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‘Please get vaccinated now,’ Biden urges after FDA approves Pfizer Covid photographs

'Please get vaccinated now,' Biden urges after FDA approves Pfizer Covid shots

United States President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday, August 18, 2021.

Pete Marovich | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Joe Biden again urged more Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19 on Monday, saying the majority of deaths and hospitalizations in the United States from the virus are unvaccinated.

“Those who have been waiting for full approval should take their chance now,” Biden said during a press conference at the White House hours after the Food and Drug Administration completed the full Covid vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech for people aged 16 and over Had granted approval.

He said the US agency had evaluated “mountains” of clinical study data and determined “without question” that the Covid syringe was safe and highly effective.

“The overwhelming majority of people hospitalized with Covid-19, or almost all of those who have died of Covid-19, are not vaccinated, not vaccinated,” he told reporters. “If you are fully vaccinated – both vaccinations plus two weeks – your risk of developing serious Covid-19 is very, very small.”

“Please get vaccinated now,” added Biden.

According to the agency, FDA scientists evaluated “hundreds of thousands of pages” of vaccine data from 40,000 study participants before granting approval. The two-dose vaccine was found to be 91% effective in preventing Covid – slightly lower than the 95% effectiveness rate study data shown when the vaccine was approved late last year and before the Delta variant prevailed in the USA

So far, the mRNA vaccine, marketed as Comirnaty, has been on the US market under emergency approval granted by the FDA in December. Since then, more than 204 million Pfizer shots have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Biden’s latest plea comes because coronavirus cases are still safe nationwide, filled by the highly contagious Delta variant. The president said U.S. health officials are beginning to see signs that new cases may decline in some regions of the nation. Still, he said, cases are increasing overall, especially among the unvaccinated.

US officials believe vaccination is the best way to stave off rising cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 51% of the entire US population will be fully vaccinated against Covid as of Sunday.

The US approval is expected to spark a new wave of vaccine mandates from American companies and schools. Large companies have already told some or all of their employees that they need to get a full Covid vaccination this fall. Still, despite having legal authority to do so, health experts say some private companies and other institutions may be reluctant to request the shots before full approval.

Earlier in the day, New York City officials said they are now requiring all 148,000 public school teachers and employees to receive their Covid-19 vaccine shots this fall. They had previously said that employees could avoid the vaccines if they had regular weekly Covid tests.

During his speech, Biden urged other schools and companies to prescribe the vaccine.

“All over the world people want these vaccines here in America,” he said. “They’re free, convenient, and waiting for you. So today please go for yourself, for your loved ones, for your neighbors, for your country.”

– CNBC’s Rich Mendez and Bob Towey contributed to this report.

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Scott Gottlieb says vaccinated individuals cannot ‘throw warning to the wind’

U.S. may never reach 'true herd immunity,' says Dr. Scott Gottlieb

Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Friday urged fellow vaccinated Americans to be on guard about the Covid delta variant, telling CNBC its highly transmissible nature cannot be ignored even by people who have immunity protection.

“The original premise around the vaccines — that they reduce the risk of serious disease and hospitalization — is still intact,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on “Squawk Box.” “We still see in the data that the vast majority of people who are getting in trouble with Covid are people who are unvaccinated.”

However, Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer, said the risk to vaccinated people is not zero.

“People who are vaccinated in a setting of this epidemic surge, especially if they’re in places where there’s a high prevalence of infection, need to take appropriate precautions,” he said. “You can’t just throw caution to the wind. You can still become a vehicle for spread in your community.”

The seven-day average of daily new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is 141,060, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That’s up 14% from a week ago. Cases are increasing by more than 5% in 42 states plus Washington, D.C.

Gottlieb’s comments Friday came in response to a question about three vaccinated U.S. senators — Roger Wicker, Angus King, and John Hickenlooper — who announced a day earlier they had tested positive for Covid.

“I think there’s now a recognition that this delta is sufficiently contagious that it can pierce the protections offered by the vaccine, particularly if you were vaccinated a while ago and have declining immunity, as these senators probably did because they were vaccinated a long time ago,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019.

