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CDC director warns decline in Covid circumstances could have stalled as variants unfold

Government does not know how much Covid vaccine the U.S. has

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, selected as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks during an event at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, December 8, 2020.

Susan Walsh | AP

The decline in Covid-19 cases reported in the US since early January could level off, a worrying shift as highly communicable variants pose a risk of exacerbation of infections, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

“In the past few weeks, cases and hospital admissions in the US have decreased since early January, and deaths have decreased over the past week,” said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a press conference. “However, the latest data suggests that these declines may stall and possibly weaken if a number is still very high.”

According to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the nation reports a daily average of around 73,376 new cases for the past week, a slight increase compared to a week ago. The US hit a high of nearly 250,000 cases per day in early January after the winter break.

The recent postponement could be a sign that new, highly transmittable variants of the coronavirus are starting to take hold, Walensky said. A variant, known as B.1.1.7 and first found in the UK, is expected to be the predominant variety in mid to late March, experts have predicted.

The B.1.1.7 variant appears to be causing about 10% of new Covid-19 cases in the US, up from just 1% a few weeks ago, Walensky said. However, some states have more cases of the highly communicable variant than others.

Senior U.S. health officials have warned in recent weeks that the variants could reverse the current downward trend in infections in the U.S. and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.

The head of the federal health department said states shouldn’t start lifting restrictions on businesses and gatherings given the direction of the fall and the high prevalence of virus.

“I want to be clear: cases, hospital admissions and deaths are still very high, and the recent postponement of the pandemic must be taken extremely seriously,” said Walensky.

The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the nation will be in “a precarious position” if the number of new cases every day starts to surge to around 70,000.

“We need to carefully consider what happens to these numbers over the next few weeks before you see the understandable need to relax with certain restrictions,” said Fauci.

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CDC scientist says the U.S. is ‘nowhere shut’ to herd immunity

CDC scientist says the U.S. is 'nowhere close' to herd immunity

People await vaccinations against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Willowbrook, Los Angeles, California on February 25, 2021.

Lucy Nicholson

The US is “far from” achieving herd immunity to Covid, and more communicable variants mean even more people will need to be vaccinated to reach them, a CDC scientist said Friday.

Herd immunity occurs when enough people in a particular community have antibodies to a particular disease, either through vaccination or through previous exposure to the virus. That makes it difficult to spread from person to person and protects even people who don’t have immunity.

“Currently we know that the majority of the US population is not immune to SARS-CoV-2 and variants can cause that portion of the population that is not immune to gain weight,” said Adam MacNeil, epidemiologist at Centers for Disease Control and Contraception.

Reaching the herd immunity threshold in combating new, contagious strains of the virus requires vaccinating a higher proportion of the population, MacNeil said at a meeting of the Food and Drug Administration at which Johnson & Johnson’s application for approval of the Covid-19- Emergency vaccine checked for use.

Scientists don’t believe that immunity lasts forever. It weakens over time, and that could make the outbreak worse as previously protected people become vulnerable to infection, MacNeil said.

His comments come a week after a Wall Street Journal statement claimed the U.S. would achieve herd immunity by April.

While virus variants have been shown to reduce the effectiveness of a Covid vaccine at protecting against infection, vaccines have been shown to be effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization against the more infectious strains.

Increased vaccination would significantly slow current development of a highly contagious variant of Covid, first identified in the UK, as it became the dominant strain of virus in the US by March, MacNeil said.

He said increased vaccination was critical for the country to hit the benchmark.

“Vaccination has started and hopefully this brings us closer to closing the herd immunity gap.”

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CDC examine finds nursing dwelling residents have been reinfected with worse case of Covid

CDC study finds nursing home residents were reinfected with worse case of Covid

A general overview of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta.

Tami Chappell | Reuters

A new CDC study found that some elderly people who appeared to have recovered from the coronavirus later had a second, even worse case – suggesting that asymptomatic or mild cases may not offer much protection against re-infection with Covid- 19 offer.

The study, published Thursday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weekly Report on Morbidity and Mortality, looked at two separate outbreaks that occurred three months apart in a qualified care facility in Kentucky. According to the study, 20 residents and five health care workers tested positive for the virus between mid-July and mid-August.

