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Breed requires full Covid vaccination for indoor actions

Breed requires full Covid vaccination for indoor activities

Anjali Sundararaman, a student nurse at San Francisco State University, administers a dose of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Cuixia Xu during a vaccination clinic at the Southeast Health Center in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco, California on Monday, Feb. 8, 2021.

Stephen Lam | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

San Francisco on Thursday became the first major U.S. city to requiring patrons and employees to provide proof of full vaccination to enter restaurants, gyms, bars and entertainment venues.

The order from Mayor London Breed takes effect Aug. 20 for customers and Oct.13 for staff, prohibiting residents from submitting negative Covid-19 test results as a substitute to vaccination. Breed’s directive also applies to select health-care personnel, including pharmacists, dentists and home health aides.

“Vaccines are our way out of the pandemic, and our way back to a life where we can be together safely,” Breed said in a statement.

Under the order, anyone older than 12 must submit proof of vaccination to visit any indoor event with more than 1,000 guests. California previously only required attendees to get vaccinated for events with over 5,000 people, Breed’s statement said.

Breed noted the order entirely excludes individuals under the age of 12, who remain ineligible for all current Covid vaccines. Customers picking up food instead of dining inside are not required to get vaccinated either.

San Francisco County recorded a seven-day total of 1,708 new coronavirus cases as of Tuesday, a decrease of less than 3% from the prior week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But California reported a seven-day average of more than 12,000 new cases as of Wednesday, an increase of 24% from a week ago, Johns Hopkins University measured.

San Francisco joins New York City as one of the country’s largest municipalities with vaccine mandates for select indoor activities. New York City will start enforcing its mandate Sept. 13, when customers and staff must provide proof of having received at least one vaccine dose to exercise, eat at restaurants and access entertainment options inside.

San Francisco previously collaborated with six other Northern California counties in mandating facial coverings for indoor public places on Aug. 2, upgrading a mask recommendation they first issued in July.

Several Bay Area-based companies have ordered all or part of their staff to immunize against the coronavirus as well, including Google, Facebook and Gap. At least a dozen other major employers nationwide have enacted similar guidance as the delta variant continues to surge.

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CDC to reverse indoor masks coverage, saying totally vaccinated folks ought to put on them indoors in Covid sizzling spots

CDC to reverse indoor mask policy, saying fully vaccinated people should wear them indoors in Covid hot spots

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to recommend Tuesday that fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in locations with high Covid-19 transmission rates, according to those familiar with the matter.

According to the sources, federal health officials still believe that fully vaccinated individuals represent a very low level of transmission. Still, some people vaccinated could carry higher amounts of the virus than previously thought and potentially pass it on to others, they said.

The CDC is expected to hold a briefing on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET.

The updated guidelines come before the fall season, when the highly contagious Delta variant is expected to lead to a further surge in new coronavirus cases and many large employers plan to bring workers back to the office. In mid-May, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people would not need to wear masks in most environments, whether indoors or outdoors.

Continue reading: Americans will need masks indoors as the US is heading for a “dangerous fall” with a surge in Delta Covid cases

Health experts fear that Delta, already the dominant form of the disease in the US, hits states with low vaccination rates. These states are now being forced to reintroduce mask rules, capacity limits and other public health measures that they have largely withdrawn in recent months.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the CDC was considering revising mask guidelines for vaccinated Americans, saying it was “in active consideration”.

“It’s a dynamic situation. It’s in the works, it’s developing like so many other areas of the pandemic, “Fauci, also director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, told CNN. “You need to look at the data.”

The CDC guidelines are just a recommendation, leaving it up to state and local officials to reintroduce their masking rules for specific individuals. But even before the CDC’s expected guidelines on Tuesday, some regions reintroduced mask mandates and notices as Covid cases rose again.

Several California and Nevada counties are now advising all residents to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. In Massachusetts, Provincetown officials advised everyone to return to wearing masks indoors after the July 4 celebrations resulted in an outbreak of new cases.

Experts say Covid prevention strategies remain critical to protecting people from the virus, especially in areas with medium to high transmission rates in the community.

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine advocate who served on advisory boards for both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC earlier this month that the US is still “undervaccinated” and about half the population is not fully vaccinated be .