While some scientists disagree with U.S. health officials’ recent decision to authorize Covid booster shots beginning next month, Gottlieb said he believes the delta variant’s transmissibility supports the idea of delivering third doses to Americans. Noting his role on Pfizer’s board, Gottlieb said he’s studied the data that shows declining immunity protection over time.

“It happens to be the case that we vaccinated some of our most vulnerable older individuals in our society last December and January, particularly nursing homes,” Gottlieb said. “I think the prudent thing to do would be to get additional immunity in that population, especially considering the fact we’re dealing with a much more contagious variant.”

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

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Sens. Wicker, King check optimistic for Covid after being totally vaccinated

Sens. Wicker, King test positive for Covid after being fully vaccinated

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, left, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Tom Williams-Pool | Getty Images

Sens. Roger Wicker and Angus King, who are both vaccinated for the coronavirus, tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday after experiencing symptoms.

Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, and King, an independent from Maine, are the latest in a string of prominent politicians to announce positive coronavirus tests in recent weeks despite being fully vaccinated. Others include Republicans Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

“Senator Wicker is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, is in good health, and is being treated by his Tupelo-based physician,” Phillip Waller, Wicker’s communications director, said in a statement. The 70-year-old Wicker “is isolating, and everyone with whom Senator Wicker has come in close contact recently has been notified.”

The Senate is in recess this week, and many of the chamber’s members are in home states either preparing for 2022 elections or checking in with district offices.

“Despite all my efforts, when I began feeling mildly feverish yesterday, I took a test this morning at my doctor’s suggestion, and it came back positive,” King, 77, said in a statement. “While I am not feeling great, I’m definitely feeling much better than I would have without the vaccine.”

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) holds a chart as bipartisan members of the Senate and House gather to announce a framework for fresh coronavirus relief legislation at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Dec. 1, 2020.

Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

Wicker’s and King’s positive tests came as the Biden administration ramps up efforts to encourage Americans to seek booster shots starting next month amid a growing pool of data that shows vaccine protections fade over time.

Three of Washington’s top health experts on Wednesday provided further details on how the immune system’s protections wane over time.

It’s now “very clear” that immunity starts to fall after the initial two doses, and with the dominance of the delta variant, “we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” according to a statement signed by CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and other U.S. health leaders.

New Covid-19 cases are emerging at their highest rates since winter as the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the U.S. Health experts blame its rapid spread for the uptick in case counts and deaths as a growing number of so-called “breakthrough” cases show fully vaccinated people are still at risk.

More than 140,000 new cases and 822 deaths were reported in the U.S. on Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of new daily deaths has more than doubled since the start of August.

The situation in Florida and Texas is especially grim, with case counts in both states blowing past records and overwhelming hospital systems.

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Can the Vaccinated Develop Lengthy Covid After a Breakthrough An infection?

Can the Vaccinated Develop Long Covid After a Breakthrough Infection?

While some breakthrough cases in people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are inevitable, they are unlikely to result in hospitalization or death. But an important question about breakthrough infection remains unanswered: Can the vaccinated develop a so-called long covid?

Long Covid refers to a range of symptoms – such as severe fatigue, brain fog, headache, muscle aches, and trouble sleeping – that can last for weeks or months after the active infection has ended. The syndrome is little known, but studies suggest that between 10 and 30 percent of adults who contract the virus can have Covid for a long time, including those who had mild illness or no symptoms at all.

But the vast majority of the long-term data collected by Covid concerns the unvaccinated population. The risk of developing long-term Covid has not been studied in fully vaccinated people who become infected after vaccination.

While preliminary research suggests that it is indeed possible that a breakthrough case could lead to symptoms that could last weeks to months, there are still more questions than answers. What percentage of breakthrough cases result in persistent symptoms? How many of these people are recovering? Are the persistent symptoms after a breakthrough infection as severe as with the unvaccinated?

