern Quebec, to accuse a nurse of vaccinating his wife without his permission, Sherbrooke Police spokesman Martin Carrier told CNN.

“Right at the beginning, the suspect was very angry, very aggressive, he asked the nurse why she vaccinated his wife without approval, without his consent,” Carrier told CNN.

“And he punched her right in the face multiple times so the nurse didn’t have the time to defend or explain herself … and she fell to the ground and the suspect left running out of the drugstore.”

Because of this incident, the pharmacy is suspending vaccinations at that location, reported CNN.

9/23/21 1:36 p.m. PDT — FDA authorizes COVID-19 booster shots for people over 65 or at high risk

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the OK for some people to get COVID-19 booster shots.

People who have had the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at least 6 months ago and who are over age 65 or at high risk of infection or severe disease can get another dose of the vaccine.

The news comes days after a key FDA panel recommended that boosters be limited to older adults and those at high risk.

Most vaccine effectiveness wanes over time, especially for older adults

Protection provided by COVID-19 vaccines appears to wane over time, especially for people 65 and older, reported CNN.

Ruth Link-Gelles, PhD, who helps lead the CDC’s Vaccine Effectiveness Team, reviewed studies looking at the overall effectiveness of vaccines in different groups between February and August to find similar patterns for Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s vaccines, which both use mRNA technology.

“For individuals 65 plus, we saw significant declines in VE (vaccine effectiveness) against infection during Delta for the mRNA products,” Link-Gelles told a meeting of CDC vaccine advisers.

“We also saw declines, particularly for Pfizer, for 65 up that we’re not seeing in younger populations. Finally, there’s evidence of waning VE against hospitalization in the Delta period,” she added.

According to Link-Gelles’ presentation, the Moderna vaccine had higher effectiveness than Pfizer-BioNTech’s, however.

Interestingly, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine effectiveness actually increased over time. This held even as the more infectious Delta variant began to spread widely in the United States.

9/22/21 2:20 p.m. PDT — Moderna vaccine still effective 5 months after being administered

The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine appears to remain effective at providing protection against the coronavirus at least 5 months after it’s administered.

A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine followed more than 30,000 people, half of which were given the Moderna vaccine and the other half a placebo.

The vaccine provided 98.2 percent protection against severe disease and 93.2 percent protection against symptomatic infection.

The vaccine also provided 63 percent protection against asymptomatic infection.

U.S. to donate more than 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses

The Biden administration announced that it will purchase and donate an additional 500 million COVID-19 vaccines.

In total, the United States has now pledged to donate more than 1 billion vaccine doses to developing countries, according to The Associated Press.

The new doses will be purchased from Pfizer-BioNTech.

For months, vaccines have been widely available in the United States, while other countries have barely begun to give out any COVID-19 shots, even to those at high risk.

U.S. officials have been criticized by the World Health Organization and others for not donating more vaccines to developing countries.

San Diego hospitals prepare for surge of flu and COVID-19

In California, San Diego County reported 365 new COVID-19 cases and three new deaths Monday, as the region’s hospitals say they’re preparing for a “fifth surge,” reported NBC San Diego.

Dr. Christopher Longhurst, chief information officer and associate chief medical officer at UC San Diego Health, told NBC that medical professionals were burnt out and relief was not on the way.

“It is absolutely clear there will be a fifth surge — period,” Longhurst said. “So we are expecting a winter surge and unfortunately we talked about this last year about being concerned about a ‘twindemic’ of both flu and COVID.”

Longhurst warned NBC that relaxed pandemic measures will bring resurgent COVID-19 and flu cases.

“We did not see it last year because of the sense of masking that was in place, but we’re worried this year that we will see, with reduced public health measures, both COVID and flu making a resurgence at the same time,” he said.

Deaths from COVID-19 rise in U.S.

While U.S. COVID-19 cases are no longer surging, the daily average remains high at about 134,000. However, deaths are rising, according to data from The New York Times.

Deaths are now averaging more than 2,000 a day.

The last time the United States had such a high death rate was in February, before vaccinations were widely available.

Due to the nature of COVID-19, deaths have traditionally lagged behind trends in overall COVID-19 cases.

9/21/21 2:33 p.m. PDT — Johnson & Johnson announces booster dose confers ‘strong and long-lasting’ protection

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson announced data showing a two-dose version of its COVID-19 vaccine provides 94 percent protection against symptomatic infection.

“Our large real-world evidence and Phase 3 studies confirm that the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine provides strong and long-lasting protection against COVID-19-related hospitalizations. Additionally, our Phase 3 trial data further confirm protection against COVID-19-related death,” said Dr. Mathai Mammen, global head of research and development for Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen division, in a statement.

“A single-shot COVID-19 vaccine that is easy to use, distribute and administer, and that provides strong and long-lasting protection is crucial to vaccinating the global population,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, chairman of the executive committee and chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, said in the statement.

“At the same time, we now have generated evidence that a booster shot further increases protection against COVID-19 and is expected to extend the duration of protection significantly,” he said.

According to Mammen, while J&J’s single-shot vaccine generates “strong immune responses and long-lasting immune memory,” when a booster shot is given, the strength of protection against COVID-19 is increased further.

Nearly 26% of all COVID-19 cases nationwide in children

COVID-19 cases have continued to increase “exponentially” among children across the United States, and now account for nearly 26 percent of all cases reported nationwide.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reported 225,978 new cases among children over the past week, slightly fewer than the week before, when the AAP reported 243,373 new cases.

The weekly case number reported yesterday shows a roughly 215 percent increase in COVID-19 cases among children since the week of July 22 to 29, when the AAP counted 71,726 cases.

COVID-19 is now most deadly pandemic in U.S. history

More than 18 months since the novel coronavirus was detected in China, the COVID-19 pandemic is now the most deadly in U.S. history.

The 1918 flu pandemic led to about 675,000 deaths, according to the CDC.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 677,000 people in the United States have died due to COVID-19.

9/20/21 3:11 p.m. PDT — COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds safe and effective, study finds

Today, drugmaker Pfizer announced positive results from the company’s phase 2 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.

“Over the past nine months, hundreds of millions of people ages 12 and older from around the world have received our COVID-19 vaccine. We are eager to extend the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population, subject to regulatory authorization, especially as we track the spread of the delta variant and the substantial threat it poses to children,” Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, said in a statement.

“Since July, pediatric cases of COVID-19 have risen by about 240 percent in the U.S. — underscoring the public health need for vaccination,” he said.

According to Bourla, these trial results provide a strong foundation for seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old.

“We plan to submit them to the FDA and other regulators with urgency,” he said.

According to Pfizer, the trial included 2,268 participants ages 5 to 11. Two 10-microgram vaccine doses were administered 21 days apart.

This is a smaller dose than the 30-microgram doses used for children 12 and older.

CA has lowest COVID-19 case rate in U.S.

California, at one point the country’s COVID-19 epicenter, is now the U.S. state with the lowest positivity rate per 100,000 people, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday evening, 24.99 new confirmed cases were reported for every 100,000 people in California.

The state reported a daily average of 8,172 new cases over the past 8 weeks and averaged 92 deaths due to COVID-19 complications per day during that time, according to the California Department of Health.

As of Saturday, more than 77 percent of California’s population is vaccinated, according to the state’s health department, reported CNN.

COVID-19 caused deaths to outpace births in Alabama

According to data from the Alabama Department of Public Health, in 2020 there were roughly 7,000 more deaths than births in Alabama, with 10,605 more total deaths in 2020 than in 2019.

The death rate in Alabama for 2020 was the highest ever recorded and surpassed the state’s birth rate, according to the state’s top doctor, who cited data going back to 1900, reported Business Insider.

“This past year, for Alabama, the year 2020… we are going to have more deaths in the state of Alabama than we have ever had in the history of the state of Alabama, by a lot,” Alabama Health Director Scott Harris told AL.com.

“We’re going to have around six or seven thousand more people who died in our state this past year than any year we have ever had, going back to the year 1900. That’s how far I’ve asked our staff to go back,” he continued.

9/17/21 3:00 p.m. PDT — Key FDA panel votes to recommend COVID-19 booster shots for people over 65

Today, a key panel of both government and outside health experts convened to debate whether there’s enough evidence to recommend COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to a wide swath of people.

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met for a lengthy meeting. The committee looked at evidence from Pfizer and BioNTech as well as Israel to see whether booster shots were safe and effective.

The committee unanimously voted to recommend booster shots for people over age 65 and those who are immunocompromised.

The committee voted against recommending booster shot for the general population.

The Biden administration had touted that booster shots would be available to people in the United States starting Sept. 20, pending authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

But health experts, including those from the FDA, expressed skepticism that there was enough evidence to support giving a booster shot to people who were not at higher risk of severe disease.

The FDA does not have to follow the panel’s recommendations, but it often does.

By this weekend, COVID-19 will become the deadliest U.S. pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic will become the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history this month, surpassing the 1918 flu pandemic.

More than 675,000 people died in the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic, according to the CDC.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 671,000 people have died in the United States.

There were 3,415 deaths in the last 24 hours alone, according to The New York Times.

Could ‘hybrid immunity’ offer better protection?

While the FDA debates whether all people need a booster shot, experts told Yahoo! News that they’re learning more about “hybrid immunity.”

Hybrid immunity is the “super” immune response someone gets after having COVID-19 and then getting vaccinated.

“The best thing we can hope for is that three vaccine doses will emulate the super immune response, found among those previously infected with the virus,” Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, told Yahoo! News.

“This [type of immunity] will protect against variants in the future,” he added.

A June review published in Science found that people with hybrid immunity experience up to a 100-fold increase in antibody response than what they built up after having COVID-19.

Another (not yet peer-reviewed) study from August found that people who had an infection and then were vaccinated were protected against Delta, the most infectious coronavirus variant, and Beta, the most lethal.

9/16/21 3:28 p.m. PDT — Health departments plan for potential booster rollout

Local health departments across the United States are moving ahead with plans for a COVID-19 vaccine booster rollout starting next week, even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to authorize boosters for most people.

Last month, President Biden announced plans for COVID-19 booster doses to be offered starting the week of Sept. 20, subject to sign-off from the FDA and CDC.

However, health departments planning on administering boosters can’t wait for these details to be finalized, according to CNN.

“We don’t want to be unprepared,” Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Wednesday.

She also confirmed that local health departments are planning now to be ready after the FDA reviews Pfizer’s data, especially as health departments are currently “really overwhelmed” responding to surges of COVID-19 cases, working to get unvaccinated people inoculated, and preparing for flu season.

Moderna study supports booster shots

Drugmaker Moderna has released data suggesting that while its COVID-19 vaccine is effective in preventing serious health issues or death from coronavirus “variants of concern,” vaccine effectiveness does decrease over time.

“It is promising to see clinical and real-world evidence adding to the growing body of data on the effectiveness of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, in a statement.

According to Bancel, the increased risk of breakthrough infections in study participants vaccinated last year compared with participants more recently “illustrates the impact of waning immunity” and supports the need for a booster shot to maintain high levels of protection.

“We hope these findings are helpful as health authorities and regulators continue to assess strategies for ending this pandemic,” he continued.

9/15/21 3:38 p.m. PDT — Alaska’s largest hospital begins rationing care due to COVID-19

ABC News reported that Alaska’s largest hospital is beginning to ration healthcare, as the facility is overwhelmed by a surge of COVID-19 patients.

“While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help,” Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of staff at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, wrote in an op-ed published by Anchorage Daily News.

According to Walkinshaw, the acuity and number of COVID-19 patients now exceeds hospital resources and ability to staff beds with professionals like nurses and respiratory therapists.

“We have been forced within our hospital to implement crisis standards of care,” she wrote.

Grim milestone: 1 in 500 Americans have died of COVID-19

The United States has reached a new milestone in the pandemic: 1 in 500 Americans have died from COVID-19.

As of Sept. 14, 663,913 people in the United States died of COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The Census Bureau lists the U.S. population was 331.4 million as of April 2020.

Health experts have hailed vaccinations as the best protection against COVID-19, noting that most people hospitalized with and killed by COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

The CDC recommends everyone, including fully vaccinated people, wear masks indoors in areas with substantial or high community COVID-19 transmission.

Side effects from COVID-19 booster will be similar to 2nd shot

Officials from Pfizer and BioNTech said people could expect to have some mild side effects after getting a COVID-19 booster, similar to the side effects people experienced after their second dose.

The data comes from a new study that was submitted to the FDA as Pfizer and BioNTech ask for authorization to give vaccine booster shots to people over age 16.

In the study that involved 300 people, about 63 percent reported feeling fatigue, around 48 percent reported having a headache, and 39 percent had muscle pain.

Most of the reactions to the vaccine booster were mild or moderate, according to CNBC.

