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‘Not Out of the Woods’: C.D.C. Points Warning to the Unvaccinated

‘Not Out of the Woods’: C.D.C. Issues Warning to the Unvaccinated

WASHINGTON – The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Thursday that the United States was “not yet out of the woods” with the pandemic and was again at a “key point” when the highly contagious Delta variant tore through unvaccinated Municipalities.

Just weeks after President Biden threw a party on July 4th on the South Lawn of the White House to declare independence from the virus, the director named Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky the now dominant variant “one of the most contagious respiratory viruses”. Known to scientists.

The renewed urgency within the administration was directed at tens of millions of people who have not yet been vaccinated and are therefore most likely to be infected and become ill. Her grim message came at a time of mounting fear and confusion, especially among parents of young children who are still unsuitable for the injection. And it underscored how quickly the recent surge in the pandemic had unsettled Americans, who had begun to believe the worst was over and prompted politicians and public health officials to recalibrate their responses.

“This is like the moment in horror movies when you think the horror is over and the credits are about to begin,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “And everything starts all over again.”

The decision by millions to reject the vaccine had the consequences health officials had predicted: the number of new cases in the country has increased nearly 250 percent since the beginning of the month, with an average of more than 41,000 infections diagnosed each day Week – versus 12,000.

The disease caused by the virus kills about 250 people each day – far fewer than during the peak period last year, but still 42 percent more than two weeks ago. More than 97 percent of hospital patients are unvaccinated, said Dr. Walensky last week.

The public health crisis is particularly acute in parts of the country where vaccination rates are lowest. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, the number of new cases every day has increased more than 200 percent in the past two weeks, leading almost entirely to new hospital admissions and deaths among the unvaccinated. Intensive care units are being filled or replenished in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.

The turnaround is forcing both political parties in Washington to grapple – hitherto hesitantly and hesitantly – with questions about what tone to use, what guidance to give, and what changes to make to meet the latest generation of the worst public Health crisis in a century.

The White House on Thursday announced new grants to local health departments for vaccines and stepped up testing in rural communities, despite administrative officials saying they would “make further progress in our fight against the virus” and insisted it was not necessary to do their basic Rethink measures strategy. Although reports of breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are increasing, they remain relatively rare and those that cause serious illness, hospitalization, or death are particularly rare.

But the rise in infections and hospitalizations in some parts of the country, even if mostly limited to people who have chosen not to vaccinate, has presented Mr Biden with an evolving challenge that threatens economic recovery and his own political standing could.

The stock market is shaky. His administration is under renewed pressure to reintroduce mask mandates, as Los Angeles County did this week. And the president’s top aides are on the defensive in their strategy to keep the pandemic in check again.

“It’s frustrating,” Mr. Biden admitted Wednesday night during a town hall event on CNN.

The rise of the variant could also change the equation for some Republicans who see many of their own constituents hospitalized – or worse. Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, received his first shot on Sunday, noting a “further spike” in the pandemic. Fox News host Sean Hannity said on his show, “I believe in the science of vaccination.”

On Capitol Hill, House Republican leaders and doctors were reluctant to signal their support for vaccinations Thursday, even though that support was mixed.

“If you are at risk you should get this vaccine,” said Maryland doctor Andy Harris, adding, “We urge all Americans to speak to their doctors about the risks of Covid and to speak to their doctors about the benefits.” get vaccinated and then make a decision. “

Updated

July 22, 2021, 1:43 p.m. ET

Republican Rep. Greg Murphy, North Carolina, said, “This vaccine is a medicine and, like any other medicine, there are side effects and it is a personal choice.”

Their press conference was promoted as an attempt to “discuss the need for vaccination for individuals”. But it was dominated by efforts to spread an unproven theory that the Chinese released a virulent, man-made virus in the world and allegations that the Democrats were covering it up.

The vaccines work to protect those who have been injected from serious danger, but charts tracking the pandemic, which has been declining for months – heralded by Mr Biden as evidence his approach worked – are going up sharply.

The rapid momentum of the new variant makes people wonder whether they have to withdraw from restaurants, cinemas, bars, sporting events and their offices again. What seemed like clear – and mostly positive – decisions just a few days ago now seems muddy.

White House officials on Thursday turned down questions about whether vaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors, as Los Angeles County health officials ordered days ago. Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s coronavirus coordinator, just said that the CDC’s current guidelines don’t require it.

“It is up to each and every American to make their own contribution,” he said. “We know that every vaccination route is different. We are ready to have more Americans vaccinated anytime, anywhere. “

Amid the concern, one thing is clear: the variant has once again turned hopes of an end to the pandemic on its head and sparked a new fear on the horizon – that a highly anticipated return to work and school could be disrupted after much of the country’s nearly 18 Months of seclusion from home.

“I’m concerned about the fall,” said Rep. Lauren Underwood, an Illinois Democrat and registered nurse. “August will be tough. It’s going to be tough back to school. We will see more sickness and more death. “

Andy Slavitt, a public health expert who recently left the Biden White House’s coronavirus response team, said the government would not consider mandating vaccinations for the military or federal workers until the Food and Drug Administration clears the coronavirus – Vaccines that are now available have been given permanent authorization under emergency use authorization.

However, the final approval of the Pfizer vaccine will take place “within weeks to a few months”. Once that happens, he said, “it should all be on the table and I can tell you that is the attitude in the White House.”

Public school systems could also require vaccinations at this point, just as they would require vaccinations against polio, measles, mumps, and rubella – with a few exceptions for religious or health reasons. That would quickly drive up vaccination rates.

