Tag: Officials

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Health

LA well being officers are probing loss of life of an individual who had monkeypox

LA health officials are probing death of a person who had monkeypox

A health care worker administers a dose of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine at a pop-up vaccination clinic in Los Angeles, California, on August 9, 2022.

Patrick T Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Los Angeles health officials are investigating the death of a person who had monkeypox.

dr Rita Singhal, Los Angeles County director of disease control, said it was not clear what role monkeypox may have played in the person’s death. Officials have no further details at this time, Singhal said.

“This is one of two deaths in the United States currently being investigated to determine if monkeypox was a contributory cause of death,” Singhal told reporters during a Thursday news conference.

Texas health officials last month reported the death of an adult in the Houston area who was diagnosed with monkeypox. According to health officials, the person had a severely compromised immune system.

Monkeypox is rarely fatal, but people with weak immune systems are at higher risk of serious illness. The virus causes a painful rash that resembles blisters or pimples.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a report released Thursday that 38% of the 2,000 patients diagnosed with monkeypox between May and July were HIV positive. According to the study, people with monkeypox and HIV were hospitalized more often than people without HIV.

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The US is trying to contain the world’s largest monkeypox outbreak, with more than 21,000 cases in all 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico, according to the CDC.

Nine deaths from monkeypox have been confirmed worldwide since the outbreak began, according to CDC data. Deaths have occurred in Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Nigeria and Spain.

More than 56,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 96 countries since the outbreak began, according to CDC data.

Monkeypox is mainly spread during sex among gay and bisexual men, although anyone can get monkeypox through close contact with someone who is infected or through contaminated materials such as towels and bed sheets.

Federal health officials said this week the outbreak appears to be slowing as vaccines, tests and treatments have become more widely available. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy chief of the White House monkeypox response team, said it took 25 days for cases to double in August, compared with eight days in July.

The US has administered more than 460,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine to date. About 1.6 million gay and bisexual men who have HIV or are taking medication to reduce their risk of HIV infection are at highest risk from monkeypox, according to the CDC.

The monkeypox vaccine Jynneos is given in two doses 28 days apart. CDC officials say getting the second shot is crucial for people at risk. After the second dose, it takes two weeks for the immune system to reach its maximum response.

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World News

Physique Components Present in Touchdown Gear of Flight From Kabul, Officers Say

Body Parts Found in Landing Gear of Flight From Kabul, Officials Say

WASHINGTON — The Air Force acknowledged on Tuesday that human body parts were found in the wheel well of an American military C-17 cargo plane that took flight amid chaos at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Air Force officials have not said how many people died in the episode on Monday, but said the service was investigating “the loss of civilian lives” as a crowd of Afghans, desperate to escape the country after their government collapsed to the Taliban, climbed onto the plane’s wings and fell from the sky after it took off.

Harrowing video of the episode, recorded by the Afghan news media, has circulated around the world, instantly making the horrific scene — of American military might flying away as Afghans hung on against all hope — a symbol of President Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan.

“We are all contending with a human cost to these developments,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said at a briefing on Tuesday.

“The images from the past couple of days at the airport have been heartbreaking,” said Mr. Sullivan, the first cabinet-level administration official to take questions from reporters since the Taliban took control of Kabul on Sunday.

Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the top military officer in charge of Afghanistan, flew to Kabul on Tuesday, where, he said, commercial flights had resumed after they were paused to secure the field. A White House official said U.S. military flights evacuated about 1,100 people on Tuesday, bringing the total so far to more than 3,200.

American pilots and troops were forced to make on-the-spot decisions during the panic at the airport on Sunday and Monday. Another C-17 transport plane left Kabul late Sunday night with 640 people crowded on board, more than double the planned number, military officials said, after hundreds of Afghans who had been cleared by the State Department to be evacuated surged onto loading ramps. The pilots, determining that the immense aircraft could handle the load, decided to take off, officials said. That plane landed safely at its destination with the Afghans aboard.

But the people who tried the next day on a different C-17 were not so fortunate.

Early Monday morning, the gray Air Force plane — call sign REACH885 — descended onto the runway. The lumbering jet was carrying equipment and supplies for the U.S. Marines and soldiers on the ground securing the airport and helping with the evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghans.

Minutes after the plane touched down, rolled to a stop and lowered its rear ramp, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Afghans, rushed forward as the small crew watched in alarm.

The crew was aware of what had happened the night before. On Monday morning, the number of people at the airport clamoring to get onto flights had swelled. The crew members feared for their safety, jumped back up into the plane and pulled up the loading ramp before they had finished unloading, officials said.

Updated 

Aug. 17, 2021, 9:00 p.m. ET

By then, throngs of Afghans had climbed aboard the wings of the plane and, unbeknown to the crew, officials said, into the wheel well into which the landing gear would fold after takeoff.

The crew contacted air traffic control, operated by U.S. military personnel, and the plane was cleared for takeoff, after spending only minutes on the ground.

Mindful of the people hanging onto the plane, the pilots taxied slowly at first. Military Humvees rushed alongside trying to chase people away and off the plane. Two Apache helicopter gunships flew low, seeking to scare some people away from the plane or push them off with their powerful rotor wash.