9/14/21 3:49 p.m. PDT — U.K. to offer COVID-19 vaccine boosters for everyone over age 50

The United Kingdom will start giving COVID-19 booster shots to everyone over age 50, according to The Associated Press.

The AP reported that a U.K. medical panel on vaccinations and immunizations advised that people over age 50 be allowed to get COVID-19 booster shots, as immunity may wane over the winter months.

Healthcare workers and people who are immunocompromised will also be able to get COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

Mu variant is the most resistant to antibodies from previous infection or vaccination, study finds

A new but not yet peer-reviewed study has found that the Mu variant is the most resistant variant to antibodies from either previous infection or vaccination.

“The Mu variant shows a pronounced resistance to antibodies elicited by natural SARS-CoV-2 infection and the BNT162b2 [Pfizer-BioNTech] mRNA vaccine,” the study authors wrote.

“Since breakthrough infections are a major threat of newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, we strongly suggest to further characterize and monitor the Mu variant.”

Newsweek recently reported that Mu is now present in all 50 U.S. states.

However, according to the latest CDC data, the variant still represents only 0.1 percent of U.S. cases.

Job postings requiring vaccination have increased

As more people return to the workplace after months working remotely, vaccination status is becoming a condition of employment, according to CNBC.

Job postings requiring vaccination have spiked since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, according to jobs site Indeed, showing increasing numbers of employers requiring candidates be vaccinated, reported CNBC.

“A few weeks ago, job postings on Indeed requiring vaccination started to take off and have accelerated since,” AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told CNBC.

9/13/21 3:00 p.m. PDT — 60% of workers support vaccine requirements, survey says

According to USA Today, millions of workers face new federal vaccine rules in the wake of President Biden’s Sept. 9 order that employers of at least 100 people require staff to either be vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing.

Most experts say that vaccine mandates are legal as long as employees can seek accommodations for legitimate medical or religious reasons, reported USA Today.

A survey released by business management platform Qualtrics found that 60 percent of workers support vaccine requirements, although 23 percent said they’d consider quitting if their employer imposed such a rule. 

“The president’s order means employers can stop discussing whether to impose a vaccination requirement, and begin the next important step of communicating with their employees about how they will act on it,” Sydney Heimbrock, Qualtrics’ chief industry adviser for government, said in a statement, according to USA Today.

Mu variant affecting all 50 states

The Mu variant of the coronavirus is confirmed to be in all 50 U.S. states after the mutation was detected in Nebraska, reported Newsweek.

According to Outbreak.Info, as of Sept. 4, almost 6,000 Mu variant sequences have been detected worldwide. More than 2,400 of those sequences were discovered in the United States.

However, Mu is still relatively rare in the United States, despite at least one case in every state and the District of Columbia.

It’s not yet clear whether Mu is likely to have an impact similar to the highly infectious Delta variant, reported Newsweek.

Experts say even with increasing cases of Mu, the Delta variant remains the most concerning.

“In some countries, the proportion of cases with the Mu variant is increasing,” Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, WHO’s technical director for COVID-19, told Newsweek. “But in other countries, the proportion of Mu is decreasing. Where Delta is, Delta takes over really quickly.”

“I think the Delta variant, for me, is the one that’s the most concerning, because of the increased transmissibility,” she added.

Upstate NY hospital loses staff over vaccine mandate

A hospital in upstate New York is “pausing” deliveries of babies because of maternity unit employee resignations over the state’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements, health officials say, reported CNN.

According to CNN, Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville, about 60 miles northeast of Syracuse, will soon temporarily close its maternity ward.

“We are unable to safely staff the service after September 24. The number of resignations received leaves us no choice but to pause delivering babies at Lewis County General Hospital. It is my hope that the Department of Health will work with us in support of pausing the service rather than closing the maternity department,” Gerald Cayer, CEO of the Lewis County Health System, said at a news conference Sept. 10, reported CNN.

Cayer confirmed there are 165 employees throughout the Lewis County Health System who haven’t received a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine yet.

He added that several other departments were at risk “based on the number of unvaccinated individuals in those departments.”

9/10/21 3:04 p.m. PDT — Pfizer to seek FDA authorization to give vaccine to kids over age 5

The pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech will soon ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for authorization to give vaccines to children over the age of 5.

The news came from a report in the German news outlet Der Spiegel.

The New York Times reported that officials will be giving data from vaccine trials to the FDA in the coming weeks and ask that the emergency use authorization be expanded to allow children over age 5 to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Currently, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is authorized for use in children 12 and over.

No vaccine is available for children under 12 in the United States.

Biden gives more details on plan to use vaccine requirements to battle pandemic

According to President Biden’s Sept. 9 speech to the nation, getting every American vaccinated along with masking and expanded testing to identify infections are essential measures to win the “battle” against COVID-19.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said. “And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.”

He also lambasted elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19.

Biden said that instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, these officials are ordering mobile morgues for unvaccinated people who are dying from COVID-19 in their communities.

Biden confirmed that almost 75 percent of those eligible have received at least one shot. But he emphasized that the number of people who are still unvaccinated is significant. 

“That’s nearly 80 million Americans not vaccinated,” he said. “The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning the emergency rooms and intensive care units.”

Biden gave more details in his plan:

• An emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative COVID-19 test at least once a week.
• Extending the vaccination requirements that the administration previously issued in the healthcare field. 
• Requiring all executive branch federal employees and federal contractors to be vaccinated.

Texas sees most deaths since start of pandemic

In states across the South and Midwest, hospitals are once again overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, most of them unvaccinated — with Texas reporting the highest number of deaths since the pandemic began, reported WABC News.

According to WABC, Christina Martinez was in a coma for 6 weeks with COVID-19. She has a message to share about why she finally got vaccinated:

“People don’t like to be told what to do but it is for your own safety,” she told WABC.

However, there’s mounting resistance to Biden’s recently announced pandemic measures.

Some Republican governors are threatening to sue the Biden administration over the new mandates, reported WABC.

But the outlet pointed out that experts say the president appears to have solid legal standing under the executive orders and emergency rules.

9/9/21 3:16 p.m. PDT — Biden plan to require many employees to be vaccinated or tested

On Thursday, Sep. 9, President Biden announced new steps in his administration’s COVID-19 response. It will involve more vaccination requirements.

Biden’s plan will require companies with 100 employees to require their employees to either get vaccinated or undergo weekly testing.

Biden also announced other steps including increased access to rapid tests, requiring employers to provide paid time off for vaccinations, and requiring all federal workers to get vaccinated.

Biden had strong words for people who were still unvaccinated and pushed people to get vaccinated if they’re eligible.

“We’ve been patient but our patience is wearing thin,” he said. “And your refusal has cost all of us. So please do the right thing.”

Risk of severe breakthrough infection higher for older adults and those with underlying conditions

For people who are fully vaccinated, the risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 is much lower than the risk for unvaccinated people, reported CNN.

As of August 30, the CDC has received reports of only 12,908 severe COVID-19 breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated people that resulted in hospitalization or death.

That’s a miniscule fraction of the over 173 million people who have been fully vaccinated. It represents a less than 1 in 13,000 chance of experiencing a severe breakthrough case, reported CNN.

But in those rare cases when the fully vaccinated develop COVID-19, CDC data suggest that older adults and people with multiple underlying medical conditions are at greatest risk of severe illness.

United Airlines announces unvaccinated employees face unpaid leave, termination

United Airlines says that over half its employees who were unvaccinated last month have received their shots since the airline announced COVID-19 vaccination would be required, reported the Chicago Sun Times.

However, United Airlines has announced on Sep. 8 that most employees who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 after October 2 will face either termination or unpaid leave, reported the Independent.

According to CNBC, United said if an employee’s request for a religious exemption is denied, they must be vaccinated within 5 weeks of the denial notice and get the first shot by September 27 or face termination.

Pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, and airport customer service agents who interact with customers and are granted those exemptions can return to work “once the pandemic meaningfully recedes,” United said, without specifying the timeframe, reported CNBC.

Moderna says they’re working on joint flu and COVID-19 vaccine

The pharmaceutical company Moderna said in a presentation today that they’re working on a joint COVID-19 booster and flu shot, according to NBC News.

At this point, the joint vaccine is still in the experimental stage and it’s unclear if it will be effective at preventing disease.

The flu season is expected to start in the United States this fall.

9/8/21 2:16 p.m. PDT — More than one-quarter of new COVID-19 cases are in children

COVID-19 cases are surging, with an increasing proportion of them reported in children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

More than 250,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 in just 1 week. Children now make up more than 26 percent of new COVID-19 cases, reported the AAP.

But there shouldn’t be a big increase in cases related to school reopenings “if we do it right,” according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“We’ve gotta get the school system masked in addition to surrounding the children with vaccinated people,” Fauci told CNN . “That’s the solution.”

He also stressed vaccination for those eligible is crucial.

However, schools, especially in the South, started the new semester in August. Many districts, particularly those without mask mandates, are seeing a big jump in cases, reported CNN.

According to the network, doctors and experts warn it could happen again when students in much of the rest of the country return to school after Labor Day weekend, unless there’s strong action to keep the coronavirus in check.

Biden to deliver major speech on next phase of COVID-19 response

President Joe Biden is prepared to give a major address on the next phase of his pandemic response this week, according to a report from CNN.

The speech is expected to cover issues related to COVID-19 and schools, private companies, and requirements for federal employees.

The speech was initially slated for today, but a White House official told CNN yesterday morning that the timing is still fluid, and it would instead be presented Thursday, Sept. 9.

“On Thursday, the President will speak to the American people about his robust plan to stop the spread of the Delta variant and boost vaccinations.

“As the President has said since Day 1, his administration will pull every lever to get the pandemic under control. On Thursday, the President will lay out a six-pronged strategy that will help us do just that, working across the public and private sectors,” the official said, reported CNN.

Doctors confirm Mu variant found in at least 50 Houston patients

Doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital have discovered cases of the Mu variant among patients being treated for COVID-19, the hospital confirmed Monday, reported Click2Houston.com.

Doctors confirmed cases of the Mu variant in roughly 50 patients.

“We had our first case of Mu back in May,” Dr. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist and a clinical pathologist, told Click2Houston.

Long pointed out they didn’t refer to those cases as from the Mu variant until the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the variant as such last week.

“Once the WHO declared that this would be the Mu variant, we went and looked and saw that we had had a few cases here and there dating back all the way till May,” Long told Click2Houston.

9/7/21 2:30 p.m. PDT — U.S. tops 40 million COVID-19 cases

In less than 2 years since COVID-19 was first detected, the United States has now topped 40 million cases of the disease.

Despite widespread access to the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, only about 62 people of people over age 12 have been fully vaccinated.

Additionally, the rise of the more infectious Delta variant has led to a significant rise in COVID-19 cases.

Florida sees deadliest COVID-19 surge of the pandemic

The Associated Press (AP) reported that while Florida’s vaccination rate is slightly higher than the national average, COVID-19-related death is still on the rise.

This may be due in part to the state’s larger elderly population and a state government that’s fighting mask mandates.

According to the AP, hospitals have had to rent refrigerated trucks to store more bodies, and funeral homes have been overwhelmed.

However, one positive sign is that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Florida has dropped over the past 2 weeks from more than 17,000 to 14,200 on Sept. 3, indicating the surge is easing, reported the AP.

New U.S. infections up by over 300% since last Labor Day

Daily coronavirus infections are more than four times what the United States saw on Labor Day last year, with daily deaths almost twice as high, reported USA Today.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, this is a 316 percent increase over last year’s figures.

We can blame this rise on the highly infectious Delta variant and a significant number of people in the United States refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, reported USA Today.

The newspaper emphasized that some U.S. hospitals have become so crowded with COVID-19 patients that physicians may be compelled to make life-or-death decisions on who gets an ICU bed.

9/3/21 1:28 p.m. PDT — Officials may need more time before widely recommending booster shots

According to a new report, federal officials have told the Biden administration they may need more time to review data before recommending COVID-19 booster shots to most of the U.S. public.

The New York Times reported today that Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told the Biden administration that they may only be able to recommend boosters for a subset of the U.S. population.

Reportedly, they may only have information for people who already received the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

The Biden administration had announced plans for a major push of COVID-19 booster shots pending FDA approval.

Pediatric COVID-19 cases on the rise

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), child COVID-19 cases are on the rise, with roughly 204,000 cases added last week.

For the week ending Aug. 26, children were 22.4 percent of reported weekly COVID-19 cases.

The AAP gathered COVID-19 data from 49 states, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam to find the rate of child COVID-19 cases was 6,374 cases per 100,000 children as of Aug. 26.

The AAP emphasized that while children are contracting infections, they’re not experiencing severe disease.

