Tag: Covid

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OSHA Points Covid Office Security Rule, However Just for Well being Care

OSHA Issues Covid Workplace Safety Rule, But Only for Health Care

During the Trump administration, OSHA passed a policy to largely limit Covid-related inspections to a small number of high-risk industries such as healthcare and emergency aid. Meat wrap was not included in this high-risk group – studies showed it was a major source of virus transmission.

Some labor groups praised OSHA under President Donald J. Trump for enforcing health care safety regulations, including proposed fines of over $ 1 million for violations in dozens of health and nursing homes. However, critics accused the agency of largely failing to punish meat processors for lax safety standards, such as a lack of adequate distancing from workers.

Mr Walsh said the risks for most non-healthcare workers had decreased as cases decreased and vaccination rates increased. He also noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines last month, telling vaccinated individuals that they generally do not need to wear a mask indoors, played a role in OSHA’s decision on one dispense with the broader Covid-19 standard.

“OSHA has adjusted the rule to reflect the reality on the ground, the success of the vaccine effort, as well as the latest guidance from the CDC and the changing nature of the pandemic,” Walsh said on the call.

David Michaels, an OSHA chief during the Obama administration, said the CDC guidelines made it difficult to implement a broader OSHA rule. “In order to justify an emergency standard, OSHA needs to demonstrate that there is great danger,” said Dr. Michaels. “To do this, the CDC should have clarified its recommendation and said that there is a great danger for many workers.”

Without such clarification, said Dr. Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health, would have employer groups likely challenged any new OSHA rule in court, arguing that the CDC guidelines indicated that a rule was unnecessary.

Dr. Michaels said the new standard was an overdue move, but it was disappointing that no Covid-specific standard had been issued for industries such as meat packaging, corrections and retail. “If exposure is not controlled in these workplaces, they will continue to be major drivers of infection,” he said.

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Moderna Apples for Authorization of Its Covid Vaccine for Adolescents

Moderna Apples for Authorization of Its Covid Vaccine for Adolescents

Moderna applied to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for emergency clearance to use its coronavirus vaccine in 12-17 year olds. If approved as expected, the vaccine would offer a second option to protect teenagers from the coronavirus and speed the return to normal for middle and high school students.

The company has already applied for approval from Health Canada and the European Medicines Agency and plans to apply for approval in other countries, CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. FDA approval usually takes three to four weeks.

Last month, the FDA expanded the emergency approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine for use in children ages 12-15. This vaccine was already available to anyone over the age of 16. About 7 million children under the age of 18 have received at least one dose of the vaccine to date, and about 3.5 million are fully protected.

Moderna’s vaccine was approved for use in adults in December. His application to the FDA for young teenagers is based on study results published last month. This clinical trial enrolled 3,732 children, ages 12-17, with 2,500 receiving two doses of the vaccine and the remainder receiving a saltwater placebo.

The study found no cases of symptomatic Covid-19 in fully vaccinated adolescents, which is 100 percent effectiveness, the same number that Pfizer and BioNTech reported for this age group. The study also found that a single dose of the Moderna vaccine was 93 percent effective. Participants did not experience any serious side effects beyond those seen in adults: injection site pain, headache, fatigue, muscle pain, and chills.

An independent safety monitoring committee will follow all participants for 12 months after their second injection to assess long-term protection and safety.

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Health

Singapore to start out easing Covid restrictions as day by day infections fall

Singapore to start easing Covid restrictions as daily infections fall

A woman wearing a face mask as a prevention against Covid-19 walks along the promenade at Marina Bay in Singapore on May 9th, 2020.

Facebook Facebook logo Sign up on Facebook to connect with Roslan Rahman AFP | Getty Images

SINGAPORE – The Singapore government announced on Thursday that it would ease restrictions on Covid as the number of daily infections has decreased.

The Southeast Asian country tightened social distancing measures last month to curb a surge in local Covid-19 infections. These measures, which included eating out and small social gatherings, had been in place since mid-May.

Starting Monday, Singapore allows social gatherings of five people – an increase from the current two-person limit.

