Tag: Vaccination

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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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Coronary heart Issues After Vaccination Are Very Uncommon, Federal Researchers Say

Heart Problems After Vaccination Are Very Rare, Federal Researchers Say

The coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna could have caused heart problems in more than 1,200 Americans, including about 500 who were under 30, according to data reported Wednesday by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Still, the benefits of vaccination far outweighed the risks, and CDC advisors strongly recommended vaccination for all Americans 12 and older.

The reported heart problems are myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle; and pericarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart. The risk is higher after the second dose of an mRNA vaccine than after the first, the researchers reported and much higher in men than in women.

Overall, however, the side effect is very rare – only 12.6 cases per million second doses given. The researchers estimated that out of a million second doses given to boys ages 12-17, the vaccines could cause a maximum of 70 cases of myocarditis, but would prevent 5,700 infections, 2,215 hospitalizations, and two deaths.

Agency researchers presented the data to members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations on vaccine use in the United States. (The scientists grouped pericarditis with myocarditis for reporting purposes.)

Most of the cases were mild, with symptoms like fatigue, chest pain, and irregular heartbeat that cleared up quickly, the researchers said. Of the 484 cases reported in Americans under the age of 30, the CDC has definitely linked 323 cases to vaccination. The rest are still being investigated.

“These events are really very rare, extremely rare,” said Dr. Brian Feingold, an expert on pediatric heart inflammation at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. “That has to be seen in the context of illness and morbidity and mortality in connection with Covid.”

Separately, more than a dozen state and professional medical organizations said in a joint statement Wednesday that myocarditis “is an extremely rare side effect and affects an extremely small number of people after vaccination.”

Federal researchers also presented early safety data on Wednesday on the six million vaccine doses given to children ages 12 to 15. The side effects – usually fatigue and pain at the injection site – were similar to those seen in young people aged 16-25.

“So far, the Covid-19 vaccines approved in the USA have shown a high level of safety,” said Dr. Matthew F. Daley, Principal Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Colorado and a member of the Advisory Committee.

The CDC advisors met when the Biden administration publicly admitted that it expects to miss its target of at least partially vaccinating 70 percent of Americans by July 4, will be immunized.

About two in 100,000 people aged 15 to 18 – about two-thirds of them male – are hospitalized with myocarditis each year, according to data presented at the meeting. Patients with the most severe cases may need mechanical assistance, such as a ventilator or a heart transplant.

Even people with mild symptoms may have to abstain from exercise for about six months after recovery. It is unclear what typically causes the condition or why it is more common in young men than women.

Updated

June 23, 2021 at 4:46 p.m. ET

The first cases of coronavirus vaccine-related myocarditis were reported in Israel, mostly in young men ages 16-19. Israel recorded 148 cases, 95 percent of them mild, from December to May.

In the United States, too, myocarditis was more common in men and boys: up to 80 percent of the cases diagnosed after the second dose were in men. There was also a marked difference in age, with the side effect becoming more common in people in their late teens and early 20s.

As of June 21, about 318 million doses of coronavirus vaccine had been administered in the United States and 150 million people are considered fully protected. Most symptoms of myocarditis appeared within about four days of the first or second dose.

“We have clear evidence here that vaccinated cases started within the first week,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, a vaccine expert at the CDC, who presented the new data. There is also a dose effect, he said, adding, “The rates are higher with both vaccines after the second dose.”

The vast majority of patients with the side effect made a full recovery, noted Dr. James de Lemos, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, who reported one of the first cases in January.

Covid-19 itself can cause heart problems in young people. A large study of college athletes showed that 2.3 percent of those who recovered from Covid-19 had heart abnormalities associated with myocarditis.

“Even in young men, myocarditis will be far more common if you get Covid than if you get a vaccine,” said Dr. de Lemos.

More than 4,000 children infected with the coronavirus developed a multisystem inflammatory syndrome that includes cardiac symptoms. Some children have also died while none died from the vaccination, noted Dr. Fine gold. “You can say no to the vaccine, but you take different risks.”

The CDC recommends vaccination for all Americans over the age of 12. But on Wednesday officials suggested that anyone who develops myocarditis after the first dose should postpone a second dose until they discuss the risks with a doctor.

