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CDC says greater than 4,100 individuals have been hospitalized or died after vaccination

CDC says more than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died after vaccination

U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Allyson Black (R), a registered nurse, cares for COVID-19 patients in a makeshift ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on January 21, 2021 in Torrance, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

More than 4,100 people have been hospitalized or died with Covid-19 in the U.S. even though they’ve been fully vaccinated, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, at least 750 fully vaccinated people have died after contracting Covid, but the CDC noted that 142 of those fatalities were asymptomatic or unrelated to Covid-19, according to data as of Monday that was released Friday.

The CDC received 3,907 reports of people who have been hospitalized with breakthrough Covid infections, despite being fully vaccinated. Of those, more than 1,000 of those patients were asymptomatic or their hospitalizations weren’t related to Covid-19, the CDC said.

“To be expected,” Dr. Paul Offit, a top advisor to the Food and Drug Administration on children’s vaccines told CNBC. “The vaccines aren’t 100% effective, even against severe disease. Very small percentage of the 600,000 deaths.”

Breakthrough cases are Covid-19 infections that bypass vaccine protection. They are very rare and many are asymptomatic. The vaccines are highly effective but don’t block every infection. Pfizer and Moderna’s phase three clinical studies found that their two-dose regimens were 95% and 94% effective at blocking Covid-19, respectively, while Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine was found to be 66% effective in its studies. All three, however, have been found to be extremely effective in preventing people from getting severely sick from Covid.

The CDC doesn’t count every breakthrough case. It stopped counting all breakthrough cases May 1 and now only tallies those that lead to hospitalization or death, a move the agency was criticized for by health experts.

Most Americans have received at least one shot of the two currently authorized mRNA vaccines. The U.S. has administered 178.3 million shots and fully vaccinated 46% of its population.

“You are just as likely to be killed by a meteorite as die from Covid after a vaccine,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California San Francisco, told CNBC. “In the big scheme of things, the vaccines are tremendously powerful.”

Efficacy rates decrease slightly for variants like alpha and delta, with studies indicating 88% efficacy against the delta strain after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. It was unclear if any of the reported breakthrough cases were caused by variants.

In Israel and the United Kingdom, concerns about the delta variant are rising after growing reports of breakthrough infections.

Even with 80% of adults vaccinated, Chezy Levy, director-general of Israel’s Health Ministry, said the delta variant is responsible for 70% of new infections in the country. Levy also said that one-third of those new infections were in vaccinated individuals.

In the U.K., Public Health England released a report that found 26 out of 73 deaths caused by the delta variant occurred in fully vaccinated people from June 8 to June 14. Most of the deaths occurred in unvaccinated individuals.

“Determination of whether hospitalizations and deaths are more represented in immunocompromised patients and the type of vaccine received will be important for future guidance,” Chin-Hong said.

On June 7, the CDC received reports of 3,459 breakthrough cases that led to hospitalization or death. On June 18, that number was updated to 3,729, an increase of 270 cases. Today, the number stands at 4,115.

An overwhelming majority, 76%, of the hospitalizations and deaths from breakthrough cases occurred in people over the age of 65.

“We do not have the years and years of data we have for vaccines against other airborne pathogens — and therefore it is really essential that the CDC provides up to date reporting on breakthrough cases,” David Edwards, aerosol scientist and Harvard University professor, told CNBC.

The CDC says its numbers are “likely an undercount” of all Covid infections in vaccinated people because the data relies on passive and voluntary reporting.

— CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

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WHO urges absolutely vaccinated individuals to proceed to put on masks as variant spreads

Biden administration set to relax outdoor mask guidance

People wear face masks in Central Park on April 10, 2021 in New York City.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe.

“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.

“Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

The health organization’s comments come as some countries, including the United States, have largely done away with masks and pandemic-related restrictions as the Covid vaccines have helped drive down the number of new infections and deaths.

The number of new infections in the U.S. has held steady over the last week at an average of 11,659 new cases per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Still, new infections have been plummeting over the last several months.

WHO officials said they are asking fully vaccinated people to continue to “play it safe” because a large portion of the world remains unvaccinated and highly contagious variants, like delta, are spreading in many countries, spurring outbreaks.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of adults infected in an outbreak of the delta variant in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, prompting the government there to reimpose an indoor mask requirement and other measures.

“Yes, you can reduce some measures and different countries have different recommendations in that regard. But there’s still the need for caution,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor to the WHO’s director-general, said at the briefing. “As we are seeing, there are new variants emerging.”