The second outbreak, between late October and early December, was worse: 85 residents and 43 healthcare workers tested positive for the virus. Among residents who tested positive during the first outbreak and were still living at the facility, five tested positive a second time more than 90 days after their first positive test.

Although Covid-19 reinfections do occur, they are generally rare.

Through frequent monitoring after the initial outbreak, all five residents had at least four negative tests between outbreaks, suggesting that they may have been re-infected with the virus later. Reinfection means that a person who had Covid-19 recovered and then got it again, according to the CDC.

“The history of exposure, including when the roommate infections occurred and symptoms recurred during the second outbreak, suggests that the second positive RT-PCR results represented new infections after the patients appeared to clear the first infection,” wrote Alyson Cavanaugh , one of the researchers who led the study.

While only two of the five residents showed mild symptoms during the first outbreak, all five potentially reinfected residents showed signs of illness the second time. The two residents who reported symptoms during the first outbreak “experienced more severe symptoms during the second infectious episode, according to the study.” One resident was hospitalized and subsequently died.

According to the study’s researchers, this was “noteworthy” as it suggests the possibility that people who show mild to no symptoms when they first become infected are “not creating a sufficiently robust immune response to prevent re-infection”. The results “suggest the possibility that the disease may be more severe during a second infection.”

“The results of this study underscore the importance of maintaining public health mitigation and protection strategies that reduce the risk of transmission, even in those with a history of COVID-19 infection,” wrote Cavanaugh.

Some limitations were noted in the study. Because the samples were not stored, the researchers were unable to perform genome sequencing, a laboratory technique that breaks down the virus’ genetic code to confirm re-infection. “There are no additional test results to prove the initial test result is really positive,” they said during the initial outbreak.

It is believed that the risk of re-infection for the general population is still low, but nursing home residents may be particularly at risk due to their coexistence and high number of exposures, according to the study.

“Qualified care facilities should employ strategies to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in all residents, including those previously diagnosed with COVID-19,” Cavanaugh wrote.

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CDC research reveals academics might play ‘central position’ in Covid unfold at colleges

CDC study shows teachers could play 'central role' in Covid spread at schools

A student is seen walking down the steps of PS 139 closed public school in the Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, United States on October 8, 2020.

Michael Nagle | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

School teachers and staff could play a “central role” in the transmission of Covid-19 in schools that fail to follow social precautions and precautions against facial covering. Vaccination for the disease could help get students back to class safely, according to a new state study released Monday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the spread of the coronavirus in eight Georgia public elementary schools in the same school district between December 1 and January 22, including 24 days of face-to-face study. During that period, the average number of cases per 100,000 residents of the county increases by nearly 300%, the study said.

The Federal Health Office, together with the state and local health authorities, found nine Covid-19 “clusters” in which 13 educators and 32 pupils at six of the eight primary schools were involved.

The median cluster size – defined as three or more linked Covid-19 cases – was six people, and one educator was the “index patient” or the first case identified in four of these clusters, the CDC found. One student was the first patient in a cluster while the other four clusters had an unidentifiable index patient.

All but one of the clusters included “at least one educator and a likely educator-to-student transfer,” according to the study.

“These results suggest that educators can play an important role in transmission in school and that transmission in school can occur when physical distance and mask compliance are not optimal,” the CDC researchers wrote in the study.

In the study, CDC researchers said they conducted interviews with parents, educators, and school principals and examined seating plans, classroom layouts, physical distancing, and adherence to recommended mask use in face-to-face learning to identify case links.

They found that social distancing recommendations were “less than ideal” followed across all nine clusters. Students sat less than three feet apart, and in many cases the virus was able to spread among students, and students could have spread in small group sessions, according to the study.

The results come just over a week since the CDC released new guidance on how to safely reopen schools to face-to-face learning despite the spread of the virus. Among the numerous recommendations, the CDC advises districts to introduce their reopening plans according to the severity of the outbreak in their areas.

It also states that schools should adopt “essential elements” for resumption of personal learning, including wearing masks, physical distancing, and monitoring the level of spread in the surrounding community.