Even people who are fully protected have cause for concern when it comes to variants of Covid, Offit said. While the vaccines protect well against serious illness and death, they may not protect as well against minor illness or the spread of Covid to others, he said. No vaccine is 100% effective, he noted.

“It is not a bold prediction to believe that SARS-CoV-2 will be circulating in two or three years. I mean, there are 195 countries out there, most of which haven’t received a single dose of vaccine. ”“ Offit said. “Will it still be circulating in the United States? I think that would be very, very likely.”

Israel released preliminary data last week showing that the Pfizer vaccine was only 39% effective against the virus there, which officials attributed to the rapidly spreading Delta variant. Its effectiveness against serious illness and death remained high, the data showed. US and World Health officials said they would look at Israeli research, which was non-peer-reviewed and had few details.

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson executives have stated that they expect Americans to need booster vaccinations, and Pfizer has announced it will ask the FDA to approve booster vaccinations as it sees signs of waning immunity. Federal health officials say that otherwise healthy people don’t currently require booster doses of the vaccines, although they may recommend it for the elderly or those with compromised immunity.

– CNBC’s Meg Tirrell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Mississippi well being officers plead with aged to keep away from mass indoor gatherings as delta Covid variant rips by state

Mississippi health officials plead with elderly to avoid mass indoor gatherings as delta Covid variant rips through state

Medical workers with Delta Health Center wait to vaccinate people at a pop-up Covid-19 vaccination clinic in this rural Delta community on April 27, 2021 in Hollandale, Mississippi.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Mississippi state health officials issued new guidance on Friday that calls for state residents over the age of 65 and immunocompromised residents, vaccinated or unvaccinated, to avoid any indoor mass gatherings for the next two weeks amid “significant transmission” of the delta variant over the coming weeks.

The new guidance is in place until July 26 and is not mandatory. The guidance should instead be considered a recommendation.

“We’re not recommending any mandates. What we’re doing is we’re providing personal recommendations for individuals who are at high risk for severe outcomes,” Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a press briefing Friday. “We don’t want anybody to die needlessly.”

Dobbs said he currently “does not anticipate” the guidance being expanded to other age groups in the future.

Officials said they are starting to see significant transmission of the delta variant that is very reminiscent of what was seen in the early days of the pandemic. Mississippi state health epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers specifically highlighted church groups, school and summer programs, funeral gatherings and workplaces as well as long-term care facilities as areas where officials are already seeing spikes in infections.

“We have directly identified that they are the result of the delta variant, and the transmission … has been pretty significant,” Byers said at the press briefing Friday.

The state is second to last to Alabama out of all states when it comes to the percentage of the population that is fully vaccinated with two doses. About 25% of Mississippians over age 65 are still unvaccinated, and make up the majority of Covid deaths in the state. State health officials also said they are seeing deaths in vaccinated residents as well, “because we are exposing them over and over again,” Dobbs said, though it is a miniscule percentage.

Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards

Graph shows cases, hospitalizations and deaths among vaccinated vs unvaccinated in Mississippi from June 3 to July 1, 2021.

Mississippi State Health Department

Mississippi is ranked last in the country in its share of adults with at least one Covid shot and the state is also ranked last in the country in the percentage of residents age 12 and older with at least one shot.

“I don’t think that we’re going to have some miraculous increase in our vaccination rate over the next few weeks, so people are going to die needlessly,” Dobbs warned.

State health officials asked vaccinated residents to speak with others about their experience with the vaccine in an effort to raise awareness about the safety and efficacy of the shots.

“Let people, let your family know, let your neighbors know, let your friends know,” Dobbs said. “There’s no more powerful message than trust and faith for people to know how widely utilized the vaccine has been, and understand that people are safe and excited to be protected.”

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U.S. heading for ‘harmful fall’ with surge in delta Covid instances and return of indoor masks mandates

U.S. heading for 'dangerous fall' with surge in delta Covid cases and return of indoor mask mandates

People wearing protective masks shop at a Walmart store in Hallandale Beach, Florida on May 18, 2021.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

With the highly transmittable Delta-Covid variant continuing to spread rapidly in the United States and elsewhere around the world, scientists and other health experts are warning that indoor mask regulations and other public health measures in the US are likely to return this fall.