REACH885 accelerated and was airborne.

Minutes later, however, the pilot and co-pilot realized they had a serious problem: The landing gear would not fully retract. They sent one of the crew members down to peer through a small porthole that allows them to view potential problems in the wheel well while aloft.

It was then the crew saw the remains of an undetermined number of Afghans who had stowed away in the wheel well — apparently crushed by the landing gear. Scenes captured in videos of the flight showed other people plunging to their death.

After the four-hour flight, the plane landed at its destination, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which has become the hub for receiving passengers, including Americans and Afghans, eventually bound for the United States.

Alerted of the tragedy on board, mental health counselors and chaplains met the anguished crew members as they disembarked.

“Safety officials are doing due diligence to better understand how events unfolded,” Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in the statement.

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Health

‘X’ Marks the Spot: Officers Map a Route Out of the Pandemic

‘X’ Marks the Spot: Officials Map a Route Out of the Pandemic

At their regular pandemic response meetings over the past year, officials in Suffolk County, N.Y., found themselves returning, again and again, to questions of geography.

“One of the common questions I used to get was, ‘Where is it bad?” said Dr. Harsha Rajashekharaiah, the senior project coordinator for the county’s Covid-19 response. “Where is the Covid transmission bad? Where is the testing bad? Where should we improve? Where should we invest our resources?”

To find answers, Dr. Rajashekharaiah used geospatial data, brandishing brightly colored maps that pinpointed the exact neighborhoods where cases were rising or where testing rates were lagging.

And after inoculations began, he started using digital mapping tools — commonly known as geographic information system, or G.I.S., software — to explore how vaccination rates varied across the county and how they correlated with a variety of demographic factors.

Several patterns soon emerged on the color-coded maps. In March, for instance, magenta splotches on the western side of the county made it clear that vaccination rates were low in neighborhoods with a high share of residents who did not speak English well. After he presented the map to his colleagues, they quickly added Spanish and Haitian Creole language assistance to their county vaccine hotline.

Over the next few months, as vaccination rates rose in these neighborhoods, portions of the map turned to yellow or even green. “I cannot sit here and conclude that our G.I.S. system is the reason that this has happened,” Dr. Rajashekharaiah said. But, he added, “G.I.S. has been a very, very powerful tool for us to communicate these barriers.”

Amid the highly uneven rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, many health officials and community organizations are drawing upon geospatial data to plan their vaccination campaigns and track their progress in fine-grained detail. Esri, a California-based company that makes widely used G.I.S. software, says that hundreds of organizations around the world — including many U.S. states and more than 20 national governments — are using its digital mapping tools to help them get shots into arms.

“G.I.S. and mapping tools have been really important to helping these health departments get people vaccinated — to be more organized in the process, more streamlined and strategic and even tactical,” said Dr. Este Geraghty, the chief medical officer of Esri.

By allowing officials to quickly spot vaccine deserts, pinpoint high-risk populations and target their resources more efficiently, digital maps have become crucial tools in the effort to ensure that vaccination campaigns leave no neighborhood behind.

Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy

As the virus raced across Wisconsin in the spring of 2020, officials in Milwaukee County became concerned about its unequal toll. In late March and early April, for instance, Black residents accounted for 69 percent of the Covid deaths in the county despite making up just 27 percent of its population, according to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee report.

These disparities were front of mind when the Covid-19 vaccines were finally authorized. “We wanted to make sure that we were equitably distributing this vaccine,” said David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive.

They began categorizing census tracts according to their vaccination rates and their scores on a national “social vulnerability index.” The index uses data on 15 different social, economic and demographic factors — including the age, minority status and education levels of residents, as well as local poverty and unemployment rates — to calculate how susceptible a given community would be in the event of some kind of disaster, like a hurricane or a pandemic.

Then the officials displayed the results online on a color-coded map. In mid-March, when the county first released it, much of the city of Milwaukee was colored dark orange, signaling that the area had high levels of social vulnerability but low vaccination rates.

On the other hand, the suburbs, where the population is wealthier and whiter, were shaded a pale yellow, indicating that they had low scores on the vulnerability index but climbing vaccination rates. “And so there was this story of the haves and have-nots, or two different cities,” said Dr. Ben Weston, who oversees the medical aspects of the county’s Covid-19 response.

County and city officials began pouring resources into deep orange neighborhoods, prioritizing those residents for vaccine appointments, adding more vaccination sites in those areas and creating pop-up sites and events at churches, food pantries, libraries, schools and cultural centers. They also started a community ambassador program — the Crush Covid Crew — to train volunteers from those deep orange census tracts to talk to their neighbors about the vaccines and dispel misinformation about them.

Although vaccination rates in the most vulnerable areas still lag behind, they have more than tripled since mid-March. “The darkest orange communities are now gone,” Dr. Weston said. “So we’re making progress.”

Updated 

Aug. 1, 2021, 11:42 a.m. ET

The Count Me In initiative in Georgia — which was created by Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia Democratic candidate for governor — has taken a similar approach. But instead of focusing on vaccination rates, it mapped vaccination sites across the state and then overlaid data on potential barriers to vaccination, including a lack of computer access and low rates of car ownership.