While the CDC advised states to give priority to vaccinating teachers and staff “as soon as supplies permit,” the guidelines did not recommend it for reopening. However, the study, published Monday, suggested that vaccinating educators could be important in protecting the most vulnerable while reducing disruptions to personal learning and potentially preventing the virus from spreading in schools.

“While COVID-19 vaccination is not required for schools to reopen, it should be viewed as an additional mitigation measure that should be added as it becomes available,” the researchers wrote.

– CNBC’s Will Feuer contributed to this report.

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C.D.C. Publicizes $200 Million ‘Down Cost’ to Observe Virus Variants

C.D.C. Announces $200 Million ‘Down Payment’ to Track Virus Variants

When lawmakers asked billions of dollars to fund the country’s efforts to prosecute coronavirus variants, the Biden government on Wednesday announced new efforts to advance that work, pledging nearly $ 200 million to help the emerging ones Better identify threats.

Calling it a “down payment,” the White House said the investment would result in a significant increase in the number of positive virus samples that labs could sequence. Laboratories, universities and public health programs run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sequenced more than 9,000 genomes last week, according to the GISAID database. The agency hopes to increase its own contribution to 25,000 genomes per week.

“When we reach 25,000 depends on the resources we have and how quickly we can mobilize our partners,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, at a press conference at the White House on Wednesday. “I don’t think this will be a light switch. I think it will be a dial. “

The program is the administration’s most significant effort to date to address the looming threat of more contagious variants of the virus. An affected variant, first identified in the UK, has infected at least 1,277 people in 42 states, though scientists suspect the actual number is significantly higher.

Variant B.1.1.7 developed in the UK, which doubles roughly every 10 days, threatens to slow down or reverse the rapid decline in new coronavirus cases. In addition, Dr. Walensky that the nation saw their first case of B.1.1.7, which received a particularly worrying mutation that was shown in South Africa to affect vaccine effectiveness.

Other worrisome variants have also surfaced in the US, including one first found in South Africa that weakens vaccines.

The FDA is preparing a possible redesign of vaccines to provide better protection against the new variants. However, this effort will take months. In the short term, experts say, it is important to increase the sequencing effort, which is too small and uncoordinated to adequately track where and how quickly variants are spreading.

Scientists welcomed the Biden administration’s new plans. “It’s a big step in the right direction,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, geneticist at the Broad Institute.

Dr. MacInnis said the “minimum gold standard” would sequence 5 percent of the virus samples. If cases continued to drop, 25,000 genomes per week would bring the country near that threshold, she said, “where we need to be to detect not only known threats but emerging threats as well.”

Trevor Bedford, evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said the national sequencing effort had made “significant gains” since December. Still, he said the CDC also needs to make improvements in collecting data about the genomes – for example, to tie it to contact tracing information – and then support the large-scale analysis on computers that is needed to quickly understand everything .

“There’s too much focus on the raw count that we’re sequencing rather than the turnaround time,” he said.

White House officials occupied the sequencing attempt as part of a wider effort to test more Americans for the virus. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense on Wednesday announced significant new investments in testing, including $ 650 million for elementary and middle schools and “underserved community facilities” like homeless shelters. The two divisions are also investing $ 815 million to expedite test supplies production.

The CDC’s $ 200 million sequencing investment is dwarfed by a program proposed by some lawmakers as part of an economic bailout package that Democratic Congress leaders want to pass before mid-March. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, passed legislation to improve his sequencing efforts. House lawmakers have allocated $ 1.75 billion to the effort.

In an interview, Ms. Baldwin suggested that the government sequence 15 percent of positive virus samples, a goal that goes well beyond what researchers believe is possible in the short term.

“This is to create the basis for a permanent infrastructure that enables us not only to monitor Covid-19 in order to discover new variants, but also to have this ability for other diseases.” she said of her proposal. “There are significant gaps in knowledge.”

In an interview, Carole Johnson, the new testing coordinator for the Biden administration, said the $ 200 million investment was a “down payment” and just the beginning of what is likely to be a much more aggressive campaign to track the variants.