“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children,” AAP said in a statement. “However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

Mu variant not an ‘immediate threat,’ says Fauci

The coronavirus variant Mu, designated a “variant of interest” earlier this week by the World Health Organization (WHO), is not an “immediate threat” to the United States, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reported The Washington Post.

Fauci said at a Sept. 2 news briefing that the Mu variant is “not at all even close to being dominant,” and that the Delta variant remained the cause of almost 100 percent of U.S. cases.

However, he confirmed that “we’re keeping a very close eye on it.”

According to the Post, the WHO says the Mu variant has “a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape.”

But the organization emphasized further study is needed to find out whether the Mu variant will be resistant to currently available vaccines.

9/2/21 2:06 p.m. PDT — 1 in 7 children with COVID-19 develop long-haul symptoms

A new study out of the United Kingdom has found that about 1 in 7 children who develop COVID-19 end up having long-term symptoms, reported Reuters.

The study looked at children between the ages of 11 and 17. While children in the study rarely had severe initial symptoms, they were at increased risk of having lingering symptoms weeks or even months later.

About 14 percent of children with COVID-19 reported symptoms including fatigue and headaches 15 weeks after developing the disease.

The study is a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed.

COVID-19 cases milder in vaccinated people, study confirms

A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom offers large-scale, real-world data on how well vaccination protects us against “breakthrough” coronavirus infections, and how well it protects against severe illness.

Researchers found that people who contracted the coronavirus after being fully vaccinated were nearly twice as likely to feel no symptoms when compared with the wider population.

According to CBS News, the results are encouraging, and this study could help policymakers and epidemiologists fill a significant gap in understanding the true effectiveness of three of the major vaccines being used worldwide.

Survey says most U.S. companies could mandate COVID-19 vaccination in coming months

Over half of U.S. companies have planned to mandate COVID-19 vaccination in the workplace by the end of the year, with nearly 25 percent considering vaccination as a condition for employment, according to a national survey of nearly 1,000 employers, reported Reuters.

Google, Walmart, McDonald’s, and United Airlines are among a growing list of companies requiring some or all staff to be vaccinated, reported Fortune.

According to Reuters, the survey polled 961 U.S. companies that together employ nearly 10 million people.

The survey found that over half of employers could have one or more vaccine mandate requirements by the end of 2021, more than doubling the current number of employers requiring proof of vaccination.

9/1/12 2:08 p.m. PDT — Mu is the newest variant of interest

The World Health Organization (WHO) has added another variant of COVID-19 to its list of ‘variants of interest.’

According to The Guardian, the Mu variant (B.1.621) was added to the WHO’s watch list on August 30 after being detected in 39 countries and found to have mutations that could make it less susceptible to the immune protection many have acquired.

Data from the U.K. government shows there have already been 48 confirmed or probable cases in that country, while the Mu variant has been responsible for 852 cases in Colombia, according to information from the GISAID COVID tracking initiative.

The Mu variant has also been identified in Florida, reported WFLA News, with the new variant spreading quickly in the Jacksonville area.

Although the Mu variant makes up less than 0.1 percent of COVID-19 cases globally, it may be gaining ground in Colombia and Ecuador where it’s 39 and 13 percent of COVID-19 cases respectively.

COVID-19 will accelerate dementia pandemic, experts say

Scientists and psychiatrists warn that COVID-19’s degenerative effect on the brain will accelerate a dementia pandemic that could affect an estimated 80 million people by the end of the decade, reported the Financial Times.

On Wednesday, Sep. 1, Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), the global federation of dementia associations, unveiled a specialist working group to better understand the problem’s scale and recommend ways to fight it.

“We don’t want to scare people unnecessarily,” Paola Barbarino, ADI chief executive, told the Financial Times. “But many dementia experts around the globe are seriously concerned by the link between dementia and the neurological symptoms of COVID-19.”

Recent research finds that COVID-19 damages the brain in several ways. It might attack brain cells directly, reduce blood flow to brain tissue, or trigger production of immune molecules harmful to brain cells.

“Infection with the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, can cause memory loss, strokes, and other effects on the brain,” the study authors wrote.

Woman charged for using fake COVID-19 vaccine card in Hawaii

KITV Island News reported that a 24-year-old Illinois woman is behind bars on Oahu, charged with using a fake vaccination card to bypass mandatory quarantine.

According to KITV, the woman, identified as Chloe Mrozak, presented a vaccination card showing she’d been immunized with the ‘Maderna’ vaccine — a misspelling considered a clear sign that her document was fraudulent.

KITV reported that she’ll return to court on Wednesday, with the Illinois resident facing up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $5,000, if convicted.

Two FDA officials leave as agency debates COVID-19 vaccines for children

The New York Times reports that two vaccine regulators are leaving the Food and Drug Administration.

The resignations come as the FDA is reviewing data on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for children under age 12.

Dr. Marion Gruber, the director of the FDA’s vaccines office and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause, will both leave by November. The officials are leaving in part due to concerns that COVID-19 booster shots are being recommended without enough evidence they’re effective, according to the New York Times report.

8/31/21 1:46 p.m. PDT — Moderna vaccine stimulates double the antibodies than Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, study finds

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was able to generate more than double the antibodies of another mRNA vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech in new research directly comparing immune responses to the inoculations, reported Bloomberg.

The study involved nearly 2,500 workers at a major Belgium hospital system.

Researchers found that antibody levels among people who hadn’t contracted a coronavirus infection before receiving two doses of the Moderna vaccine averaged antibody levels of 2,881 units per milliliter, compared with only 1,108 units per milliliter in a similar group who were given two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

According to Bloomberg, the results, published in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), suggest a reason for the difference could be due to Moderna’s vaccine having almost three times more active ingredient than the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, and the longer interval between shots.

Florida reports more COVID-19 deaths now than all of 2020

More deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in Florida this year than in 2020.

The disease is now the third leading cause of death in the state, according to a Florida Department of Health report released Aug. 27, reported USA Today.

According to USA Today, the report said cumulative COVID-19 deaths have reached 43,979 in Florida as of Aug. 26, with last year’s COVID-19 deaths recorded at only 21,673.

The latest data shows less than 9 months into 2021, 22,306 people died from the coronavirus or COVID-19-related complications, outpacing the number of dead in the last year, reported USA Today.

The first deaths from the pandemic in Florida were recorded in the first week of March 2020 and totaled 21,673 by Dec. 31, 2020.

Many other states have been reporting more COVID-19 deaths in 2021 than in 2020, even though a third of the year remains, reported USA Today.

8/30/21 2:27 p.m. PDT — 100,000 more people may die in U.S. from COVID-19 before pandemic is over

With almost 100,000 U.S. adults hospitalized due to COVID-19 and infections surging among the unvaccinated, possibly another 100,000 people could die from the disease by December, according to a recent University of Washington model.

“What is going on now is both entirely predictable, but entirely preventable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN‘s Jake Tapper on Sunday, reported the network.

Fauci said while the outcome of this model is possible, “We know we have the wherewithal with vaccines to turn this around.”

“We could do it efficiently and quickly if we just get those people vaccinated,” he continued. “That’s why it’s so important now, in this crisis that we’re in that people put aside any ideologic, political, or other differences, and just get vaccinated.”

U.S. sticks with 8-month timeline on booster shots

The United States is sticking with its 8-month timeline for COVID-19 booster shots, at least for now, the nation’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday, reported USA Today.

According to USA Today, on Friday, President Joe Biden had suggested the administration was considering whether booster shots should be given as soon as 5 months after vaccination in response to the Delta variant that’s driving up COVID-19 rates across the country. 

However, on Sunday, Fauci said health officials are open to shifting the recommendation based on evolving information, but the 8 months timeline will remain — for now.

“We’re not changing it, but we are very open to new data as it comes in. We’re going to be very flexible about it,” Fauci said, reported USA Today.

Unvaccinated, maskless teacher transmits virus to students in California

An unvaccinated California teacher transmitted the Delta variant to a group of elementary school students and others, according to a report from the CDC.

The CDC reported that the teacher from Marin County became symptomatic on May 19, and experienced symptoms such as cough, fever, and headache.

Initially attributing the symptoms to allergies, the teacher continued working — reading aloud to students without a mask or face covering, despite requirements from the school to do so when indoors, the CDC said.

The teacher tested positive for COVID-19 2 days later.

8/27/21 2:00 p.m. PDT — Florida sees largest single-day increase in deaths since pandemic began

According to the Miami Herald, on Aug. 26, Florida reported 21,765 more COVID-19 cases and 901 deaths to the CDC, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.

All but two of the newly reported deaths occurred after July 25, with roughly 78 percent of those people dying in the past 2 weeks. The majority of deaths happened during Florida’s latest surge in COVID-19 cases, fueled by the Delta variant.

The Herald reported that this is the largest single-day increase to the death total in the state’s COVID-19 pandemic history.

‘We’ve lost hundreds of children,’ surgeon general says

According to CNN, returning to in-person learning has resulted in thousands of students across the United States being quarantined, as COVID-19 among children surges to levels not seen since winter.

With the increased threat, the U.S. surgeon general urges parents and officials to take measures that reduce children’s infection risk.

“If they are around people who are vaccinated, everyone in the household gets vaccinated, that significantly reduces the risk to our children,” Dr. Vivek Murthy said in a conversation hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, reported CNN.

In classrooms, Murthy continued, there are layers of protection that the CDC has laid out to keep children safe, including mask use, properly ventilating buildings, and regular COVID-19 testing.

“Even though our kids do better, that doesn’t mean that COVID is benign, it doesn’t mean that it’s harmless in our children,” Murthy said. “In fact, we’ve lost hundreds of children to COVID-19.”

Child dies of COVID-19 in Virginia

Yesterday, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced the death of a child in the Northern Region who had COVID-19.

According to the VDH, the child was between 0 and 9 years old. The department will not disclose more information to protect privacy and out of respect for the child’s family.

VDH confirmed that this is the first reported COVID-19 death of a child in the Northern Region in Virginia.

“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of this child for their tragic loss,” State Health Commissioner Dr. M. Norman Oliver said in a statement.

“Across the country, COVID-19 continues to cause illness and death. The delta variant is now the most predominant strain across the country, and it spreads more easily from one person to another,” he continued.

“We urge everyone to take precautions to protect themselves and those around them. Everyone aged 12 and older who is eligible to get vaccinated is encouraged to do so as soon as possible.”

Evictions can resume, Supreme Court decides

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is allowing evictions to resume across the United States, blocking the Biden administration from enforcing a temporary ban that was put in place because of the pandemic, reported The Associated Press (AP).

According to the AP, the court’s decision ends protections for about 3.5 million people in the United States who reported facing eviction in the next 2 months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.

Conservative justices ruled that the CDC lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization, reported the AP. Three liberal justices dissented.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court wrote, reported the AP.

8/26/21 2:30 p.m. PDT — White House accelerates rollout of Regeneron’s COVID-19 treatment

According to Yahoo! News, health officials agree that if you are newly diagnosed with COVID-19 and have an above-average risk of getting seriously ill, you should quickly seek treatment with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ monoclonal antibody therapy.

“Importantly, since July 1st, we have shipped over half a million lifesaving therapeutics to treat COVID patients — half a million therapeutics that are preventing hospitalizations and saving lives,” said Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, in a recent press briefing.

He added that the administration continues to accelerate the use of these treatments.

“In fact, in just the first two weeks of August, we shipped more than 10 times the amount of treatments we shipped to states in the entire month of June,” Zients said.

Yahoo reported that the federal government is covering the costs, with some states setting up free infusion centers for the antibody cocktail that’s been shown to reduce hospitalization rates by 70 percent for people at high risk of severe COVID-19 when they’re treated within 10 days.

Firing medical workers who refuse vaccine OK, proposed NY rule says

Medical workers who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 could be fired under an emergency edict expected to win New York State Health Department approval today, reported the New York Post.

“Covered entities may terminate personnel who are not fully vaccinated and do not have a valid medical exemption and are unable to otherwise ensure individuals are not engaged in patient/resident care or expose other covered personnel,” the proposed rule states, according to the Post.

This policy was first announced by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state’s health department last week.

Healthcare workers will have until Sept. 27 to receive their first vaccine dose.

“This mandate will both help close the vaccination gap and reduce the spread of the Delta variant,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said in a statement. “I want to thank all New York State’s healthcare workers for stepping up once again and showing our state that getting vaccinated is safe, easy, and most importantly, effective.”

Demand for monoclonal antibody treatment ‘skyrocketing’

For most of this year, reported USA Today, the drugs former President Donald Trump credited for his quick recovery from COVID-19 have sat unused on government shelves, but now demand is skyrocketing.

According to USA Today, this week about 1,200 Houston-area patients will receive REGN-COV, a monoclonal antibody made by drugmaker Regeneron.