The map revealed numerous potential trouble spots, particularly in rural, southwest Georgia. “We saw this very large concentration of folks that had very limited vaccine access,” said Ali Bustamante, a senior research associate at the Southern Economic Advancement Project, which runs the initiative with the nonprofit organization Fair Count. “There were very few vaccination sites, while at the same time they were facing huge access constraints.”

The groups partnered with vaccine providers to send mobile clinics to some of these vaccine deserts and began an all-out canvassing effort, borrowing the tools of a political campaign to encourage people to get shots. Volunteers ultimately made 79,000 phone calls, delivered vaccine information to 17,000 doors and helped book 4,500 vaccine appointments. “Particularly in rural areas, we have seen the vaccination gap close considerably,” Dr. Bustamante said.

Geospatial data is also critical for logistics. Carto, a cloud-based platform for analyzing geospatial data, has helped dozens of logistics companies around the world optimize their vaccine storage and transportation networks to get the shots distributed more quickly and efficiently, said Luis Sanz, the company’s chief executive.

And in Clackamas County in Oregon, G.I.S. data has become the backbone of efforts to vaccinate people who are homebound. “Because we are a large county with somewhat rural areas, we do have some transportation issues and access is a challenge for many of our residents,” said Kim La Croix, a public health program manager for the county. “Those mass vaccination sites were just not accessible to homebound seniors and homebound people with mental, developmental or physical disabilities.”

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

When residents call or email the county to request an at-home vaccination, staff members log their location, which pops up on a digital map. Then, when assigning specific appointment slots, they review the map, which displays the number and type of vaccines that have been requested across the county. The goal is to reduce nurses’ travel time, maximize the number of shots they give in a day and to minimize waste, by ensuring that the number of doses a nurse gives in a shift matches the number of doses in a vial.

In low and middle-income countries, basic geospatial data — about how many people need to be vaccinated and where they live — has been critical to the success of prior mass vaccination campaigns. About a decade ago, for instance, government officials and global health experts realized that polio vaccination teams in northern Nigeria were using inaccurate, hand-drawn maps.

“There were missing settlements, wrong settlement names,” said Emilie Schnarr, the Nigeria project manager for the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development, or GRID3, program. “And that was one of the reasons children were being missed.”

Credit…Inuwa Barau et al., Journal of Infectious Diseases

Without reaching these children, the highly contagious polio virus was likely to continue circulating. So in the years that followed, the Nigerian government, in partnership with several global health organizations, used satellite imagery and local field teams to create detailed, high resolution maps, filling in missing buildings, settlements, and local points of interest.

The maps helped Nigeria eradicate polio, which the country finally achieved last year. And GRID3, which grew out of these efforts, recently distributed updated maps to local officials across Nigeria, who are using them to help plan and track their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns.

They’re not alone. In March, five organizations that specialize in geographic data and information management — Alcis, CartONG, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, iMMAP and MapAction — joined forces to launch the Geographic Information Management Initiative for Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery. Their goal is to help 15 low-income countries, including Haiti, Sudan and Bangladesh, fill gaps in their geospatial data and then harness that information to get vaccines out to their residents.

The work, the say, will be of use not just for this pandemic, but for the delivery of all sorts of essential services, ensuring that local health authorities know where their citizens live and can help them meet their needs.

“To be on the map is to be acknowledged,” said Ivan Gayton, the senior humanitarian adviser to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. “Every community in the world should be able to put themselves on the map.”

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Health

WHO officers strive to determine why delta is a lot extra harmful than earlier Covid strains

WHO officials try to figure out why delta is so much more dangerous than earlier Covid strains

This photo image shows a World Health Organization (WHO) logo on an Android phone.

Avishek Das | Getty Images

World Health Organization officials said they are still trying to understand why the Delta variant is more transmissible and potentially making people sicker than the original strain of coronavirus.

“We’re really trying to better understand why the Delta variant is more portable,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for Covid-19, at a press conference on Friday. “There are certain mutations in the Delta variant that allow the virus, for example, to attach itself to a cell more easily. There are some laboratory studies that suggest that there is increased replication in some of the human respiratory systems modeled.”

In the past few weeks, new data on the highly transmissible strain has emerged around the world as scientists try to better understand the new threat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned lawmakers Thursday that new research suggests the Delta strain is more contagious than swine flu, the common cold and polio. It’s as contagious as chicken pox. It also appears to have a longer transmission window than the original Covid-19 strain and can make the elderly sicker even if they have been fully vaccinated.

Thursday’s warning came in a confidential document that was reviewed by CNBC and authenticated by the federal health authority.

“The virus itself is, as it begins, a dangerous virus. It is a highly transmittable virus. The Delta variant is even more, ”said Van Kerkhove. “It is twice as transferable as the ancestral tribes.”

WHO officials expect other dangerous variants to emerge as countries struggle to distribute the life-saving vaccines to their populations.

“They get fitter the more they circulate, and therefore the virus is likely to become more transmissible because they develop in such a way that they change over time,” said Van Kerkhove.