“I just don’t think there’s enough data,” said Dr. Zijian Chen, medical director of the Center for Post-Covid Care at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “It’s too early to say that. The number of people who get sick after vaccination is not that high right now, and there is no good tracking mechanism for these patients. “

A study of Israeli health workers recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers insight into the risk of long-term Covid infection after a breakthrough infection. Of 1,497 fully vaccinated health care workers, 39 – approximately 2.6 percent – developed breakthrough infections. (All workers were thought to be infected after contact with an unvaccinated person, and the study was conducted before the delta variant became dominant.)

While most breakthrough cases were mild or asymptomatic, seven out of 36 workers observed after six weeks (19 percent) still had persistent symptoms. These long Covid symptoms included a mixture of persistent loss of smell, persistent cough, fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, or muscle pain.

However, the study’s authors caution against drawing too many conclusions from the research. The sample size – only seven patients – is small. And the research is designed to look at antibody levels in those infected, said Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, Director of the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at Sheba Medical Center. It was not designed to study the risk of long-term Covid illness after a breakthrough infection.

“That was not the scope of this paper,” said Dr. Regev-Yochay. “I don’t think we have an answer to that.”

Still, the fact that one in five healthcare workers who had a breakthrough infection still had persistent symptoms after six weeks seems to be the first clue from a peer-reviewed study that long Covid is possible after a breakthrough infection.

Updated

Aug 16, 2021, 1:10 p.m. ET

“People said to me, ‘You are fully vaccinated. Why are you so careful? ‘”Said Dr. Robert M. Wachter, professor and chair of the medical school at the University of California at San Francisco. “I’m still in the camp that I don’t want to get Covid. I don’t want to get a breakthrough infection. “

Dr. Wachter said that despite the many limitations of the Israeli study, the data provides more evidence that those vaccinated should continue to take reasonable precautions to avoid the virus.

“I’ll take it at face value that one in five people continued to feel bad six weeks after a breakthrough,” said Dr. Guardian. “That’s enough to wear two masks when you go shopping in the supermarket, which isn’t that stressful anyway.”

Understand the state of vaccination and masking requirements in the United States

    • Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in public places indoors in areas with outbreaks, reversing the guidelines offered in May. See where the CDC guidelines would apply and where states have implemented their own mask guidelines. The battle over masks is controversial in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
    • Vaccination regulations. . . and B.Factories. Private companies are increasingly demanding coronavirus vaccines for employees with different approaches. Such mandates are legally permissible and have been confirmed in legal challenges.
    • College and Universities. More than 400 colleges and universities require a vaccination against Covid-19. Almost all of them are in states that voted for President Biden.
    • schools. On August 11, California announced that teachers and staff at both public and private schools would have to get vaccinated or have regular tests, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey published in August found that many American parents of school-age children are against mandatory vaccines for students but are more likely to support masking requirements for students, teachers and staff who are not vaccinated.
    • Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and large health systems require their employees to have a Covid-19 vaccine, due to rising case numbers due to the Delta variant and persistently low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their workforce.
    • new York. On August 3, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that workers and customers would be required to provide proof of vaccination when dining indoors, gyms, performances, and other indoor situations. City hospital staff must also be vaccinated or have weekly tests. Similar rules apply to employees in New York State.
    • At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would make coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for the country’s 1.3 million active soldiers “by mid-September at the latest. President Biden announced that all civil federal employees would need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo regular tests, social distancing, mask requirements and travel restrictions.

Making breakthrough infection research difficult is the fact that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only track post-vaccination infections that result in hospitalization or death. While the CDC continues to study breakthrough infections in several large cohorts, the lack of data on all breakthrough cases remains a source of frustration among scientists and patient organizations.

“It is very frustrating not to have data at this point in the pandemic to know what will happen to breakthrough cases,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine who conducts studies on long-term Covid. “When a mild breakthrough infection turns into a long Covid, we don’t have that number under control.”

Diana Berrent, founder of Survivor Corps, a Facebook group for people affected by Covid-19 with approximately 171,000 members, conducted an informal survey and found 24 people who said they had persistent symptoms after a breakthrough infection. It is not a scientific sample and the cases have not been validated, but the survey shows that more data is needed on breakthrough cases, Ms Berrent said.