“We’ve seen an exponential rise in demand,” Dr. Howard Huang, who has led Houston Methodist Hospital’s monoclonal antibody effort, told USA Today.

He added that demand for sotrovimab, another monoclonal antibody used under emergency use authorization for COVID-19 treatment, has spiked nearly 300 percent over the past month.

New plan: COVID-19 booster shots starting at 6 months

According to The Wall Street Journal, federal regulators will likely approve a third COVID-19 shot for fully vaccinated adults starting at least 6 months after the second dose — rather than the 8-month gap announced previously — a person familiar with the plans told the Journal.

Data from vaccine manufacturers and other countries under review by the Food and Drug Administration is based on boosters being given at 6 months, the person added.

The unnamed source also told the Journal that approval for boosters for all three COVID-19 shots being administered in the United States — those manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — is expected in mid-September.

Hospitalizations soar amid Delta surge

More than 100,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States, reported The Washington Post — a level not seen since Jan. 30 when COVID-19 vaccines weren’t widely available — as the country struggles to contain a surge of the highly infectious Delta variant.

Hospitalizations are highest across the South, where every state in the region has a higher portion of its population currently hospitalized with COVID-19 than the national level, according to a Washington Post database.

However, according to the Post, although many hospitals are under strain and report shortages of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, overall deaths are far lower.

The daily average of deaths by end of January was 3,100 and only about 1,100 as of Aug. 25.

Unvaccinated people have 29 times higher risk of hospitalization, CDC study finds

According to an Aug. 24 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based on data out of Los Angeles County, unvaccinated people are nearly five times more likely to contract a coronavirus infection and over 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19.

“This means that vaccinated persons are much less likely to have severe illness and may only have mild symptoms,” Dr. Sharon Balter, one of the study’s authors and an infectious disease director at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, told NBC News. “This is a great reason to get vaccinated.”

Even as the highly infectious Delta variant increased from 8 percent of positive cases analyzed by the department to roughly 90 percent by the end of July, researchers found that COVID-19 vaccines were still offering effective protection against severe symptoms, reported NBC News.

“These infection and hospitalization rate data indicate that authorized vaccines were protective against SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 during a period when transmission of the delta variant was increasing,” said the report.

8/25/21 12:00 p.m. PDT — Studies find vaccine effectiveness declined sharply amid Delta spread, unvaccinated much more likely to be hospitalized

An updated report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that while the now FDA-approved Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were roughly 90 percent effective in preventing infection with the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, from December to April 2021 — before the delta variant had spread throughout the U.S. Their effectiveness has now dropped to only 66 percent.

According to STAT News, experts say there are several factors that could be influencing the observed decline in effectiveness:

• Delta is more capable of causing breakthrough infections than other forms of the virus, and study authors note some waning in the immune system’s ability to block infections could be occurring as well.
• As mitigation efforts have eased, increasing social contact among individuals has caused transmission to pick up.
• People are simply more likely to be exposed to COVID-19 than they were during the early days of vaccine rollout.

STAT News also reported that findings of another study published Tuesday show that in Los Angeles County, from May through July 2021, unvaccinated people had five times the rate of COVID-19 infections as those vaccinated, and were 29 times more likely to be hospitalized. 

Johnson & Johnson booster shot generated big immune response, reported drugmaker

According to CNN, a second, booster dose of Johnson & Johnson’s single dose COVID-19 vaccine generated a “big spike” in antibodies against the pandemic virus, the company reported Wednesday.

The drugmaker announced that people who received a second shot, 6 to 8 months after their initial dose, experienced a nine-fold increase in antibodies 28 days after the latter, CNN reported.

“New interim data from these studies demonstrate that a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine generated a rapid and robust increase in spike-binding antibodies, nine-fold higher than 28 days after the primary single-dose vaccination,” the company said in its statement.

COVID-19 vaccines effective at preventing severe COVID-19, study finds

New research by scientists at Erasmus Medical Center and Radboud University in the Netherlands, examined vaccine “breakthrough infections” in a large group of vaccinated healthcare workers (HCWs).

Researchers used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definition of a breakthrough infection: the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen in a respiratory specimen collected from a person 14 or more days after completing all recommended doses of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized COVID-19 vaccine.

The findings, not yet peer-reviewed, show that HCWs who received either an mRNA vaccine or viral vector vaccine between January and May 2021 experienced no serious infections, and none of the infected HCWs were hospitalized.

“Phase IV studies have confirmed that vaccination is highly effective at preventing COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality,” the study authors wrote. “Although vaccine effectiveness will never reach 100%. Our study supports the excellent effectiveness of vaccination in preventing severe SARS CoV-2 related disease.”

8/24/21 12:00 p.m. PDT — 1 in 5 COVID-19 cases are in children

A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that 1 in 5 new COVID-19 cases are in children.

At least 180,175 children tested positive for the coronavirus this past week, making up more than 22 percent of COVID-19 cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 4.5 million U.S. children have tested positive for the disease.

More employers expected to require employees to get COVID-19 vaccine

On Aug. 23, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 16 years and older.

Experts have said full approval may pave the way for employers to require workers to get vaccinated. President Joe Biden said as much in remarks he made after the FDA announcement.

“If you’re a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that — require it. Do what I did last month and require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements,” he said.

Chevron reportedly enacted a policy requiring some employees to get vaccinated. Additionally, the New York City school system said that all staff will need to be vaccinated.

According to the most recent data from the CDC, only 51.6 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated so far. It’s unclear whether the FDA approval and employer requirements will drastically increase the vaccination rate.

However, Dr. Peter Hotez, vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, is skeptical that the FDA’s decision will have the desired effect on vaccination holdouts, but that the employer mandate could be key.

“I do think there will be a modest increase, but, look, we have a long way to go to fill this gap,” Hotez told CNN. “I think having the full approval will certainly convince some, but it’s just one of a dozen fake talking points put out there by the disinformation campaign. And, I think a number of people are just going to revert to one of the other ones.”

“The thing that may really motivate people to get those lifesaving vaccines is if the authorization paves the way for employers, businesses, and schools to mandate vaccinations,” he said.

Approval for children ages 12 and up could be coming soon

While the FDA has only approved the Pfizer-BioNTech shot for ages 16 and up, CNN reported that full approval for children 12 and older is likely coming soon.

“I don’t think it’ll be long before they extend it to 12 to 15,” Dr. Bob Frenck, director of the Vaccine Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, told CNN. “Maybe within a few weeks to a month or so.”

According to Frenck, it appears kids can get a much smaller dose of vaccine than adults and still get the same immune response — meaning vaccine supply can be stretched further.

“We took a step back after we did the adolescents, and we looked at the dosing, because we thought that we may be able to use a lower dose and be able to get the same immune response,” Frenck told CNN.

He explained that only one-third of the adult dose, just 10 micrograms, will stimulate a strong immune response in children as young as 5 years.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN he was confident the trials would show good efficacy among younger children.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any question that this is going to be effective in the children at that younger age. I have no doubt about that,” Fauci told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

8/23/21 4:17 p.m. PDT — FDA gives full approval to Pfizer vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine is now fully approved.

According to the FDA, the vaccine previously known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine will now be marketed as Comirnaty, for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older.

“The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic,” said acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, in a statement. “While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product.”

Dr. Peter Marks, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in that same statement that the FDA evaluated scientific data and information included in “hundreds of thousands of pages,” conducted their own analyses of Comirnaty’s safety and effectiveness, and “performed a detailed assessment of the manufacturing processes, including inspections of the manufacturing facilities.”

“The FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine marks a pivotal milestone in the nation’s quest to control the effects of this pandemic,” said Dr. Barbara D. Alexander, president of Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), in an emailed statement.

She emphasized that FDA approval is “the culmination of intense, collaborative scientific research.”

Parents catching COVID from their school-age children

As children go back to school, they are increasingly developing COVID-19 and passing it on to their parents, according to NPR.

NPR reported that in the 2 weeks leading up to classes, 3,255 students tested positive for the coronavirus in the Los Angeles Unified school district.

In Florida’s Brevard Public Schools, more than 3,000 students and staff had to go into quarantine. In Hawaii, some schools are canceling in-class learning completely in a return to remote instruction.

“Time and time again we’re seeing kids return to school and then come home — either after an exposure or sick themselves,” Dr. Nicole Braxley, an emergency medicine physician at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento, told NPR. “The virus sheds for a couple of days before the patient has symptoms. Entire families are suddenly exposed.”

8/20/21 12 p.m. PDT — Texas schools allowed to enforce mask requirements

The Texas Education Agency says it will temporarily not enforce a ban on mask mandates in the state. Gov. Greg Abbott has faced criticism and legal challenges for banning schools from enforcing mask-wearing.

The decision comes after the state Supreme Court voted that schools could temporarily enforce mask requirements. 

U.S. travel restrictions to Canada and Mexico to continue through Sept. 21

The Department of Homeland Security announced that nonessential travel will continue to be restricted for people using land or ferry crossings from Canada or Mexico.

The restrictions will be in place through at least Sept. 21. The agency said the restrictions are to help combat the rise of COVID-19 amid the surge in Delta variant cases.

Increasing COVID hospitalizations creating new demand for vaccine

The alarming rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is convincing more Americans to get vaccinated now than in the past 6 weeks, reported CNN.

Over 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered Thursday, according to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

The average pace of those seeking vaccination is over 70 percent higher than 1 month ago.

The increase in vaccinations is occurring as hospitals and other healthcare systems report dire situations with patients flooding waiting rooms largely due to the highly infectious Delta variant. This week, Alabama officially ran out of ICU beds.

Lauren Meyers, director of the University of Texas Covid-19 Modeling Consortium, told CNN that area hospitals are at a “breaking point.”

“We are sort of in a very dire situation in Austin,” Meyers told CNN.

8/19/21 2:28 p.m. PDT — Vaccine protection remains strong, except for nursing home residents, CDC reports

According to a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report by the CDC, mRNA vaccine protection against the most severe effects of COVID-19, such as hospitalization and death, remains strong.

Research published by the CDC as three articles finds that in New York, a total of 1,271 new COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred among fully vaccinated adults, compared with 7,308 among unvaccinated adults.

Another study evaluated 21 hospitals in 18 states to find the duration of mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) effectiveness against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations in adults ages 18 or older. It showed sustained effectiveness over a 24-week period, including among groups at higher risk of severe disease.

The third study found while two doses of mRNA vaccines were 74.7 percent effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection among nursing home residents from March to May 2021, from June to July 2021, when the Delta variant predominated, effectiveness declined significantly to 53.1 percent.

Alabama has run out of ICU beds

The state of Alabama has officially run out of ICU beds, according to the Alabama Hospital Association. 

Dr. Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association, told WSFA 12 there were 11 patients who needed ICU care but did not have a bed available.

“We’ve never been here before. We are in truly now in uncharted territory in terms of our ICU bed capacity,” Williamson told WSFA 12.

In the past week, over 26,000 people have developed COVID-19 in Alabama, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Delta variant could force Israeli lockdown, new restrictions announced

Health officials say they’re worried that the new Delta variant could force Israel into lockdown, as the nation reaches a high number of active cases, compared with 2 months ago, according to The Jerusalem Post. The new strain originated in South America and was identified in the United States.

“If it reaches Israel, we will get to the lockdown that we so desperately want to avoid,” Dr. Asher Salmon, director of the Ministry of Health’s Department of International Relations, told the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee, reported the Post.

He added that the new variant appears to be more contagious and more resistant to the vaccines. According to the Post, a new system of travel restrictions came into effect on Monday.

All inbound travelers must now self-isolate, even if vaccinated or recovered, unless they arrived from a selected list of “yellow” countries. The Post also reported that with the previous system, nations that required quarantine had to be explicitly mentioned and approved.

Currently, the list of yellow countries includes Hong Kong, Hungary, Taiwan, Moldova, New Zealand, China, Singapore, and the Czech Republic, reported the Post.

Fully vaccinated adults with Delta ‘can match virus levels of unvaccinated’

Fully vaccinated adults can have virus levels as high as unvaccinated people, if they contracted the Delta variant. This is according to a ‘sweeping’ analysis of U.K. data, reported the Guardian.

According to an expert, the implications of this on transmission remain unclear.

“We don’t yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get COVID-19 after being vaccinated — for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time,” Sarah Walker, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, told the Guardian.

“But the fact that they can have high levels of virus,” she continued, “suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped.”

8/18/21 3:00 p.m. PDT — Federal officials say booster shots will be available this fall

Top U.S. health officials now say that COVID-19 booster shots will be made available to people within the coming weeks. Currently, only people who had mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, meaning people with Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, will be eligible.