She said it is imperative that nations follow public health measures like social distancing and the wearing of masks as nations distribute more vaccines around the world, especially those with the lowest vaccination rates.

We need “around 70% coverage worldwide to really slow down transmission and reduce the risk of new variants appearing,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, Senior Advisor to the WHO Director General.

However, given current trends, health professionals are not optimistic. “This will not be the last variant of the virus you will hear us talk about,” said Van Kerkhove.

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Politics

L.G.B.T.Q. Elected Officers in U.S. Quantity Practically 1,000, Rising Quick

L.G.B.T.Q. Elected Officials in U.S. Number Nearly 1,000, Rising Fast

The number of elected gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender officials has continued to rise, growing by about 17 percent last year to nearly 1,000 nationwide – more than double what it was four years ago, according to a new annual report.

Their ranks now include two governors, two U.S. senators, nine congressmen, 189 lawmakers, and 56 mayors, according to the report from the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which trains candidates for public office. In total, the group identified 986 elected LGBTQ officials.

“There are more LGBTQ people who take the plunge and choose to run for office,” said Annise Parker, president and chief executive officer of the institute. The 2010-2016 Mayoress of Houston, Ms. Parker, was one of the first openly gay mayors of a major American city.

This is the fifth year the institute has polled the nation, and the total representation of LGBTQ in elected offices has risen to 986 today, from 843 in 2020, 698 in 2019 and 448 in 2017, out of roughly half a million electoral positions .

Of all racial groups, elected Black LGBTQ officials grew the fastest over the past year, with a 75 percent increase in representation, the report said. The number of elected LGBTQ officials from various races rose 40 percent.

The institute prosecutes federal officials, state-wide civil servants, state legislators as well as local and judicial officials. Every state except Mississippi now has at least one elected incumbent who identifies as LGBTQ, the report said.

Ms. Parker said LGBTQ candidates could win across America now, citing Mauree Turner, who was elected to the state MP in Oklahoma last year and is black, Muslim and non-binary.

“The right candidate with the right message can be chosen anywhere,” said Ms. Parker. However, she said bias and discrimination continue to be of concern, especially against transgender candidates.

The partisan divide is one-sided: 73 percent of LGBTQ officials are Democrats and less than 3 percent are Republicans, according to the institute.

“There are more trans-elected officials than Republican elected officials,” Ms. Parker said.

She said former President Donald J. Trump was “probably the best Democratic recruiter you can have,” suggesting that general anti-Trump Democratic zeal fueled the rise in LGBTQ candidates win the office.

As of 2021, there will be at least one elected transgender officer in 23 states, according to the report. The surge in transgender representation last year came entirely from elected transgender women, who grew 71 percent from 21 to 36; there was no growth in the number of transgender men, which remained constant at five.

Ms. Parker said a key goal is to “fill the pipeline” of LGBTQ candidates from local to high office so that there is “a pool of potential presidential candidates from our community” in the future.

She praised Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ran for president in 2020 and is now federal minister of transportation. But she said she hoped LGBTQ officials would continue to climb the ranks to become governors and senators – traditionally more realistic launch pads for a White House run than small town mayor’s office.

For the time being, however, town halls will remain one of the few political arenas in which LGBTQ officials are fairly represented by six mayors among the top 100 cities based on their proportion of the population. The most prominent is Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago.

Despite the rapid growth, the institute estimates that LGBTQ individuals still make up 0.19 percent of the country’s elected officials, compared to an estimated 5.6 percent of the population.

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Health

Biden Officers Now Count on Weak People to Want Booster Pictures

Biden Officials Now Expect Vulnerable Americans to Need Booster Shots

WASHINGTON – Biden government health officials increasingly believe that vulnerable populations will need a booster dose even as research continues into how long coronavirus vaccines will remain effective.

Senior officials now say they believe that people over 65 or with compromised immune systems will most likely need a third vaccination from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, two vaccines based on the same technology that were used to vaccinate the vast majority of Americans until now. That’s a significant shift from a few weeks ago when the government said there wasn’t enough evidence to support boosters.

On Thursday, a key official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency is looking into ways to give immune-compromised patients a third dose before regulators expand emergency approval for coronavirus vaccines, a move soon for Pfizer vaccination could be done.

Dr. Amanda Cohn, the chief medical officer of the CDC’s immunization division, told an agency advisory committee that officials are “actively seeking ways” to give certain people access to booster vaccinations “sooner than any possible change in government decisions”.

“So stay tuned,” she added.

The growing consensus within the government that at least some Americans need a booster dose is in part to do with research suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective against the coronavirus after about six months. More than half of those fully vaccinated in the United States to date have received Pfizer’s vaccine in two doses three weeks apart.

Pfizer’s ongoing global study of its clinical trial participants shows the vaccine’s effectiveness against symptomatic infections drops from a peak of 95 percent to 84 percent four to six months after the second dose, the company said.

Data from the Israeli government, which has fully vaccinated more than half of its population with doses of Pfizer since January, also suggests a downward trend in efficacy over time, though administrative officials view these data cautiously due to the large margin of error.

The latest figures from the Israeli Ministry of Health, released later this week, suggest that Pfizer’s vaccine was only 39 percent effective in preventing infections in the country in late June and early July, compared with 95 percent from January through April.

