Acknowledges – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

The White House on Tuesday publicly acknowledged that President Biden does not expect to meet his goal of having 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4 and will reach that milestone only for those aged 27 and older.

It would be the first time that Mr. Biden has failed to meet a vaccination goal he has set. If the rate of adult vaccinations continues on the current seven-day average, the country will come in just shy of Mr. Biden’s target, with about 67 percent of adults partly vaccinated by July 4, according to a New York Times analysis.

White House officials have argued that falling short by a few percentage points is not significant, given all the progress the nation has made against Covid-19. “We have built an unparalleled, first of its kind nationwide vaccination program,” Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said at a new briefing. “This is a remarkable achievement.”

In announcing the goal on May 4, Mr. Biden made a personal plea to the unvaccinated, saying getting a shot was a “life and death” choice. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated and 177 million have received at least one dose.

But health experts warn that the falloff in the vaccination rate could mean renewed coronavirus outbreaks this winter when cold weather drives people indoors, with high daily death rates in areas where comparatively few people have protected themselves with shots.

“I give credit to the Biden administration for putting in place a mass vaccination program for adults that did not exist,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “But now we’ve hit a wall.”

Unless tens of millions more Americans get vaccinated in the next few months, he said, “I think, come winter, we are going to again see a surge. And that surge is going to occur exactly where you would expect it to occur — in areas that are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated.”

Young adults aged 18 to 26 have so far proven particularly hard to persuade. “The reality is many younger Americans that felt like Covid-19 is not something that impacts them, and they’ve been less eager to get the shot,” Mr. Zients said.

He said it would take “a few extra weeks” to reach more of that group to achieve the goal of 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated.

Lazaro Gamio contributed reporting.

The federal health authorities updated the public guidelines on the spread of the coronavirus on Friday, emphasizing that the transmission occurs through inhalation of very fine respiratory droplets and aerosolized particles, as well as through contact with sprayed droplets or by touching contaminated hands with the mouth, nose or eyes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now explicitly state – in large, bold letters – that airborne viruses can be breathed even if you are more than three feet from an infected person. The new language, released online, is a change from the agency’s previous position that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission”.

As the pandemic played out last year, infectious disease experts warned for months that both the CDC and the World Health Organization were overlooking research that strongly suggested the coronavirus was floating in the air in small particles. Several scientists on Friday welcomed the agency’s abolition of the term “close contact”, which they criticized as vague and which did not necessarily capture the nuances of aerosol transfer.

“Now the CDC has caught up with the latest science, got rid of some old problematic terms and thought about how the transmission happens,” said Linsey Marr, aerosol expert at Virginia Tech.

The new focus underscores the need for the federal agency for occupational safety and health to issue standards for employers to address potential hazards in the workplace, some experts said.

“They hadn’t talked much about aerosols and focused more on droplets,” said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at the George Washington School of Public Health and head of OSHA in the Obama administration.

He and other researchers expressed concern that the CDC has not yet reaffirmed its recommendations on preventing exposure to aerosolized viruses.

The new information has a significant impact on the indoor climate and especially on the workplaces, said Dr. Michaels. Virus-laden particles “retain their properties in the air for hours and accumulate in a room that is not well ventilated.”

“There’s more exposure closer,” said Dr. Michaels. “But if you are further away there is still a risk, and those particles are still in the air.”

Donald Milton, an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland, agreed that federal officials should come up with better guidelines for workplace safety.

“We need to better focus on good breathing apparatus for people who have to be around other people for long periods of time,” said Dr. Milton. “A surgical mask, even if it’s hidden around the edges, still doesn’t give you enough protection when you’re elbow-to-elbow with other people in a meat packing facility.”

Health care workers, bus drivers, and other workers may also need respirators, said Dr. Michaels. Customers in retail stores should continue to keep their distance and wear masks, he added. Good ventilation is of the utmost importance with these settings.

Dr. Marr pointed out that an updated page on the CDC website entitled “How Covid-19 Spreads” states that inhaling the virus when people are far apart is “unusual”. The statement is “misleading and potentially harmful,” said Dr. Marr.

“If you are in a poorly ventilated area, a virus will build up in the air and everyone in that room will be exposed.”