Aside from mandates, there are few obvious policy changes as Congress has already inundated health officials with funding for vaccination campaigns and making vaccines widely available. Ami Bera, a Democrat from California, who is a doctor, suggested that the Biden government launch a public advertising campaign modeled on smoking cessation campaigns in which a dying man once smoked through his windpipe.

“Let’s do an ad with a 20 year old man who says, ‘I didn’t take it seriously. I got it and killed my grandmother, ”he said.

Republicans have emphasized their refusal to go backwards.

“You don’t have to shut things down,” said Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, a doctor. “Look, as far as I know, no child under the age of 18 has died of Covid unless they also had a serious illness.”

The death toll among American children is extremely small – 346 on July 15 – but some of them most likely did not have any underlying health conditions.

Even the Republicans have so far resisted sounding the alarm in the conservative population. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in late June that 86 percent of Democrats had at least one shot, compared to 52 percent of Republicans.

Policy makers are feeling paralyzed, in large part because once Americans resume life without masks and other restrictions, it will be difficult to return. Vaccination and masking requirements would almost certainly trigger a violent backlash, but could also save lives.

“We all have this psychology, well, it’s over, but intellectually we know it’s not over yet,” said Maryland Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Majority Leader. He asked, “How do we get a society that had an enormous feeling of being locked in a mask, then being free again, to go back?”

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Nightclubs are the brand new Covid battleground

Nightclubs are the new Covid battleground

Clubbers queue around the block at a few minutes to midnight waiting for Covid-19 restrictions to be dropped and for Pryzm nightclub to open its doors once more on July 18, 2021 in Brighton, England.

Chris Eades | Getty Images News | Getty Images

LONDON — Nightclubs and bars are fast becoming the new battleground in the fight against Covid-19 as the nocturnal economy re-opens in some countries and coronavirus cases soar, particularly among the young.

Covid is seeing a resurgence in Europe as the highly infectious delta variant spreads among the unvaccinated and partially-immunized population, which is predominantly young as they were the last in line to receive a vaccine.

At the same time, a number of European countries decided to revive their night time economies, allowing bars and clubs to reopen to the public again, some after 16 months of closure which put many out of business.

In England, nightclubs were allowed to reopen as the clock struck midnight on Sunday with thousands of revelers soaking up the lights, music and lack of face masks and social distancing. Experts are already warning that England’s move is risky, particularly as other countries that reopened before it have now shut up shop (or club) again.

U-turns elsewhere

Other countries allowed their nightclubs to reopen in June, including the Netherlands and Spain, but both made rapid revisions and reversals given the Covid situation.

In the Netherlands, nightclubs reopened on June 26 but the government soon regretted the decision, performing a U-turn just two weeks later, closing them down again on July 10 as Covid cases surged in the country, particularly among the young. More than 1,000 Covid infections were linked to one music festival in the Dutch city of Utrecht earlier in July.

Read more: Dutch try to stamp out rule-breaking in bars and cafes as Covid infections soar

On having to close its club doors until August 13, Melkweg, a venue in Amsterdam, described the move as “an annoying decision” but said that “due to the increasing number of infections, we believe that we cannot yet guarantee a safe environment for the public, employees and artists.” 

Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School at the U.K.’s University of Warwick, told CNBC on Wednesday that the country’s experience was a warning to England.

“If you look at the data from the Netherlands, it’s quite clear that it is that nightclub scene that has fueled this infection rate. It’s clear that opening up, in the way that they did, particularly with the nighttime economy, has been a real driver to massive levels of infection. They saw an eightfold increase [in cases] in a week and most of that is in the 18-29 year olds,” he noted.

“I don’t want to appear to be a doomster but when you look at the pictures from England at the turn of midnight [when clubs reopened on Sunday] it is really frightening and for me it really is inevitable that we’re going to have to reintroduce restrictions of some description” particularly, he said, while there were 18 to 30 year-olds not yet vaccinated or fully immunized.

The virus ‘is not overcome’

Similar to the Netherlands, Spain was optimistic that it could also reopen nightclubs, a key component of its nocturnal economy and tourism sector.

In June, the government announced plans to allow all of Spain’s 17 regions to reopen venues in time for the summer season. But with strict rules attached; clubs could stay open only until 3 a.m., there would be limits on the number of people allowed in venues (depending on the Covid situation in the region) and restrictions would stay in place until Spain reached a 70% vaccination rate.

A handful of regions opposed the move at the time but others went ahead, reopening their clubs around he weekend of June 26. Just like the Netherlands, however, cases soared among young people and several regions took the unilateral step to close venues again. Now, there is a myriad of varying rules on closing times, curfews and capacity across Spain, local media report.

Young men with alcohol drinks in their hands make fun and shout on Barceloneta beach promenade on July 17 2021. Police evicts crowds from Barceloneta beach after Catalonia decreed the return of a 1am curfew given the rebound in Covid-19 cases as a result of the delta variant of the coronavirus.

SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

On forcing clubs in Barcelona to close in early July — just a couple of weeks after they had reopened — Catalonia’s regional government spokesperson Patricia Plaja noted that “we cannot pretend that we have overcome the virus. The data is worrying and the number of infections is growing at an exponential rate far beyond what we can afford.”

Gustavo Ferrer, co-owner and director of the Macarena Club in Barcelona, which had to shut its doors earlier in July, told CNBC Thursday that having to close “has been very hard for us, we have been closed for many months.”

The order to close was all the more frustrating, he said, because “we thought that the authorities had studied the situation well and had everything under control, but it was not like that and after two weeks we had to close again.”