The vaccine remained more than 90 percent effective in preventing serious illnesses and almost as effective in preventing hospital stays. Israel began offering a third dose of Pfizer to citizens with severely compromised immune systems on July 12th.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who heads the infectious diseases division of the National Institutes of Health, said he was surprised at the apparently steep drop in the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine suggested by the Israeli data. He said he wanted to compare it to data the CDC has collected from cohorts of thousands of people in the United States. “People raise their eyebrows a little,” he said.

While other questions abound, senior administrative officials said it was becoming increasingly clear that the vaccines would not provide unlimited immunity to the virus and that at least some people might need booster sessions nine months after their first vaccination. The government has already purchased more than enough vaccine to deliver the third dose of Pfizer and Moderna and has been quietly preparing to step up distribution efforts if necessary.

With so little data left public, many health officials and experts have spoken cautiously about booster vaccinations. Dr. Paul A. Offit, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s external advisory committee of vaccine experts, said an increase in mild or moderate cases of Covid-19 in people who have been vaccinated does not necessarily mean that a booster is needed.

“The goal of this vaccine is not to prevent mild or mild, moderate infectious diseases,” he said. “The aim is to prevent hospitalization until death. At the moment this vaccine has withstood that. “

Updated

July 23, 2021, 10:06 p.m. ET

An early prospect of a third dose could also act as a deterrent against vaccination, warn other health experts. If Americans feel that immunity to the vaccines is short-lived, they are less likely to get their first vaccination.

“We don’t want people to believe that the vaccines are not effective when you talk about booster vaccinations,” said Dr. Fauci at a hearing before Congress on Tuesday. “You are highly effective.”

Among vaccine manufacturers, Pfizer has been particularly proactive in sharing its data with the government. But the government was stunned by the company’s public announcement earlier this month that it was planning to seek emergency FDA approval for a booster vaccination.

The company said early data from its booster study showed neutralizing antibody levels in clinical trial participants who received a third dose six months after the second was five to 10 times higher than those in recipients who received two doses.

Fearing that the American public would get the wrong news, the FDA and CDC responded with an unusual public statement: “Americans who have been fully vaccinated don’t need a booster right now.” They added, “We are prepared for booster doses, if and when science shows they are needed. “

Ordinarily, the FDA would approve the use of a booster, perhaps after a meeting of its external advisory committee. Then the CDC, which has its own advisory committee, would have to officially recommend it, said Dr. Offit.

Understand the state of vaccine mandates in the United States

But if the FDA fully licensed a vaccine, doctors would have much more leeway to prescribe a booster to their patients. Some health experts believe Pfizer could get this approval by fall this year.

At the CDC advisory board meeting on Thursday, Dr. Cohn, the medical director of the vaccines division, suggested that it might be possible to offer booster shots to people with compromised immune systems through a trial study or other means without waiting for the FDA

Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious disease expert at Massachusetts General Hospital, told the panel that some patients, especially those who are more educated or “able to look after their own health care,” manage to get a third dose on their own, despite lack of green light from the government.

“Many took matters into their own hands,” she says. “I’m worried they might do this unattended,” she said, while the doctors’ hands are tied due to the lack of regulatory approval.

According to the CDC, people with a weakened immune system make up 2.7 percent of the population and include cancer, organ or stem cell transplants or HIV.

At the Senate Health Committee hearing Tuesday, several senators questioned administration health officials about how quickly they would act on the booster issue. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, said he was unhappy that officials couldn’t come up with a better schedule.

Senator Richard M. Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, noted that Israel is already offering a third chance to some of its most vulnerable citizens. “Why don’t we make the same decisions?” he asked.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, testified that scientists studied the effectiveness of the vaccines in tens of thousands of people, including nursing home residents and more than 5,000 key workers.

“Fortunately, we expect this to wear off, not go down,” she said of her effectiveness. “As we see that fade, we will – this will be our time to act.”

Pfizer is expected to soon publish its clinical studies on immunity declining and the benefits of booster shoots in articles in a peer-reviewed journal. Moderna hasn’t released any data on booster studies, officials said.

Johnson & Johnson’s single-use vaccine has so far played a minor role in the country’s vaccination campaign. Clinical trial data on the mode of action of this two-shot vaccine is expected next month.

Noah Weiland contributed the reporting.

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Health

Native officers throughout U.S. are beginning to reimpose masks guidelines as delta variant takes maintain

Local officials across U.S. are starting to reimpose mask rules as delta variant takes hold

From Los Angeles to Massachusetts, local officials across the country are urging Americans to wear masks again as the Delta variant rips across the US

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. Local leaders in at least three other states have reintroduced mask mandates, issued face-covering recommendations, or threatened the return of strict public health limits for all residents – despite federal health guidelines that in most cases, vaccinated individuals do not use these protocols must follow the settings.