The decision came after new data found that the Delta variant led to an increase of COVID-19 breakthrough cases where people had mild to moderate disease symptoms.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will still have to review and approve administering boosters to the public.

Experts stress that the vaccines are still very effective for a large swath of people and that they protect against severe forms of disease for many.

CDC finds Delta variant accounts for almost 99 percent of U.S. cases

A Tuesday report from the CDC found that the Delta variant now accounts for over 98.8 percent of U.S. cases.

Cases in Riverside County, California, have reached levels not seen since February 2021. Four Oklahoma health systems pleaded with Oklahomans to be vaccinated and wear masks, as hospitals are being “crushed under the strain,” reported USA Today.

“Oklahoma, we really need to stop debating this vaccine and start fighting the virus and its variants,” Dr. Julie Watson, the chief medical officer for Integris Health, told USA Today. 

“The virus is what is undermining our way of life, robbing mothers and fathers of health and of a future with their children — taking years away from those who deserve to live their lives to the fullest,” Watson said. 

Texas governor tests positive for COVID-19

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tested positive for COVID-19, according to a press release from the Office of the Texas Governor.

“The governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result. Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment,” announced the press release.

Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and has not experienced symptoms of the disease. His wife has tested negative for the coronavirus.

Australia protects thousands of teenagers against COVID-19

The Wall Street Journal reported that health officials in Sydney, Australia, have rushed to protect thousands of students from COVID-19. This is ahead of in-person, end-of-year school exams that are feared could accelerate disease transmission in the country.

According to the Wall Street Journal, last week a concert hall was repurposed as a mass vaccination clinic for teenagers. Up to 40,000 shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, intended for rural towns, were diverted to children from Sydney’s suburbs that are current disease hot spots.

Authorities said more than 15,000 students were protected against infection by the end of last week.

8/17/21 2:26 p.m. PDT — White House expected to recommend COVID-19 booster shots for everyone

Officials in the Biden administration are expected to recommend that U.S. adults should receive a vaccine booster shot 8 months after their second dose, reported CNN.

The plan would involve administering third shots beginning in mid to late September if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives authorization.

Pfizer announced Monday that the drugmaker has submitted initial data to the FDA to support the use of booster doses for their COVID-19 vaccines.

“Vaccination is our most effective means of preventing COVID-19 infection — especially severe disease and hospitalization — and its profound impact on protecting lives is indisputable,” Albert Bourla, chairman and chief executive officer at Pfizer, said in a statement.

“The data we’ve seen to date suggest a third dose of our vaccine elicits antibody levels that significantly exceed those seen after the two-dose primary schedule. We are pleased to submit these data to the FDA as we continue working together to address the evolving challenges of this pandemic.”

The plan could be announced as soon as this week, reported CNN.

“ACP supports the approval of the use of an additional mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose for those who are immunocompromised and are in immediate need,” said Dr. George M. Abraham, MPH, FACP, president, American College of Physicians (ACP), told Healthline in an emailed statement.

Single COVID-19 case sparks lockdown in New Zealand

According to the BBC, the case was detected in Auckland, which will be locked down for a week, while the rest of New Zealand will be in lockdown for 3 days. Authorities say they’re assuming the new case was caused by the Delta variant.

Roughly 20 percent of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated, reported BBC, and Coromandel, a coastal town the person with COVID-19 had visited, will also be in lockdown for 7 days.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the toughest “level 4” rules will be required, reported the network. This means closing schools, offices, and all businesses, with only essential services remaining operational.

BBC also reported that data released by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health on Monday showed that all COVID-19 cases detected at the country’s border in recent weeks had been Delta.

“We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance,” Ardern said in a televised national address, reported BBC, calling the Delta strain “a game changer.”

New Zealand Health Chief Executive Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said the COVID-19 case was a 58-year-old man who became symptomatic on Saturday, reported the Express. The man’s wife was also tested and returned a negative result.

Mask shortage looms as Delta surges

On July 28, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its mask guidance to recommend masking for even fully vaccinated people in certain situations.

But according to new reports, masks are becoming hard to find — especially in some COVID-19 hot spots.

“While the growth in mask sales is not as high as last year, in part because people likely have leftover inventory, the double-digit growth in the last 3 weeks has been striking,” Vivek Pandya, Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst, told USA Today. “It has also moved in the same direction as the news uptick around the Delta variant.”

8/16/21 1:50 p.m. PDT — Number of children in hospital with COVID-19 hits record high

As COVID-19 cases surge, more and more children are being affected by the disease.

On Saturday, the number of children hospitalized for COVID-19 hit a record high of more than 1,900 cases according to Reuters.

Children under age 12 still cannot be vaccinated for the disease leaving them vulnerable to infection, even as over 50 percent of the U.S. is now fully vaccinated.

In a single week, more than 120,000 children tested positive for COVID-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

High school student dies from COVID-19 days before start of school

A 16-year-old high school student recently died due to COVID-19, according to WRAL.com.

“He loved being active, he was in my gym class, he talked to everybody,” the student’s friend, Seth Marshall, told WRAL.

School officials said the child was airlifted to the hospital after his condition worsened, and he passed away days before the start of school, reported WRAL.

Marshall told WRAL that the death is affecting him because his friend felt more like family.

“It was just great seeing him every day, when you were down he boosted your spirit,” Marshall said. He added that his friend’s death is proof that COVID-19 is real and dangerous.

According to WRAL, school officials have not yet released the deceased teen’s name.

Babies born during pandemic experience many cognitive deficits, study finds

A not yet peer-reviewed study from Brown University, and published in preprint, found that babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic may have significantly reduced motor, verbal, and overall cognitive performance when compared to children born before it began.

For the study, Brown University researchers analyzed data from an ongoing longitudinal study of child neurodevelopment. They compared scores in 2020 and 2021 to those from 2011 to 2019.

The findings suggest that verbal, nonverbal, and overall cognitive scores have gone down since the pandemic began – with infants born during the pandemic demonstrating significantly lower performance than those born before.

“Our results seem to suggest that early development is impaired by the environmental conditions brought on by the pandemic,” the study authors wrote.

8/13/21 1:19 p.m. PDT — FDA authorizes additional vaccine dose for immunocompromised people

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that organ transplant recipients and others with severely weakened immune systems can receive a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to be better protected against the highly infectious Delta variant, which continues to surge.

This decision is an amendment to the emergency use authorization (EUA) under which mRNA vaccines are currently being used.

The decision doesn’t apply to the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has seen far less use in the United States than the mRNA vaccines.

“The country has entered yet another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease. After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines,” acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement.

According to an FDA press release, the administration also authorized monoclonal antibody treatments for emergency use during the pandemic for people 12 years and older who weigh at least 88 pounds, have tested positive for COVID-19, and are at “high risk” for developing severe COVID-19, hospitalization, or both.

French police investigate COVID-19 vaccine certificate fraud

Police in France are investigating a series of COVID-19 vaccine certificate frauds after several doctors reported having their health service accounts hacked, according to the Guardian.

At least 55 false documents were obtained after hackers gained access to the online account of a doctor near Bordeaux, reported the Guardian.

Another physician in Marseilles also reported a similar incident. Other medical professionals have told authorities about attempts to access their accounts.

“Health pass fraud is very serious and is severely punished. Nobody should be cheating with the vaccine,” a local deputy prefect, Martin Guespereau, told journalists, reported the Guardian.

8/12/21 3:26 p.m. PDT — San Francisco becomes second major city to require vaccination for indoor activities

San Francisco has become the second major city to require vaccination for many indoor activities after New York City announced a similar requirement earlier this month.

One major difference is that people in San Francisco will have to be fully vaccinated, whereas in New York, people could be partially vaccinated.

Mayor London Breed made the announcement today and said that people visiting a variety of indoor settings including bars, restaurants, and gyms will be required to show proof of full vaccination.

People picking up takeout orders at restaurants will not have to show proof of vaccination.

Vaccines are our way out of this pandemic. They're how we can live our lives together, safely.

San Francisco will be requiring proof of vaccination for patrons and employees in a number of indoor settings, including bars, restaurants, gyms, and large events.

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) August 12, 2021

New mask mandate in Philadelphia amid rising COVID-19 cases

Philadelphia officials announced a new mask mandate on Wednesday, August 11 as they try to fight the rising number of COVID-19 cases, reported 6ABC News. The city will require masks be worn inside businesses unless the business requires proof of vaccination.

According to 6ABC, the mask mandate became effective at 12 a.m. on Thursday.

“That means everyone in Philadelphia must wear a mask when going into any business or institution, with an exception for those that require vaccinations. Restaurants and bars will need to require masks for all staff and customers, except when people are seated and actively eating and drinking,” Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said.

People will be required to show their vaccination card or a photo of the card to prove their vaccination status.

In announcing the new mandate on Wednesday, Mayor Jim Kenney said the city would offer guidance to businesses if they needed it, but that they, essentially, are the enforcers. The city plans to fine noncompliant businesses, reported NPR.

“That’s part of running a business in this environment, in this pandemic, is checking that people follow the rules,” Kenney said, according to NPR, pointing to restaurants already requiring proof of vaccination.

8/11/21 3:09 p.m. PDT — CDC advises pregnant people to get a COVID-19 vaccine

The CDC is advising pregnant people to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Previously, they advised that people who are pregnant should be offered the vaccine.

The advisory change comes after new research found there was no increased risk of miscarriage in people given an mRNA vaccine during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Many major medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, had already advised that people who are pregnant should get vaccinated for COVID-19.

Growing support for vaccine passports as Delta threatens travel

According to CNBC, a survey found 81.8 percent of Americans support the idea of vaccine passports — digital or physical proof of vaccination against COVID-19.

Travel website Upgraded Points surveyed 1,000 people in June to find nearly 82 percent of U.S. respondents support vaccine passports proving COVID-19 vaccination — and almost 55 percent agree that hotels and other travel-related businesses should require proof of vaccination status.

Nearly 60 percent also believe unvaccinated passengers of airlines, cruise ships, trains, and buses should be segregated from vaccinated passengers.

Alex Miller, founder and CEO of Upgraded Points, told CNBC he suspects the acceptance of vaccine passports would have been lower had the survey been conducted just a few months ago.

“Vaccine passports have become more and more of a reality with time and appear to be a potential path to normalcy,” Miller said. “The more they are discussed and even introduced, the more likely people may be to get the vaccine, which will ultimately aid in the overall goal of limiting the spread of COVID-19.”

One mRNA vaccine could be more effective against Delta than the other, study finds

All COVID-19 vaccines currently administered in the United States are shown to dramatically reduce virus risk, severe disease, and death. But according to a recent, not yet peer-reviewed study, one mRNA vaccine stands out against the Delta variant.

“Although clinical trials and real-world studies have affirmed the effectiveness and safety of the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines,” the study authors wrote, “reports of breakthrough infections and persistent emergence of new variants highlight the need to vigilantly monitor the effectiveness of these vaccines.”

Researchers compared the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer in the Mayo Clinic Health System from January to July 2021, during which either Alpha or Delta variant was highly prevalent.

According to researchers, the efficacy of Moderna’s vaccine dropped from 86 percent in early 2021 to 76 percent by July, when Delta became the dominant strain. However, during the same period, Pfizer vaccine effectiveness saw a steep decline from 76 to just 42 percent.

8/10/21 12:00 p.m. PDT — Children under 12 at high risk for developing COVID-19

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the COVID-19 case rate has skyrocketed to levels last seen before current vaccines were available. There’s also new data showing that the Delta variant is more infectious and leading to increased transmissibility when compared with other variants — even in vaccinated individuals.

ABC News now reports that demand is skyrocketing for a vaccine to protect young children who aren’t yet eligible for treatment, a group facing more cases than ever before during the pandemic.

Over 94,000 children were diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, according American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) figures cited by ABC, and hospitals nationwide are reporting more and more children in their pediatric COVID-19 units.

Pfizer has said it will submit vaccine safety data on 5- to 11-year-olds by the end of September. Moderna has said it will do so in the middle of the fall. It will then be up to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on how quickly it grants the authorization.

The vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 would be the same composition, but a smaller dose.

The FDA also isn’t likely to require an extended period of safety data collection for the younger age group.

“Just so everyone understands, we are going to be very careful as we get down to smaller children,” said Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief, in a May event with the group BlackDoctor.org.

“We have to reduce the dose of the vaccine, we’re more cautious about side effects, it takes longer to do the development,” Marks added.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls for hospitals to stop nonessential procedures

With COVID-19 surging in Texas, the governor is calling on hospitals to stop nonessential surgeries.

Governor Greg Abbott is asking hospitals to postpone elective medical procedures in an effort to avoid overwhelming healthcare facilities.

Abbott’s administration is facing legal challenges from his handling of the COVID-19 surge. Local government leaders in Texas are suing over the governor’s directive that bans local municipalities from implementing mask mandates. 