Restrictions on event attendees and operating capacity in places like public libraries and museums will also be relaxed, the government said.

We need to learn to live with the virus and then do our best to minimize transmission and minimize the risk of large clusters breaking out.

Lawrence Wong

Singapore Finance Minister

From June 21st, the restrictions will be further relaxed. Activities such as dining out and some mask-off activities in gyms and gyms are allowed to resume with some social distancing measures.

However, working from home remains the standard for those who can, the government said.

Local infections in Singapore have dropped to single digits in the past few days. Overall, the country has reported more than 62,000 cases since the beginning of last year, with 34 deaths on Wednesday, data from the health ministry showed.

However, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Wong, co-chair of Singapore’s Covid Task Force, said the country must be ready to see more cases as it opens. He added that the country needs to continue its vaccination and testing efforts to curb high rates of infection within the community.

“We will have to learn to live with the virus and then do our best to minimize transmission and minimize the risk of large clusters breaking out,” Wong said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Vaccination progress

Around 2.5 million people have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to Singapore. That’s about 40% of the population.

Starting Friday, the country will allow people ages 12 to 39 to register for a vaccination.

Wong said Singapore aims to have 50% of its population fully vaccinated by August. By October, that number would hit 75% or more, he added.

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said people who were vaccinated and who got Covid-19 had fewer severe symptoms than people without the vaccination.

Ong said that of all cases since April 11, about 9% of unvaccinated, infected people needed supplemental oxygen or intensive care. Less than 1% of fully vaccinated people who were infected needed supplemental oxygen or critical care, he added.

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Politics

Fauci blasts ‘preposterous’ Covid conspiracies, accuses his critics of ‘assaults on science’

Fauci blasts 'preposterous' Covid conspiracies, accuses his critics of 'attacks on science'

A defiant Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday lashed out at critics calling for his ouster, blasting their “preposterous” and “painfully ridiculous” attacks and defending his record as a leading official battling the coronavirus pandemic.

Such “attacks on me are, quite frankly, attacks on science,” Fauci said in an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd. “People want to fire me or put me in jail for what I’ve done — namely, follow the science.”

Fauci, the White House’s chief medical advisor, pulled few punches as he directly rebutted critics who have attacked his prior remarks on the origins of the virus and on wearing masks to prevent transmission, along with a raft of conspiracy theories.

“If you go through each and every one of them, you can explain and debunk it immediately,” Fauci said. “I mean, every single one.”

Fauci also flatly dismissed a conspiracy theory about him and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that has been pushed by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

Zuckerberg emailed Fauci early on in the pandemic, inviting him to a Q&A video on the platform and outlining some ideas where the social media giant could work with the U.S. government on the Covid response. Blackburn claimed the emails between the two men showed that Fauci was trying to create a narrative “so that you would only know what they wanted you to know.”

Fauci has come under fire in recent days following the release of a trove of his emails obtained by BuzzFeed News and other news outlets through the Freedom of Information Act.

“I don’t want to be pejorative of a United States senator, but I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Fauci said after listening to the senator’s claims.

Fauci, the 80-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, maintained that his views on the origins of the coronavirus have not changed, even as the theory of a lab-leak pandemic has recently become more mainstream.

Saying that a natural-origin scenario is more likely “doesn’t mean there is a closed mind to it being a leak,” Fauci said, “even though many people feel, myself included, that still the most likely origin is a natural one.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” Fauci said.

“You want to keep an open mind. It’s a possibility. I believe it’s a highly unlikely possibility, and I believe that the most important one, that you look at what scientists feel, is very likely that it was a natural origin,” Fauci said.

He said he’s “very much in favor” of further investigation into Covid’s origins.

Fauci has been a target for criticism in mostly Republican circles for much of the pandemic, including by former President Donald Trump, who suggested he would have fired Fauci if he won re-election.

The release of more than 3,200 pages of his emails from the first half of 2020 has given rise to new waves of attacks from conservatives.

Fauci in Wednesday’s interview seemed at times to be exasperated by the torrent of criticism. “Lately everything I say gets taken out of context — not by you, but by others,” he told NBC’s Todd.