Read more: The beta Covid variant is causing concerns in Europe. Should we be worried?

Ferrer said the Macarena hopes to be open again in mid-August or early September with vaccine passports and antigen tests a way to get the industry back on its feet.

The British government announced at the start of the week that it was planning on making Covid vaccination compulsory for nightclub goers and other crowded venues in England from the end of September. This prompted criticism from the industry including from Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, who commented on Twitter Tuesday: “So ‘Freedom Day’ for clubs lasted around 17 hours then.”

Doctors are worried

Medical experts are duly worried about the infection rate among young people.

Chris Lutterodt, a doctor and spokesman for the charity Healthcare Workers Foundation, told CNBC that he the link between nightlife and Covid infections was obvious given it’s “harder to maintain social distancing and enforce rules in this setting especially when alcohol comes into the mix.”

“As a GP [general practitioner] I have seen a lot of mainly young people presenting after catching Covid for advice and support. This mirrors what we are seeing with an increased number of infections mainly affecting the younger people. I have seen patients who have attended hen and stag parties over the last few weekends where a significant proportion of them have developed Covid and, in one case, 6 out of the 8 attendees,” he said.

Read more: Headache? Runny nose? These are among the new top 5 Covid symptoms, study says

“We need to remember that people who have recently been vaccinated with the first dose may not have sufficient immunity to protect them against catching Covid-19. It is important to follow government advice and social distancing measures where applicable to stop the spread.”

Lutterodt said governments need to ensure that there are proper procedures in place before opening night time industries “if we are to avoid another spike in cases and re-closing of nightclubs which have really suffered throughout this pandemic.”

As it is, however, he added that he was concerned a reopening of clubs will create “the perfect storm for an increase in cases and subsequent hospitalization especially over the autumn and winter months where we know the NHS (the National Health Service) is usually under tremendous pressure.”

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What Is HIPAA and How Does the Legislation Work?

What Is HIPAA and How Does the Law Work?

As September lures people back to the office and the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads rapidly across the country, workplaces face a number of challenges, including having to vaccinate employees or reimposing mask requirements.

Some, including Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, oppose these calls because she falsely claimed this week that disclosure of vaccination status was “a violation of my HIPAA rights,” the federal ordinance protecting confidential health information.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, regulates the confidentiality of a patient’s medical records, but it is legal to ask Ms. Greene about her medical history. Still, their claim reflects a misperception that has spread through social media and fringe sites as online misinformation and misrepresentation about vaccines helps fuel resistance to vaccination.

Here’s a look at what privacy regulations HIPAA offers and why it’s so often misinterpreted.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the HIPAA Act, a comprehensive health and privacy law that helped update and regulate the electronic processing of health insurance sales and personal medical information storage.

One aspect of the law, the Privacy Policy, makes it illegal for certain individuals and organizations, including healthcare providers, insurers, clearing houses, that store and manage health data, and their business partners, to share a patient’s medical records without the patient’s express consent. These parties process the patient’s health records on a daily basis.

No. The law only applies to businesses and healthcare professionals, although some people falsely suggest otherwise, as Ms. Greene suggested, that the measure provides protection against disclosure of personal health information similar to the fifth amendment.

HIPAA is extremely “tight,” said I. Glenn Cohen, an expert in bioethics and health law at the Harvard School of Law. “If someone says to you, ‘HIPAA prohibits this,’ ask them to point out the part of the law or regulation that prohibits it. They often fail to do that. “

In addition, the law does not prohibit anything from asking about a person’s health, whether it be vaccination status or showing that this information is correct.

Regardless, some have turned to the law as an excuse to divert such questions.

In July, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson falsely claimed on Facebook that President Biden’s door-to-door campaign to promote vaccination and whether residents were vaccinated was “illegal” under HIPAA.

However, the law does not apply to employers, retail stores or journalists, among others. No federal law prevents companies from requiring their employees to be vaccinated, although there are certain exceptions if you have a disability or have a sincere religious belief.

Updated

July 22, 2021, 1:43 p.m. ET

You also don’t need to tell if you have been vaccinated. Disclosure is at your discretion.

Long before social media and marginal news sites spread harmful misinformation, like whether masks work (they do) or whether the coronavirus vaccine changes your DNA (it doesn’t), HIPAA and its use as a privacy rationale have often lent itself to len itself Misinterpretations.

“I often joke that while HIPAA is five-letter, it is treated like a four-letter word,” Cohen said. Doctors, he said, have often used this as a reason “not to do something they don’t want to do, such as giving a patient certain information by saying, perhaps believing but wrongly,” Well, that would be a HIPAA violation “.. ‘”

However, experts say that maintaining false claims does further harm and misunderstandings about HIPAA and vaccine skepticism among politicians and public figures.

“This rumor might not be particularly harmful in itself, but it is part of one of the most harmful narratives,” said Tara Kirk Sell, assistant professor of health safety at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s especially a problem when there is an information gap and in that case people don’t know what HIPAA is.”

Ms. Greene previously spread misinformation about HIPAA and about vaccines. Twitter suspended her account this week after claiming Covid-19 was not dangerous for young, healthy people – a claim the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have disproved.

“The HIPAA laws are real and they do something important,” said Ms. Sell. “The misinterpretation of what this is about only adds to this firestorm of anti-vaccine sentiment.”

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Delta variant is without doubt one of the most infectious respiratory illnesses identified, CDC director says

Tennessee move to halt vaccine outreach to teens 'incredibly disturbing'

Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC

Source: CDC | Youtube

The Delta-Covid variant is one of the most contagious respiratory diseases scientists have ever seen, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The variant is highly contagious, mainly because people infected with the Delta strain can carry up to 1,000 times more virus in their nasal passages than those infected with the original strain, according to new data.