The WHO said last week that delta is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.

WHO officials have said the variant, first found in India but now in at least 92 countries, is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will “pick off” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid vaccination rates.

They said there were reports that the delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm those conclusions. Still, there are signs the delta strain could provoke different symptoms than other variants.

It has the potential “to be more lethal because it’s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday.

In the U.S., President Joe Biden said Covid deaths nationwide will continue to rise due to the spread of the “dangerous” delta variant, calling it a “serious concern.”

He warned that Americans who are still unvaccinated are especially at risk.

“Six hundred thousand-plus Americans have died, and with this delta variant you know there’s going to be others as well. You know it’s going to happen. We’ve got to get young people vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday at a community center in Raleigh, North Carolina

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CDC says there’s seemingly hyperlink between uncommon coronary heart irritation in younger folks after Covid shot

CDC says there's likely link between rare heart inflammation in young people after Covid shot

A CDC safety group said there was a “likely link” between rare heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults, mostly after they received their second Covid-19 vaccine, citing the latest available data.

There have been more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, mostly in those under 30 who have the Covid- Vaccine received from Pfizer or Moderna have practices methods exercises.

Myocarditis is the inflammation of the heart muscle while pericarditis is the inflammation of the membrane that surrounds the heart.

“The clinical picture of myocarditis cases after vaccination was variable and most often appeared within a week of the second dose, with chest pain being the most common,” said Dr. Grace Lee, Chair of the Committee’s Security Group. CDC officials are collecting more data to fully understand the potential risks, how to deal with them and if there are any long-term issues, she said.

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The agency said 267 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis were reported after receiving one dose of the mRNA vaccines and 827 cases after two doses by June 11. There are 132 additional cases where the number of doses received is unknown, the CDC said.

The agency announced that around 300 million shots had been administered by June 11.

“This is still a rare occurrence,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro at the meeting. For both vaccines combined, there were 12.6 cases of heart inflammation per million doses. Cases were more common among Moderna vaccine recipients at 19.8 cases per million than eight cases per million at Pfizer, he said.

Men under 30 make up the bulk of cases, the CDC said, and most cases appear to be mild. Of the 295 people who developed the disease and were discharged, 79% made a full recovery, according to the presentation. Nine people were hospitalized, according to the agency, two of them in the intensive care unit.

CDC officials said the benefits of the Covid vaccine still outweigh the risks.

Cases in younger people are increasing as older people are vaccinated at higher rates. The US vaccinated 177.6 million people with at least one dose, according to the CDC, that’s about 53% of the population. Only 13.6% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States received at least one dose of vaccine, compared with 26% of people ages 50 to 64, the data shows.

While hospitalization rates have decreased in older age groups, they have barely moved in adolescents and young adults, said Dr. Megan Wallace from the CDC.

“Teenagers and young adults make up a larger proportion of the total cases, 33% of the cases reported in May were people ages 12-29, compared with 28% last December,” she said. Since the pandemic began, 2,767 people aged 12 to 29 have died of Covid, she said, noting that 316 of these deaths had occurred since April 1.

The CDC is coordinating its investigation with the Food and Drug Administration, which last month approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for adolescents ages 12-15. Symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath usually develop within a week of receiving the vaccination, with most developing within four days, the agency said.

This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.

CNBC’s Rich Mendez contributed to this article.

Correction: Most of the cases of people who had myocarditis occurred in people under the age of 30. In a previous version, the age was incorrectly stated. The number of cases per million doses administered was 12.6. In an earlier version, the number was incorrectly specified.

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C.D.C. advisers are anticipated to debate uncommon coronary heart issues in vaccinated youthful individuals.

C.D.C. advisers are expected to discuss rare heart problems in vaccinated younger people.

Advisors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are due to meet on Wednesday to discuss reports of rare heart problems in young people immunized with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines.

The reports pertain to conditions called myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle; and pericarditis, inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart. Most of the cases were mild, with symptoms such as fatigue, chest pain, and irregular heartbeat that go away quickly. The agency is tracking nearly 800 reports, although not all of them have definitely been linked to the vaccines.

The CDC advisors meeting comes as the Biden administration publicly recognizes it expects to miss its goal of partially immunizing 70 percent of Americans by July 4th.

Experts have said that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risk of potential problems, but they are expected to revisit this debate, especially for adolescents and young adults.

More than half of heart problems were reported in Americans ages 12 to 24, while that age group accounted for only 9 percent of the millions of doses given. The numbers are higher than one would expect for this age.