“You can’t extrapolate it to the general population, but it sends a very strong signal that the CDC must mandate coverage of every breakthrough case,” Ms. Berrent said. “We can’t know what we’re not counting.”

However, some experts predict that the surge in new cases caused by the spread of the Delta variant will unfortunately lead to more groundbreaking cases in the coming months. Dr. Chen of Mount Sinai said it would take several months to enroll patients with long covid due to a breakthrough infection.

“We are waiting for these patients to show up at our door,” said Dr. Chen.

Despite the lack of data, one thing is clear: vaccination reduces the risk of getting infected and developing Covid, Athena Akrami, a neuroscientist at University College London, said the data from nearly 4,000 long-term Covid patients developed after long Covid collected and released after a battle with Covid-19 in March 2020.

“It’s simple math,” said Dr. Akrami. “If you reduce infections, the likelihood of long-term Covid illnesses automatically decreases.”

Categories
Health

Can the Vaccinated Develop Lengthy Covid After a Breakthrough An infection?

Can the Vaccinated Develop Long Covid After a Breakthrough Infection?

While some breakthrough cases in people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are inevitable, they are unlikely to result in hospitalization or death. But an important question about breakthrough infection remains unanswered: Can the vaccinated develop a so-called long covid?

Long Covid refers to a range of symptoms – such as severe fatigue, brain fog, headache, muscle aches, and trouble sleeping – that can last for weeks or months after the active infection has ended. The syndrome is little known, but studies suggest that between 10 and 30 percent of adults who contract the virus can have Covid for a long time, including those who had mild illness or no symptoms at all.

But the vast majority of the long-term data collected by Covid concerns the unvaccinated population. The risk of developing long-term Covid has not been studied in fully vaccinated people who become infected after vaccination.

While preliminary research suggests that it is indeed possible that a breakthrough case could lead to symptoms that could last weeks to months, there are still more questions than answers. What percentage of breakthrough cases result in persistent symptoms? How many of these people are recovering? Are the persistent symptoms after a breakthrough infection as severe as with the unvaccinated?

“I just don’t think there’s enough data,” said Dr. Zijian Chen, medical director of the Center for Post-Covid Care at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “It’s too early to say that. The number of people who get sick after vaccination is not that high right now, and there is no good tracking mechanism for these patients. “

A study of Israeli health workers recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers insight into the risk of long-term Covid infection after a breakthrough infection. Of 1,497 fully vaccinated health care workers, 39 – approximately 2.6 percent – developed breakthrough infections. (All workers were thought to be infected after contact with an unvaccinated person, and the study was conducted before the delta variant became dominant.)

While most breakthrough cases were mild or asymptomatic, seven out of 36 workers observed after six weeks (19 percent) still had persistent symptoms. These long Covid symptoms included a mixture of persistent loss of smell, persistent cough, fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, or muscle pain.

However, the study’s authors caution against drawing too many conclusions from the research. The sample size – only seven patients – is small. And the research is designed to look at antibody levels in those infected, said Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, Director of the Department of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at Sheba Medical Center. It was not designed to study the risk of long-term Covid illness after a breakthrough infection.

“That was not the scope of this paper,” said Dr. Regev-Yochay. “I don’t think we have an answer to that.”

Still, the fact that one in five healthcare workers who had a breakthrough infection still had persistent symptoms after six weeks seems to be the first clue from a peer-reviewed study that long Covid is possible after a breakthrough infection.

Updated

Aug 16, 2021, 5:01 p.m. ET

“People said to me, ‘You are fully vaccinated. Why are you so careful? ‘”Said Dr. Robert M. Wachter, Professor and Chair of the Medical School, University California San Francisco. “I’m still in the camp that I don’t want to get Covid. I don’t want to get a breakthrough infection. “

Dr. Wachter said that despite the many limitations of the Israeli study, the data provides more evidence that those vaccinated should continue to take reasonable precautions to avoid the virus.

“I’ll take it at face value that one in five people continued to feel bad six weeks after a breakthrough,” said Dr. Guardian. “That’s enough to wear two masks when you go shopping in the supermarket, which isn’t that stressful anyway.”