“A surge in the number of cases was not unexpected as the community began to reopen fully,” Jennifer Sizemore, spokeswoman for the southern Nevada health district, told CNBC in an email. Clark County, home of Las Vegas, tightened its mask recommendation last week after Covid-19 cases and deaths rose 50% in the previous week. A total of 4,599 new infections and 33 coronavirus-related deaths were reported last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Covid infections are rising again in the US after months of falling cases, new cases have risen 55% since last week to an average of 37,000 new cases per day in the past seven days, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University .

The CDC relaxed its Covid guidelines on masks for fully vaccinated individuals on May 13, stating that they do not need to use them or practice social distancing in most environments. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told lawmakers at a Senate hearing Tuesday that the agency was actively reviewing its mask and other public health guidelines as the virus and pandemic evolve, especially as scientists learn more about the Delta variant and how it is doing Keep vaccines against it.

“A lot has changed since May 13,” said Walensky. “We now have a variant in circulation in this country that was 3% (of new cases) at the time and is now 83% and much more transferable.”

The Delta variant is spreading across the country, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, she said. Nearly two-thirds of counties in the US have vaccinated less than 40% of their residents, “which is what enables the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant,” leading to an increase in hospital admissions and deaths, she said.

This is gradually becoming apparent in Nevada, which, according to CDC data, has only fully vaccinated 43.5% of its population. Clark County recorded 641 new Covid hospital admissions last week, 23% more admissions than the previous seven days. Despite the resurgent outbreak in the Las Vegas area, Sizemore said the county’s vaccination rate has remained at just under 42% for the past two weeks.

“However, the community’s vaccination rate has slowed and unvaccinated people are not taking recommended precautions, including wearing masks and continuing to practice social distancing,” Sizemore said.

Nevada isn’t the only state that is stepping up its mask guidelines. On Friday, seven counties in California’s Bay Area recommended the use of masks indoors for a full mandate. The California city of Berkeley also called for the continued use of masks.

Further south, Los Angeles County restored its indoor public mask mandate on Saturday. The county initially lifted the mandate on Thursday when the state formally withdrew a number of executive measures to contain the spread of Covid.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Los Angeles County’s new mask mandate could serve as a prototype for other regions with high rates of infection. He said he expected schools and businesses to continue enforcing their own mask policies to protect against the Delta variant.

“If you want to be even more secure despite being vaccinated, you should wear a mask indoors, especially in crowded places,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC’s Closing Bell. On Wednesday.

In Massachusetts, Provincetown officials advised everyone on Monday to resume wearing masks indoors after the July 4 celebrations resulted in an outbreak of new cases.

In Orleans Parish, Louisiana – where the CDC reported 560 new coronavirus cases last week – New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell authorized a consultation on indoor masks on Wednesday to help curb the spread of the Delta variant. And New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Tuesday that he wanted to avoid reinstating a mask mandate and instead press for residents to get vaccinated.

“Right now, I hope we don’t have to,” Murphy said. “If we have to, we will.”

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Health

Covid circumstances are surging once more in Latin America and the U.S., WHO officers warn

Covid cases are surging again in Latin America and the U.S., WHO officials warn

People hold their arms after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as part of a government plan to vaccinate Mexican border residents on the common border with the United States in Tijuana, Mexico, Dec. June 2021.

Jorge Duenes | Reuters

Covid infections are rapidly picking up again in the United States and Latin America as more contagious variants spread, putting the entire region at risk, World Health Organization officials said in a briefing Wednesday.

Renewed spikes of infection also exacerbate instability and violence in several Latin American and Caribbean countries, officials said, noting political upheaval in Haiti, Cuba and other nations as the Delta variant takes hold in America.

“Many countries, including the United States, are seeing a resurgence of infections in North America, the United States and Mexico are reporting spikes in new infections in most states, and many Central American nations are also seeing cases,” said Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, WHO’s regional office for America, said Wednesday.

Central American and Caribbean countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba and the Virgin Islands are also seeing an increase in new infections.

Thousands of protesters in Cuba took to the streets this week over frustrations over a troubled economy hit by food and electricity shortages. The rare protests, the largest the communist country has seen since the 1990s, come as the government struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic and marginalize the island’s fragile health system.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Monday that Cubans were “tired of the mismanagement of the Cuban economy, lack of adequate food and of course an adequate response to the Covid-19 pandemic”.

The seven-day average of new cases in Cuba has more than quadrupled in the last month to 5,659 in the past seven days from an average of 1,256 per day in mid-June, according to analysis of data from CNBC compiled by Johns Hopkins University . The number of deaths in the small island nation has also increased from around 10 a day a month ago to around 32, the data shows.

Overall, deaths and hospital admissions in South America have decreased in recent weeks. However, as cases pick up again, officials expect hospitalizations and deaths, often delayed by a few weeks, could soon follow.

The cases in Argentina and Colombia are at record highs as new infections surpass the level at the beginning of the pandemic, according to Etienne. Neighboring countries like Honduras and Guatemala haven’t secured enough vaccine doses to immunize even 1% of their population, which could be disastrous if increasing infections spill over from nearby countries, she said.

Colombia, along with Brazil, Cuba and Haiti, are experiencing situations where political unrest and waves of protests make it even more difficult for health workers and residents to access life-saving resources and maintain public notices promoting vaccinations.