NIH to study how effective COVID-19 booster shots are for people with organ transplants

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has started a new study to see how effective a COVID-19 booster shot is for people who’ve had an organ transplant.

The study will look at people who’ve had a kidney transplant and who didn’t have an immune reaction to two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. A third dose will be given to see whether it can spur the immune system to provide protection.

People who’ve undergone organ transplants have to take immunosuppressive drugs and can be at risk for a COVID-19 infection even after vaccination. 

8/9/21 12:00 p.m. PDT— FDA approval may boost vaccination rates

Experts say full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for COVID-19 vaccines may significantly boost vaccination rates.

Michael Wolf, PhD, associate vice chair for research in the department of medicine at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, told CNN that full FDA approval could get roughly 5 to 10 percent more people vaccinated.

Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the FDA is working on getting the approval soon.

“I think from the standpoint of the public, it [FDA approval] really shouldn’t matter,” Offit said. “It’s been given to half of the American population. We have more than 300 million doses out there. This is far from experimental.”

Pentagon will require troops to get vaccinated against COVID-19

The Pentagon is going to require all troops to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 15, according to a report from The Associated Press.

A memo obtained by the AP from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended troops get ready for the new requirement.

“I will seek the president’s approval to make the vaccines mandatory no later than mid-September, or immediately upon” licensure by the FDA, “whichever comes first,” Austin said in the memo to troops, according to the AP.

8/5/21 2:17 p.m. PDT — Moderna vaccine still effective months later

Vaccine maker Moderna has released new data that their COVID-19 vaccine remains 93 percent effective 6 months after it’s administered.

The company said Thursday, August 5, that it’s also working on a single shot to provide an annual booster for COVID-19, as well as the flu and respiratory condition RSV.

While the data appears to show that the vaccine will remain effective, company officials say there may still be a need for a COVID-19 booster shot.

“We believe that increased force of infection resulting from Delta, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) fatigue, and seasonal effects (moving indoors) will lead to an increase of breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals,” the company said in an investor presentation posted to its website, NBC News reported.

The average COVID-19 cases nationwide are now running in excess of 120,000 a day.

Although some of those are breakthrough cases in the previously vaccinated, the CDC warns that the unvaccinated are 8 times more likely to contract Delta and 25 times more likely to die from it, reported NBC.

COVID-19 cases in children surge with 72,000 cases in 1 week

The Delta variant is now affecting many children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Children now make up 19 percent of — or nearly 1 in 5 — COVID-19 cases nationwide, according to the AAP. Pediatric cases have been steadily increasing in July as the Delta variant has swept through the United States.

Nearly 4.2 million U.S. children have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

Southeast Asia hit hard from Delta variant

Nations across Asia are up against their worst COVID-19 outbreaks of the pandemic, spurred by low vaccine rates and the highly contagious Delta variant, according to CNN.

Southeast Asian nations that managed to contain outbreaks last year are now struggling with overwhelmed health services, a lack of hospital beds, equipment, and oxygen, reported CNN. They’ve also reimposed lockdowns, shuttering factories and restricting the movement of citizens already experiencing financial hardship.

A military coup in Myanmar has brought that country to the verge of collapse as an ensuing bloody crackdown shattered the health system — and completely stalled their vaccination program.

While wealthier countries, like the U.K. and Singapore, are seeing renewed outbreaks, they have fully vaccinated over half their populations, reported CNN.

By comparison, Vietnam has fully vaccinated less than 1% of its population, Thailand around 5%, the Philippines 9.3%, and Indonesia — the epicenter — only 8%, according to Our World in Data.

8/4/21 1:46 p.m. PDT — Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may get full FDA approval by early September

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is projecting full approval for Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine by early September, The New York Times reported today, citing several people involved in the effort, according to Reuters.

The FDA issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccine in December, and full FDA approval could convince more people to get vaccinated, as it might reduce any doubts about the drug’s safety.

Since the vaccine is currently available to everyone eligible who wants it, what’s the difference between an EUA and full approval?

The FDA says it’s a matter of scale. The FDA reviews much more data, over a longer time, before granting full approval.

“FDA makes its decisions based on its analysis of the benefits and risks for the intended population who will receive the vaccine, as well as the disease(s) to be prevented,” the FDA confirmed.

The FDA approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could initiate a series of vaccine mandates across the United States, including military personnel and civilians working for the Department of Defense, who must be vaccinated or face regular testing, according to The New York Times.

Up to 98% of COVID-19 cases in U.S. are from Delta variant

The Delta variant, including several of its sub-lineages, is currently responsible for roughly 93.4 percent of COVID-19 cases circulating in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This situation is even more dire in certain parts of the country. In Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, the Delta variant accounts for more than 98 percent of circulating coronavirus.

The variant has driven a sharp surge in infections and hospitalizations just before most school years begin across the nation. 

The Department of Education’s road map for returning to school includes guidance for wearing masks, which is pitting educators in many school districts against state officials.

WHO calls for moratorium on COVID-19 booster shots until more people have access to vaccines

Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) are calling for a moratorium on COVID-19 booster shots until at least 10 percent of people from all countries are able to get vaccinated.

The call for a moratorium comes as vaccination rates have risen in developed countries, while developing countries have had little or no access to the vaccines.

Israel is the first country to have started COVID-19 booster shots in people with compromised immune systems. Other countries including the United States are considering whether a booster shot would be beneficial.

“So far, more than 4 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally. More than 80 percent have gone to high- and upper-middle income countries, even though they account for less than half of the world’s population,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing.

8/3/21 2:26 p.m. PDT — Biden to update nation as Delta variant surges

Today, President Biden will provide an update on his administration’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts as the Delta variant tears across the United States, a White House official told CNN.

The news comes as partial vaccinations in adults have reached 70 percent. This was a goal the Biden administration had hoped to reach by July 4.

According to reports, Biden will speak about recent actions by the private sector to require vaccinations, the recent uptick in vaccinations, “and the tremendous grassroots work Americans are doing every day to get their communities vaccines.”

Biden will also update the nation on his administration’s global vaccination efforts and announce that the United States has shipped more than 110 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 60 countries, according to the White House.

The White House notes this is more vaccine donations than all other countries combined.

Biden will also announce that the work to vaccinate the rest of the world “has just begun,” according to the White House official.

In addition, starting at the end of the month, the administration will begin shipping 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses that the country has pledged to purchase and donate to 100 developing countries, reported CNN.

New York City will mandate vaccination to access gyms, restaurants, performances

New York City will be the first major U.S. city to mandate proof of COVID-19 vaccination for customers and staff at restaurants, gyms, and other indoor businesses as the United States enters a new phase in the battle against the Delta variant, according to Reuters.

About 60 percent of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to city data. But certain areas, largely low-income communities and communities of color, have lower vaccination rates, reported Reuters.

The policy will begin Sept. 13 and is similar to measures taken in France to prevent disease spread.

“We know this is what’s going to turn the tide,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference, reported Reuters.

Part of the initiative will be a “Key to NYC Pass” to serve as proof of vaccination for workers and patrons at fitness centers, restaurants, and entertainment venues, the mayor said.

Pandemic increasing risk of childhood nearsightedness, study finds

According to a new study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, more children may have become nearsighted as a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers analyzed eye test data from roughly 2,000 school-age children in Hong Kong.

They found that the rate of myopia (nearsightedness) was double that found in a pre-pandemic study of children the same age.

Researchers cautioned that both increased screen time and decreased outdoor time has been implicated in the development of myopia.

“We showed a potential increase in myopia incidence, significant decrease in outdoor time and increase in screen time among schoolchildren in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the study authors wrote.

“Our results serve to warn eye care professionals, and also policy makers, educators and parents, that collective efforts are needed to prevent childhood myopia—a potential public health crisis as a result of COVID-19.”

8/2/21 2:09 p.m. PDT — Increased risk of hospitalization from Delta variant, studies find

As the Delta variant creates a new wave of coronavirus infections in the United States and worldwide, disease experts are researching whether this variant is making people sicker than before, especially those who are not yet vaccinated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that Delta, first identified in India and now dominant worldwide, is “likely more severe” than earlier versions of the coronavirus, according to an internal report made public on July 30, reported Reuters.

The CDC cited research from Canada, Singapore, and Scotland that shows people with coronavirus infections from the Delta variant are more likely to be hospitalized than people earlier in the pandemic.

Disease experts have told Reuters that these three studies suggest increased risk from Delta, but the study populations were limited and findings have not yet been reviewed by outside experts.

“It’s difficult to pin down increase in severity and population bias,” Lawrence Young, PhD, a virologist at the Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom, told Reuters.

The vast majority of COVID-19 cases that require hospitalization are now happening in people who are unvaccinated.

No lockdowns, even with current wave of Delta variant, says Fauci

Thanks to the more infectious Delta variant, COVID-19 cases are rising throughout the United States, according to the most recent CDC data.

However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, says new lockdown measures are unlikely.

“I don’t think we’re going to see lockdowns,” Fauci told ABC News yesterday. “I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country, not enough to crush the outbreak, but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter.”

He also warned that “things are going to get worse” as the Delta variant spreads.

“We’re looking, not, I believe, to lockdown, but we’re looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we’re seeing the cases go up, which is the reason why we keep saying over and over again, the solution to this is get vaccinated and this would not be happening,” Fauci said.

He confirmed that what we’re seeing now is an “outbreak of the unvaccinated,” and that “from the standpoint of illness, hospitalization, suffering, and death, the unvaccinated are much more vulnerable.”

7/30/21 1:57 p.m. PDT — Delta variant is more infectious than common cold, according to CDC

The Delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads far more quickly, according to an internal federal health document covered in the Washington Post.

The internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) slide presentation stated that the Delta variant was far more transmissible than previous strains.

The document also argues that officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”

“Although it’s rare, we believe that at an individual level, vaccinated people may spread the virus, which is why we updated our recommendation,” an anonymous federal health official told the Post.

“Waiting even days to publish the data could result in needless suffering and as public health professionals we cannot accept that.”

CDC Director: The Delta variant is ‘unforgiving’

In an exclusive interview with Healthline published today, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky spoke about the work done by the CDC to protect Americans and explained why some guidance regarding masks has changed.

“What I will say is we have an extraordinary team and they are mission-focused, collaborative, and wanting to do right by the American people,” she said.

“Do they wish we were in a different and better place? I think everyone does. Are they tired? Yes, but that does not change their mission-critical focus right now. Everyone is determined. They want to help.”

She said that new data helped spur new guidance. According to this data, a vaccinated person who contracts the Delta variant may be able to pass it on to others.

“For those rare people, we thought it was really important for those people to know that they are at risk of giving disease to someone else,” Walensky said.

Does COVID-19 cause cognitive issues or potentially dementia symptoms?

According to USA Today, researchers are concerned that survivors of COVID-19 infection may experience long-term consequences that include dementia.

With large numbers of people complaining of “brain fog,” attention problems, and confusion after their illness, scientists are examining whether COVID-19 has long-term consequences for brain health.

Early trials have found an association between COVID-19 infection and brain changes commonly seen in people who develop dementia.

“While some studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infects brain cells directly, others found no evidence of the virus in the brain,” lead study author Feixiong Cheng, PhD, assistant staff in Cleveland Clinic’s Genomic Medicine Institute said in a statement.

“Identifying how COVID-19 and neurological problems are linked will be critical for developing effective preventive and therapeutic strategies to address the surge in neurocognitive impairments that we expect to see in the near future.”

While Cheng and his team discovered little evidence that COVID-19 directly targets the brain, they did discover close relationships between SARS-CoV-2 and the genes/proteins associated with several neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

“We discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infection significantly altered Alzheimer’s markers implicated in brain inflammation and that certain viral entry factors are highly expressed in cells in the blood-brain barrier,” Cheng explained.

“These findings indicate that the virus may impact several genes or pathways involved in neuroinflammation and brain microvascular injury, which could lead to Alzheimer’s disease-like cognitive impairment.”

7/29/21 3:35 p.m. PDT — Biden announces federal workers must have vaccinations or tests

President Joe Biden announced new requirements for federal workers amid the ongoing surge of COVID-19 cases pegged to the Delta variant.

Biden is requiring federal workers to either get vaccinated or face weekly testing, according to NPR. The Delta variant has led to an explosion of COVID-19 cases in the United States, quadrupling in a few weeks.

“Vaccines are the best defense against you getting severely ill from COVID-19 — the very best defense,” Biden said according to NPR.

Federal workers will also have to wear masks while at work if they’re not vaccinated. While not a vaccination mandate, the Biden administration is reportedly hoping that the new requirements will spur more federal employees to get vaccinated.