The points are “just painfully ridiculous,” he said. “I could go the next half an hour going through each and every point that they made.”

He spoke at length about why government recommendations on mask-wearing changed over time, noting that he is “picked as the villain” on the issue despite other officials sharing his views at the time.

At the beginning, Fauci said, there was believed to be a shortage of masks, there was little available evidence that masks worked outside of a hospital setting, and the asymptomatic spread of the virus was not fully known.

As those three factors changed, so too did the guidance, he said. “When those data change, when you get more information, it’s essential that you change your position because you have got to be guided by the science and the current data.”

“People want to fire me or put me in jail for what I’ve done — namely, follow the science,” he said.

“It’s preposterous, Chuck. Totally preposterous.”

Asked about the impact of the politically charged attacks on public health officials over the past year, Fauci said it’s “very dangerous.”

“A lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science, because all of the things that I have spoken about, consistently from the very beginning, have been fundamentally based on science,” he said.

“Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people, and there was pushback against me. So if you are trying to, you know, get at me as a public health official and a scientist, you are really attacking not only Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science,” he said. “And anybody that looks at what is going on clearly sees that.”

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Covid Delta variant not speedy risk to U.S.

Covid Delta variant not immediate threat to U.S.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Wednesday he believes enough Americans are fully vaccinated to delay the risk presented by the Delta Covid variant.

“The question is: Are there enough unvaccinated people that this could get into the population and start spreading more widely? I happen to think it’s unlikely that this is going to be a threat until the fall, perhaps,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on “Squawk Box.”

Gottlieb’s comments come as speculation grows that the U.K. could delay the lifting of all lockdown measures in England, set for June 21, due to the increasing prevalence of the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India.

The most severe cases involving the Delta variant appear to be in unvaccinated people or those who are only partially vaccinated, Gottlieb said. “It does seem to be a more dangerous variant. That said, two doses of the vaccine seem to be very protective.” 

“People who are fully vaccinated, I think, are pretty well protected against this new variant based on the accruing evidence,” added Gottlieb, who led the FDA in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019. He’s now on the board of vaccine maker Pfizer.

On Tuesday, the White House’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stressed the importance of Americans becoming fully vaccinated to protect against the Delta variant. Currently, Fauci said it accounts for more than 6% of the U.S. coronavirus infections that scientists have genetically sequenced.

The Delta variant, meanwhile, is becoming the dominant variant in the United Kingdom. The U.S. and U.K. now have around 53% of adults fully vaccinated against Covid. However, Gottlieb said England’s decision to delay the administration of second doses in order to give more people initial shots “probably opened the door to this spreading a little bit more widely.” 

At a White House briefing Tuesday, Fauci called out as examples Covid vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca — which is used in the U.K. but not the U.S. — saying they were around 33% effective in protecting against the Delta variant after one dose. For Pfizer, that rose to 88% efficacy after the second shot, Fauci said, while AstraZeneca’s vaccine was 60% effective, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“It does appear that two doses of the vaccine are more important against these variants than they were against the old strain of the virus,” Gottlieb said.

Despite vaccination progress in the U.S., Gottlieb acknowledged there could be worrisome situations in the country involving the Delta variant. “If you have a community where there’s a lot of unvaccinated people and you have a super-spreading event with Delta … you could get an outbreak here.”

Covid cases in the U.S. continue to fall. The country’s seven-day average of daily new coronavirus infections is around 14,400, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That’s about 17% lower than it was a week ago. It also represents an over 60% decline from roughly a month ago. The highest single day of new cases in the U.S. was 300,462 on Jan. 2.

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

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Health

High worldwide well being officers fear about new Covid variants that might be able to evade vaccines

Top international health officials worry about new Covid variants that may be able to evade vaccines

A medical worker injects a man with a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Accra, capital of Ghana, May 19, 2021.

Seth | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Top health officials in Europe and Africa said Wednesday they are worried about the potential emergence of new Covid variants that could render current vaccines useless.