Understand the state of vaccination and masking requirements in the United States

    • Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in public places indoors in areas with outbreaks, reversing the guidelines offered in May. See where the CDC guidelines would apply and where states have implemented their own mask guidelines. The battle over masks is controversial in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
    • Vaccination regulations. . . and B.Factories. Private companies are increasingly demanding coronavirus vaccines for employees with different approaches. Such mandates are legally permissible and have been confirmed in legal challenges.
    • College and Universities. More than 400 colleges and universities require a vaccination against Covid-19. Almost all of them are in states that voted for President Biden.
    • schools. On August 11, California announced that teachers and staff at both public and private schools would have to get vaccinated or have regular tests, the first state in the nation to do so. A survey published in August found that many American parents of school-age children are against mandatory vaccines for students but are more likely to support masking requirements for students, teachers and staff who are not vaccinated.
    • Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and large health systems require their employees to have a Covid-19 vaccine, due to rising case numbers due to the Delta variant and persistently low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their workforce.
    • new York. On August 3, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that workers and customers would be required to provide proof of vaccination when dining indoors, gyms, performances, and other indoor situations. City hospital staff must also be vaccinated or have weekly tests. Similar rules apply to employees in New York State.
    • At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would make coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for the country’s 1.3 million active soldiers “by mid-September at the latest. President Biden announced that all civil federal employees would need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo regular tests, social distancing, mask requirements and travel restrictions.

Making breakthrough infection research difficult is the fact that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only track post-vaccination infections that result in hospitalization or death. While the CDC continues to study breakthrough infections in several large cohorts, the lack of data on all breakthrough cases remains a source of frustration among scientists and patient organizations.

“It is very frustrating not to have data at this point in the pandemic to know what will happen to breakthrough cases,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine who conducts studies on long-term Covid. “When a mild breakthrough infection turns into a long Covid, we don’t have that number under control.”

Diana Berrent, founder of Survivor Corps, a Facebook group for people affected by Covid-19 with approximately 171,000 members, conducted an informal survey and found 24 people who said they had persistent symptoms after a breakthrough infection. It is not a scientific sample and the cases have not been validated, but the survey shows that more data is needed on breakthrough cases, Ms Berrent said.

“You can’t extrapolate it to the general population, but it sends a very strong signal that the CDC must mandate coverage of every breakthrough case,” Ms. Berrent said. “We can’t know what we’re not counting.”

However, some experts predict that the surge in new cases caused by the spread of the Delta variant will unfortunately lead to more groundbreaking cases in the coming months. Dr. Chen of Mount Sinai said it would take several months to enroll patients with long covid due to a breakthrough infection.

“We are waiting for these patients to show up at our door,” said Dr. Chen.

Despite the lack of data, one thing is clear: vaccination reduces the risk of getting infected and developing Covid, Athena Akrami, a neuroscientist at University College London, said the data from nearly 4,000 long-term Covid patients developed after long Covid collected and released itself after a March 2020 battle with Covid-19

“It’s simple math,” said Dr. Akrami. “If you reduce infections, the likelihood of long-term Covid illnesses automatically decreases.”

Categories
Health

WHO official pleads with Caribbean islanders to ‘get up’ and get vaccinated

WHO official pleads with Caribbean islanders to ‘wake up’ and get vaccinated

People walk through Old San Juan on March 21, 2021 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

A senior World Health Organization official asked people in the Caribbean to get vaccinated on Wednesday, saying the islands had limited intensive care beds.

Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, WHO’s regional branch in Latin America, said the abundance of misinformation about vaccines in the island region is making people reluctant to get the vaccinations.

“I would like to address my fellow Caribbean people in particular, we have to be extremely careful,” said Etienne. “We have limited bed capacities on our small islands and limited capacities in the intensive care unit … our health systems will very quickly be overwhelmed.”

Health systems there could quickly become overwhelmed if more people weren’t vaccinated, she said, noting that misinformation had spread across the islands.