Postal workers union against federal vaccination mandates, but encourages members to get the jab voluntarily

The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) announced on Wednesday that it opposes a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate from the White House, but still encourages workers to get vaccinated.

“Maintaining the health and safety of our members is of paramount importance. While the APWU leadership continues to encourage postal workers to voluntarily get vaccinated, it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent,” the APWU said in a statement.

The Union emphasized that issues related to vaccinations and testing for COVID-19 in the workplace must be negotiated with the APWU, and at this time, “the APWU opposes the mandating of COVID-19 vaccinations in relation to U.S. postal workers.”

7/28/21 2:58 p.m. PDT — COVID-19 hospitalizations jump nearly 50% in a week

Hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are now surging as the United States deals with a major increase in the disease, pegged to the more infectious Delta variant.

According to CDC data, the 7-day average of COVID-19 hospitalizations has risen about 46 percent compared to the previous week.

Currently, the 7-day average for hospitalizations is about 5,186.

Unique qualities of Delta variant led to new CDC mask guidance

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky explained that new evidence showing vaccinated people could transmit the Delta variant to others led the CDC to change its mask guidance.

“With prior variances, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn’t see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others. But with the Delta variant… you can actually now pass it to somebody else,” Walensky told CNN.

“But with the Delta variant, we now see in our outbreak investigations that have been occurring over the last couple of weeks, in those outbreak investigations we have been seeing that if you happen to have one of those breakthrough infections that you can actually now pass it to somebody else,” she continued.

COVID-19 cases are surging in the United States, fueled by the Delta variant, and largely among unvaccinated individuals.

The U.S. 7-day average of new daily cases has quintupled from 11,790 on June 23 to 61,976 on July 27.

7/27/21 2:50 p.m. PDT — CDC advises some vaccinated people to wear a mask indoors

The CDC has issued new guidance for vaccinated people as COVID-19 cases surge again.

The CDC is now advising people in areas with a high amount of viral transmission to wear masks while indoors even if they are fully vaccinated.

They are also advising that everyone at K-12 schools wear a mask regardless of vaccine status.

The change comes after the more infectious delta variant has been sweeping through the United States, pushing a major increase in COVID-19 cases.

In a media briefing today, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in rare cases people who were vaccinated were able to still transmit the virus and that clusters of COVID-19 cases have been reported in vaccinated people.

“The delta variant behaves uniquely differently from past strains of the virus,” she explained.

Five times greater risk of death for those ‘shielding’ from COVID-19, Scottish study finds

People at high risk cautioned to shield (self-isolate) in the first wave of COVID-19 were five times more likely to die after being infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than those at low risk from the disease, according to new research from Glasgow University in Scotland.

The findings suggest that efforts to protect the most vulnerable population didn’t prevent significant rates of infection in these high-risk groups, with many people losing their lives to the pandemic virus.

“The 2.03% of people advised to shield were, nonetheless, eight times more likely to have confirmed infections than the low-risk category, five times more likely to die following confirmed infection and 49 times more likely to die from COVID-19 overall,” the study authors wrote.

According to researchers, while selective testing might explain the rate of confirmed infections, it doesn’t explain higher overall mortality, suggesting that the shielding strategy was “not as effective as was hoped.”

They add that 28.8 percent of the population would need to have been under lockdown to prevent 80 percent of deaths — but this isn’t currently considered politically expedient.

“Shielding is probably best viewed as an intervention to protect individuals, to be used alongside other population-wide interventions such as physical distancing, face coverings and hand hygiene,” study authors concluded.

Hundreds of San Francisco bars will require proof of vaccination to enter

Hundreds of bars in San Francisco will start requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test from customers who would like to drink inside the premises, an industry group said Monday.

“Effective Thursday, July 29th, 2021, it will be the official position of the SF Bar Owner Alliance that any customer who wishes to remain inside our establishments show proof of vaccination or a 72-hour negative COVID19 test. Guests without these verifications are welcome to sit outside in parklets or other spaces we offer,” reads the statement as reported by KRON4 News.

The group, representing about 500 San Francisco bar owners, said it polled members before announcing the decision, with 85 percent agreeing with the move, reported NBC Bay Area.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed tweeted her support for the group.

This is a responsible decision by the SF Bar Owner Alliance that will help protect employees and customers.

We need everyone to get vaccinated, especially as the Delta variant continues to spread. It's how we can keep our city and our residents safe. https://t.co/RAENDN4SrK

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) July 26, 2021

7/26/21 2:39 p.m. PDT — Medical groups call on healthcare employers to mandate vaccination

The American Medical Association (AMA), the American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Public Health Association (APHA), and more than 50 additional groups have issued a joint statement calling on health and long-term care employers to institute COVID-19 vaccine mandates for their employees.

“This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first and take all steps necessary to ensure their health and well-being,” reads the statement.

The statement also points out that highly contagious variants, including delta, and “significant” numbers of unvaccinated people, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are again rising throughout the United States.

“Vaccination is the primary way to put the pandemic behind us and avoid the return of stringent public health measures,” the health organizations wrote.

According to the CDC, only 49 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, so far.

Biden administration says long COVID-19 can be considered a disability

On the 31st anniversary of the American Disabilities Act, the Biden administration has given guidance that having symptoms of long COVID-19 or long-haul COVID-19 can be considered a disability under civil rights laws.

This decision means some people dealing with debilitating symptoms from long COVID-19 may be entitled to protection from discrimination.

Diana Zicklin Berrent, an advocate for people with long COVID-19 and founder of Survivor Corps, wrote on Twitter that this was a “major step in the right direction.”

#LongCovid is now considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act 💪

We have far to go but this is a major step in the right direction. https://t.co/jjzk4lsx0o

— Diana Zicklin Berrent (@dianaberrent) July 26, 2021

7/23/21 1:45 p.m. PDT — 40% of this week’s COVID-19 cases come from 3 states

About 40 percent of COVID-19 cases detected this week came from three states: Florida, Texas, and Missouri.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients confirmed that Florida contributed the highest number of COVID-19 cases, with 1 in 5 infections coming out of that state alone.

Zients added that those states with the highest case numbers, like Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and Nevada, have also had higher rates of newly vaccinated residents than the national average.

Zients pointed out that areas with increasing cases are also seeing a rise in vaccination numbers.

“For the second week in a row, states with lower vaccination and higher case rates are seeing their vaccination rates grow faster than the national average,” he said. “People in these states are feeling the impact of being unvaccinated and responding with action.”

According to the most recent figures from the CDC, only 48.8 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated so far.

About 20% of new COVID-19 cases in LA are in vaccinated people, but few have symptoms

As the delta variant spreads, more people are becoming ill with COVID-19. While the vast majority are in unvaccinated people, health authorities say some vaccinated people are testing positive as well.

Los Angeles health officials said about 1 in 5 people who tested positive for COVID-19 were vaccinated.

But a key difference is that they were far less likely to become seriously ill and need to be hospitalized.

County officials estimate that just 0.0059 percent of all fully vaccinated people in Los Angeles County have had to be hospitalized for COVID-19.

Man with COVID-19 boards flight disguised as wife amid surge of infections

An Indonesian man with COVID-19 boarded a domestic flight disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab to cover his face and carrying fake IDs and a negative PCR test result, reported The Associated Press (AP).

According to the AP, police said a flight attendant aboard a Citilink plane traveling from Jakarta to Ternate in North Maluku province on Sunday noticed the man changing his clothes in the bathroom.

“He bought the plane ticket with his wife’s name and brought the identity card, the PCR test result, and the vaccination card with his wife’s name,” Ternate police chief Aditya Laksimada said after arresting the man upon landing, reported the AP. “All documents are under his wife’s name.” 

7/22/21 2:24 p.m. PDT — Biden Says Full FDA Approval For COVID-19 Vax Likely by Fall

During a town hall on July 21 designed to reach Americans skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccines, President Joe Biden said he expects the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give full approval this fall for the vaccines.

Biden said that he is not pressuring the FDA and that he came to this conclusion after talking with scientists.

“My expectation talking to the group of scientists we put together, over 20 of them plus others in the field, is that sometime maybe in the beginning of the school year, at the end of August, beginning of September, October, they’ll get a final approval,” Biden said according to The New York Times.

U.S. COVID cases triple in 2 weeks

COVID-19 cases nearly tripled in the United States over 2 weeks amid an abundance of vaccine misinformation that is straining hospitals, exhausting healthcare professionals, and pushing clergy into the fray, reported the Associated Press (AP).

“Our staff, they are frustrated,” Chad Neilsen, director of infection prevention at UF Health Jacksonville in Florida, told AP. “They are tired. They are thinking this is déjà vu all over again, and there is some anger because we know that this is a largely preventable situation, and people are not taking advantage of the vaccine.”

According to the AP, Jeremy Johnson, lead pastor of one of Missouri’s largest churches, said he has heard the reasons congregants are refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. He wants them to know it’s not only OK to get vaccinated, it’s what the Bible urges.

“I think there is a big influence of fear,” Johnson told AP. “A fear of trusting something apart from scripture, a fear of trusting something apart from a political party they’re more comfortable following. A fear of trusting in science. We hear that: ‘I trust in God, not science.’ But the truth is science and God are not something you have to choose between.”

7/21/21 11:38 a.m. PDT — Study says J&J vaccine not as effective against the delta variant

A new study that has not yet been peer-reviewed reports that Johnson & Johnson’s adenovirus vector COVID-19 vaccine may not be as effective against the delta variant as mRNA-based alternatives.

These findings contradict the vaccine maker’s claims of single-dose effectiveness against the variant.

According to researchers, the millions of people who received the J&J single-dose drug might need a second dose of mRNA technology vaccine.

“The message that we wanted to give was not that people shouldn’t get the J&J vaccine,” Nathaniel Landau, PhD, a virologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine who led the study, told The New York Times. “But we hope that in the future, it will be boosted with either another dose of J&J or a boost with Pfizer or Moderna.”

Beta variant raises concerns in parts of Europe

As the United States struggles to contain the delta variant, parts of Europe are contending with the COVID-19 beta strain that was initially identified in South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Already dealing with a surge in cases of the delta variant, the U.K. government changed its pandemic policy regarding international travelers from France – which has already recorded cases of beta in some of its territories.

“Anyone who has been in France in the last 10 days will need to quarantine on arrival to England in their own accommodation and will need a day 2 and day 8 test, regardless of their vaccination status,” the U.K. government announced. “This includes any fully vaccinated individual who transits through France from either a green or another amber country to reach England.”

According to CNBC, France defended its COVID-19 case record by noting that most cases of the Beta variant are in its overseas territories of La Reunion and Mayotte, both situated in the Indian Ocean and not on mainland France.

Former surgeon general urges everyone to wear masks

Dr, Jerome Adams, the former U.S. surgeon general for the Trump White House who once advised against face masks, now says even the fully vaccinated may need to mask up.

“More people than ever — vaccinated and unvaccinated — are going maskless,” he told NPR. “It doesn’t seem to have convinced anyone to get vaccinated.”

Adams added that the CDC needs to change its guidance on masking requirements in light of new COVID-19 outbreaks and the more contagious delta variant.

“Last year, Tony Fauci and I famously, prematurely, and wrongly advised against masks. I felt it was the best call at the time but now regret it,” Adams posted on social media.

He expressed concern that the CDC is making a similar misstep.

“I’m worried the CDC also made a similarly premature, misinterpreted, yet still harmful call on masking in the face of delta variant,” Adams wrote.

7/20/21 11:18 a.m. PDT — Delta variant now responsible for 83% of new U.S. COVID-19 cases

Health officials say the delta variant now accounts for 83 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the United States.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, told a Senate hearing today that the new variant has jumped from 50 percent of new cases on July 3 to its current rate.

Another CDC official told CNN last week that “we should think about the delta variant as the 2020 version of COVID-19 on steroids.”

Health officials say that current COVID-19 vaccines are effective against the delta variant, but more than half of the country remains unvaccinated.

Olympic COVID-19 isolation bubble already ‘broken,’ says expert

The “isolation bubble” system that Olympic Games organizers set up to prevent disease spread in the Tokyo Games Olympic Village is already broken, and there’s a risk that COVID-19 could spread more widely from inside it, a public health expert said today.

Olympic officials have reported the first positive test among athletes in the Olympic Village. There have been 67 cases detected so far among those accredited for the games since July 1.

According to The Associated Press, a new case among 13 added to the official total Tuesday includes a “games-concerned personnel” in Tokyo, a category that includes team officials and sports staffers who are not staying at the village.

“It’s obvious that the bubble system is kind of broken,” said Dr. Kenji Shibuya, the former director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London, who in April co-authored a British Medical Journal commentary that said the Olympics must be “reconsidered” due to Japan’s inability to contain coronavirus cases, reported Reuters.