As of May 31, 216 people had developed myocarditis or pericarditis after a dose of either vaccine and 573 after the second dose. While most of the cases were mild, 15 patients remained in hospitals at this point. The second dose of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was associated with approximately twice as many cases as the second dose of Moderna’s vaccine.

“We look forward to more clarity about the potential risk of myocarditis after mRNA vaccines in order to increase vaccination confidence and rates,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, Chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Recommendations from CDC advisors after Wednesday’s meeting may also influence decisions about immunizing children under 12 if vaccines are available for that age group. Some experts have questioned whether the benefits to children outweigh the potential risks given the low likelihood of serious illness in young children.

The CDC strongly recommends Covid-19 vaccines for Americans 12 and older. The agency reported this month that Covid-19-related hospitalizations among teenagers in the United States were about three times higher than influenza-related hospitalizations for the past three flu seasons.

By June 10, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 17,000 children in 24 states had been hospitalized for Covid-19 and 330 children had died.

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Senate Republicans block S1 For the Folks Act invoice

Senate Republicans block S1 For the People Act bill

Senate Republicans blocked a sprawling Democratic voting rights and government ethics bill Tuesday, as federal efforts to respond to a rash of restrictive ballot laws passed by GOP-held state legislatures hit a wall.

The For the People Act aims to set up automatic voter registration, expand early voting, ensure more transparency in political donations and limit partisan drawing of congressional districts, among other provisions. Democrats pushed for the reforms before the 2020 election, but called them more necessary to protect the democratic process after former President Donald Trump’s false claims of electoral fraud sparked an attack on the Capitol and restrictive state voting measures.

The House passed its version of the bill in March. The measure failed a procedural test in the Senate Tuesday, as Republicans voted against starting debate on it.

The plan needed 60 votes to advance in the Senate, split evenly by party. It fell along party lines in a 50-50 vote.

After the bill failed to advance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized his GOP counterparts for reluctance to start the process of debating and amending the bill.

“Now, Republican senators may have prevented us from having a debate on voting rights today,” he said. “But I want to be very clear about one thing: the fight to protect voting rights is not over. By no means. In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish line.”

Schumer said the Senate has “several, serious options for how to reconsider this issue and advance legislation to combat voter suppression.” He said he plans to “explore every last one of our options.”

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Republicans have framed the legislation as a power grab by Democrats. They have argued states rather than the federal government should have leeway to set election laws.

The GOP has also questioned the need for a new bill to protect voting rights. Republicans have downplayed the restrictive laws in states such as Georgia and Florida, which took steps including making it harder to vote absentee and limiting ballot drop-off boxes. Critics of the measures say they will disproportionately hurt voters of color and give GOP officials more power over election outcomes.

Ahead of the Senate vote, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the Democratic bill a “transparently partisan plan,” stressing it was in the works before Republican-led legislatures passed voting laws.

“The Senate is only an obstacle when the policy is flawed and the process is rotten,” he said.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) takes part in a news conference held by Republican senators about the “H.R.1 – For the People Act” bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17, 2021.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Schumer disputed the argument that the federal government should not exert its will on election laws. He pointed to past bills such as the Voting Rights Act that protected voters from discrimination.

The Biden administration has formally backed the For the People Act as the president considers voting rights a key piece of his agenda. In a statement after the vote, Biden said Democrats “unanimously came together to protect the sacred right to vote.”

He later continued: “Unfortunately, a Democratic stand to protect our democracy met a solid Republican wall of opposition. Senate Republicans opposed even a debate—even considering—legislation to protect the right to vote and our democracy.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has met with voting rights advocates in recent weeks, presided over the Senate vote on Tuesday. She plans in the coming weeks to promote registration and work with state leaders who are pushing back on restrictive bills, NBC News reported.

The For the People Act has little chance of revival in the current Senate. At least two Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — oppose scrapping the legislative filibuster, which would allow the party to pass more bills without Republicans.

Liberals have urged the party to abolish the 60-vote threshold as Democrats pursue their priorities with control of the White House and narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

But Manchin has signaled he would oppose final passage of the Democratic-led bill, potentially killing chances of its passage even without the filibuster. He has said he wants to approve a voting rights plan with GOP support, despite Republican opposition to more modest plans to protect ballot access.

Manchin proposed a potential compromise, which includes Democratic-backed provisions such as 15 days of early voting for federal elections and automatic voter registration at state motor vehicles agencies. It also calls for voter identification requirements, which Republicans have typically supported.