She said the decision not to get vaccinated was “foolish”, especially when hospital facilities are so limited.

“We play with our life. So my appeal to you is: get up, wake up from this slumber, wake up from this dream, because we know the vaccines are safe, ”said Etienne.

“I do not know the sources of the information that cause this level of vaccine reluctance. I can tell you that it has not been scientifically proven, and I encourage you to listen to the sources for truthful, scientifically based information to have.” Information and evidence, “said Etienne.

A relative of a Covid-19 patient queues to recharge oxygen tanks for loved ones at the regional hospital in Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon.

CESAR OF BANCEL | AFP | Getty Images

There were some rare side effects from the vaccines that usually occur within a few weeks of being vaccinated. Etienne said that side effects are being closely monitored by scientists “nationally, regionally and globally” and that immediate action will be taken if concerns arise. Every drug you take has side effects, “and you don’t question them there,” said Etienne.

“So please, please, please take your vaccines and please wear your mask properly and keep social distance,” said Etienne. “I know we Caribbean people like to be close and like to meet,” she said.

Etienne said that despite the cultural inclination to congregate, people should keep social distance, wash their hands, and observe “breath etiquette”.

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Why absolutely vaccinated folks can get Covid

Why fully vaccinated people can get Covid

Nurses watch a computer screen in Bogota, Colombia on February 18, 2021.

JUAN BARRETO | AFP | Getty Images

LONDON – People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are highly protected from serious infection, hospitalization and death from the virus. But coronavirus cases among the fully vaccinated – so-called “breakthrough” covid cases – are still seen in those who received two doses.

It does this for a number of reasons, experts note.

First off, none of the vaccines used in the US or Europe are 100% effective at preventing infections.

In addition, new Covid strains such as the highly contagious Delta variant – which is now widespread worldwide – have made the efficacy picture more difficult. There is also incomplete data on how long immunity to Covid lasts after vaccination.

The alarm was raised over groundbreaking Covid cases when preliminary data released in late July in Israel – which had one of the fastest vaccination programs in the world – showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was only 40.5% effective at preventing symptomatic illness was.

The analysis, conducted when the Delta variant became the dominant tribe in the country, nonetheless found that two doses of the shot offered strong protection from serious illness and hospitalization, the country’s health ministry reported.

The data also appeared to show declining effectiveness of the Pfizer BioNTech shot, with the vaccine being only 16% effective against symptomatic infections in those who received two doses of the shot in January. However, in people who had received two doses by April, the rate of effectiveness (against symptomatic infection) was 79%.

However, a study conducted in England from April to May found that after two doses, the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic diseases caused by the Delta variant.

However, comparing the results is difficult given the differences in the nature of vaccination programs in the two countries (for example, Israel has given the Pfizer vaccine to the entire adult population, while in the UK several vaccines with the Pfizer BioNTech shot mostly at younger people) as well Differences in study dates, Covid test regimes and age groups.

Like the Israeli data, the English data concluded that the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine was 96% effective against hospitalizations from the Delta variant after two doses. Similarly, after two doses, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was found to be 92% effective in preventing hospitalization. Initial data on the vaccine’s efficacy from clinical studies published last year by Pfizer and BioNTech showed that the vaccine was 95% effective.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick Medical School in the UK, told CNBC that cases of Covid in fully vaccinated people are a reminder that “no vaccine is 100% effective”.

“There will always be a proportion of people who are still susceptible to infection and disease,” he said on Monday.

“There are also two other factors that affect the effectiveness of the vaccine: (1) Waning immunity – we still don’t know how long the protective immunity induced by the vaccine will last. This is very likely a factor in older and more vulnerable people who vaccinated at the beginning of the vaccine rollout program, “he noted.

The second factor, he added, relates to “breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals due to the more contagious Delta variant,” which made the case more important for booster programs, he said. In the case of booster programs, the jury has not yet made a decision, in the USA and Great Britain a decision has yet to be made

Breakthrough cases by number

It’s difficult to know the full extent of the “breakthrough” Covid cases, but figures from NBC News have shown that at least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive for Covid and 1,400 of them have died. Still, the 125,682 “breakthrough” cases in 38 states found by NBC News represented less than 0.08% of the more than 164.2 million people (and will be) fully vaccinated since the beginning of the year, or about every 1,300.