The country, which just celebrated July 4th with some of its first major gatherings in more than a year, is heading for a “dangerous” fall season, with Delta expected to cause another surge in new coronavirus cases, health experts say. Delta is already the predominant variant in the US and will hit the states with the lowest vaccination rates the hardest – unless those states and companies reintroduce mask rules, capacity limits, and other public health measures, which they largely withdrew in recent months have, say experts.

With new mutations discovered every few weeks, many scientists are now predicting that Covid will circulate around the world for at least the next two to three years, obliging nations to adopt ad hoc public health measures for the foreseeable future. Authorities in Australia, South Africa and Asia recently reinstated curfews or other measures to contain rising delta outbreaks. Japan has just declared a coronavirus emergency in Tokyo and banned spectators from the Olympic Games. High vaccination rates in the US and the warm summer months have bought the country a little more time, but outbreaks around the world are giving Americans a preview of what could come this fall.

Health workers chats near an ambulance in the parking lot of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital amid a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) nationwide lockdown in Pretoria, South Africa, Jan. 11, 2021.

Siphiwe Sibeko | Reuters

“I could foresee that in certain parts of the country mask requirements, distance and occupancy restrictions for indoor areas would be reintroduced in the coming months,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Cooperation Center for National and Global Health Law.

He fears there will be “major outbreaks” in the US this fall, especially in states with low vaccination rates.

“We are heading for a very dangerous fall, with large parts of the country still unvaccinated, a swelling Delta variant and people taking off their masks,” added Gostin.

The warning from scientists and other health professionals comes as many U.S. companies and offices have largely phased out mask requirements, social distancing, and other pandemic-related restrictions.

Almost immediately after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared in mid-May that fully vaccinated people would not need to wear masks in most indoor spaces, Walmart and Costco followed suit, allowing fully vaccinated customers and employees without state or local laws. Similarly, the Detroit automakers and the United Auto Workers union agreed late last month to make face masks optional for fully vaccinated employees.

A General Motors assembly worker loads engine block castings onto the assembly line at the GM Romulus Powertrain plant in Romulus, Michigan, the United States, August 21, 2019.

Rebecca Cook | Reuters

Other companies like Apple and Amazon are urging most of their employees to return to the office in some capacity this fall as more Americans get vaccinated against the virus. Goldman Sachs employees returned to the office last month, while Citigroup and JPMorgan expect their employees to return on a rotation basis this month.

Confirmed Covid infections in the US have dropped to their lowest level since the pandemic began, averaging about 15,000 new cases per day for the past seven days from a high of about 251,000 average new cases per day in January, according to Johns Hopkins University. Hospital stays and deaths have also declined, with Covid deaths averaging around 225 per day – up from a high of an average of more than 3,400 deaths per day in January.

Should daily Covid cases pick up again in the fall, as expected by health professionals, some employers in states with low Covid vaccination rates may face the difficult decision to make public health measures such as wearing masks and social distancing capacities to reintroduce limits or send office workers home entirely.

There will be “two Americas,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine advocate who served on advisory boards for both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. “There’s vaccinated America and unvaccinated America, and I think unvaccinated America will pay a price for that.”

There are about 1,000 counties in the U.S. with a Covid vaccination rate of less than 30%, mostly located in the Southeast and Midwest, said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently. In these areas, the authority already sees increasing infection rates due to the further spread of the delta variant.

This has led some state and local health authorities to reintroduce previously abandoned public health measures.

Patricia Cole receives a shot of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccination from a medical worker at a pop-up clinic operated by the Delta Health Center in that rural Delta community on April 27, 2021 in Hollandale, Mississippi.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

For example, in Mississippi, where less than a third of the state’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, officials last week recommended that all residents continue to wear masks indoors as Delta becomes the predominant variety in the state. About 96% of the new Covid cases in Mississippi are unvaccinated, state health officials said when they called reporters.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that people in states like Mississippi, where transmission are high and vaccinations are low, may want to consider wearing masks even if they are fully vaccinated.