Dr. John Nkengasong, director of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said he is “very concerned” about the emergence of a vaccine-resistant variant as the Delta variant first detected in India continues to spread around the world. Studies have shown that current vaccines work against the new variant, although not as well as they do against the original wild type virus.

“It is increasingly concerning that this pandemic will be driven by the cycle of occurrence and reoccurrence of different variants,” Nkengasong said at The Wall Street Journal’s Health Tech conference. “The speed at which these viruses overtake the existing viruses is amazing.”

The Delta variant was first identified by scientists in October has since spread to more than 62 countries, dominating the U.K. and now responsible for more new infections in the country than the Alpha variant — which was first detected in the U.K.

Dr. Sharon Peacock, executive chair of Covid-19 Genomics U.K. Consortium, said the Delta variant is about 40% to 50% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, formerly called B.1.1.7, a strain that emerged from the U.K. last fall and was more contagious than the original virus.

“So, given that level of transmissibility, I would anticipate that (the Delta variant) would’ve actually spread around the world,” she said at the conference. Peacock added the Delta variant is already present in most U.S. states, but the spread is at an early stage.

White House senior medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters yesterday that the U.S. needs to vaccinate more people before the Delta variant takes hold in the country.

The Alpha variant is currently the dominant variant in the U.S., but the Delta variant could soon take over like it did in the U.K. “We cannot let that happen in the United States,” Fauci said yesterday.

“I would be concerned … that this will be something that will be able to out-compete other circulating variants in the way that we’ve observed in the United Kingdom,” Peacock said. She also said that variants are more likely to emerge in partially vaccinated areas. Some states in the U.S. have vaccination rates higher than 70%, while others lag behind at 40%.

Scientists in the U.S. are currently sequencing just 1.6% of new infections, Peacocks said. She and Nkengasong agreed that increased genomic surveillance is an important way to track the spread of new variants before they take hold.

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Health

Authorities Warns Medical doctors and Insurers: Don’t Invoice for Covid Vaccines

Government Warns Doctors and Insurers: Don’t Bill for Covid Vaccines

The New York Times is investigating the costs associated with coronavirus testing, treatment, and vaccination. You can read more about the project and submit your medical bills here.

The Biden government is reminding doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and insurers that it is illegal to bill patients for coronavirus vaccines, a letter received from The Times shows.

The new warning responds to concerns from unvaccinated Americans that they could get a bill with their shot. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about a third of unvaccinated adults weren’t sure if insurance covered the new vaccine.

“We understand that there are costs associated with administering vaccines – from training staff to storing vaccines,” wrote Xavier Becerra, the health and social services secretary, in a letter to vaccinators and insurers. “Providers cannot bill patients for these expenses, but can request reimbursement through Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, or other applicable coverage.”

The letter warns that billing patients could lead to state or federal “enforcement action” but does not specify what the penalty would be.

The federal government has written strong consumer protection to ensure patients don’t have to pay for coronavirus vaccines.

In the economic legislation last spring, insurers were prohibited from charging patients co-payments or deductibles for vaccines. The same law also created a fund that would cover the cost of vaccinating uninsured Americans.

Layered on top of these legal safeguards are the contracts doctors and hospitals have signed to get vaccines. These documents stipulate that vaccinations cannot charge patients for the service.

The stronger protection seems to have worked. While many patients have come across coronavirus bills for testing, only a handful have come with vaccines.

Still, the rules aren’t foolproof, and some patients have been illegally charged. In April, the Inspector General’s Office of Health and Human Services released a letter saying it was “aware of patient complaints about fees from providers to get their Covid-19 vaccines.”

Some patients have submitted bills with surprising fees for a Times project that collects patient bills for tests, treatments, and vaccinations. Fees range from $ 20 to $ 850. If you’ve received an invoice for your coronavirus vaccine, you can submit it here.

Patients who are billed for coronavirus vaccines can dispute the fee. Health insurers can turn to their plan to ask why they got a bill when two federal laws – the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and the CARES law – prohibit it.

A small part of health insurance is exempt from the law. These “grandfather” plans existed prior to the Affordable Care Act and are not subject to requirements to fully cover the coronavirus vaccine or other preventive services.