Updated

Apr. 20, 2021, 9:30 a.m. ET

“Here we can take a look: What resources are currently available to us? What can we find to act quickly? ” She said. “But you know that going forward we need bigger investments and a systematic way to get this job done.”

Since 2014, the CDC Office of Advanced Molecular Detection has been using genome sequencing to track diseases such as influenza, HIV, and food-borne diseases. When the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, the CDC was slow to adapt these tools to track the coronavirus. For weeks it just struggled to create a test for the virus.

In contrast, the UK launched a highly acclaimed sequencing program last March that leveraged the nationalized health system with a central genomics laboratory. It now sequences up to 10 percent of all positive coronavirus tests and provides a thorough, quick analysis of the results.

The CDC began increased surveillance efforts later in 2020, helping academic laboratories, commercial sequencing companies, and public health departments to collaborate and share knowledge. In November, the company invested in its own program called NS3 to analyze coronavirus genomes. Every two weeks, the agency asks state health departments to send at least 10 samples to their laboratory for sequencing.

In December it became clear that these efforts would not be enough. Researchers in the UK found a new variant called B.1.1.7 that was up to 50 percent more transmissible than other variants. Scientists now suspect that it’s probably more deadly too. In South Africa, another variant called B.1.351 was found not only to be more contagious, but also to be less susceptible to multiple vaccines.

CDC officials began to fear that B.1.1.7 had already spread widely in the United States, according to a senior federal health official. They started new efforts, including contracts with laboratory testing companies to run coronavirus testing.

Dr. Gregory Armstrong, the director of the Advanced Molecular Detection Program, said in an interview that his team concluded in January that sequencing from 5,000 to 10,000 samples per week was a good short-term goal.

“It’s the starting point,” said Dr. Armstrong. “The more we sequence about it, the faster we can identify these variants.”

At a press conference at the White House earlier this month, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator, recognized how difficult it would be to achieve that goal.

“We are 43rd worldwide in genome sequencing – totally unacceptable,” he quoted December data from the GISAID database. In a subsequent interview, he corrected himself and said that the US stands behind 31 other nations.

In the early days of administration, Dr. Walensky set an initial goal for the CDC to sequence 7,000 genomes per month. Since then, laboratories have not come close to that number.

The agency’s National Genomic Surveillance Dashboard showed that only 96 genomes were logged for the week of February 6th. The following week the number rose to 1,382 genomes. Dr. Walensky’s new goal of 25,000 genomes per week calls for a significant increase.

Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it was a welcome development to invest $ 200 million quickly in surveillance variants before hoping for longer-term improvements. “Time is of the essence,” she said. “An initial investment in expanding genome monitoring while the complementary funding package comes together is a smart move.”

However, she warned that the plan could not be implemented immediately. It can take a month for the basic improvements to be achieved. By then, B.1.1.7 could already dominate US cases and jeopardize the current decline.

The larger program in the stimulus package will be critical to managing the pandemic in the long term, said Dr. Rivers.

“We may not be able to get very far on B.1.1.7, but what’s the next, in three months or six months or next winter?” She asked. “It’s not always just what’s in front of you. It’s what’s coming around the corner. “

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CDC says these are the most typical

CDC says these are the most common

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on Friday listing the most common side effects Americans have reported after receiving shots of Pfizers or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines.

The data is based on transmissions to the agency’s v-safe text messaging system and to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a national program for monitoring vaccination safety. The analysis used data from the first month of vaccination between December 14 and January 13, when more than 13.7 million doses were administered.

The CDC said there were 6,994 reports of so-called post-vaccination adverse events, including 6,354 classified as “not serious” and 640 as “serious”, including 113 deaths. The mean age of vaccine recipients, according to VAERS data, was 42 years and the majority of adverse events occurred in women.

The most common side effects after receiving the vaccines were headache, tiredness, and dizziness, followed by chills and nausea. The CDC said people also reported muscle pain, fever, joint pain, and pain at the injection site.

For the Pfizer vaccine, responses were more frequent after the second dose according to the v-safe data than after the first. The CDC said the reported rate of fever and chills was more than four times higher after the second dose than after the first.