McConnell shot down the plan, arguing it contains the “rotten core” of Democrats’ bill.

Manchin did not commit until Tuesday afternoon to voting to start debate on his party’s legislation. Schumer announced a deal to take up Manchin’s proposal as an amendment if the For the People Act cleared the procedural vote.

The senator’s support ensured every Democrat would vote to advance the bill while Republicans blocked it.

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New Jersey has totally vaccinated 4.7 million individuals, Gov. Murphy says

New Jersey Gov. Murphy defends eligibility criteria

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) speaks at the coronavirus press conference in Trenton, New Jersey.

Michael Brochstein | Barcroft Media | Getty Images

New Jersey has achieved its goal of fully vaccinating more than 4.7 million people living, working and studying in the state about two weeks before its original target date, June 30, Governor Phil Murphy said Friday.

The milestone comes after an aggressive vaccination campaign that included door knocking and incentives for the state’s residents like free beer and wine, free tickets to state parks, and even a dinner with Murphy and his wife.

The state also exceeded President Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of adults with at least one dose by July 4th. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Jersey vaccinated about 77% of its adults with at least one dose.

“With the millions of you who have stepped forward today to protect yourself, your families and our communities, we are proud to announce that we have exceeded our original goal now and 12 days before our self-appointed deadline “said Murphy Friday at a press conference.

The New Jersey outbreak, which peaked in January with a seven-day average of more than 6,000 new cases per day, has since declined to a daily average of around 260 cases per day over the past week. New Jersey has seen more than 1 million Covid cases and 26,000 Covid deaths since data collection began.

Covid deaths in the state peaked in April 2020 with a seven-day average of 345 deaths per day. The number has since fallen to an average of 6 deaths per day.

The state previously defied the CDC’s recommendations to allow vaccinated people to wear a mask indoors, but passed the CDC guidelines two weeks later.

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Biden says delta Covid variant is ‘notably harmful’ for younger folks

Biden says delta Covid variant is 'particularly dangerous' for young people

President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Friday, June 18, 2021, regarding the achievement of 300 million COVID-19 vaccinations.

Evan Vucci | AP

President Joe Biden on Friday doubled his government’s request that Americans get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as possible, warning that the highly transmissible Delta variant appears to be “particularly dangerous” for young people.

“The data is clear: if you are not vaccinated, there is a risk that you will become seriously ill or die or spread,” Biden said during a White House press conference.

Delta, the variant of Covid identified for the first time in India, “will make unvaccinated people even more vulnerable than it was a month ago,” he added. “It’s a more easily transmissible, potentially more deadly, and particularly dangerous variant for young people.”

Biden said that young people can best protect themselves by getting fully vaccinated.

“Please, please, when you have a shot, get the second shot as soon as you can,” he said.

The president’s remarks come as his administration’s latest goal of partially vaccinating 70% of US adults by July 4th is on the way to falling as the pace of vaccination slows.

The World Health Organization’s chief scientist said Friday that Delta is becoming the dominant strain of the disease worldwide. This is due to its “significantly increased transferability,” said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO senior scientist, during a press conference.

Studies suggest that Delta is about 60% more transmissible than Alpha, the variant first identified in the UK that was more contagious than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China in late 2019.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also said Friday that she expects Delta to become the predominant variant in the United States and urged people to get vaccinated. The variant now accounts for 10% of all new cases in the US, up from 6% last week, according to data from CDC.

“As worrying as this Delta strain is about its hypertransmittance, our vaccines are working,” Walensky told ABC’s Good Morning America. If you get vaccinated, “you will be protected against this Delta variant,” she added.

Health experts say the Delta strain is of particular concern for young people, many of whom do not yet need to be vaccinated. While scientists still don’t know if Delta is causing more severe symptoms, there is evidence that it could cause different symptoms than other variants.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the Delta variant essentially replaced Alpha, the variant that swept Europe and later the US earlier this year. He said as the virus continues to mutate, the US will need a higher percentage of the vaccinated population.

“How much more information do we need to see this virus mutate and create viruses that are more contagious?” said Offit, also a member of the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products. “We have to vaccinate now. Let everyone vaccinate now.”

According to the CDC, as of Friday, more than 176 million Americans, or 53.1% of the population, had had at least one injection. More than 148 million Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the agency.

States are offering incentives ranging from free beer to $ 1 million worth of lotteries to try to convince Americans to get a prick.

On Friday, Biden announced some of these incentives, including the fact that most pharmacies offer 24-hour service on select days in June.

