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Each day U.S. knowledge on June 1

Daily U.S. data on June 1

Anna Mendez, LPN, administers a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Vern Henderson at a clinic set up by Healthcare Network on May 20, 2021 in Immokalee, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

More than 50% of the U.S. population has received at least one Covid vaccine shot, federal data shows, as nationwide case counts continue to fall.

Moderna on Tuesday applied for full Food and Drug Administration approval of its Covid-19 vaccine. Surveys have shown that FDA approval could inspire more people to get the vaccine, which is currently on the U.S. market under an emergency use authorization.

The seven-day average of daily new infections fell below 20,000 on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, though many states did not report data due to the Memorial Day holiday.

U.S. share of the population vaccinated

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that 50.5% of Americans have received at least one dose and about 41% are fully vaccinated.

Among those 18 and older, roughly 63% have received one dose or more. President Joe Biden has set a goal of getting that figure to 70% by the Fourth of July.

U.S. Covid cases

Twenty-five states and territories did not publish Covid data on Monday due to the holiday, according to Hopkins, bringing the seven-day average of daily infections to below 20,000 for the first time since the early days of the pandemic.

Cases may tick upward in the coming days as states report backlogged data from the holiday.

Prior to the holiday weekend, U.S. case counts had been trending downward for weeks.

U.S. vaccine shots administered

The latest seven-day average of vaccines administered, which is also impacted by the lack of holiday weekend data, sits at 1.3 million shots administered.

U.S. Covid deaths

The latest seven-day average of U.S. Covid deaths is 607, Hopkins data shows, which reflects the absence of Memorial Day reporting for many states and territories.

The latest trend in the daily U.S. death count is further complicated by audits in which state health departments will attribute a batch of previously unreported cases or deaths to a single day, even if those occurred previously. Oklahoma and Maryland last week each added hundreds of deaths to their pandemic totals, all of which were reported for a single day.

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Moderna Seeks Full F.D.A. Approval for Covid Vaccine

Moderna Seeks Full F.D.A. Approval for Covid Vaccine

Moderna was the next pharmaceutical company to file with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday for full approval of its coronavirus vaccine for use in people aged 18 and over.

Last month Pfizer and BioNTech filed with the agency for full approval of their vaccines for use in people 16 years and older.

“We look forward to working with the FDA and will continue to submit data from our Phase 3 study and complete the ongoing filing,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, in a statement.

Moderna’s emergency vaccine was approved in December, and by Sunday more than 151 million doses had been administered in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I think there are a lot of people on the fence who are worried that things are moving too fast and about possible side effects,” said Dr. William Schaffner, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases medical director and vaccine expert. “But those concerns are allayed as they see more of their friends and acquaintances celebrating their vaccination.”

Jan Hoffman contributed to the coverage.

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Moderna applies for full FDA approval

Moderna applies for full FDA approval

A medical worker from Parrish Medical Center holds a vial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a drive through vaccination clinic for employees of Port Canaveral, workers at local hotels and restaurants, and residents of the Port Canaveral community.

Paul Hennessy | LightRocket | Getty Images

Moderna on Tuesday asked the Food and Drug Administration for full U.S. approval of its Covid-19 vaccine — the second drugmaker in the U.S. to seek a biologics license that will allow it to market the shots directly to consumers.

The mRNA vaccine is currently on the U.S. market under an emergency use authorization, which was granted by the FDA in December. It gives conditional approval based on two months of safety data. It’s not the same as a biologics license application, or a request for full approval, which requires at least six months of data. Over 100 million of the shots have already been administered, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We are pleased to announce this important step in the U.S. regulatory process for a Biologics License Application (BLA) of our COVID-19 vaccine,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a press release. “We look forward to working with the FDA and will continue to submit data from our Phase 3 study and complete the rolling submission.”

The FDA approval process is likely to take months.

Moderna will continue to submit data to support the BLA to the FDA on a rolling basis over the coming weeks, the company said Tuesday.

Once companies submit applications to the FDA, agency scientists painstakingly look through the clinical trial data, including for any discrepancies or safety concerns, said Dr. Paul Offit, a voting member of the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. “They want to make sure that the company has fairly and accurately displayed all those data,” he said.

Full U.S. approval will allow Moderna’s vaccine to stay on the market once the pandemic is over and the U.S. is no longer in a public health emergency, said former FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf. It also sets the stage for the company to begin advertising the shots on TV and other media platforms, he said, which is not permitted under an EUA.