“The Delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky reporters at a briefing Thursday. “It’s one of the most contagious respiratory viruses we know and that I’ve seen in my 20-year career.”

The Delta variant has spread rapidly in the US and currently accounts for more than 83% of the cases sequenced in the US, up from 50% in the week of July 3rd.

The seven-day average of new cases has increased by around 53% compared to the previous week and is currently 37,674 new cases per day. Hospital admissions are up 32% to about 3,500 per day from last week, and deaths are up 19% to about 240 per day over the same period.

Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards

Graphic shows current data on Covid-19 in the USA.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“This virus has no incentive to wear off and it remains on the lookout for the next person at risk to infect,” Walensky said.

The virus penetrates US counties with low vaccination rates, while counties with high vaccination rates have lower rates of new infections.

Three states, Florida, Texas and Missouri, with low vaccination rates account for 40% of all new cases nationwide, White House Covid Tsar Jeff Zients said. Florida alone accounted for one in five of all new cases in the United States for the second straight week.

In hospitals across the country, 97% of people admitted with Covid symptoms are unvaccinated, and 99.5% of all Covid deaths are also unvaccinated.

For the past week, the five states with the highest case numbers had higher rates of people getting re-vaccinated compared to the national average.

“We are at another pivotal moment in this pandemic as cases are picking up again and some hospitals are reaching capacity in some areas. We need to come together as a nation,” Walensky said.

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Ought to Folks Who Took The Covid-19 Vaccine Begin Sporting Masks Once more?

Should People Who Took The Covid-19 Vaccine Start Wearing Masks Again?

Since the delta variant is spreading among the unvaccinated, many fully vaccinated people also worry. Is it time to mask again?

While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, most experts agree that masks remain a wise precaution in certain situations for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. How often you use a mask depends on your personal health tolerance and risk, the infection and vaccination rates in your community, and who you spend time with.

The bottom line is this: while a full vaccination protects against serious illness and hospitalization from Covid-19, no vaccine offers 100 percent protection. As long as large numbers of people remain unvaccinated and the coronavirus continues to spread, those vaccinated will be exposed to the Delta variant and a small percentage of them will develop what are known as breakthrough infections. Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about how to protect yourself and reduce your risk of a breakthrough infection.

To decide if a mask is needed, first ask yourself these questions.

  • Are the people I am with also vaccinated?

  • What is the fall and vaccination rate in my community?

  • Will I be in a poorly ventilated indoor or outdoor area? Will the increased risk of exposure last a few minutes or hours?

  • How high is my personal risk (or the risk to my fellow human beings) for complications from Covid-19?

Experts agree that you don’t need to wear a mask if everyone you are with is vaccinated and symptom-free.

“I don’t wear a mask when hanging out with other people who have been vaccinated,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, Dean of Brown University School of Public Health. “I don’t even think about it. I go to the office with a few people and they are all vaccinated. I’m not worried. “

But once you venture into closed public spaces, where the chances of encountering unvaccinated people are greater, a mask is probably a good idea. A full vaccination remains the strongest protection against Covid-19, but the risk is cumulative. The more opportunities you give the virus to challenge the antibodies you made with your vaccine, the higher your risk of exposure to exposure so great that the virus breaks the protective barrier of your immune system.

Because of this, your community’s fall and vaccination rate is one of the most important factors influencing mask needs. For example, in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, more than 70 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, fewer than 45 percent of adults are vaccinated. In some counties, overall vaccination rates are far lower.

“We are currently two Covid nations,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital. In Harris County, Texas, where Dr. Hotez is alive, case numbers are up 114 percent in the past two weeks, and only 44 percent of the community is fully vaccinated. “I wear a mask indoors most of the time,” said Dr. Hotez.

Finally, masking is more important in poorly ventilated indoor spaces than outdoors, where the risk of infection is extremely low. Dr. Jah notices that he recently stormed into a cafe, exposed because vaccination rates are high in his area, and was only there for a few minutes.

Your personal risk also counts. If you are elderly or have immunocompromised your antibody response to the vaccine may not be as strong as a young person’s response. It is a good idea to avoid crowded rooms and wear a mask if you are indoors and do not know the vaccination status of those around you.

Use the Times tracker to find vaccination rates and case numbers in your area.

When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that people who had been vaccinated could forego wearing masks, the number of cases declined, vaccinations increased, and the highly contagious Delta variant had not yet caught on. Since then, Delta has spread rapidly and now accounts for more than 83 percent of cases in the United States.

It is known that people infected with the Delta variant shed much higher amounts of the virus over longer periods of time compared to previous lines of the coronavirus. A preliminary study estimated that viral loads are 1,000 times higher in people with the delta variant. These high viral loads give the virus more opportunities to challenge your antibodies and breach your vaccine protection.

“This is twice as transferable as the original line from Covid,” said Dr. Hotez. “The reproductive number of the virus is around 6,” he said, referring to the number of people a virus carrier is likely to infect. “That means that 85 percent of the population must be vaccinated. Only a few areas of the country achieve that. “

Updated

July 22, 2021, 1:43 p.m. ET

The answer depends on your personal risk tolerance and the level of vaccinations and Covid-19 cases in your community. The more time you spend with unvaccinated people in closed rooms for a long time, the higher the risk of crossbreeding with the Delta variant or other variants that may appear.