But these patients, too, are still protected by the contract that the doctors concluded, excluding any invoicing. Doctors can send the outstanding fees to a new Coverage Assistance Fund created by the Biden administration last month to fill gaps in patient care.

Uninsured patients can instruct their providers to bill for the uninsured Covid-19 program that was set up to cover those without insurance.

If an insurer or doctor is unwilling to withdraw a bill, patients can seek help from state regulators. State insurance departments typically handle complaints about whether health insurances are not adequately covering medical care, while attorneys general tend to file complaints about possible inappropriate bills from doctors and hospitals.

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Aspirin doesn’t enhance survival for Covid sufferers: UK research

Aspirin does not improve survival for Covid patients: UK study

A patient suffering from COVID-19 will be treated on May 20th, 2021 in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Darmstadt Clinic in Darmstadt.

Kai Pfaffenbach | Reuters

LONDON – The cheap and widely available drug aspirin does not improve the survival of patients hospitalized with Covid-19, a UK study found.

Oxford University researchers had hoped the blood-thinning drug could help hospitalized Covid-19 patients who are at increased risk of blood clots forming in their blood vessels, particularly in the lungs, but found that aspirin was not helped prevent deaths.

On the study – part of a larger “RECOVERY” study that looked at various possible treatments for people hospitalized with coronavirus, nearly 15,000 patients were hospitalized with the virus. About half of the patients received 150 mg of aspirin daily compared to the other half who received only the usual treatment.

The study found that “there was no evidence that aspirin treatment reduced mortality” and “no significant difference” in the number of people who died, with 17% of people in both groups dying after 28 days in the hospital.

“The data shows that aspirin was not associated with a reduction in 28-day mortality or the risk of progression to invasive mechanical ventilation or death in patients hospitalized with Covid-19,” said Peter Horby , Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford and lead investigator of the RECOVERY study, said the study.

“While aspirin was associated with a slightly increased chance of a live discharge, that does not appear to be enough to justify its widespread use in patients hospitalized with Covid-19.”

Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology in the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford and a lead researcher on the study, described the results as “disappointing”.

“There was strong evidence that blood clotting could be responsible for deterioration in lung function and death in patients with severe Covid-19. Aspirin is inexpensive and is often used in other illnesses to reduce the risk of blood clots, so it is disappointing that it did. ”Did not have much of an impact on these patients. That’s why large randomized trials are so important – to find out which treatments work and which don’t. “

The RECOVERY study has already made several life-saving discoveries, including that dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid, was able to save lives in seriously ill Covid-19 patients.

The results of the latest aspirin study will be published shortly on the pre-print site medRxiv and have been submitted to a leading peer-reviewed medical journal.

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Health

Florida, Alabama not reporting every day Covid case and dying information

Florida, Alabama no longer reporting daily Covid case and death data

Florida and Alabama will no longer report daily Covid cases and deaths as vaccinations rise and states begin moving into the “next phase” of the pandemic.

Florida rolled out a weekly Covid data reporting plan on Friday, the state emergency management department said on its website.

“Florida is moving into the next phase of the COVID-19 response,” the Florida Department of Health wrote in a statement emailed Monday. “As vaccinations go up and the positivity rate of new cases declines, the Florida Department of Health has put in place a weekly reporting schedule.”

Alabama introduced a new schedule on Monday in which the state updates case and death dates three times a week and vaccination dates twice a week.

“In addition to decreasing COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) will update its dashboard less frequently,” wrote Dr. Karen Landers, an Alabama health officer, in a news release on Friday.

The changes signal a shift in attitudes towards the pandemic, as the U.S. averaged around 16,000 new infections per day over the past week, a low number that has not been seen since the early days of the outbreak.

Florida reported an average of eight new cases per 100,000 residents last week and Alabama reported about 8.5 cases, well below their pandemic highs of 84 and 87 per 100,000, respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Still, public health experts warn that relaxing data reporting guidelines could be risky as the nature of the outbreak has changed rapidly in various places over the past year.