Moderna is the second company to seek full U.S. approval of its Covid vaccine. On May 7, Pfizer and partner BioNTech said they started the process of seeking full approval for their vaccine for use in people 16 and older in the U.S.

Moderna’s vaccine, which requires two doses given four weeks apart, has been found to be more than 90% effective at protecting against Covid and more than 95% effective against severe disease up to six months after the second dose. The company said in an earnings report on May 6 that it planned to begin the process of seeking full FDA approval soon.

In addition to seeking full approval, the company is also expected to ask the FDA to expand the emergency use of its Covid vaccine for adolescents as young as 17. The company said last week its shots were found to be 100% effective in a study of kids ages 12 to 17.

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The Covid Vaccine Is Free, however Not Everybody Believes That

The Covid Vaccine Is Free, but Not Everyone Believes That

When Paul Moser thinks about getting a coronavirus vaccine, he also thinks about his outstanding medical debt: $ 1,200 from some urological visits he couldn’t pay for.

Mr. Moser, 52-year-old gas station cashier in New York State, has friends who have been surprised by bills for coronavirus testing, and fear the same could happen to the vaccine. At the moment he is holding back with his admission.

“We were told by lawmakers that all testing should be free, and then it’s surprising that it costs $ 150,” he said. “I agree that getting vaccinated is important, but I have no sense of urgency.”

Congress passed laws banning pharmacies and hospitals from charging patients for coronavirus vaccines. Signs at vaccination centers indicate that vaccination is free. From the start, health officials and government leaders have told the public it won’t cost anything. And there have been few reports of people being charged.

Even so, some unvaccinated adults cite concerns about a surprising bill as a reason not to get the vaccination. Many of them are used to a healthcare system where the bills are frequent, high, and often unexpectedly high.

A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about a third of unvaccinated adults were unsure whether insurance would cover the new vaccine and feared they would have to pay for the vaccine. Concern was particularly high among Hispanic and Black respondents.

“The conversations we have are like, ‘Yeah, I know it’s good. Yes, I want it, but I don’t have insurance, ‘”said Ilan Shapiro, medical director of AltaMed, a community health network in southern California that serves a large Hispanic population. “We’re trying to make sure everyone knows it’s free.”

The confusion may be due to a lack of information or a skepticism that a doctor’s visit will not be followed by a bill. Liz Hamel, director of survey research at Kaiser, said it might reflect people’s experience of the healthcare system: “People might have heard it was free but they don’t believe it.”

Congress has tried to protect patients from bills for coronavirus vaccines and tests. At the start of the pandemic, it ordered insurers forego co-payments and deductibles for both services and set up a fund to reimburse doctors who see uninsured patients.

Even so, patients faced bills for tests – some for over $ 1,000. Some doctors billed uninsured patients for testing instead of the new federal fund. Others have charged unexpected fees and services for the test visit.

The rules for billing vaccines have been tightened. In order to become vaccinated, doctors and pharmacies had to sign a contract in which they did not charge patients for vaccinations.

The stronger protection seems to have worked. While many patients have come across coronavirus bills for testing – the New York Times has documented dozens of cases in bills submitted by readers – there have only been a handful of vaccines.

Still, some unexpected charges have been flunked: Patients in Illinois, North Carolina, and Colorado have incorrectly received vaccination bills. In all cases, the vaccine providers have reversed the charges and apologized for the mistakes.

The federal government has received some complaints about unexpected fees and recently warned doctors not to bill patients.

Surprising bills for coronavirus vaccines, tests, and other medical supplies can make an impression on patients. According to a 2013 study by Lucie Kalousova by Lucie Kalousova, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside, Americans with medical debt are more likely to skip required care than people with other types of debt, such as outstanding credit card bills or student loans.

“For someone in medical debt, they may be told by the media and everyone else that the vaccine is free, but they have also had this very negative, previous encounter with the medical system that has generated suspicion. ” She said.

Some patients worried about the cost of a coronavirus vaccine said they always expect a bill after a doctor’s appointment. Quoting stories from friends or family members who ended up having expensive coronavirus tests and treatment bills, they wondered why the vaccine would be any different.

“This is America – your health care ain’t free,” said Elizabeth Drummond, a 42-year-old Oregon mother who is not vaccinated. “I just have a feeling that this is how the vaccination process will work. They will try to capitalize on it. “

It’s also possible that survey research is exaggerating how many Americans are afraid of receiving a surprise vaccine bill. When the Times conducted follow-up interviews with the help of Kaiser, some respondents expressing this concern said it didn’t matter much to them.