The CDC’s recommendations may influence decisions about whether to vaccinate children under 12 years of age when vaccines become available for that age group. Some experts have questioned whether the benefits to children outweigh the potential risks, as the chances of developing serious illness from the virus in young children are small.

Still, 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 in the last three flu seasons.

The total number of infections has fallen sharply since January, but as more adults have been vaccinated, the proportion of children in the total has increased. About a third of the new infections reported in May were in Americans ages 12 to 29, and there have been 316 deaths in that age group since April.

Vaccination becomes an even more pressing priority given more contagious variants of the coronavirus now circulating in the United States, said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccination Safety Committee, in an interview.

“We’re still a long way from where we need to be” in terms of the percentage of Americans who should be vaccinated, said Dr. Offit, who is also a pediatrician at the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital. “And you will go into winter when you have a generally underinoculated population.”

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Health

With Mass Vaccination Websites Winding Down, It’s All Concerning the ‘Floor Sport’

With Mass Vaccination Sites Winding Down, It’s All About the ‘Ground Game’

NEWARK — There were only six tiny vials of coronavirus vaccine in the refrigerator, one Air Force nurse on duty and a trickle of patients on Saturday morning at a federally run mass vaccination site here. A day before its doors shut for good, this once-frenetic operation was oddly quiet.

The post-vaccination waiting room, with 165 socially distanced chairs, was mostly empty. The nurse, Maj. Margaret Dodd, who ordinarily cares for premature babies at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, had already booked her flight home. So had the pharmacist, Heather Struempf, who was headed back to nursing school in Wyoming.

Across the country, one by one, mass vaccination sites are shutting down. The White House acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that it would not reach President Biden’s goal of getting 70 percent of American adults at least partly vaccinated by July 4. The setback stems from hesitancy in certain groups, slow acceptance by young adults and a swirl of other complex factors.

The Newark site, which closed on Sunday, was the last of 39 federally operated mass vaccination centers that administered millions of shots over five months in 27 states — a major turning point in the effort Mr. Biden described last week as “one of the biggest and most complicated logistical challenges in American history.” Many state-run sites are also closed or soon will be.

The nation’s shift away from high-volume vaccination centers is an acknowledgment of the harder road ahead, as health officials pivot to the “ground game”: a highly targeted push, akin to a get-out-the-vote effort, to persuade the reluctant to get their shots.

Mr. Biden will travel to Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday to spotlight this time-consuming work. It will not be easy — as Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s coronavirus response coordinator, discovered last weekend, when he went door-knocking in Anacostia, a majority-Black neighborhood in Washington, with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser.

In an interview on Tuesday, Dr. Fauci said he and the mayor spent 90 minutes talking to people on their front porches. But even with a celebrity doctor at the door and the prospect of giveaways at the vaccination center in a high school a few blocks away, many remained hesitant. Dr. Fauci said he persuaded six to 10 people to get their shots, though he did encounter some flat refusals.

“We would say, ‘OK, come on, listen: Get out, walk down the street, a couple of blocks away. We have incentives, a $51 gift certificate, you can put yourself in a raffle, you could win a year’s supplies of groceries, you could win a Jeep,’” Dr. Fauci said. “And several of them said, ‘OK, I’m on my way and I’ll go.’”

But in Newark, where more than three-quarters of the population is Black or Latino, the numbers tell the story. In Essex County, N.J., which includes Newark, 70.2 percent of adults have been vaccinated. But Essex also includes wealthy suburbs; in Newark, the figure is 56 percent, Judith M. Persichilli, the state’s health commissioner, said in an interview.

The Newark vaccination site, in a converted athletic facility at the New Jersey Institute of Technology that is ordinarily home to the school’s tennis teams, was set up and run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in conjunction with the Defense Department and other federal agencies. It opened on March 31; when it was operating at full tilt, its medical staff administered as many as 6,700 shots a day.

By Saturday, the daily tally was down to about 300. The long, corridorlike tents that had once shielded lines of patients from cold weather were empty. Of 18 registration desks, only four were in use, and most of the vaccination cubicles were unoccupied.

Most of the patients, including some teenagers brought by their parents, were there for their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Many — like Abdullah Heath, 19, who took a year off after high school and will attend Rutgers University in the fall — said they were hesitant. But Rutgers requires vaccination, so Mr. Heath had little choice.