“My biggest concern is, of course, there will be a cluster of infections in the village or some of the accommodation and interaction with local people,” Shibuya added.

U.S. is losing ground in pandemic battle, experts say

According to CNN, our battle against COVID-19 is far from over.

Among examples of the stymied efforts to contain the pandemic, the network reported that:

• New guidance for schools released yesterday from the American Academy of Pediatrics on mask wearing dampened hopes that children could go back to mask-free school days this fall.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 700 points July 19 in its biggest drop of the year as alarm over delta variant infections “hammered” travel, leisure, and energy stocks previously buoyed by the idea of a summer of freedom.
• First lady Jill Biden’s trip to Japan later this week will likely underscore the risk that the Summer Olympic Games will be defined by the pandemic, as positive tests cloud Friday’s opening ceremony, including one by a young U.S. gymnast.

According to CNN, all these developments represent the realization that any hopes COVID-19 would be in the “rearview mirror” this summer might be unfounded, and that a new national effort may be warranted.

“If we don’t get a significant proportion of these recalcitrant people vaccinated, you’re going to be seeing a smoldering of this outbreak in our country for a considerable period of time,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Monday.

7/19/21 9:53 a.m. PDT — U.S. Olympic gymnast tests positive for COVID-19

It’s just 4 days before the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo and COVID-19 has already cast its shadow over the games, reported CBS News.

Officials say there are at least 12 new COVID-19 cases connected with the games since Sunday, including a U.S. gymnast and cases among other athletes within the Olympic Village.

In a statement released today, USA Gymnastics confirmed that a replacement athlete for the women’s artistic gymnastics team had tested positive and that “the local government determined that the affected replacement athlete and one other replacement athlete would be subject to additional quarantine restrictions.”

“Accordingly, on Monday, the Olympic athletes moved to separate lodging accommodations and a separate training facility, as originally planned, and will continue their preparation for the Games,” the team said. 

The news on the gymnast came just hours after U.S. tennis player Cori “Coco” Gauff announced she had tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the Olympic Games.

Pediatricians recommend masks for all schoolchildren, vaccinated or not

Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that all children over 2 years of age wear masks when returning to school this year, regardless of vaccination status.

Officials at the AAP also said that school employees should wear masks. The AAP calls the new guidance a “layered approach.”

“We need to prioritize getting children back into schools alongside their friends and their teachers — and we all play a role in making sure it happens safely,” Dr. Sonja O’Leary, chair of the AAP Council on School Health, told NBC. “Combining layers of protection that include vaccinations, masking, and clean hands hygiene will make in-person learning safe and possible for everyone.”

Unvaccinated people facing ‘most serious’ virus of their lives, expert says

With vaccination rates still short of the threshold needed to stop the spread of COVID-19, most unvaccinated people in the United States will likely contract the rapidly spreading delta variant, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“And for most people who get this delta variant, it’s going to be the most serious virus that they get in their lifetime in terms of the risk of putting them in the hospital,” Gottlieb told CBS’ “Face the Nation” yesterday.

The delta variant, already detected in every U.S. state, is estimated to account for more than half of new COVID-19 cases in 5 of the 10 regions into which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services divides the country, reported ABC News.

“Variant proportions are dynamic and difficult to predict due to reporting delays, the presence of multiple variants, and changing incidence,” the CDC told ABC News in a statement.

Recent research examining 62 cases of the delta variant found viral loads roughly 1,200 times higher than viral loads in 63 cases from the 2020 epidemic wave, reported CNN.

The delta variant is also sending younger, previously healthy people to hospitals, the majority of whom are unvaccinated.

7/16/21 2:33 p.m. PDT — 38 states see at least 50% increase in COVID-19 cases

At least 38 states are seeing at least a 50 percent increase in COVID-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Many experts have attributed this rise to slowing vaccination rates, with less than 50 percent of the United States fully vaccinated.

“We’re seeing this because the public misunderstood the CDC guidance for fully vaccinated people as ‘We can now do whatever we want. Even if we are unvaccinated, we can now behave as if we are vaccinated,’” CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN‘s Anderson Cooper yesterday, according to the network.

According to the CDC, pandemic cases are going up everywhere in the United States, with an average of new cases at least 10 percent higher than a week ago.

6 New York Yankees test positive for the coronavirus

Outfielder Aaron Judge is among six New York Yankees baseball players who tested positive for the coronavirus yesterday, forcing postponement of the team’s home game against the Boston Red Sox and leaving other players on the American League All-Star team undergoing testing to confirm they didn’t contract an infection, ESPN was reportedly told by sources.

“It’s a fluid situation that could spread,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told ESPN. “It has spread to some degree.”

According to ESPN, this is the second outbreak on the Yankees team this year despite exceeding the 85 percent vaccination threshold allowing teams to enjoy relaxed protocols.

“I guess the last year, year and a half, has in some ways kind of prepared you for this kind of stuff,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told ESPN. “Certainly disappointing and frustrating, and don’t want to be sitting here talking about this, and desperately want us to go back to as normal as possible.”

7/15/21 3:37 p.m. PDT — Missouri health officials request alternate care site amid surge of patients

Officials in Missouri are asking for help from the State Emergency Management Agency to set up an alternate care site to help treat the growing number of people with COVID-19.

According to the Springfield-Greene County Health Department in Missouri, cases have risen in the county by 43 percent in the last 7 days.

SGCHD and @gcoem submitted a request to MO Dept. of Health and Senior Services and the State Emergency Management Agency for a COVID-19 Alternative Care Site. The request is in response to the growing need for medical care due to the virus.

News release: https://t.co/g4h7r3zhBc

— S-GC Health Dept. (@SGCHD) July 14, 2021

LA County officials say every hospitalized person with COVID-19 at county hospital is unvaccinated

The delta variant is continuing to spread in the United States, mainly among unvaccinated populations.

In Los Angeles, health officials have highlighted how rare hospitalizations are for people who are fully vaccinated.

Dr. Christina Ghaly, county health services director, said that no one with COVID-19 at a county hospital was vaccinated against the disease, according to CNN.

“To date, we have not had a patient admitted to a [Department of Health Services] hospital who has been fully vaccinated, with either the J&J, Pfizer or Moderna vaccine,” Ghaly told the board of supervisors, according to CNN.

“Every single patient that we’ve admitted for COVID is not yet fully vaccinated,” she said.

Republican vaccine resistance ‘major challenge’ in fight against pandemic

Increasing conservative resistance to COVID-19 vaccines is alarming public health experts and creating a major challenge as the United States tries to move past the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) cheered talk of a lower-than-expected vaccination rate over the weekend, according to The Hill.

Also, Tennessee will end outreach to teens regarding vaccination, including for COVID-19, amid pressure from the state’s Republican lawmakers.

This resistance helps explain why more than 30 percent of U.S. adults remain unvaccinated, with even higher percentages in Republican-leaning states, reported The Hill.

“It’s really profoundly sad to note that essentially almost 100 percent of every person who’s admitted to the hospital today with COVID could have been prevented,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told The Hill.

Experts say more than 99 percent of the people now dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated, reported The Hill.

COVID-19 vaccines have been found to be remarkably safe and effective after tens of millions of people have received them.

7/14/21 1:13 p.m. PDT — Delta variant accounts for almost 60% of U.S. COVID-19 cases, CDC says

The highly contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus initially identified in India now accounts for roughly 60 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the United States, according to data from the CDC, reported ABC News.

According to ABC News, data updated yesterday evening by the CDC shows the delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, is estimated to be responsible for 57.6 percent of newly confirmed cases nationwide from June 20 through July 3.

The estimate was only 31.1 percent for the 2 weeks prior.

“The delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a new spike in cases and death,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a COVID-19 press briefing on July 12, reported ABC News.

Children at risk as delta variant spreads

Dr. Peter Hotez, vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN that if adult vaccination rates, and rates of children 12 and older, continue to lag amid increased spread of COVID-19, the youngest members of the population will be most affected.

“Transmission will continue to accelerate… and the ones who will also pay the price, in addition to the unvaccinated adolescents, are the little kids who depend on the adults and adolescents to get vaccinated in order to slow or halt transmission,” Hotez told CNN.

Hotez emphasized that although many people may brush off the risk that low vaccination rates pose to children, citing their low COVID-19 death rates, children remain at risk of serious complications, reported CNN.

Yesterday, health officials from Mississippi announced that seven children were in the ICU as a result of the delta variant and two were on life support, reported ABC News.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the rates of new cases this past week are at least 10 percent higher than the rates of new cases the previous week in 46 states.

7/13/21 3:10 p.m. PDT — Health officials want to investigate COVID-19 booster shots for side effects

The United States is reviewing the need for a third COVID-19 booster shot among people who have already been vaccinated, but more data is needed to know whether additional shots could increase the risk of serious side effects, a U.S. health official said today, reported Reuters.

The official added that the second dose for two-shot COVID-19 vaccine regimens was associated with higher rates of side effects, and suggested a third dose might come with more serious side effects.

“We’re keenly interested in knowing whether or not a third dose may be associated with any higher risk of adverse reactions, particularly some of those more severe — although very rare — side effects,” said Jay Butler, deputy director at the CDC, during a media briefing, reported Reuters.

According to Reuters, Butler also said he hasn’t seen evidence of waning immunity to the coronavirus among U.S. residents who received vaccinations in December or January.

He said existing vaccines provide significant protection against the coronavirus delta variant, which has become the dominant variant in the United States.

COVID-19 outbreak tied to Ohio church retreat

A COVID-19 outbreak was reported among attendees of a church retreat, officials announced, reported ABC News.

Health officials confirmed at least 30 positive cases have been identified in people who took part in the event.

According to ABC, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Health said more than 800 people attended the Baptist Church retreat in Miamisburg, Ohio, from June 27 to July 3.

Dr. Michael Dohn, medical director for Dayton & Montgomery County Public Health, spoke about his concern, reported ABC.

“Unvaccinated people, including children under 12 years of age, are up to 100 times more likely to get sick after exposure to COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated individuals,” he said.

“The outbreak demonstrates that the COVID-19 virus is still circulating and continues to make people sick,” Dohn added.

7/12/21 3:58 p.m. PDT — FDA to add warning about rare neurological disorder to Johnson & Johnson vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to add a warning to the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine saying that it may lead to a slightly increased risk of a rare nerve disorder called Guillain-Barré syndrome, according to The New York Times.

Officials have detected about 100 suspected cases of the nerve disorder in the 12.8 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines administered in the United States.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare neurological disorder in which the immune system attacks part of the nervous system.

Symptoms can include mild, temporary weakness and tingling to more serious issues, including some cases of paralysis. Most people recover from even serious cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

An estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people develop Guillain-Barré syndrome every year in the United States, according to the CDC.

COVID-19 cases increase nearly 50% in U.S.

As the coronavirus delta variant rapidly spreads, U.S. “hot spots” have seen rising cases.

The United States is averaging about 19,455 new COVID-19 cases over the last 7 days, a 47 percent increase from the week prior, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, reported CNN.

“In places like Missouri where ICUs are packed, you’re going to see a surprising amount of death,” CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN.

At Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, more than 90 percent of ICU patients are on ventilators. Many patients are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, Erik Frederick, chief administrative officer, told CNN July 11.

This is especially concerning, he explained, because during last year’s peak, there were only 40 to 50 percent of ICU patients on ventilators.

According to Reiner, rising COVID-19 death rates typically follow 3 to 4 weeks behind spikes in cases. It takes a week for people to get sick enough to need hospitalization, and then often another couple of weeks for the infection to become fatal, reported CNN.

“We will start to see an increase in mortality in this country,” Reiner said.

Rare case shows it’s possible to contract 2 coronavirus variants at same time, says expert

Scientists have found evidence that it’s possible to contract two different coronavirus variants at the same time.

Researchers from Belgium have presented a case study of an unvaccinated older woman who was found to have infections with both the alpha and beta coronavirus variants.

Experts presented the case study at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases this weekend, announcing it’s believed to be the first known case of double infection, which underscores the need to be alert to this possibility.

The research has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The 90-year-old patient died in a hospital in Belgium in March.

“This is one of the first documented cases of co-infection with two SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern,” said lead study author and molecular biologist Dr. Anne Vankeerberghen from the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, in a statement.

“Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people. Unfortunately, we don’t know how she became infected,” she said.

Israel will start giving COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to high-risk adults

Israel has become the first country to start giving COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, according to The Washington Post.

The Israel’s Ministry of Health is giving booster shots only to severely immunocompromised adults.

In the United States, the CDC has said there’s not enough evidence that booster shots are needed.

However, Pfizer and BioNTech have said they will ask for emergency use authorization for their COVID-19 booster shots.

* This article was originally published here