Most commonly reported side effects (VAERS)

  • a headache
  • Fatigue
  • dizziness
  • chills
  • nausea

There have been 46 reports of anaphylaxis, a severe and potentially life-threatening allergic reaction, from those given Pfizer’s vaccine and 16 cases for those given Modernas, according to the CDC. The agency said the incidence of the response is within the range reported for the influenza vaccine.

Of the 113 reported deaths, two-thirds occurred in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

Medical experts say vaccine side effects are common and are actually an indication that the shots are working as intended. Many doctors advise the public to prepare for some more than usual side effects from the Covid-19 shots, especially after the second dose.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have recognized that their vaccines can produce side effects similar to symptoms associated with mild Covid-19, such as muscle pain, chills, and headaches. While the side effects can be uncomfortable, doctors say the vaccines are safe.

The CDC recommends talking to a doctor about taking over-the-counter medicines if you experience pain or discomfort after the recordings.

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Scientists to C.D.C.: Set Air Requirements for Workplaces Now

Scientists to C.D.C.: Set Air Standards for Workplaces Now

Almost a year after scientists showed that the coronavirus can be inhaled in tiny droplets called aerosols that linger in stagnant indoor air, more than a dozen experts are calling on the Biden government to take immediate action to stop the transmission of the virus in the air at high risk limit settings such as meat packing plants and prisons.

The 13 experts – including several who advised President Biden during the transition – urged the administration to mandate a combination of masks and environmental measures such as better ventilation to mitigate the risks in various workplaces.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for reopening schools, but quickly switched to improved ventilation as a precaution. It was only in July that the World Health Organization admitted that the virus could linger in the air in overcrowded indoor spaces after 239 experts publicly urged the organization to do so.

In a letter to the administration, scientists explained detailed evidence of airborne transmission of the virus. It has become even more urgent for the government to take action now, the experts said due to the slow vaccine rollout, the threat of more contagious variants of the virus already circulating in the United States and the high rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths, despite one recent fall in cases.

“It’s time to stop pussy shooting because the virus is mostly airborne,” said Linsey Marr, aerosol expert at Virginia Tech.

“If we properly acknowledge this and implement the right recommendations and guidance, this is our chance to end the pandemic in the next six months,” she added. “If we don’t do that, it could very well drag on.”

The letter was delivered to Jeffrey D. Zients, Coordinator of the Biden Administration’s Covid-19 Response, on Monday. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

The letter urged the CDC to recommend the use of high quality masks such as N95 respirators to protect workers at high risk of infection. At present, health care workers rely mostly on surgical masks, which are not as effective against aerosol transmission of the virus.

Many workers susceptible to infection are black people who have borne the brunt of the epidemic in the United States, the experts noted.

Mr Biden has directed the occupational health and safety agency, which sets workplace requirements, to issue temporary emergency standards for Covid-19 by March 15, including those for ventilation and masks.

However, OSHA will only prescribe standards that are supported by the CDC, said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and one of the signatories.

(Dr. Michaels ran OSHA during the Obama administration; the agency has not had a permanent leader since his departure.)

Updated

Apr 16, 2021 at 10:43 am ET

“Until the CDC makes some changes, OSHA will have difficulty changing the recommendations as it understands that government must be consistent,” said Dr. Michaels. “And CDC has always been considered the lead infectious disease agency.”

Public health authorities, including the WHO, have been slow to recognize the importance of aerosols in the spread of the coronavirus. It wasn’t until October that the CDC realized that the virus could be in the air at times, after an enigmatic series of events where a description of how the virus had spread appeared on the agency’s website, then disappeared, and reappeared two weeks later.

However, the Agency’s recommendations on workplace accommodation did not reflect this change.

At the start of the pandemic, the CDC said health care workers didn’t need N95 respirators and could even wear headscarves to protect themselves. Face coverings were also not recommended for the rest of the population.

The agency has since revised these recommendations. It was recently recommended that you wear two masks or improve the fit of their surgical masks to protect yourself from the virus.

“But they’re not talking about why you need a better fitting mask,” said Dr. Donald Milton, aerosol expert at the University of Maryland. “They recognize the importance of inhaling it and how it is transmitted, yet they don’t say it clearly on their various web pages.”