Large gatherings, by definition, offer more opportunities to contract the coronavirus, even if you are vaccinated. Scientists have documented breakthrough infections at a recent Oklahoma wedding and July 4th celebrations in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

But even with the Delta variant, a full vaccination seems to be around 90 percent effective to prevent serious illnesses and hospital stays caused by Covid-19. However, if you are at a very high risk of complications from Covid-19, you should consider avoiding risky situations and wearing a mask if the vaccination status is unknown to those around you.

Healthy vaccinated people with a low risk of complications have to decide what personal risk they want to accept. Wearing a mask at large indoor gatherings will reduce the risk of infection. If you are healthy and vaccinated but are caring for an aging parent or spending time with others at high risk, you should also consider their risk when deciding whether to attend an event or wear a mask.

“When I go into a public area, I usually wear a mask,” said Dr. Hotez. “Until recently, I used to take my son and his girlfriend out to a restaurant for dinner and I wouldn’t wear a mask because the broadcast was so advanced. Now I’m not so sure. I can change the way I think about restaurants while Delta is getting faster. “

Breakthrough infections get a lot of attention because people who have been vaccinated talk about them on social media. If breakthrough infection clusters occur, it is also reported in science journals or in the media.

However, it’s important to remember that while breakthrough cases are relatively rare, they can still happen no matter what vaccine you’re given.

“No vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing disease in vaccinated people,” says its CDC website. “There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who will still get sick, hospitalized, or die of Covid-19.”

A breakthrough case doesn’t mean your vaccine isn’t working. In fact, most breakthrough infection cases result in no symptoms or only mild illness, which shows that the vaccines are working well to prevent serious illness from Covid-19.

As of July 12, more than 159 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Of these, only 5,492 had breakthrough cases that resulted in serious illness. including 1,063 who died. That’s less than 0.0007 percent of the vaccinated population. Now 99 percent of Covid-19 deaths are among the unvaccinated.

Many infectious disease experts are frustrated that the CDC only documents cases where a vaccinated person with Covid-19 is hospitalized or dies. But many breakthrough infections are still being discovered in asymptomatic people who are frequently tested, such as baseball players and Olympic athletes. Many of these people travel or spend long periods of time in close quarters with others.

“Sports figures are different,” said Dr. Yeh. “Part of the problem is that they also encounter a lot of unvaccinated people, even in their own small circle.”

If you’re fully vaccinated and know you’ve been exposed to someone with Covid-19, it’s a good idea to get tested even if you don’t have symptoms.

And if you have cold symptoms or other signs of infection, experts agree that you should be tested. Many vaccinated people who do not wear masks have caught colds in the summer, which lead to runny nose, fever and cough. But it’s impossible to tell the difference between a summer cold and Covid-19. Anyone with cough or cold symptoms should wear a mask to protect their surroundings and get tested to rule out Covid-19. It’s a good idea to have a few Covid tests on hand at home as well.

“If I woke up one morning and had symptoms of a cold, I would put on a mask at home and get tested,” said Dr. Yeh. “I don’t want to cause breakthrough infections in other members of my family, and I don’t want to give it to my 9 year old child.”

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Dr. Scott Gottlieb says the Covid delta spike could peak in late August

Vaccine ramp up probably not enough to manage UK virus variant

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday the current spike in Covid infections due to the highly contagious delta variant may be over sooner than many experts believe.

However, the former FDA chief urged Americans to take precautions in the meantime as delta, first found in India, takes hold as the dominant variant in the U.S.

“I think the bottom line is we’re going to see continued growth, at least in the next three to four weeks. There’s going to be a peak sometime probably around late August, early September,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.” “I happen to believe that we’re further into this delta wave than we’re measuring so this may be over sooner than we think. But we don’t really know because we’re not doing a lot of testing now either.”

There may be another small bump in infection rates as schools reopen in the fall and become “vectors of transmission” as they did with the B.1.1.7 variant, first discovered in Britain, and now called alpha, said Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019 during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Gottlieb also warned that just wearing masks, particularly cloth masks, may not enough to prevent Covid infections from the delta variant in classrooms. He advised schools to create pods, space out children in the classroom, avoid group meals and suspend certain large activities, as well as improve air filtration and quality levels. 

“There might be other things you do that actually achieve more risk reduction than the masks in the setting of a much more contagious variant where we know there’s going to be spread even with masks,” Gottlieb said. “If we’re going to tell people to wear masks, I do think we need to start educating people better about quality of masks and the differences in terms of the reduction and risk you’re achieving with different kinds of masks.”

For businesses wanting to bring people back into offices, Gottlieb said that October may be a more “prudent” time than September.

Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, said the critical question right now is how likely vaccinated people are to transmit the virus if they become infected. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be collecting that data because it’s likely the current delta variant may be the newer, more permanent form of coronavirus going forward.

“When you’re dealing with a new variant where the virus levels that you achieve early in the course of your infection are thousandfold the original strain, it’s possible that you’re shedding more virus and you could be more contagious,” he said.

Local officials across the country are advising and reimposing indoor mask mandates as the highly transmissible delta variant causes Covid cases and deaths to increase again in the U.S., particularly in largely unvaccinated communities.

Nearly 162 million people in the U.S. are fully vaccinated — almost 49% of the nation’s population — even as the rate of daily administered shots has seen a sharp dip in recent months, according to a CDC tracker.

The CDC eased its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated people on May 13.

Since delta has taken a stronger hold, however, health experts are cautioning people to again use masks and follow public health measures. White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNBC on Wednesday that even fully vaccinated people may want to consider wearing masks indoors as a protective measure against the delta variant.