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For a Science Reporter, the Job Was All the time In regards to the Individuals

For a Science Reporter, the Job Was Always About the People

“I would have liked to have lived longer, worked longer,” said Sister Mary Andrew Matesich, a Catholic nun in 2004. But she said, “It is not the hand that has been given to me.”

She had breast cancer that had spread and she had volunteered for experimental treatments knowing they probably wouldn’t save her but hoping the research would help other patients.

“I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for other women in clinical trials,” she said.

She died about a year after our conversation. She was 66.

In 22 years of writing medicine for the New York Times, I have covered births, deaths, illnesses, new treatments that worked and some failed, bold innovations in surgery, and countless studies in medical journals. The goal has always been to provide clear information that is useful and interesting to readers, and to show the human side of what the message could mean to patients. When reporting on Covid last year, the focus of my work was on vaccines and treatments, but also on people with other serious illnesses who missed care because of the pandemic.

Today is my last day as a staff writer at The Times. When I retired, the most vivacious were the people: their faces, their voices, their stories, the unexpected truths they revealed – sometimes after I put my notebook away – that shook me or taught or humiliated me, and about it reminded that this beat is about a lot more than all of the data I’d tried to analyze over the decades. It offers a glimpse into the way disease and injury can shape people’s lives, and the huge differences medical advances can make for those who have access to them.

Many who spoke to me suddenly became what we all fear – patients – and faced difficult situations. Nobody sought attention, but they agreed to interviews in the hopes that their stories might help or encourage other people.

Tom and Kari Whitehead invited me to their home in 2012 to meet their daughter Emily, then 7, who was near death from leukemia while they were playing an experimental treatment that genetically altered some of her cells. She was the first child to have it. When we visited seven months after her treatment, she did somersaults and adorned the family’s Christmas tree with a naked Barbie doll. Emily is now 16 years old and the treatment she received was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017.

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Other stories were painfully instructive. One woman described her painful, aggressive cancer caused by a sexually transmitted virus, but had to omit her name because she believed her mother-in-law would call her a “slut” when she was diagnosed.

A young former Marine with a brain injury and severe facial damage from a bomb in Iraq said he had a girlfriend prior to his deployment and they were discussing marriage when he returned. “But I didn’t come back,” he said.

Moments of kindness and wisdom also stand out. A doctor who suggested that a little extra time for a cancer patient could mean being there for a wedding or graduation forever tempered my science writer’s cynicism about treatments that could only add months to a person’s life.

In the middle of the night, I accompanied a transplant team who, with the consent of the parents, were to harvest organs from a young woman who was brain dead from an overdose. Team members slipped into a waiting room, taking special care not to allow relatives to see the ice boxes that would carry the young woman’s organs, including her heart.

Looking for help with an article in January, I told Dr. James Bussel, a blood disorders expert at Weill Cornell Medicine, told of a woman who had developed a severe bleeding problem after receiving a Covid vaccination. He surprised me by asking for the family phone number so he could offer his help. Under the direction of Dr. Bussel, the woman’s doctors changed her treatment, a change of course that the patient believes saved her life. Since then, Dr. Bussel has provided similar assistance in about 30 to 40 other cases of this rare condition across the country.

When I asked why he was ready to get involved, he said he became a doctor to help people, adding, “I feel like I have this expertise and it would be stupid to waste it, if I could contribute and help someone. “

In a lesser way, I had similar aspirations. I’ve had an opportunity to do work that I believe is valuable and that I hoped could do something good. Reporting for The Times was a license to meet fascinating people and ask them endless questions. I owe my thanks to everyone who took the time to speak to me, and I hope I lived up to their stories.

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Greater than 600,000 folks have died from the virus within the U.S.

More than 600,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S.

A woman looks at the “Naming the Lost Memorials,” as US deaths from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are expected to exceed 600,000, in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, the United States, June 10, 2021 .

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The US hit another dire milestone in the pandemic on Monday, hitting more than 600,000 Covid deaths, while the nation is delivering at least one vaccine by July 4th, which is given to 70% of adult Americans.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, deaths in the US have been slowing for months, largely due to an aggressive campaign to vaccinate the elderly and medically vulnerable in the country who are most at risk of dying from Covid. About 76% of Americans 65 and older, who made up the majority of deaths from pandemics, were fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health workers perform CPR on a patient at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) unit at the United Memorial Medical Center as the United States approaches 300,000 COVID-19 deaths on December 12, 2020 in Houston, Texas, United States. Image from December 12, 2020 2020.