The agency recommends surgical masks for health care workers and says that N95 respirators are only needed during medical procedures that generate aerosols, such as certain types of surgery.

However, many studies have shown that health care workers who have no direct contact with Covid-19 patients are also at high risk of infection and should wear good quality respirators, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York and an advisor to Mr. Biden during the transition.

“The CDC has not emphasized the risk of aerosol transmission enough,” said Dr. Gounder. “Unfortunately, concerns about the offer continue to cloud the discussion.”

Many hospitals still expect their staff to reuse N95 masks as recommended by the agency to reuse when supplies are low. However, since the masks are no longer in short supply, the agency should change its recommendations, said Dr. Gounder.

“We really need to stop this approach of reusing and decontaminating N95,” she added. “We are one year this year and that is really not acceptable.”

At least hospitals are usually well ventilated, so healthcare workers are protected in other ways, the experts said. In meat packers, prisons, buses, or grocery stores where workers have been exposed to the virus for long periods of time, the CDC does not recommend high-quality respiratory equipment or advocate improvements to ventilation.

“When you go to other jobs, that notion that aerosol transfer is important is virtually unknown,” said Dr. Michaels. For example, in food processing plants, a refrigerated environment and lack of fresh air are ideal conditions for the virus to thrive. However, the industry has not taken any safety measures to minimize the risk, he added.

Instead, employers follow the CDC’s recommendations for physical removal and cleaning of surfaces.

The recent emergence of more contagious variants makes it imperative for the CDC to address airborne transmission of the virus, said Dr. Marr from Virginia Tech. Germany, Austria and France are now mandating N95 respirators or other high quality masks in public transport and shops.

Dr. Marr was one of the experts who wrote to WHO last summer asking for airborne transmission recognition. She didn’t expect to be in a similar position again so many months later. She said, “It feels like Groundhog Day.”

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CDC director says lifting masks necessities is a mistake

CDC director says to watch Super Bowl virtually or only with people you already live with

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Joe Biden’s chief executive officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), listens as Biden announces candidates and officers for his health and coronavirus response teams during a press conference at his transitional headquarters Wilmington, Delaware, December 8, 2020.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Sunday that it was too early for states to stop wearing masks, given the high number of daily coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States

“We still have 100,000 cases a day. We still have between 1,500 and 3,500 deaths a day,” Walensky said during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. “Yet we see some communities loosening some of their mitigation strategies. We are nowhere outside of the forest.”

As the spread of the virus slows in the US and the introduction of the vaccine speeds up, states have begun to relax restrictions. Republican governors in Montana and Iowa lifted statewide mask wear requirements this month. North Dakota’s mask mandate expired in January.

In New York, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo recently allowed indoor dining at 25% capacity despite the high risk of contagion, and opened stadiums and arenas with limited capacity.

However, health experts fear that the rapid spread of more contagious variants could lead to a renewed spike in cases and deaths in the United States. The cases of the contagious variant, first found in the UK and known as B.1.1.7, double around the country about every 10 days.

“If we loosen these mitigation strategies with increasing communicable variants, we could be in a much more difficult place,” Walensky said. “Now is the time not to let go of our watch. Now is the time to double up.”

Health officials are urging Americans to tighten and double the masks, which offers significant protection against the transmission of viruses. Recent studies by the CDC suggest that firmly worn surgical masks or doubling up with a surgical and cloth mask reduce the risk of transmission by up to 96%.

“We need to get our communities back to normal functioning before we can think about abandoning our mitigation strategies,” said Walensky.

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CDC to analyze demise of Nebraska man who acquired Covid vaccine dose

CDC to investigate death of Nebraska man who received Covid vaccine dose

Vials and a medical syringe are displayed in front of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) US logo. The FDA finds the COVID-19 vaccine.

Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will investigate the death of a Nebraska man after local health officials listed the Covid-19 vaccine as one of several causes of death, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release on late Thursday with.

The man, a long-term care facility in his late forties with multiple concurrent diseases and conditions, died on January 17 between one and two weeks after receiving his first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

The CDC and FDA received 1,170 reports of deaths in people in the United States who received Covid vaccine between December 14 and February 7 – 0.003% of those vaccinated. During that time, over 41 million doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s Covid were administered 19 vaccines across the country, according to the CDC.