Instead, they said they acted like this to express their frustration with the vaccine or the general American healthcare system.

“Cost is the smallest detail,” said Cody Sirman, a 32-year-old who works in manufacturing in Texas who chose not to get vaccinated. He said he wouldn’t mind paying for the vaccine if he trusted him – but he doesn’t: “I think the vaccine is a complete farce. It was just a way to see how much control the government can have over the population. “

For many, the potential cost of a vaccine is only part of a set of reasons to stay unvaccinated. It can often be difficult for pollsters to pinpoint the determining factor – or even identify patients. Separate research by the Census Bureau last month found Americans were more concerned about vaccine side effects than potential fees.

“Most people don’t say they are only concerned about one thing; Usually there are many, ”says Ms. Hamel from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Tiffany Addotey, a 42-year-old school bus driver in North Carolina, has concerns about the cost. This is mainly due to their experience of taking a coronavirus test.

“It worries me that some places were charging $ 200 for coronavirus testing,” she said. “I haven’t paid. I went home. I already have enough bills. “

There are other things that concern them, such as the safety of the vaccine given its rapid development, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s recent vaccination hiatus.

When Ms. Addotey was informed that federal law makes the vaccine free for all Americans, she replied, “So I just have to pay my co-payment?”

Learning that it was really going to be free, with no additional payment, “helped a little,” she said. But it wasn’t enough to reassure her with the vaccination, at least not yet.

“I’ll try and wait a little longer,” she said. “I feel like I’ll get it after a little more research and a little more time.”

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One thing Bothering You? Inform It to Woebot.

Something Bothering You? Tell It to Woebot.

Instead, she says, the bot delivers “digital therapeutics”. And Woebot’s Terms of Use call it a “pure self-help program” that is not intended for emergencies. In fact, Woebot says that in the event of a major crisis, it is programmed to recognize suicidal language and urge users to seek a human alternative.

In this way, Woebot is not approaching any real therapy – like many mental health apps, the current, free version of Woebot is not subject to strict supervision by the Food and Drug Administration as it falls into the category of “general wellness” products that receives FDA instructions only.

But Woebot strives for something more. With $ 22 million in venture capital, Woebot is seeking FDA approval to develop its algorithm to treat two psychiatric diagnoses, postpartum and adolescent depression, and then sell the program to healthcare systems.

And this is where Woebot hopes to make money using its practical advantage over any human therapist: size.

While other virtual therapy companies like BetterHelp or Talkspace still have to recruit therapists for their platforms, AI apps can add new users without paying for extra work. And while therapists can vary in skills and approach, a bot is consistent and doesn’t get stressed by back-to-back sessions.

“The assumption is always that it will always be limited because it is digital,” said Dr. Darcy from Woebot. “There are actually some opportunities that are being created by technology itself that are a real challenge for us in traditional treatment.”

An advantage of an artificial therapist – or, as Dr. Darcy calls it a “relational agent” – is 24-hour access. Very few human therapists answer the phone at 2 a.m. during a panic attack, as Dr. Darcy emphasized. “I think people have probably underestimated the power of being able to use a therapeutic technique at the moment there is a need,” she said.

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CDC director testifies earlier than Home lawmakers on company’s finances

‘We are following the science’

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CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky testifies before Congress Wednesday about the agency’s annual budget as the US battles the Covid-19 pandemic that killed nearly 600,000 Americans.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also testified before the subcommittee on home remedies, labor, health and human services, education and related facilities on Wednesday.

The hearing comes just over a week after Schuchat announced her resignation from the health department after 33 years. It also comes because the agency has received criticism of its updated guidelines on face masks for fully vaccinated Americans.

The CDC announced on May 13 that fully vaccinated individuals would no longer need to wear face masks or stay 6 feet away in most environments, whether indoors or outdoors. Unvaccinated individuals should continue to wear masks as they continue to be at risk of mild or serious illness, death, and the risk of spreading the disease to others.

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Reassessing Boundaries – The New York Occasions

Reassessing Boundaries - The New York Times

Some people have preferred not to put their private lives on screens.

“This sense of being exposed has been a challenge for people who do not have an environment that they feel comfortable showing to whoever is on the other side of the line,” said Munmun De Choudhury, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies health and well-being online. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds who don’t have dedicated work spaces, she said, might not want to share with classmates.