Last week, Gottlieb told CNBC that he believes the U.S. is “vastly underestimating” the number of Covid delta infections, particularly among vaccinated people with mild symptoms, making it harder to understand if the variant is causing higher-than-expected hospitalization and death rates. 

“The endgame here was always going to be a final wave of infection,” Gottlieb told CNBC on Thursday. “We had anticipated that this summer would be relatively quiet and we’d have a surge of infections in the fall with B.1.1.7, and that would be sort of the final wave of the pandemic phase of this virus and we would enter a more endemic phase where this virus just becomes a fact of life and it circulates at a certain level.”

But unlike the early last year, he added, “We have therapeutics and vaccines to deal with it, we’re better at treating it and it becomes sort of like a second flu.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

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How Weight Coaching Burns Fats

How Weight Training Burns Fat

Before and after that process, the researchers drew blood, biopsied tissues, centrifuged fluids and microscopically searched for vesicles and other molecular changes in the tissues.

They noted plenty. Before their improvised weight training, the rodents’ leg muscles had teemed with a particular snippet of genetic material, known as miR-1, that modulates muscle growth. In normal, untrained muscles, miR-1, one of a group of tiny strands of genetic material known as microRNA, keeps a brake on muscle building.

After the rodents’ resistance exercise, which consisted of walking around, though, the animals’ leg muscles appeared depleted of miR-1. At the same time, the vesicles in their bloodstream now thronged with the stuff, as did nearby fat tissue. It seems, the scientists concluded, that the animals’ muscle cells somehow packed those bits of microRNA that retard hypertrophy into vesicles and posted them to neighboring fat cells, which then allowed the muscles immediately to grow.

But what was the miR-1 doing to the fat once it arrived, the scientist wondered? To find out, they marked vesicles from weight-trained mice with a fluorescent dye, injected them into untrained animals, and tracked the glowing bubbles’ paths. The vesicles homed in on fat, the scientists saw, then dissolved and deposited their miR-1 cargo there.

Soon after, some of the genes in the fat cells went into overdrive. These genes help direct the breakdown of fat into fatty acids, which other cells then can use as fuel, reducing fat stores. In effect, weight training was shrinking fat in mice by creating vesicles in muscles that, through genetic signals, told the fat it was time to break itself apart.

“The process was just remarkable,” said John J. McCarthy, a professor of physiology at the University of Kentucky, who was an author of the study with his then graduate student Ivan J. Vechetti Jr. and other colleagues.

Mice are not people, though. So, as a final facet of the study, the scientists gathered blood and tissue from healthy men and women who had performed a single, fatiguing lower-body weight workout and confirmed that, as in mice, miR-1 levels in the volunteers’ muscles dropped after their lifting, while the quantity of miR-1-containing vesicles in their bloodstreams soared.

Of course, the study mostly involved mice and was not designed to tell us how often or intensely we should lift to maximize vesicle output and fat burn. But, even so, the results serve as a bracing reminder that “muscle mass is vitally important for metabolic health,” Dr. McCarthy said, and that we start building that mass and getting our tissues talking every time we hoist a weight.

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Native officers throughout U.S. are beginning to reimpose masks guidelines as delta variant takes maintain

Local officials across U.S. are starting to reimpose mask rules as delta variant takes hold

From Los Angeles to Massachusetts, local officials across the country are urging Americans to wear masks again as the Delta variant rips across the US

Several California and Nevada counties are now advising all residents to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. Local leaders in at least three other states have reintroduced mask mandates, issued face-covering recommendations, or threatened the return of strict public health limits for all residents – despite federal health guidelines that in most cases, vaccinated individuals do not use these protocols must follow the settings.

“A surge in the number of cases was not unexpected as the community began to reopen fully,” Jennifer Sizemore, spokeswoman for the southern Nevada health district, told CNBC in an email. Clark County, home of Las Vegas, tightened its mask recommendation last week after Covid-19 cases and deaths rose 50% in the previous week. A total of 4,599 new infections and 33 coronavirus-related deaths were reported last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Covid infections are rising again in the US after months of falling cases, new cases have risen 55% since last week to an average of 37,000 new cases per day in the past seven days, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University .

The CDC relaxed its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated individuals on May 13, stating that they do not need to use them or practice social distancing in most environments. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told lawmakers at a Senate hearing Tuesday that the agency was actively reviewing its mask and other public health guidelines as the virus and pandemic evolve, especially as scientists learn more about the Delta variant and how it is doing Keep vaccines against it.

“A lot has changed since May 13,” said Walensky. “We now have a variant in circulation in this country that was 3% (of new cases) at the time and is now 83% and much more transferable.”

The Delta variant is spreading across the country, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, she said. Nearly two-thirds of counties in the US have vaccinated less than 40% of their residents, “which is what enables the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant,” leading to an increase in hospital admissions and deaths, she said.

This is gradually becoming apparent in Nevada, which, according to CDC data, has only fully vaccinated 43.5% of its population. Clark County recorded 641 new Covid hospital admissions last week, 23% more admissions than the previous seven days. Despite the resurgent outbreak in the Las Vegas area, Sizemore said the county’s vaccination rate has remained at just under 42% for the past two weeks.

“However, the community’s vaccination rate has slowed and unvaccinated people are not taking recommended precautions, including wearing masks and continuing to practice social distancing,” Sizemore said.

Nevada isn’t the only state that is stepping up its mask guidelines. On Friday, seven counties in California’s Bay Area recommended the use of masks indoors for a full mandate. The California city of Berkeley also called for the continued use of masks.