That is, the number of cases and deaths among the vaccinated is very low compared to the number among the unvaccinated. Health authorities, especially in the US, are urging unvaccinated people to register for a Covid vaccination.

Andrew Freedman, an infectious disease reader at Cardiff Medical School, UK, told CNBC that “breakthrough cases” are expected.

“The vaccines are very good at protecting against serious infections, hospitalizations, and death, but they are less effective at providing complete protection against infection, and we know that many people who have been fully vaccinated are still having delta infections in most cases get mild symptoms. ” “He said on Monday to CNBC’s” Squawk Box Europe “.

“What we don’t know is whether there is an additional booster will actually increase protection and reduce infections with delta variants, “he noted.

It must be emphasized that studies show that fully vaccinated people are much less likely to contract Covid – or even contract the virus at all.

New research from the UK published last Friday showed that people who were double-vaccinated were three times less likely to test positive for the coronavirus than those who were not vaccinated.

Analysis of the PCR test results in the REACT-1 study – a large coronavirus surveillance program in the UK led by Imperial College London – also suggested that fully vaccinated people may also be less likely to pass the virus on to others than those who were not vaccinated, because they have an average lower viral load and therefore probably less virus shedding.

Professor Paul Elliott, director of the Imperial School of Public Health’s REACT program, said the results highlight both the benefits and the limitations of Covid vaccines.

“These results confirm our previous data, which show that both doses of a vaccine offer good protection against infection. But we also see that there is still a risk of infection as no vaccine is 100% effective and we know that some are double vaccinated. “People can still get the virus,” he said.

Steven Riley, professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial, said “breakthrough infections” need further investigation in fully vaccinated people, especially as parts of the world are grappling with the spread of the Delta variant.

“The Delta variant is known to be highly contagious, and as a result, we can see from our data and others that breakthrough infections occur in fully vaccinated people. We need to better understand how contagious fully vaccinated people become infected as this will help better predict the situation in the months to come, and our results will help build a broader picture of it. “

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Half of Individuals are actually absolutely vaccinated, White Home says

Half of Americans are now fully vaccinated, White House says

Half of Americans, including all ages, are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, a White House official said Friday, a major milestone as the nation battles a surge in new infections fueled by the Delta variant.

More than 821,000 doses were given from the previous day, including 565,000 people receiving their first syringe, White House Covid data director Cyrus Shahpar said in a tweet before the data was posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website were published. The seven-day average of new vaccinations is up 11% from last week and 44% over the past two weeks, he added.

While the milestone is exciting, the country still has a long way to go before the pandemic is over, said Dr. Paul Offit, who advises the Food and Drug Administration on Covid vaccines. The highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread rapidly, especially in regions of the country with the lowest vaccination rates, he said.

“They had over 100,000 cases and over 600 deaths yesterday, which tells us we’re not there yet,” Offit said.

The U.S. reports an average of about 98,500 daily infections, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows, which already surpassed the peak of cases seen last summer when the nation lacked a vaccine.

Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi – states with some of the lowest vaccination rates – accounted for roughly half of the new Covid cases and hospital stays in the past week, said Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s Covid Response Coordinator, said told reporters Thursday. In the past seven days, 1 in 3 new Covid cases occurred in Florida and Texas.

In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis opposes calls for further restrictions, the infection rate is nearing the state’s pandemic peak in late January, when an average of nearly 18,000 new cases were reported each day.

Florida reports an average of about 15,800 new cases daily for the past seven days, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, 51% more than a week ago. This is the second worst outbreak in the US by average daily new cases per capita, behind Louisiana.

The death toll there is also rising, with an average of 58 daily Covid deaths, 45% more than last week but below the record seven-day average of more than 180 daily deaths in late January.

The outbreak threatens to slow the country’s progress in ending the pandemic, especially as schools reopen and employers start bringing workers back to the office this fall, health experts say.