“Typically, deaths from COVID-19 vaccines can be attributed to anaphylaxis and occur relatively soon after the vaccine is administered, so monitoring is done,” said Dr. Gary Anthone, Nebraska Chief Medical Officer.

“While I can’t speculate about this case, if people die days or weeks after being given the vaccine, it is more likely to be due to other underlying factors,” Anthone said.

The death was recorded on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a national vaccination safety monitoring program run by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration. All adverse events or deaths must be reported to the system if they occur after vaccination.

“This process enables the CDC and FDA to closely monitor and assess adverse events for ongoing safety assessments,” said a statement from the state health department.

The CDC has not reported any patterns for cause of death that would suggest safety issues with the vaccines.

People with high-risk diseases should consult their medical providers about vaccination, Anthone said.

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CDC Attracts Up a Blueprint for Reopening Faculties

CDC Draws Up a Blueprint for Reopening Schools

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday called for the K-12 schools to reopen soon and offered a phased plan to get students back into classrooms and resolve a debate that is dividing communities across the country .

The guidelines highlight growing evidence that schools can safely open if they take steps to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The agency said that even in communities with high transmission rates, elementary school students can at least safely receive some personal instruction.

Middle and high school students, the agency said, can safely take in-person classes if the virus is less common, but may need to switch to hybrid or distance learning in communities with high-intensity outbreaks.

“CDC’s operational strategy is based on scientific evidence and the best available evidence,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, in an interview with reporters on Friday.

The guidelines arrive in an intensifying debate. Even when parents in some districts with closed schools are frustrated, some teachers and their unions refuse to return to classrooms they consider unsafe.

Public school enrollment has declined in many districts. Education and civil rights activists are concerned about the harm to children who have been out of the classroom for nearly a year.

The recommendations strike a middle ground between those who seek resumption of personal learning and those who fear that reopening schools will spread the virus.

In advice that may disappoint some teachers, the document states that vaccination of educators should be a priority, but not a requirement for schools to reopen.

Nevertheless, both national unions thanked the CDC for the clearer guidelines.

“For the first time since this pandemic began, we have a rigorous, science-based roadmap that our members can use to fight for a safe reopening,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and ally of President Biden.

However, Ms. Weingarten and Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, argued that schools could find it difficult to implement the CDC’s mitigation strategies without additional federal funding.

The agency’s guidance reiterates the idea that schools should be the last to close in a community and the first to reopen. However, the CDC has no power to force communities to take action to reduce high transmission rates – such as closing unnecessary businesses – to reopen schools.

According to the agency’s new criteria, schools in more than 90 percent of the US states were unable to return to personal classrooms full-time, according to Dr. Walensky. Even so, the majority of districts offer at least face-to-face learning, and about half of the country’s students study in classrooms.

However, there are wide variations in the types of people who have access to in-person teaching. The neighborhoods are mainly educated to poor, non-white children who are more likely to have closed schools than in suburban and rural areas.

Researchers are not only concerned about the academic consequences of dropping out of school so long. Although the data are still very limited, many doctors and mental health experts report unusually high numbers of children and adolescents who are depressed, anxious, or have other mental health problems.

The agency’s approach striked the right balance between the risks and benefits of in-person teaching, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“We have done a tremendous amount of damage because we haven’t opened schools,” said Dr. Nuzzo. “This document is important to identify the risks related to this damage and to find a way forward.”

The CDC advised school administrators who were tailored to four levels of virus transmission in the surrounding communities.

The agency said elementary schools could stay open regardless of the virus concentration in the surrounding community, suggesting evidence that young students are the least likely to be infected or spread the pathogen.

Only in communities with the highest levels of transmission should elementary schools switch to a hybrid model of distance learning and in-person tuition, the agency said. Primary schools should in any case remain at least partially open. Middle schools and high schools should close completely and switch to virtual learning when transfer rates are highest, the agency said.

The guidelines also prioritized personal instruction over extracurricular activities such as sports and school events. In the event of an outbreak, these activities should be restricted before classrooms are closed.