Further south, Los Angeles County restored its indoor public mask mandate on Saturday. The county initially lifted the mandate on Thursday when the state formally withdrew a number of executive measures to contain the spread of Covid.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Los Angeles County’s new mask mandate could serve as a prototype for other regions with high rates of infection. He said he expected schools and businesses to continue enforcing their own mask policies to protect against the Delta variant.

“If you want to be even more secure despite being vaccinated, you should wear a mask indoors, especially in crowded places,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC’s Closing Bell. On Wednesday.

In Massachusetts, Provincetown officials advised everyone on Monday to resume wearing masks indoors after the July 4 celebrations resulted in an outbreak of new cases.

In Orleans Parish, Louisiana – where the CDC reported 560 new coronavirus cases last week – New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell authorized a consultation on indoor masks on Wednesday to help curb the spread of the Delta variant. And New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday that he wanted to avoid reinstating a mask mandate and instead press for residents to get vaccinated.

“Right now, I hope we don’t have to,” Murphy said. “If we have to, we will.”

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Extra Hospitals Impose Vaccine Mandates for Staff

More Hospitals Impose Vaccine Mandates for Employees

More and more hospitals and large health systems are requiring their employees to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, due to rising case numbers due to the Delta variant and persistently low vaccination rates in their communities and even within their workforce.

Many hospitals say their efforts to vaccinate their staff have stalled, just as the country’s overall vaccination rates remain below 60 percent, behind many European countries and Canada. While more than 96 percent of doctors say they are fully vaccinated, health workers, especially in rural areas, have been shown to be more resistant, according to the American Medical Association, although thousands of workers have died from the virus and countless more contracted.

A recent estimate suggests that one in four hospital workers had not been vaccinated by the end of May, with some facilities reporting that fewer than half of their staff had received the vaccination.

Some hospitals, from academic medical centers like New York-Presbyterian and Yale New Haven to big chains like Trinity Health, carry out a mandate because they realize that the only way to stop the virus is to have as many people as possible possible to vaccinate as soon as possible. A major Arizona-based chain, Banner Health, announced Tuesday that it would be issuing a mandate, and New York City said that all health care workers in city hospitals or clinics should be vaccinated or tested weekly.

The surge in cases led Trinity Health, a Catholic system with hospitals in 22 states, to become one of the first large groups to decide earlier this month to require vaccinations. “We believed the vaccine could save lives,” said Dr. Daniel Roth, Trinity’s Chief Clinical Officer. “These are preventable deaths.”

At UF Health Jacksonville, Florida, the number of Covid patients treated has increased to levels not seen since January, and only half of health care workers are vaccinated, said Chad Neilsen, director of infection prevention. 75 employees have contracted the virus, the vast majority of them unvaccinated, while others are waiting for test results. “We are currently having major problems with the staff,” he said.

“It’s like déjà vu,” said Neilsen, describing the growing frustration at colleagues’ refusal to get the recordings. “We have reason to believe that this could be over when people are vaccinated.”

Despite dozens of virtual town halls, question-and-answer sessions, and instructional videos, many employees are suspicious. “We are still stagnant,” said Mr Neilsen.

Some employees want more data, others think the process is too rushed. Much of the same conspiracy theories and misinformation – that the vaccines make women sterile or contain microchips – prevail among the staff. “Our healthcare workers are a reflection of the general population,” he said.

Hospital directors and others plan to meet with state officials in the coming weeks about the option to mandate, he said.

Unvaccinated workers continue to care for even the sickest patients, raising concerns that they are spreading the infection, especially now that the highly contagious Delta variant accounts for more than 80 percent of cases in the country.

“Nowhere is this more important than in hospitals where health workers – who were heroic during this pandemic – care for patients with a variety of health problems on the assumption that the healthcare professionals treating them are not at risk or transmission of Covid-19,” said Dr. David J. Skorton, chairman of the board of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents teaching hospitals, in a statement last Friday calling for a mandate.

On Wednesday, two more groups, including the American Hospital Association, joined the growing call for vaccine mandates. “We lost too many of our caregivers to Covid-19,” said Dr. Bruce Siegel, the executive director of America’s Essential Hospitals, which represents hospitals in underserved communities. “Vaccination can reduce the risk of losing more.”

With the formal approval of the vaccines by the Food and Drug Administration may still be months away, hospitals are at the center of the national mandate debate. While the vaccines are offered under an emergency license, proponents argue that there is ample evidence that the vaccines available in the United States are both safe and effective.

There is a new urgency in states like Missouri, which have reported a surge in cases. “We felt we couldn’t wait,” said Dr. Shephali Wulff, the director of infectious diseases at SSM Health, a Catholic hospital system headquartered in St. Louis. SSM, which now has about two-thirds of its employees vaccinated, requires everyone to get their first dose by September 1st.

SSM’s decision was also motivated by concerns that Covid infections could rise this fall when other respiratory infections could also rise. “We need healthy workers for the flu season,” said Dr. Wulff. “We don’t have time to wait for approval.”

However, some systems already fear staff shortages due to departures during the pandemic, as many employees quit because of stress and burnout in the care of Covid patients. Hospitals are reluctant to lose more staff when forcing the problem.

Updated

July 22, 2021, 1:43 p.m. ET

“They fear this could be a turning point,” said Ann Marie Pettis, president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, one of the professional organizations calling on hospitals to request the vaccine.

At Mosaic Life Care, a small hospital group in Missouri, executives are reluctant to take on mandates when other hospitals fail. “We have the potential to lose some caregivers to other systems,” said Joey Austin, a spokeswoman for Mosaic, which has vaccinated about 62 percent of its employees.