“Increasing violence, instability and overcrowded accommodation could become active hotspots for the transmission of Covid,” said Etienne. “Limited care and violence also hamper the ability of health workers to safely care for patients in need. In some cases, patients may avoid doing so for safety concerns.”

PAHO officials are working to bring vaccines to Haiti, where the island has not yet started vaccinating its residents, despite having received 760,000 doses of the vaccines from AstraZeneca through the COVAX Facility, a WHO-supported distribution initiative of doses to low-income countries in low-income countries of the world, according to the Washington Post. Violence broke out there following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise last week.

PAHO also cautioned countries reopening their economies too early, warning that countries that have successfully deterred early waves of infection are ignoring normally necessary public health measures such as masks and social distancing and opening up to a renewed surge in cases of variant who can bypass the vaccine protection.

“In the context of Covid-19, health and well-being must be prerequisites for reactivating the economy, because if the pandemic is not brought under control, economic reactivation will be very difficult,” said Etienne.

– CNBC’s Amanda Macias contributed to this article.

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Health

U.S. Officers Push Again on Pfizer’s Request for Booster Shot Approval

U.S. Officials Push Back on Pfizer’s Request for Booster Shot Approval

Pfizer officials met privately with senior U.S. scientists and regulators on Monday to press for rapid approval of booster coronavirus vaccines amid growing public confusion over whether they are needed and opposition from federal health officials who say that the additional doses are now not required.

The high-level online meeting, which lasted an hour, and at which Pfizer’s chief scientist briefed virtually every top doctor in the federal government, took place the same day Israel began feeding heart transplant patients and others on the third dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine administer weakened immune system. Officials said after the meeting that more data – and possibly several months – would be needed before regulators could determine whether booster injections were needed.

The two developments underscored the intensifying debate about whether booster injections are required in the US, when and for whom. Many American experts, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s senior medical advisor on the pandemic, have said there isn’t enough evidence yet that boosters are necessary. However, some say Israel’s move may anticipate a government decision to recommend it to at least the weak.

Pfizer is collecting information on antibody responses from those receiving a third dose, as well as data from Israel, and expects to share at least part of that in a formal application to the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine to expand its emergency clearance in the coming weeks.

However, the final decision on booster vaccination, several officials said after the meeting, will also depend on real-world information the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has gathered about breakthrough infections – those that occur in people who have been vaccinated – who are serious or ill Cause hospital stays.

And any booster vaccination recommendations are likely to be calibrated within age groups as well, officials said. For example, if booster shots are recommended, they could first go to residents of nursing homes who received their vaccines in late 2020 or early 2021, while older people who received their first vaccinations in the spring may have to wait longer. And then the question arises, what kind of booster: a third dose of the original vaccine or perhaps a vaccination tailored to the highly contagious Delta variant, which is on the rise in the USA.

“It was an interesting meeting. They shared their data. There was nothing like a decision, ”said Dr. Fauci in a short interview Monday night, adding, “This is just part of a much bigger puzzle, and it’s part of the data, so there’s no question of a compelling case either way.”

Amy Rose, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said in a statement, “We had a productive meeting with US public health officials about elements of our research program and preliminary booster data.”

The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which convened the meeting, issued its own statement confirming the government’s stance. “At this point, fully vaccinated Americans don’t need a booster dose,” it said.

With less than half of the United States’ population being fully vaccinated, some experts said Monday the country must continue to focus on giving all Americans their first dose. The most important task of the Food and Drug Administration is to increase public confidence by granting full approval to the coronavirus vaccines used, which are initially approved in an emergency.

“At this point the most important strengthening we need is vaccinating people,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease expert at Emory University in Atlanta. The booster doses in Israel, he added, “will help us answer some questions, but at the end of the day I disagree with what they are doing. I think it’s terribly premature. “

Within the Biden government, some fear that if Americans are convinced that coronavirus vaccines only offer short-lived immunity before needing a boost, they are less likely to accept vaccination. Those concerns could fall by the wayside, however, if new data from Israel, expected in the next few weeks, conclusively shows that immunity wears off after six to eight months, significantly increasing the risks for the elderly or other vulnerable populations.

The government convened the meeting on Monday in response to the announcement last week by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech that they would develop a version of their vaccine targeting the Delta variant and reported promising results from studies with people who A third dose of the vaccine received original vaccine six months after the second.

The new dates Not yet published or peer-reviewed, but as announced by companies that they would submit data to the Food and Drug Administration to approve booster vaccinations surprised the Biden White House.

In an unusual joint statement Thursday evening, hours after Pfizer-BioNTech’s announcement, the FDA and CDC pushed back.

“Americans who are fully vaccinated currently do not need a booster,” the statement said, adding, “We are prepared for booster doses when and when science shows they are needed.”

The move can make economic sense for Pfizer-BioNTech. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the partner companies have been following a “get to market first” strategy in the manufacture and marketing of their vaccines.

The companies did not accept federal funds or participate in Operation Warp Speed, former President Donald J. Trump’s fast-track vaccine initiative. Not only were they the first to get Food and Drug Administration approval for their coronavirus vaccine, the first to use the novel mRNA technology, but also the first to get their vaccine approved in adolescents.