As an actor in New York, Anna Suzuki has fielded a fair number of video calls for work this past year — discussions with directors, table reads for television series and so many other Zoom meetings. She also shares a studio apartment with her partner.

“Because I’m a pretty private person,” Ms. Suzuki said, “I had to figure out a way they would only see a blank wall behind me.”

The solution was to carve out a section of a storage space in her mother’s apartment, conveniently located just below hers. Her “public” perch — an oak-colored table and black office chair — has provided some separation between her work and personal lives, allowing her to turn on and off her “performer brain,” as she described it. It hasn’t always been easy. “I really have to compartmentalize,” she said. “I still had to create a public persona at home.” Yet she also found that being able to stake such a clear divide between public and private was comforting, she said.

If you’re not enthusiastic about sharing so much, that’s OK. “It’s fair for someone to say what their needs are,” Mr. Poswolsky said. “Create a boundary around, ‘I don’t want to let people into my space in a vulnerable way.’”

And consider taking your time easing back into situations that now give you pause. Dr. Creary said she observed two sources of concern for those who enjoyed the firm boundaries they formed working from home and are now anticipating a return to the workplace: that the change of location will decrease productivity because distractions abound, and that it will increase exposure to unhealthy social environments. She suggested two possible strategies to establish boundaries anew: Think about what time of day you tend to work best and plan meetings and other obligations accordingly, she said, and weigh which social engagements — dinners, happy hours and the like — are essential and which ones you can decline.

“It’s about pacing ourselves,” Dr. Creary said.

According to Natalie Bazarova, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University who studies public intimacy, social media users largely shared positive personal information before the pandemic. But over the course of the past 15 months, there has been a change. “There is more acceptance of negative disclosures,” she said, citing research she published this year. “There is this common circumstance that we’re going through, and so that shapes our perception of how we think about what’s appropriate.”

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It is not vaccine passport, however extra journey CLEAR post-pandemic

It's not vaccine passport, but more travel CLEAR post-pandemic

CLEAR, a New York City-based company that specializes in biometric security that originally started pumping travelers through growing airport lines in the post-9/11 period, now sees a huge opportunity with the country covered by the Covid -19 pandemic is excluded.

CLEAR recently released a product called Health Pass that links Covid-19 health information to biometric identifiers such as face, eyes and fingerprints.

Since its launch, Health Pass has made significant strides, especially in stadiums that host sporting events and need to quickly check the status of many people. In February, 100 vaccinated health care workers were able to participate in the Super Bowl by checking their status on the Health Pass. A third of the NBA teams use the app to enforce their Covid protocols for fans. People who attend NHL hockey games in Arizona also use the Health Pass.

The post-pandemic innovation pushed CLEAR to 19th place on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list.

“What we determined in March 2020 was that there will be a new card in your wallet that contains a vaccination card or test results,” CLEAR co-founder and CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker said on CNBC’s TechCheck on Wednesday. “So it has always been part of our mission to connect you to your health insights related to Covid.

More coverage of the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50

As more people get vaccinated and concerts, sporting events and large gatherings reopen, it is becoming more and more likely that customers will need to digitally submit their Covid vaccination or testing status in order to be approved.

“September 11th changed the way people thought about securing their building or stadium,” Seidman-Becker said last month in a virtual town hall for members of the CNBC Technology Executive Council. “It has raised awareness of security and, in particular, internal security.”

No “vaccination pass”

The CEO of CLEAR emphasized that the company’s technology should not be tied to the idea of ​​a vaccination card. “We’re not talking about a vaccination record. We’re talking about giving people control and access to their health information about what happened before,” she said on CNBC on Wednesday. “So many trends accelerated in 2020 and we see this as a major … ongoing trend … people should have access and control over their information.”

US officials have said they are largely relying on people to be honest about their vaccination status, and retailers and hotel chains have said they have no intention of looking for evidence of vaccine. However, some retailers like Walmart have partnered with CLEAR to offer the Health Pass.

Investment groups involved in the NFL and restaurant mogul Danny Meyer recently participated in a venture capital round for the company, and the Shake Shack founder’s Union Square Hospitality Group has used the technology to bring back indoor dining.

“We offer it to employers, but we also offer it to consumers free of charge so that they can link their health insights to their CLEAR Health Pass,” said Seidman-Becker. “We partnered with Walmart, but we also partnered with the NBA to help people get back into stadiums or reopen offices.”