Many hospitals already require their staff to have a flu shot, which has been around for over a decade. Although this met with resistance from employees who were skeptical about the safety of the vaccines, it is now widely accepted. Individuals can apply for a medical or religious exemption, which is typically a small portion of the workforce that hospitals say would also apply to the Covid vaccines.

Mandates “impose a social norm and say it is an institutional priority,” said Saad B. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, who stressed that hospitals must strongly encourage their workers to receive the vaccines voluntarily, in order to be successful.

Unions like National Nurses United and 1199 SEIU say they want their members to be vaccinated but refuse to make it a condition of employment. At the first mandated hospital, the Houston Methodist, a group of staff sued to challenge the request, but the lawsuit was recently dismissed. Of a total workforce of around 26,000 people, around 150 left or were made redundant because they could not meet the vaccination deadline.

Hospitals say they are working hard to dispel much of the widespread misinformation surrounding the vaccines, even among doctors and nurses.

“I have to remind them that serious scientists do not post their results on YouTube,” said Dr. Wulff. She and her colleagues at SSM not only present hard data on the vaccine, but also share their personal experiences, such as being vaccinated while trying to get pregnant. “I find that stories and anecdotes move people,” she said.

“In general, you listen a lot and focus on what drives your fear,” said Dr. Wulff.

Some high profile systems like Intermountain Healthcare and the Cleveland Clinic are waiting. The clinic, which has an extensive network of 18 hospitals across the United States, said existing policies like masking and tracking infections protect patients and workers.

“We know that we can continue to protect our patients and caregivers by ensuring these safety precautions are in place,” said K. Kelly Hancock, chief caregiver officer, Cleveland Clinic.

About three-quarters of the staff are now vaccinated and efforts are continuing “at full speed,” she said.

At Intermountain Healthcare, based in Utah, “a good majority” of employees have been vaccinated, said Dr. Kristin Dascomb, medical director for infection prevention and control and employee health.

If more safety data is required and the FDA approves the vaccines, Intermountain, along with other hospitals in the state, can request a vaccination. “We’re starting the conversation in Utah now,” she said.

The lack of full FDA approval has affected other hospitals as well. Mass General Brigham, who vaccinated more than 85 percent of his workforce, said he would adopt the requirement once the vaccines are approved.

Some hospitals argue that a mandate is not required. “I don’t think there is one right answer,” said Suresh Gunasekaran, general manager of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. About 90 percent of workers are now vaccinated, he said, adding he was confident that virtually everyone will be vaccinated by the end of the year.

The system was “successful in eliminating vaccine hesitation,” Gunasekaran said, in part because Iowa was involved in clinical trials for the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

Northwell Health, the large New York hospital group, doesn’t require workers to be vaccinated against the flu, but about 90 percent of their workforce is vaccinated, said Maxine Carrington, Northwell’s chief human resources officer. The same applies to Covid.

“We want people to be believers,” said Ms. Carrington, so that they can better convince the entire ward to get vaccinated. She described the system as “beating the pavement on education, education, education”. Around 76 percent of the workforce are currently vaccinated against Covid. Northwell will reconsider the idea of ​​a mandate after the FDA approves the vaccines, she said.

Yale New Haven Health is now requiring employees to be vaccinated, as are the other Connecticut hospitals.

“From the beginning we pointed out that this is not mandatory – not yet. We emphasized that, ”said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, Yale’s chief clinical officer.

“The health system has to lead,” he said.

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Fauci says vaccinated individuals ‘would possibly wish to contemplate’ sporting masks indoors

Fauci says vaccinated people 'might want to consider' wearing masks indoors

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said people who are fully vaccinated should consider wearing masks indoors as a precaution against the rapidly spreading Delta variant in the US

“If you want to walk that extra mile of safety indoors, especially in crowded places, despite being vaccinated, consider wearing a mask,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

Some areas of the United States are reintroducing mask requirements due to spikes in cases. The more transmissible Delta variant now accounts for around 83% of the sequenced Covid-19 cases in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is recommended that you wear a mask if you find yourself in an indoor situation where virus dynamics are high in the community,” Fauci said.

He also said US officials are concerned they are seeing more breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people in the US, even if they are milder cases.

“Of course we don’t want to see that,” he said, noting that the Delta variant is highly transferable. “This virus is very different from the viruses and variants that we have previously experienced. It has an exceptional ability to transmit from person to person.”

The portability of variants from the original strain has increased, and some have been shown to decrease the effectiveness of vaccines.

“Viruses don’t mutate unless you allow them to replicate and spread through the community. You give them ample time and opportunity to mutate and you have a new variant,” Fauci said. “The easiest, best and most effective way to prevent the emergence of a new variant and destroy the existing Delta variant is to have everyone vaccinated.”

In the United States, 99.5% of Covid deaths are now among unvaccinated people. “This is a statistic that speaks for itself,” said Fauci.

Despite the spike in new cases, Fauci said he doesn’t think US officials will renew calls for a statewide mask mandate “because there will be a lot of headwinds.”

Local counties and private companies may choose to enforce mask requirements as the delta variant spreads more widely in unvaccinated areas of the country. Currently, nearly two-thirds of counties in the United States have vaccinated less than 40% of their residents.

Colleges and universities have also brought the question of mandatory vaccinations to court. Indiana University recently got the go-ahead from a federal judge to require vaccines for college students entering the fall semester.

Fauci said he doesn’t see any comeback from lockdowns anytime soon.

“I don’t see that on the horizon right now,” said Fauci. “What I’m seeing is more tests and more local mandates and a lot of pressure to get people vaccinated.”