Continue reading “Cuba starts to reopen economy as COVID-19 vaccine campaign races ahead”
Biden tells 60 MILLION Americans to get booster shots
Biden tells 60 MILLION Americans to get booster shots after CDC director overruled advisers to expand approval for third Pfizer shots – and president, 78, says he will get his
- Biden urged Americans over 65 and with certain medical conditions or jobs to get booster shots
- ‘I’ll be getting my booster shot,’ said Biden, 78
- Frontline workers and those with medical conditions like diabetes are encouraged to get jabs under new CDC guidance
- CDC Director Rochelle Walensky intervened to expand eligibility
President Joe Biden is telling a group of some 60 million Americans who got the Pfizer vaccine and meet other conditions to get booster shots, after a Centers for Disease Control panel gave the recommendation. Continue reading “Biden tells 60 MILLION Americans to get booster shots”
The Return of Empty Shelves and Panic Buying
Supply chain issues are leaving supermarket shelves empty. Shoppers might yet make things worse. Walk around a supermarket in the U.S. or Europe and you will see some empty shelves once more. This isn’t due to people panic-buying toilet paper, as they did early on in the pandemic; rather it’s because supply chains are clogged at almost every stage between Asian factories and grocery stock rooms. Continue reading “The Return of Empty Shelves and Panic Buying”
U.S. parents weigh risks, benefits as COVID-19 vaccine for kids nears
(Reuters) – Monday’s announcement from Pfizer and BioNTech that a low dose of their coronavirus vaccine proved safe and effective for children ages 5 to 11 in a clinical trial has come as a relief to many parents anxiously awaiting the chance to protect their children. The highly contagious Delta variant of the virus has collided with the start of the U.S. academic year, sending infections among young children soaring – including many cases requiring hospitalization – and forcing thousands of schools to shut for days or even weeks.
Continue reading “U.S. parents weigh risks, benefits as COVID-19 vaccine for kids nears”
More Than 5.85 Billion Covid10 Vaccines Given… The biggest mass vaccination of humans ever
More Than 5.85 Billion Shots
Given:
In the U.S., 383 million doses have been administered Updated: September 16, 2021,
The biggest vaccination campaign in history is underway. More than 5.85 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 31.1 million doses a day. In the U.S., 383 million doses have been given so far. In the last week, an average of 781,574 doses per day were administered Enough doses have now been administered to fully vaccinate 38.1% of the global population—but the distribution has been lopsided. Countries and regions with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated more than 20 times faster than those with the lowest.
Pfizer Covid Shot Safely Bolsters Antibodies in Younger Kids
(Sept. 20) Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE said their Covid-19 vaccine was safe and produced strong antibody responses in children ages 5 to 11 in a large-scale trial, findings that could pave the way to begin vaccinating grade-school kids within months. The long-awaited results offer one of the first looks at how well a Covid vaccine could work for younger children. Continue reading “Pfizer Covid Shot Safely Bolsters Antibodies in Younger Kids”
UK and US meat industry warns some firms have just five days’ CO2 supply
LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Some of Britain’s meat processors will run out of carbon dioxide within five days, forcing them to halt production, the head of the industry’s lobby group warned on Monday. A jump in gas prices has forced several domestic energy suppliers out of business and has shut fertiliser plants that also produce carbon dioxide (CO2), used to stun animals before slaughter and prolong the shelf-life of food. The shortage of CO2, also used to put the fizz in beer, cider and soft drinks, has compounded an acute shortage of truck drivers in the UK, which has been blamed on the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit. Continue reading “UK and US meat industry warns some firms have just five days’ CO2 supply”
America is months behind us on covid19 booster shots
Israel’s top COVID-19 experts say that they view the Food and Drug Administration advisory panel’s decision to recommend vaccine booster shots only for Americans over the age of 65 or those in specific risk groups as a vindication of their own country’s massive inoculation campaign. Israel was the first country in the world to begin a widespread booster shot campaign this summer, and Israeli data was used during the FDA panel’s deliberations. Yet while Israel is now offering the booster shot to anyone over the age of 12, the advisory committee decided to limit it to specific high-risk populations for now. Continue reading “America is months behind us on covid19 booster shots”
Vaccinated Israelis driving September peak in new infections. Blame the anti-vaxers and the high holidays
Israel has been one of the focal points of the pandemic in 2021 owing to its rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. By late February, authorities had administered at least one dose to 50% of the population, with much of Israel’s immunisation programme using Pfizer vaccines. Society then in effect reopened across the summer of 2021. However, since then Israel has reported significant outbreaks, with over 10,000 confirmed new cases being recorded each day in early September. A main part of the problem has been vaccine coverage. After its fast start, Israel’s rollout slowed. There have not been any clear interruptions to vaccine supply, so factors such as hesitancy or access to healthcare may have been an issue. For example, there’s evidence of uptake being lower among Arab and ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups. The share of the population having received one dose increased from 50% in February to only 68% in September. Children aged 12-15 have been included in the rollout since June 2021, yet despite this, currently only 62% of the population have had two doses.This has left Israel behind many other countries in terms of coverage, including the UK. Having around 30% of the Israeli population completely unvaccinated means that there’s approximately 2.7 million people who are potentially susceptible to infection and illness. There are also concerns that the immunity offered by the Pfizer vaccines may be waning over time, although much of the research on this is still at an early stage (meaning it is still awaiting review by other scientists). Israel’s hospital data is, though, showing that vaccinated people are susceptible to infection. Recent reports suggest that nearly 60% of hospitalisations are in the fully vaccinated. However, as experts have suggested, these figures don’t necessarily mean that vaccines have lost their effectiveness. The same sort of trend has been seen in the UK, and may simply reflect the fact that the elderly are more likely to be vaccinated while also being more susceptible to disease – factors which combine to inflate COVID-19 cases and deaths among the vaccinated.
