Tag: Counties

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Health

CDC says over 90% of U.S. counties now meet its Covid tips for masks indoors

CDC says over 90% of U.S. counties now meet its Covid guidelines for masks indoors

Mask requirements apply in Provincetown, MA on August 6, 2021.

Craig F. Walker | Boston Globe | Getty Images

The Delta-Covid variant has spread so quickly in the US that most counties in the country now meet CDC guidelines that recommend wearing masks indoors – whether they are vaccinated or not.

“We continue to see increases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the country. And now over 90% of counties in the United States are experiencing significant or high transmission,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters at a briefing Thursday. “As we said earlier, by far the most vulnerable people remain who have not yet been vaccinated.”

The CDC updated its mask guidelines on July 27 to recommend indoor masks in areas of the United States where community transmission was considered high or significant. Most of the counties with high transmission rates were in the southern United States, but in two weeks the proliferation of the highly transmittable delta variant expanded to most counties across the country.

The CDC recorded 132,384 new cases of Covid on Wednesday and hit a seven-day average of about 113,000 cases per day, up nearly 24% from the previous week, it said. Hospital admissions also rose about 31% in the previous week to about 9,700 per day.

Unvaccinated Americans make up the overwhelming majority of hospital admissions and deaths across the country, she said.

Several large institutions in the public and private sectors have mandated vaccines or require weekly Covid tests to prevent the virus from spreading further. President Joe Biden recently met with private sector leaders to promote vaccine or testing mandates.

“Immunization regulations are growing in importance across the country and already covering tens of millions of workers, educators, students and healthcare providers,” said Jeffrey Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, at the meeting. “You will help keep communities safe and stop the virus from spreading.”

Several cities with high vaccination rates have also mandated vaccinations for indoor activities in places like restaurants, bars, and gyms to prevent further spread of the Delta variant. New York City requires at least one dose of indoor activity vaccine, and San Francisco requires full vaccination with a two-dose vaccine or one dose of a single-dose vaccine. According to Zients, around 700 colleges and universities across the country have introduced vaccination mandates.

In the hardest hit states, vaccination rates are rising as residents take precautions against the spread of the Delta variant, he said. The average number of daily shots tripled in the past month in Arkansas and quadrupled in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, Zients said.

The CDC on Wednesday also stepped up its vaccination recommendations for pregnant women, reiterating that the vaccine is safe for those who are pregnant or planning to conceive. Walensky cited new data that “found no safety concerns for pregnant people who are vaccinated late in pregnancy or for their babies,” she said.

“To end this pandemic, every American must do their part. So if you are not vaccinated, please get your vaccination … it has never been more important, ”said Zients.

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Health

As demand surges within the U.S., counties reopen virus testing websites.

As demand surges in the U.S., counties reopen virus testing sites.

As the delta variant of the coronavirus spreads in the United States, some counties are opening community testing sites that they closed last spring when case numbers fell and attention shifted to vaccination.

The demand for tests has increased over the past month. By the end of July, an average of nearly 900,000 coronavirus tests were being performed daily, compared with 500,000 to 600,000 per day at the beginning of the month, according to the U.S. Department of Health.

Several factors are likely to be responsible for the increase, including the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant and new mandates that oblige unvaccinated people to frequent tests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recently changed their guidelines for vaccinated people, recommending that they be tested if they are exposed to the virus, even if they don’t have symptoms.

Testing has been a hotspot for the United States since the pandemic began. A faulty test, official bureaucracy and delivery bottlenecks initially led to long queues at the test locations and days of waiting for results.

Officials eventually ironed out some of those kinks, and as infections skyrocketed last year, state-run mass testing sites sprang up across the country offering free virus tests to all comers. However, some delays and problems persisted even as capacities increased.

When the vaccines were approved, many large testing centers were converted into vaccination centers and some were closed altogether. Virus testing has largely shifted to the private sector – for example, local pharmacies and commercial laboratories.

“There are far fewer test sites, public test sites, than there were six months ago,” said Mara Aspinall, an expert in biomedical diagnostics at Arizona State University. “So that’s a matter of concern to me.”

After residents began reporting a three-day wait for test appointments at pharmacies in Hillsborough County, Florida, the county opened two free, walk-in test locations last weekend. Officials had planned to run around 500 tests per day at each site and ended up doing almost twice as many, said Kevin Watler, a Florida Department of Health spokesman.

“It’s been very, very busy,” he said. “So the demand is definitely there.”

Many other test sites are emerging in Florida, where the virus is on the rise, as well as across the country. In California, San Diego County added five new test sites last week after traffic increased at its existing sites, officials said.

Other locations are expanding opening hours at testing sites or setting up pop-up testing clinics, and some combine their testing and vaccination services. Last week the Delaware Department of Public Health announced it would begin offering testing at its vaccination sites and is opening a new drive-through testing and vaccination site in New Orleans.