With the virus widespread in states like Florida, the nation “is likely to see even more worrying varieties emerge this fall and winter,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law.

“America is about to return to normal. This could be a major setback for our national Covid response, ”he said.

As cases rise, more companies are requiring their workers to get vaccinated, and federal health officials say they are urging states to incentivize their residents.

Some Americans are already seeing the effects of not vaccinating and are now getting the injections, US officials said Thursday.

In Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, the seven-day average of first-doses reported daily has more than doubled since early July, CDC data shows, as the outbreak worsened nationwide. In Arkansas, which has the third worst outbreak in the country, based on new cases per capita every day, vaccinations nearly tripled.

Zients said Thursday that the White House’s Covid Surge Response Teams are also working with 16 states with rising cases to meet their specific needs.

– CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed to this report.

Categories
World News

Biden administration has plans to require most international guests to be vaccinated.

Biden administration has plans to require most foreign visitors to be vaccinated.

The Biden administration is developing plans to require all foreign travelers to the United States to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with limited exceptions, according to an administration official with knowledge of the developing policy.

The plan, first reported by Reuters, will be part of a new system to be put in place after the current restrictions on travel into the country are lifted, but officials have yet to determine when that might be done.

President Biden has been under pressure for months to ease restrictions on people wishing to travel to the United States, particularly as other countries, including England, Scotland and Canada, relax their own measures.

But White House officials have said in recent days that there is no plan to lift current restrictions anytime soon, in light of the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

“Given where we are today,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters last week, “with the Delta variant, we will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point.”

That stance was reiterated on Wednesday evening by White House officials who said that there was no timetable yet for requiring foreign travelers to be inoculated.

“The interagency working groups are working to develop a plan for a consistent and safe international travel policy, in order to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel,” the administration official, who was not authorized to publicly detail the plan, wrote in an email. “This includes a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated.”

Travelers from Iran, China, Brazil, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, the Republic of Ireland and Europe’s Schengen area — spanning 29 countries, city-states and micro-states — are currently barred from entering the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, unless they are a U.S. citizen or they spend 14 days before arrival in a country that is not on that list.

The United States began restricting travel by foreigners in January 2020, when former President Donald Trump cut off some travel from China in the hope of preventing the spread of the virus. That effort largely failed.

But health officials pressed the Trump administration to expand travel bans to much of Europe during the first surge of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and more countries have been added to the ban as the original virus and several variants have spread rapidly from country to country.

This week, the Biden administration said that it would keep in place Title 42, a public health rule that allows the government to turn back people attempting to enter the United States from its southern border.

The decision, confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday, amounted to a shift by the administration, which had been working on plans to begin lifting the rule this summer, more than a year after it was imposed by the Trump administration.

Categories
Health

Return to workplace is determined by whether or not workforce is vaccinated, Dr. Celine Gounder says

Return to office depends on whether workforce is vaccinated, Dr. Celine Gounder says

Dr. Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist who advised the Biden government, highlighted the importance of a vaccinated workforce as employers consider returning to the office.

“If you are able to vaccinate your workforce, I think that is a very different calculation than if you are not,” Gounder said Monday evening in an interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” . “Vaccination is the way out of this pandemic.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday issued a vaccination mandate for the 68,000 transit workers who operate the city’s vast subway and bus system. Workers must either be vaccinated or have weekly tests starting on the day of work. He also suggested that private businesses like bars and restaurants require proof of vaccination against Covid-19 as a prerequisite for approval. The announcement comes less than a week after the governor issued the same requirement for all civil servants.

Host Shepard Smith also asked Gounder about the rise in delta variant cases in children and whether or not they affected differently from other variants. The NYU epidemiologist stated that the Delta variant is different and therefore affects children more.

“The virus concentration in infected people is 1,000 times higher in the nose and throat than in the early strains of the virus,” said Gounder. “So if you imagine that there are so many more viruses in the body, even if a child might not have had a serious infection at the beginning of the pandemic, now with so many more viruses we are seeing children getting sick.”