A further factor is the more transmissible delta variant, which has now taken hold in Israel. This form of the virus is driving the current series of outbreaks, and its greater ability to spread may partially explain the rise in cases too.
The other big part of the problem has been Israel ending its restrictions. Dr Asher Salmon, director of the Department for International Relations at Israel’s ministry of health, suggested in July that Israel “may have lifted restrictions too early”. It’s the latest in a long line of examples showing how community transmission can be easily sustained when national policy encourages the mixing of susceptible people with no or few restrictions in place. The tragic consequences of relaxing restrictions in India shows how devastating it can be when decision-making goes awry. The COVID-19 Stringency Index created by Our World in Data is a composite measure of the strictness of the COVID-19 containment policies in each country around the world. As of August 28 2021, Israel’s restrictions score was 45.4, far less strict than New Zealand, where outbreaks continue to be limited in scope (96.3), but comparable with the UK (44.0), which is reporting around 30,000 new cases per day. Countries watched the initial vaccine rollout in Israel, gauging the vaccines’ impact and using this information to inform their own immunisation campaigns. Amid concerns about waning immunity, there are once again reasons to observe what happens next in Israel, as it is now implementing a booster programme, giving third doses of vaccines.
In terms of the effectiveness of boosters, early reports are encouraging. In those receiving a booster, the risk of a confirmed coronavirus infection appears to decrease 11-fold relative to individuals who have received two doses. However, the relevant study is still in preprint, so its findings have yet to be formally reviewed.
The use of boosters is controversial. There have been continuous calls for higher-income countries to share their vaccine stockpiles with lower-income ones. This has not yet happened to any great extent. As of early September, only 5.4% of the African continent has received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots until at least the end of September, but it seems unlikely any country will be altering their policies accordingly – including Israel. Israel’s vaccine rollout, overall, has arguably been implemented very successfully. But the country is also an example of what can happen when restrictions are relaxed too quickly. What it shows is that all countries – regardless of their current vaccine status – need to maintain longer-term plans for how to minimise the impact of COVID-19, during this current pandemic and beyond when controlling smaller outbreaks.
UK records 164 COVID deaths, 30,144 new cases… US hospitals buckling under delta surge: 25% of ICUs are over 95% full
The burden on US hospital ICUs has more than doubled since June.
The current surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the hypertransmissible delta variant is straining hospitals across the US, particularly in the South. Twenty-five percent of hospital intensive care units around the country are now above 95 percent full. That percentage is up from 20 percent in July and just 10 percent in June, according to data tracking by The New York Times.
The spike in critical care follows a surge in cases and hospitalizations. Average new daily cases in the country skyrocketed from around 12,000 a day in late June to 150,000 or so in mid-September. Hospitalizations have likewise risen, shooting up from an average of nearly 17,000 a day at the start of July to around 100,000 now. Though cases and hospitalizations are starting to plateau or decline slightly, they are still extremely high. Deaths, meanwhile, are increasing. In the past two weeks, deaths have increased 40 percent to the current average of nearly 1,900 per day.
Most of the cases and nearly all of the hospitalizations and deaths remain among the unvaccinated. Around 60,000 people in the US have died of COVID-19 since the start of July. With highly effective vaccines freely available, nearly all of the current deaths are preventable.
Now, along with the surge, public health experts fear strain on health care systems will lead to additional suffering and death in non-COVID patients. Hospitals in several states have been forced to ration treatments and enact crisis-care standards.
Hospitals in Alabama have exceeded 100 percent capacity of ICU beds. The Alabama Hospital Association on Tuesday reported that there were 1,592 ICU patients in the state and only 1,549 staffed ICU beds, an excess of 43 patients. The seven-day average of positive tests for the Yellowhammer State is 19 percent, suggesting that transmission is still extremely high. Alabama is one of the least-vaccinated states in the country, with only 40 percent of the population fully vaccinated. Generally, the hospitals and ICUs most overburdened are in the South, where vaccination rates are relatively low and transmission of delta has soared. In Texas, 169 out of 506 reporting hospitals have ICUs above 95 percent full, which is up from just 69 in June, the Times notes. In Florida, 24 hospitals have reported having more ICU patients than beds in the last week. In Mississippi, 94 percent of the entire state’s ICU beds are full. But the South isn’t the only place where hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. Last week, Idaho’s health department activated its crisis standards of care in 10 northern hospitals. Likewise, Alaska’s largest hospital—Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage—implemented crisis standards over the weekend. The hospital announced the decision in a two-page letter sent Tuesday. “The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapist,” according to the letter, which was signed by Providence Chief of Staff Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw. “[W]e must prioritize scarce resources and treatments to those patients who have the potential to benefit most. We have been required to develop and enact policies and procedures to ration medical care and treatments, including dialysis and specialized ventilatory support… Due to this scarcity, we are unable to provide lifesaving care to everyone who needs it.” The letter also noted that, with the crush of COVID-19 patients, some people seeking emergency care were sitting for hours in their cars outside of the hospital, waiting to be seen by a doctor.
UK records 164 COVID deaths, 30,144 new cases
Figure brings the total UK death toll to 135,147; Russia reports 20,329 new cases in 24 hours; anti-lockdown protesters clash with police in Melbourne
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- See all our coronavirus coverage