“With the fourth and worst surge in Covid-19 in Louisiana, we need to take a multi-pronged approach to combating the virus,” said Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the director of the New Orleans Department of Health, in a statement. “Masks slow the spread, tests identify cases and pandemic trends, and vaccines prevent hospitalizations and deaths. It only makes sense to put these resources in one place so that residents can access the tools they need for their safety in one place. “

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Health

San Francisco, neighboring counties reinstate masks mandate amid delta variant considerations

San Francisco, neighboring counties reinstate mask mandate amid delta variant concerns

A bartender takes drink orders at Oasis on July 29, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Health officials in seven Northern California counties on Monday mandated masks be used in indoor public places, elevating a facial covering recommendation they issued in July to a requirement.

The coalition of officials — from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma Counties and the City of Berkeley — first advised residents to wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status just over two weeks ago. Citing a surge in cases attributed to the highly contagious delta variant, the new mandate will take effect Tuesday.

“Indoor masking is a temporary measure that will help us deal with the Delta variant, which is causing a sharp increase in cases, and we know increases in hospitalizations and deaths will follow,” San Francisco acting health officer Dr. Naveena Bobba said in a statement.

According to the CDC, Contra Costa County recorded 2,723 new cases over the past seven days, a spike of 53% from the week prior. Sonoma County’s case total increased 58%, with 684 new coronavirus patients last week.

San Francisco County reported 1,513 additional cases last week, 47% more than the previous seven days. Marin, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties each saw cases climb between 33% and 41% last week, while Alameda County’s 2,385 new cases last week marked an 11% jump from the week before.

The mask mandate arrives after Los Angeles County responded to climbing coronavirus case totals by reinstating its mask mandate July 17. In addition to wearing masks inside, the order calls for businesses to implement the indoor face-covering order and requests that employers provide masks to their clientele.

“When we all wear face coverings indoors, we are protecting our fellow residents and helping our healthcare workers,” Bobba said.

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Health

1,000 counties within the U.S. have vaccination protection of lower than 30%

1,000 counties in the U.S. have vaccination coverage of less than 30%

FEMA members greet the public on their way to high school to be vaccinated on April 26, 2021 at a FEMA-operated Covid-19 mobile vaccination clinic at Biddeford High School in Bidderford, Maine.

Joseph Precious | AFP | Getty Images

About 1,000 counties in the United States have less than 30% vaccination coverage, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The counties in question are mainly in the Southeast and Midwest and are, according to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky most susceptible to Covid infection. The authority already sees rising disease rates in these districts due to the further spread of the more transmissible Delta variant, said Walensky.

The Delta variant currently accounts for about 25% of the new cases sequenced in the US, and officials believe it will become the dominant strain in the country, dwarfing the currently dominant Alpha variant.

In some counties, the delta variant rates are up to 50% according to the CDC. “We expect increased transmission in these communities when we can’t vaccinate more people,” said Walensky.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, zip codes with the highest rates of vaccination hesitation are in states such as North Dakota, Idaho, and Alabama.

During the briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Medical Advisor to the President, a study in The Lancet that showed mRNA vaccines were about 80% effective against confirmed Delta variant infection. The study also showed that two doses of an AstraZeneca vaccine provided 60% protection.

As for symptomatic disease, another study cited by Fauci showed that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine produced 88% protection against the Delta variant. A study by Public Health England showed that the Pfizer vaccines with the Delta variant offered 96% protection against hospitalization and the AstraZeneca vaccine offered 92% effectiveness after two doses.

“Preliminary data for the past six months suggests that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the states have occurred in unvaccinated people … the suffering and loss we see now are almost entirely preventable,” Walensky said .

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Politics

Why ‘Pivot Counties’ That Caught With Trump Could Be a Warning for Democrats

Why ‘Pivot Counties’ That Stuck With Trump May Be a Warning for Democrats

That year, Mr Trump again carried the district. In 2022, Cartwright said, a Trump-style Republican could win the Pennsylvania’s governor and Senate elections nationwide. “A lot of it depends on how life is two years from now,” he said.

Another region that reflected the postponements of the recent election, Saratoga County, New York State, was home to one of Mr. Biden’s pivotal feats in a pivot county. Mr Trump won there four years ago with 3.2 points. Mr. Biden won last month with 5.4 points for an overall swing of 8.6 points.

County Democrats chairman Todd Kerner attributed the turnaround to concerns from college graduates in the affluent suburbs of Albany, on the county’s southern end.

Jim Esterly, a retiree in Clifton Park, NY, was one of them. Four years ago, he said, he was taken on by Mr. Trump’s TV role in “The Apprentice”.

“I said,” Here’s a man who’s a businessman, “said Mr. Esterly.” He had deals that failed but he came back. I don’t know how he got the ship up, but I said Running the country is like running big business. “

For Mr. Esterly (68), who had managed a municipal sewage treatment plant, disillusionment set in early on. “He didn’t believe in climate change,” he said, citing the president’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. “When Covid hit he was more than stupid, didn’t believe his experts soon enough and then said, ‘Maybe we have to do something’ and then ignored it.”

Mr Esterly voted for Mr Biden this year and he had plenty of company in the suburb of Clifton Park. Mr. Biden won nearly 3,000 more votes in town than Ms. Clinton in 2016. Mr. Trump only increased his support there by about 500 votes.