Some experts expressed concerns about the strategy. Many schools in communities where virus transmission is high have been open to face-to-face teaching without virus outbreaks.

The agency’s guidelines lacked detailed recommendations on how to improve ventilation in schools, an important protection.

In a brief paragraph, the CDC suggested schools open windows and doors to increase circulation, but said they should not be opened “if it poses a safety or health risk”.

Updated

Apr. 12, 2021, 9:17 p.m. ET

“CDC pays lip service to ventilation in its report and you need to look for it,” said Joseph Allen, building security expert at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “It’s not as prominent as it should be.”

Other preventive measures the CDC has recommended for schools are those it has previously approved. Universal mask wear and physical distancing are most effective, but the agency also advocated hand washing and hygiene, cleaning, and contact tracing.

The agency noted that schools refer all symptomatic students, teachers, staff and their close contacts for diagnostic tests and that schools consider routine weekly tests for students and staff, except in communities where transmission is low. The costs and logistics of a comprehensive screening would place a heavy burden on school districts, some experts noted.

The CDC said in higher transmission schools, schools should ensure that individuals maintain at least six feet of physical distance. However, in communities with lower transmission rates, the agency said students and staff should only be physically distant “as much as possible”.

“We are concerned that if we mandate a physical distance of six feet, people will not be able to fully learn in person again,” said Dr. Walensky too.

“Many communities have followed hybrid approaches or, in some cases, simply didn’t open because they couldn’t figure out this distance problem,” said Dr. Nuzzo from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The whole attempt to bring children back to school doesn’t have to collapse over it.”

But Ms. Pringle of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, said there should be no leeway for physical distancing or other mitigation strategies.

“We need detailed guidance from the CDC that leaves no room for political games,” she said. “This is an airborne disease. Masks must be mandated, social distance must be maintained, and adequate ventilation is a must. “

As before, the CDC recommended using two measures to determine the risk of transmission in the community: the total number of new cases per 100,000 people and the percentage of positive test results over the past seven days.

Dr. Helen Jenkins, an infectious disease expert at Boston University, said the percentage of tests positive can depend on how many tests a community does. And the highest levels of community diffusion set by the agency are too conservative. Schools would be safe even if there were more cases in the community, she and other experts said.

Mr Biden has pledged to open the majority of the K-8 schools within the first 100 days of his administration. But on Wednesday White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president was referring to in-person tuition “at least one day a week.”

Under the agency’s new guidelines, many schools that are now working virtually should consider at least some personal learning.

For example, if the new recommendations had gone into effect last fall, San Francisco could have opened all of its schools for personal teaching in mid-September. Today San Francisco could open elementary schools in a hybrid mode under the guidelines, and the city is on the verge of opening middle and high schools in a hybrid mode.

Instead, the city’s schools have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, and the district has reached agreement with its union on far more restrictive reopening standards. Officials haven’t set a date to bring young children back to school, and they have said they don’t expect most middle and high school students to return in person this year.

The new guidelines recommended states immunize teachers in the early stages of rollout, but said that access to vaccines “should still not be viewed as a requirement for schools to be reopened for personal instruction”.

Vaccinating teachers is very effective in reducing cases in both teachers and students in a high school transmission model, said Carl Bergstrom, an infectious disease expert at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It should be an absolute priority,” he said.

Still, he added, “I can see for sure why they chose not to make this a requirement as it may not be possible to open schools in time.”

Some teacher unions have also asked for strict air quality protection in school buildings, an issue that is not fully addressed by the CDC

In Boston, for example, air quality was a major issue in the resumption of negotiations between the school district and the teachers’ union. Their agreement included air purifiers in classrooms and a system for testing and reporting air quality data.

Ms. Pringle, the union president, said its members remained concerned about aging schools without modern ventilation systems. It was more likely these buildings were in low-income, non-white communities, which were hardest hit by the pandemic.

On Friday, Dr. Walensky, while the new guidelines should allow schools to remain open in most local conditions, if transmission skyrockets – possibly due to the contagious new varieties that are starting to circulate in the country – “we may need to reconsider . “