“Depending on your personal situation, that could be,” said Fauci in an interview that was held on Friday with SiriusXM’s “Doctor Radio Reports” with Dr. Marc Siegel is to be broadcast. “For example, someone who is an elderly person who may not have full robust protection even though the protection is very, very high, or someone with an underlying medical condition,” still wants to wear a mask, he said.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) testifies ahead of a Senate hearing on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to receive an update from federal officials on efforts to fight COVID 19 to be examined in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 11, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Jim Lo Scalzo | Getty Images

Officials in Los Angeles County, California last week also recommended that “everyone, regardless of vaccination status,” wear masks as a precaution in public places indoors.

Offit, who advises the FDA on Covid vaccines, said he expected several more states to reintroduce indoor mask requirements this fall.

The United States is still “undervaccinated” and states with low vaccination rates are likely to be hit the worst, Offit said. Less than half of the United States, about 158 ​​million people, have been fully vaccinated, with more than a dozen states having fully immunized less than 40% of their population, according to CDC data. In Texas, the second most populous state after California, only 42% of residents are fully vaccinated, the data shows.

Even people who are fully protected have cause for concern when it comes to variants of Covid, Offit said. While the vaccines are good at protecting against serious illness and death, they may not protect as well against minor illness or the spread of Covid to others, he said. No vaccine is 100% effective, he noted.

“It is not a bold prediction to believe that SARS-CoV-2 will be circulating in two or three years. I mean, there are 195 countries out there, most of which haven’t received a single dose of vaccine. ”“ Offit said. “Will it still be circulating in the United States? I think that would be very, very likely.”

Dr. Christopher JL Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, agreed that more states will need to re-implement mask mandates this fall. More vulnerable Americans may even have to wear masks every year during the peak covid and flu transmission season: November through April, he said. However, he noted that getting some Americans to wear face covers could be difficult now that the pandemic has subsided.

“Given the pandemic fatigue, getting most Americans to follow guidelines on mask use and social distancing will be more difficult. As cases and hospitalizations pick up again, maybe not until fall or winter, it might be easier to convince some. ” Take steps to be careful, “he said.

People crowd to eat at an outdoor restaurant as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions are eased on April 4, 2021 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

Emily Elconin | Reuters

Dr. Vin Gupta, a Harvard-trained lung specialist and NBC employee, said mask requirements should be reintroduced this fall, but should be enforced at the local level and with Covid vaccination rates and transmissions depending on events in the surrounding community.

“There has to be some specifics and multiple local jurisdictions have to make their own decisions, especially when the seasons shift and get back into cold, dry air,” he said.

Meanwhile, the federal government’s mask mandate for public transportation, including airplanes, commuter buses, and rail systems, is set to expire on September 13, unless the CDC renews it.

Whether the CDC does this is an open question, scientists said. Walensky and the White House have both advised there is no desire to reinstate the lockdowns and will leave much of the decisions about public health measures to the states.

“A lot of it isn’t science. It’s political science,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto. “If you have a high rate of Covid-19 transmission in the community and you have a high rate of unvaccinated people, then from a scientific point of view it makes sense to mask indoor spaces. Whether or not this will go into policy is another question. “

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Fauci Says Indoor Masks Steerage Ought to Ease With Vaccinations

Fauci Says Indoor Mask Guidance Should Ease With Vaccinations

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said Sunday he was open to relaxing indoor masking rules as more Americans are vaccinated against the virus just two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belated the risk of airborne transmission had emphasized.

Dr. Fauci, President Biden’s senior medical advisor on the pandemic, said that as vaccinations rise, vaccinations need to “become more liberal” on the rules for wearing masks indoors, despite noting the nation still averaging 43,000 Cases of the virus had daily. “We have to get it way, much lower than that,” he said.

On Friday, the CDC updated its guidelines on the spread of the coronavirus, specifically stating that people can breathe airborne viruses even if they are more than three feet from an infected person. The agency had previously said that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission”.

The update brought the agency in line with evidence of the risk of airborne droplets found by epidemiologists over the course of the pandemic last year, and also underscored the urgency of the federal agency for occupational health and safety, according to some experts Standards for employers issues to address potential airborne hazards in the workplace.

Dr. Fauci’s comments on Sunday came in response to a question on comments Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, turned in to CNBC last week. He said that relaxing the mandates for indoor masks now – “especially in settings where you know you have high levels of vaccinations” – would give public health officials “the credibility to implement them again in the fall or winter “When the cases increase again.