The strategy has “paid off as well as you could wish,” said Steve Brozak, president of WBB Securities, a biotechnology-focused research investment bank.

Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech said a booster given six months after the second dose of the vaccine increased the effectiveness of antibodies against the original virus and beta variant by five to ten times. But antibody levels may not be the best biological measure of need for booster doses, say experts, who say it’s no surprise that antibodies increase after a third dose.

“The antibody response is not the only measure of immune protection,” said Dr. Leana S. Wen, a former health commissioner for Baltimore. “There have been several studies to suggest that these vaccines also stimulate B-cell and T-cell immunity. Even if there aren’t that many antibodies, it doesn’t mean someone isn’t protected. “

In Israel, the government has agreed to provide Pfizer with data on its vaccine recipients, and Pfizer has cross-checked the Israeli data with the results of its own laboratory tests. Some people familiar with the data say this suggests that those vaccinated may lose immunity after about six to eight months, leading to an increasing number of breakthrough infections.

The participants in Monday’s meeting were a who’s who of government doctors: Dr. Fauci; Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Vivek Murthy, the general surgeon; Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health; Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner; Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; and Dr. David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner who, among other things, leads the Biden government’s vaccine distribution efforts.

Dr. Del Rio, of Emory University, complained that the meeting was held privately on Monday instead of Pfizer publicly presenting its dates to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Vaccine Practices, which will ultimately recommend whether booster injections are needed.

Just over two-thirds of American adults – 67.7 percent – got at least one Covid-19 shot, according to the CDC. The president had hoped to have at least partially vaccinated 70 percent of adults by July 4th.

Still, the national vaccination campaign has made it clear that the vaccine is successful in preventing disease, and studies suggest that vaccines against the Delta variant remain effective. Outbreaks occur in areas with low vaccination rates and the number of national cases has increased recently; according to a database from the New York Times.

World Health Organization officials on Monday stressed the importance of prioritizing global vaccine production and distribution over booster development, given the large gaps between countries’ vaccine programs.

“That doesn’t mean one or the other; it brings order to a crisis, ”said Dr. Michael Ryan, the organisation’s executive director of the emergency health program, on what the organization calls a two-stage pandemic.

Lauren McCarthy contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Politics

U.S. officers arrive in Haiti, key suspect arrested in assassination plot

U.S. officials arrive in Haiti, key suspect arrested in assassination plot

Haitian citizens hold up their passports as they gather outside the U.S. embassy in Tabarre, Haiti, on July 10, 2021, seeking asylum after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, explaining that there is too much uncertainty in the country and them for their fear of life. Publicity.

Valerie Bäriswyl | AFP | Getty Images

Five days after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, a delegation of US officials is arrested in Haiti to assess the political and security situation in the Caribbean.

The White House confirmed Monday that a delegation of officials from the National Security Council and Homeland Security, State and Justice departments had met with Haiti’s interim leaders and the national police to respond to their requests for security assistance and the investigation on Moise’s murder.

The arrival of the US delegation follows the arrest of a man of Haitian descent from Florida who is reportedly a prime suspect in Moise’s murder at his private residence in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.

The State Department confirmed Monday that a third U.S. citizen was arrested after the attack, but declined to provide further information on privacy concerns. Instead, the department referred the Haitian authorities for details of the arrest.

Haitian police said they had arrested Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who had entered Haiti on a private plane “with the intention of assuming the Haitian presidency.” Sanon, who is in his early sixties, has been described as having played a pivotal role in the assassination, with Haitian police finding he was the “first person the attackers called” after the president was shot dead.

The New York Times and the Miami Herald reported that Sanon is a doctor in Florida.

The U.S. delegation’s arrival also comes after White House officials told NBC News on Friday that the U.S. has no plans to deploy troops to protect critical infrastructure, amid reports Haitian officials asked for such assistance. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said over the weekend the Department of Defense is looking into the Haitian request for troops, but the US is mainly focused on the investigation.

“I don’t know if we are now at a point where we can definitely say that what is happening there is putting our national security at risk,” Kirby told Fox News on Sunday. “But of course we value our Haitian partners. We value stability and security in this country.”

The US delegation met with Haiti’s interim leaders to promote free and fair elections, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said in a White House press release. U.S. and Haitian officials also checked the security of the country’s critical infrastructure, Horne said.

“In all of their meetings, the delegation has pledged to support the Haitian government in its pursuit of justice in this case and to reaffirm the United States’ support for the Haitian people at this difficult time,” said Horne.

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On Friday, the State Department confirmed that two US citizens were arrested by Haitian police after the attack, but declined to comment.

Haitian police on Friday identified the American suspects as James Solages and Joseph Vincent, both of Haitian descent. You are among at least 20 suspects arrested by Haitian police so far, along with 18 Colombians.

Moise had faced violent protests for months before he was murdered. Opposition leaders accused him of increasing his power even after his term ended in February and called for his resignation.

Opposition leaders and their supporters pointed to Moise’s approval of decrees restricting a court’s powers to review government contracts and creating an intelligence agency that would only report to him. They also opposed his plans to hold a constitutional referendum that would strengthen the presidency in the country.