Callaghan O’Hare | Reuters

Covid deaths in the US, which peaked in January with a daily average of more than 3,000 deaths, fell to a daily average of about 360 by Sunday, according to a seven-day average based on data from Johns Hopkins University based. The number of deaths has gradually decreased as vaccination rates have increased.

Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid vaccines were approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration in December, followed by Johnson & Johnson in February.

Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, administered to nearly 300 million people, have shown greater than 90% effectiveness against the original “wild-type” covid strain. Studies have shown that the vaccines are still effective against some of the new variants that emerged last year, including the Delta variant first identified in India, but less so.

Johnson & Johnson has administered approximately 9 million doses of its single-use vaccine in the United States. The company’s vaccination was suspended by the FDA for 10 days in April after reports of rare blood clots surfaced in several patients.

The US has registered more Covid cases than any other country in the world – about 33.5 million cases, according to John Hopkins University. More than 176 million cases and more than 3.8 million deaths have been recorded worldwide.

As new varieties emerge that are more communicable and could potentially lead to more serious illnesses, federal health officials have been pushing young adults to get their vaccines too. Pfizer’s Covid vaccine received emergency youth approval last month.

President Joe Biden, his wife Jill Biden, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff attend a minute of silence and a candle-lighting ceremony to commemorate the grim milestone of 500,000 deaths in the U.S. from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the White House in Washington, USA, February 22, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The effects of the pandemic were deeply felt in the United States. The national unemployment rate rose to 14.8% in April 2020, the highest since data collection began in 1948, when states across the country put lockdowns to control the outbreak, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Black, Hispanic and young workers were disproportionately affected by the bans. Throughout the pandemic, black workers had a peak unemployment rate of 16.7%, while Hispanic workers had a peak unemployment rate of 18.5%. Among white workers, the number peaked at 14.1%. As of May 2021, unemployment rates for black and Hispanic workers are still higher than those for white workers.

In February 2020, before most of the lockdowns, the US unemployment rate was 3.5%. Unemployment has improved but is still stubbornly high compared to previous years and stood at 5.8% in May.

Currently, more than half of the U.S. population, 174.2 million people, have received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, and about 44% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 64% of adults in the US have received at least one dose of vaccine, which is closer to an optimistic goal of at least partially immunizing 70% of all adults in the country by July 4th.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the day the US exceeded 600,000 deaths in a bullet point at the beginning of the article. It was tuesday.

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French President Emmanuel Macron slapped in face, two individuals arrested

French President Emmanuel Macron slapped in face, two people arrested

French President Macron will take part in a video conference on the climate summit on April 22, 2021 at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Ian Langsdon | Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face and police arrested two men, a spokesman for the National Gendarmerie told NBC News on Tuesday.

A popular video clip shows a masked man shouting “Down with Macronia” in French before swinging his open palm in the president’s face.

The two suspects were arrested after the incident that occurred during Macron’s visit to a school in southeastern France, NBC reported.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex condemned political violence and aggression as undemocratic on Tuesday.

“I am calling for a renewal of the republic,” Castex tweeted in French.

The trip to the Tain Hermitage School, which specializes in catering, took place on the eve of the French government lifting restrictions on indoor dining and other measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Macron should meet with representatives from the restaurant industry, NBC reported.

The video of the incident shows Macron wearing a black mask and approaching a crowd on the other side of a partition. Macron appears to be patting the next person in the crowd, a man in a green T-shirt and white mask, on the forearm.

When Marcon seems to start crawling down the line of onlookers, the man slaps the president in the face, as the video shows. Shortly before the slap, the man shouts “Montjoie Saint Denis”, the battle cry of the former French monarchy, and “A Bas La Macronie”, which roughly translated means “Down with Macron’s kingdom”.

Bodyguards for Macron immediately swarmed the man and pushed the president away from him. According to the video, Macron returned to greet the crowd further down the line.

The suspects are on remand and the French authorities are investigating the case, NBC reported. One person was arrested for the slap himself, while the role of the other suspect is still unclear, according to NBC.

In a tweet earlier on Tuesday, Macron had used the visit to the school in the Drome region to highlight the latest steps in his government’s Covid reopening plan.

As of Wednesday, curfews will be extended to 11 p.m. and indoor dining in restaurants and bistros will be allowed again, NBC reported. The remaining restrictions will be lifted at the end of June, depending on the prevalence of the pandemic in France at that time.

“Tomorrow a new step will be taken,” read a translation of Macron’s tweet. “It is life that will revive in all of our territories! It is part of our culture, our art of living that we will rediscover.”