Dr. Fauci, when asked if he would agree by George Stephanopoulos on the ABC Sunday program “This Week”, said, “I think so, and I think you will probably see that as we join in and when more people are vaccinated. ”

“The CDC will be in near real-time George updating their recommendations and guidelines,” continued Dr. Fauci gone. “But yes, we have to become more liberal when more people are vaccinated.”

Over a third of the US population – more than 112 million people – is fully vaccinated, and another 40 million people have received the first dose of a two-dose protocol.

The CDC, which issues national guidelines on masking, says even vaccinated people should continue to wear masks in indoor public spaces, including restaurants, when they are not actively eating and drinking. In many places in the country it is clear that the guidelines are not being followed.

In a separate interview on Sunday via CNN’s State of the Union, Jeffrey Zients, Mr. Biden’s Covid response coordinator, was a little more careful than Dr. Fauci, when he was named after Dr. Gottlieb’s comments was asked.

“I think everyone is tired and wearing a mask is – it can be a pain,” said Mr. Zients. “But we’re getting there. And the light at the end of the tunnel is always brighter. Let’s be on guard. Let’s follow CDC guidelines. And CDC guidelines will, over time, give vaccinated people more and more privileges to remove this mask. “

Mr. Zients also suggested that instead of achieving herd immunity – the point at which enough people are immune to the virus that can no longer spread through the population – the goal should be to achieve a sense of normalcy by 70 percent of Americans are vaccinated. President Biden has called for 70 percent to receive at least one dose by July 4th.

Reaching 70 percent will “create a pattern of decreasing cases, hospitalizations and deaths and bring us to sustained low levels,” Zients said, citing Israel, a world leader in vaccinations, as a model.

In that country, vaccinations have reached nearly 60 percent of the population since it began December 19 last year, and the 7-day average of new cases has fallen from a high of more than 8,600 on January 17 to less than 60 by Saturday.

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CDC can contemplate lifting indoor Covid masks mandates now

CDC can consider lifting indoor Covid mask mandates now

Dr. Scott Gottlieb said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may begin considering lifting mandates on inner masks as more Americans become vaccinated.

“I think we should start lifting these restrictions as aggressively as we put them in place,” said Gottlieb. “We need to maintain the credibility of health officials to potentially re-implement some of these regulations next winter when we see outbreaks again.”

The former FDA chief in the Trump administration added that “the only way to gain public credibility is to show that you are ready to relax these regulations if the situation improves.”

The US Covid positivity rate is 3.6%, an all-time low according to Johns Hopkins University. It’s a big difference from April 2020 when the positivity rate hit nearly 23%, meaning almost a quarter of all tests done were positive.

In an interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” Thursday night, Gottlieb stated that the general outlook for vaccination in the US “looks very good,” especially as the FDA prepares to sell Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for 12-15 Years to admit – age soon.

“Even if vaccination rates slow down, we will continue to try to vaccinate more people … but I think these profits are limited and the summer is looking very good,” said Gottlieb.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, the genetic testing startup Tempus, and the biotech company Illumina. Pfizer has signed a manufacturing agreement with Gilead for Remdesivir. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.

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New York Metropolis indoor eating capability to extend to 75% in Could

New York City indoor dining capacity to increase to 75% in May

Eataly NYC Downtown reopens with Color Factory for La Pizza & La Pasta, a Colori art installation created by artist Eric Rieger (AKA HOTTEA) in New York City on April 21, 2021.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that indoor restaurant capacity in New York City will increase to 75% on May 7, which will eventually meet indoor restaurant capacity regulations in the rest of the state.

“After a long and incredibly difficult battle, New York State is winning the war on Covid-19. That means it is time to relax some restrictions put in place to protect public health and support our local businesses.” said the governor.

The announcement comes a day after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would reopen fully by July 1 after more than a year of restrictions. Cuomo said he thinks the city could reopen sooner.

Restaurants aren’t the only companies getting capacity expansion. Fitness centers and personal care services will also open their doors to a higher flow of customers.

New York City gyms and fitness centers will expand to 50 percent capacity starting May 15, while hair salons, nail salons, barbershops, and other personal care services will expand to 75 percent capacity starting May 7th.

The governor announced on Wednesday that bar seating restrictions would be lifted on May 3rd. The outdoor dining curfew at 12 noon will end on May 17, and the indoor dining curfew will expire on May 31st.