“Frankly, this is a pervasive problem that makes experiences safer and easier,” she added.

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Two New Legal guidelines Limit Police Use of DNA Search Methodology

Two New Laws Restrict Police Use of DNA Search Method

In other cases, detectives might surreptitiously collect the DNA of a suspect’s relative by testing an object that the relative discarded in the trash.

Maryland’s new law states that when police officers test the DNA of “third parties” — people other than the suspect — they must get consent in writing first, unless a judge approves deceptive collection.

Investigators cannot use any of the genetic information collected, whether from the suspect or third parties, to learn about a person’s psychological traits or disease predispositions. At the end of the investigation, all of the genetic and genealogical records that were created for it must be deleted from databases.

And perhaps most consequential, Maryland investigators interested in genetic genealogy must first try their luck with a government-run DNA database, called Codis, whose profiles use far fewer genetic markers.

Mr. Holes said that this part of the law could have tragic consequences. For old cases, he pointed out, DNA evidence is often highly degraded and fragile, and every DNA test consumes some of that precious sample. “In essence, the statute could potentially cause me to kill my case,” he said. And given the speed that DNA technology evolves, he added, it is unwise for a law to mandate use of any particular kind of test.

But other experts called this provision crucial, because the potential privacy breach is far more severe for genetic genealogy, which gives law enforcement access to hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, than it is for Codis, which uses only about two dozen markers.

These searches are “the equivalent of the government going through all of your medical records and all of your family records just to identify you,” said Leah Larkin, a genetic genealogist who runs a consulting business in the San Francisco Bay Area that is largely focused on helping adoptees and others find their biological relatives. “I don’t think people fully appreciate how much is in your genetic data.”

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Republicans name for Fauci’s termination over shifting place on Wuhan lab funding

Republicans call for Fauci's termination over shifting position on Wuhan lab funding

Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing increasing calls from Republican lawmakers for his termination over what they say is a shift in his position on whether the U.S. government funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the White House, told lawmakers Tuesday that the National Institutes of Health funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance with $600,000 over a period of five years. Funding to the nonprofit was eventually halted by the NIH.

He denied that the funding was specifically used for so-called gain of function research, which is altering a virus to make it either more transmissible or deadly to better predict new pathogens and ways to fight them.

On Wednesday during a Senate hearing, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., further questioned Fauci’s faith in the Wuhan lab’s scientists. “How do you know they didn’t lie to you and use the money for gain of function research anyway?” Kennedy asked Fauci.

Fauci said there was no way to guarantee that the scientists and grantees did not lie. “You never know,” he said.

He added that scientists at the lab are “trustworthy” and that he would expect they complied with the conditions of the grant, which was to study the transmission of coronaviruses from bats to humans to better understand the SARS-CoV-1 epidemic in the early 2000s.

“I don’t have enough insight into the Communist Party in China to know the interactions between them and the scientists,” Fauci said when asked whether the Chinese government influences its scientists. He also said he has no way of knowing the influence of the Chinese government on the World Health Organization after Kennedy implied that the WHO is in the pocket of the Chinese government.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he has ordered a closer intelligence review of what he said were two equally plausible scenarios of the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic — that it originated in a lab or from an animal. The director of national intelligence previously agreed that the two scenarios are equally likely.

Biden revealed that he tasked the intelligence community earlier this year with preparing “a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.”

“As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” Biden said in a statement.

Federal health officials maintain that it is more likely that the virus has a natural origin, but do not exclude a lab leak as a possibility.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, recently introduced the Fauci Incompetence Requires Early Dismissal Act, which called for Fauci’s termination.

“Dr. Fauci represents everything that President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address: the scientific-technical elite steering the country toward their own ends,” Davidson said in a statement.

The Republican lawmakers also said they believe Fauci misled the American people early in the pandemic in regard to mask guidance. Fauci said in early March 2020: “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.” He later clarified he meant that masks should be prioritized for health workers, but Republican lawmakers maintain that Fauci lied.

GOP lawmakers also claim that Fauci misled Americans when he said there would be an explosion of coronavirus cases after Texas lifted its mask mandate.

“It is long past time for Dr. Fauci to stop talking to the American public. Fauci should resign or be fired immediately,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.

Correction: Warren Davidson, R.-Ohio, is a member of the House of Representatives. An earlier version misstated his title.