“I think we have to learn from this pandemic that you can’t just imagine that there will be no change,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University, noted that infection rates were high in her hometown of New York were low last summer before skyrocketing again in winter.

“If you start to see a trend, even after a week, you can fly a red flag and be vigilant,” she added. “I think it’s a little premature to let our vigilance down.”

Of course, the last great wave of Covid infections in the US started over the winter before vaccines were available. In Alabama, however, only 36% of residents have had at least one injection, one of the lowest rates in the country, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. At 50%, the numbers in Florida are closer to the statewide rate of 52% of the population who are at least partially vaccinated, but still lagging behind.

Dr. Joseph Kanter, the chief medical officer in Louisiana, said his state started reporting Covid data five days a week about a month ago but has no plans to make any changes beyond that.

“I think the daily updates, at least Monday through Friday, are still relevant and helpful in informing the public,” he said.

“We’re still a long way from the woods,” added Kanter, despite encouraging trends in cases, hospitalizations and death rates. “We’re really fine, but the general feeling is that the health department is still out of the woods and I’m aware that I’m sending the wrong idea.”

Reporting on Covid data can be resource-intensive, and many state governments have struggled to build or upgrade technology systems that could handle the unprecedented demands last spring. The data is also “maintenance-intensive,” according to Kanter, who stated that his department, for example, needs to deduplicate multiple positive tests for a person in a recorded case in order to keep accurate records.

“It’s a long time, a big manpower investment, but we are still in a public health emergency,” he said.

Many states have ditched daily reporting over the course of the pandemic, with nearly 20 reporting dates five days a week, according to a list maintained by Johns Hopkins. However, Florida is the only state that currently reports both case and death data once a week, and according to Johns Hopkins, only Kansas and Alabama report three days a week.

The Alabama Department of Health was unable to be reached for comment.

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Health

U.S. should vaccinate extra individuals earlier than Delta turns into dominant Covid variant

U.S. must vaccinate more people before Delta becomes dominant Covid variant

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing about the federal response to the coronavirus on Capitol Hill March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Susan Walsh | Swimming pool | Getty Images

U.S. health officials are making efforts to get more Americans vaccinated to prevent the Delta variant, first identified in India, from spreading to the United States.

The variant has become the dominant variety in the UK, accounting for an estimated 60% of new cases. It’s now more common than the Alpha strain, formerly known as the B.1.1.7 strain and first identified in the UK, and transmission peaks in people between the ages of 12 and 20, said Dr. Anthony Fauci., White House chief medical officer, said at a news conference Tuesday.

In the US, the delta variant makes up more than 6% of the cases that scientists have been able to sequence, he said. The real number is likely higher since the US does the genetic sequence on a fraction of the time.

“In the UK, the Delta variant is quickly becoming the dominant variant … It replaces the B.1.1.7,” said Fauci. “We cannot allow that in the USA.”

President Joe Biden’s goal is to have at least one vaccination of 70% of all US adults by July 4th. It’s a bit of a chore, less than four weeks before it starts and 63.7% of the adult population got their first vaccination, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 53% of all adults in the United States are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

First discovered in October, the Delta variant has spread to at least 62 countries, the World Health Organization announced last week.

“We continue to see significantly increased transmissibility and a growing number of countries reporting outbreaks associated with this variant,” the WHO said last week of the Delta strain, noting that further studies were a high priority.

The Delta Tribe has India in a stranglehold, causing a surge in infections and deaths that has clogged hospital systems. The Indian government announced Monday that the country will shortly begin making Covid-19 vaccines available to all adults in the country free of charge.

Fauci also said the Delta variant is more contagious and could be associated with a higher risk of hospitalization than the original “wild-type” Covid-19 strain.

Studies also show that two doses of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca shots are effective against the Delta strain, according to the National Institutes of Health.

According to NIH data, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were found to be 88% effective against the Delta variant, while two doses of the AstraZeneca shot were 60% effective against the strain.

Fauci emphasized the importance of receiving two doses after NIH studies showed that three weeks after administration, just one dose of either vaccine provided only 33% effectiveness against the Delta variant.