The capacity of casinos and gaming facilities will be increased from 25% to 50% and that of offices from 50% to 75%.

“We need to reopen and rebuild our economy as data and science improve in our favor. These new announcements will help New Yorkers bounce back after an incredibly difficult year,” said Lisa Sorin, president the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, in a press release.

Due to severe bar and restaurant restrictions that began in March last year, the city suffered from widespread unemployment. As of July 2020, more than 1,200 restaurants closed their doors permanently, according to the New York Comptroller.

The announcements come as the city has a seven-day average of 1,480 new cases. Nearly 6.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the city, with 30% of city residents fully vaccinated, according to the city’s health department.

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that 30% of New York residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the city’s Department of Health.

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Entertainment

Overview: On the Guggenheim, They Coronary heart New York and Indoor Dance

Review: At the Guggenheim, They Heart New York and Indoor Dance

The glissando that Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” starts is a siren scream, an announcement of joy and chutzpah, which also means “I love New York City”. On Saturday night, when pianist Conrad Tao was playing it in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, dancer Caleb Teicher came in and hugged Nathan Bugh, a fellow dancer, tightly.

That was fun and cute – really perfect, expressing the emotions of the moment. Because there we were, a live audience, masked and carefully distributed on the spiral path of the rotunda, and experienced live performances indoors. Spring is here! The pandemic is over! Everyone is hugging!

At least that’s what it felt like for a moment. The pandemic is of course not over yet. And while that performance by Caleb Teicher & Co. heralded the personal return of the Works & Process franchise – with additional performances slated through June by companies rehearsing upstate bubble residences – all of these arrangements are tentative. NY Pops Up performances by Teicher’s company that were scheduled for the same day have been canceled due to new protocols. The indoor performances planned for this week at Park Avenue Armory have been postponed as some performers tested positive for Covid-19.

Teicher and the gang also recognized this precariousness. The second time Tao’s fingers moved up to the high note, another pair of dancers stopped short of contact and decided on an elbow bump. This was fun too, but in retrospect, the big hug and elbow bump seemed to sum up an event that was both wonderful and not ideal.

It began like the last prepandemic Works & Process event, a Teicher show, ended in February 2020: Bugh made Lindy Hop alone to music in his head. Despite the response, this was an uncomfortable opening. And the following selection, a piano interlude – Brahms’ Intermezzo in E minor – felt a bit random, although Tao interrupted the time in ice-cold cascades of sound.

“Rhapsody in Blue” was the main event, and Tao’s rendition (of his own arrangement for solo piano) was monumental, as big as the building. It was too big for Teicher and the dancers to keep up, but their attitude towards putting on a show gave the effort the innocent charm of the “Peanuts” cartoon.

The rhythmic irregularity of “Rhapsody” is a choreographic challenge. Teicher hit it cleverly with solos, duets and group encounters, all with a story-like hint of collisions and rendezvous in the city. Based on Lindy’s vocabulary, the dance was comfortably arranged in circles and other shapes suitable for the rotunda and intended to be seen from above. At times, large, slow Charleston strides were excitingly set against the drive of the music, and several duets that flippantly ignored traditional gender roles aroused the tenderness and romance of the music.

It was also enchanting when Tao was preparing again towards the end for another of the famous climbs in the score, and the dancers hesitated as if to admit there was no point keeping up with the pianist. But on the next high note, they crashed into a group hug before running off with arms outstretched like planes in an ad for United Airlines. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” has been used in a variety of ways over the years. On Saturday, it made the air around us less scary and friendlier.

Rhapsody in blue

Performed on Saturday at the Guggenheim Museum.

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Virus Circumstances Delay Effort to Deliver Indoor Dance Again to New York

Virus Cases Delay Effort to Bring Indoor Dance Back to New York

It was one of the most famous experiments to bring indoor live performances back to New York City.

The Park Avenue Armory decided to use the cavernous, flexible space of their 55,000 square foot drilling hall to hold a short season called the Social Distance Hall. It received permission from state health officials to re-invite an extremely limited audience and planned to do all rapid tests for the coronavirus. To kick off, one of the great choreographers of the day, Bill T. Jones, turned to “Afterwardsness,” a new piece that explores the coronavirus pandemic and violence against blacks.

However, the highly anticipated performances, due to begin Wednesday for a sold out seven-day run, had to be postponed after several members of the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company, Rebecca Robertson, tested positive for the virus, president and executive producer of the Armory said on Saturday in an email to ticket holders.

“The artists concerned are, thank goodness, comfortable,” wrote Robertson.

“While this is very disappointing to the artists, the armory and our audiences, this shift is a necessary part of the process of collectively returning to personal appearances in a responsible and safe manner,” she added.

Kyle Maude, director of production for the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Company, said three members of the company who had received a rapid antigen test tested positive on Thursday and that those results were later confirmed when they became more reliable in PCR -Test for which the results came back on Saturday.

The scheduled opening in March had brought the Armory ahead of the April 2nd opening date announced by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo for reduced-capacity performances in New York, but state officials had agreed to the early opening. Robertson told the New York Times earlier this month that the decision was made in part because the armory had tested its security procedures back in October when Afterwardsness was filmed in front of a live audience of volunteers in their drill hall.

The armory, whose spacious drilling hall holds a huge volume of air, seemed an ideal place to experiment with indoor performance. The plan was to limit the audience to 100, which is only about 10 percent of the capacity of the hall, and to accommodate people at a distance of at least two meters. A number of precautionary measures are in place for the spring season, including masks, quick on-site tests for all spectators, electronic ticketing and temperature checks.

The armory announced that all ticket holders for “Afterwardsness” would be reimbursed and that they would have early access to book tickets for the newly planned performances when dates are announced.

“Afterwardsness” should be “Social! the Social Distance Dance Club ”, conceived by the choreographer Steven Hoggett, the set designer Christine Jones and the musician David Byrne. Dates for this will be announced shortly, said the armory.

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U.S. Permits Indoor Visits in Nursing Houses. Right here’s What to Know.

U.S. Allows Indoor Visits in Nursing Homes. Here’s What to Know.

WASHINGTON – The Biden government on Wednesday released revised guidelines for visits to nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic, which will allow guests to see residents whether they or the residents have been vaccinated.

The recommendations, published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with comments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represent the first revision of the federal government guidelines for nursing homes since September. And they arrived after more than three million doses of vaccine had been administered in nursing homes, the agency said.

Federal officials said in the new guidelines that even if residents and guests have been fully vaccinated, outdoor visits are still preferable because of a lower risk of transmission.

The guidelines were also the latest indication that the pandemic in the United States was subsiding and coronavirus cases continued to decline across the country, although the seven-day average remained above 58,000. The CDC released the long-awaited guide for Americans fully vaccinated on Monday, telling them it was safe to gather at home in small groups with no masks or social distancing.

Approximately 62.5 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including approximately 32.9 million people completely using the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine or the two-dose vaccine manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Series were vaccinated.

In a statement outlining the reasons for updating the recommendations, Dr. Lee A. Fleisher, the chief medical officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, reported the millions of vaccines given to nursing home residents and staff and a decrease in coronavirus cases in nursing homes.

“CMS recognizes the mental, emotional and physical stress that continued isolation and separation from family has placed on nursing home residents and their families,” he said.

At the start of the pandemic, the coronavirus raced through tens of thousands of long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 150,000 residents and employees, and responsible for more than a third of all virus deaths since late spring. However, since the introduction of vaccines, new cases and deaths in nursing homes have fallen sharply and have outpaced national declines, according to an analysis of federal data from the New York Times.

On the eight pages of recommendations, which are not legally binding, limit values ​​were suggested that “responsible indoor visits” should be allowed at all times, unless a guest visits an unvaccinated resident in a county where the Covid-19 -Positivity rate is more than 10 percent and less than 70 percent of the residents of the nursing home have been fully vaccinated. The guidance also states that visits should be limited if residents have Covid-19 or are in quarantine.

So-called compassionate care visits – if the health of a resident has deteriorated significantly – should be allowed regardless of the vaccination status or the positivity rate of the district, according to the guidelines.

If a positive case is found in a nursing home, visits should be canceled and residents and staff tested, the guidelines say. Visits can resume in other parts of the facility if there are no positive tests there. However, if cases are discovered in other areas, nursing homes should suspend all visits.