Updated 

June 23, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ET

“I wanted to wait to see how other people were when they took the shot,” he said.

Alfredo Sahar, 36, a real estate agent originally from Argentina, said he had received his first dose on the spur of the moment, without an appointment, when he tagged along with his wife to the Newark site. The couple showed up for their second doses on Saturday with a young friend, Federico Cuadrado, 19, who was visiting from Argentina and received his first shot.

“Relax this arm,” Major Dodd said as Mr. Cuadrado rolled up his sleeve. But she will not be administering his second shot; with the site now closed, he will have to go elsewhere.

At the height of its vaccination drive, New Jersey had seven mass sites: six run by the state, plus the FEMA site in Newark. Two of the state sites have closed, another will shut down this week, and the last three are expected to do so in mid-July, said Ms. Persichilli, a nurse and former hospital official. She called the FEMA site, which vaccinated 221,130 people in all, “invaluable.”

Mr. Biden has said repeatedly that equity — making sure people of all races and incomes have the same access to care and vaccines — is crucial to his coronavirus response. FEMA determined the locations for its mass vaccination sites using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “social vulnerability index” to identify communities most in need, Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, said in an interview.

It was a learning experience for the agency, she said, adding that 58 percent of the roughly six million shots administered at the mass vaccination sites were given to people of color.

“We didn’t have a playbook for this type of an operation,” Ms. Criswell said. (The agency now has one that is 44 pages long.)

In New Jersey, traffic at the mass vaccination sites started tapering off about six weeks ago, Ms. Persichilli said. At about that time, the state moved to a “hub and spoke” strategy, creating pop-up sites in churches, barbershops and storefronts surrounding existing vaccination centers that could store and supply the vaccines.

The state also has 2,000 canvassers — 1,200 paid, partly with federal taxpayer dollars, and 800 volunteers — who have knocked on 134,000 doors in areas with low vaccination rates to direct people to nearby clinics. And the Health Department is planning vaccine clinics at a rock music festival, a balloon festival and a rodeo in Atlantic City.

Overall, New Jersey is way ahead of most states: 78 percent of adults have had at least one dose of a vaccine. In four states — Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Wyoming — the figure is lower than 50 percent.

“We’re running a marathon, and we’re in the last couple of miles, and we’re exhausted, and they’re going to be the most difficult ones,” Ms. Persichilli said. “But they are also going to be the most satisfying ones.”

Public health officials know that the last mile of any vaccination campaign is indeed the hardest. The eradication of smallpox, considered the greatest public health triumph of the 20th century, came after a highly targeted global campaign that lasted two decades. Polio has still not been eradicated in some countries, Dr. Fauci said, because of vaccine hesitancy, including among women who express unfounded fears of infertility.

“We should have eradicated polio a long time ago,” he said.

The federal effort has been enormous, involving more than 9,000 people from across the government, as well as 30,000 National Guard members supporting Covid-19 vaccination in 58 states and territories, according to Sonya Bernstein, a senior policy adviser for the White House.

With the large vaccination sites winding down, FEMA is also pivoting. The agency still supports more than 2,200 community vaccination centers and mobile vaccination units. Now FEMA is rolling out a new pilot program to offer shots at or near recovery centers that it sets up after hurricanes and other natural disasters. The first of these opened this week in St. Charles Parish, La., which has a large minority population and was devastated by Hurricane Laura last summer. Only 51 percent of the adult population in St. Charles Parish has had at least one shot, according to data from the C.D.C.

In Newark, the mood on Saturday was bittersweet. People like Major Dodd and Ms. Struempf, thrown together in a crisis, were exchanging phone numbers with newfound friends and colleagues as they planned to go their separate ways. After living in hotels for more than two months, they were both eager to depart and wistful about the prospect.

Michael Moriarty, the FEMA official in charge of vaccination operations in the New York-New Jersey region, surveyed the scene: the vacant cubicles and chairs, the boxes of unused latex gloves, the brown paper taped to the floor to cover the tennis courts. It would not take long to undo, he said, adding, “They’ll be playing tennis here at the end of the week.”

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The White Home publicly acknowledges the U.S. is prone to miss Biden’s July Four vaccination objective.

The White House publicly acknowledges the U.S. is likely to miss Biden’s July 4 vaccination goal.

The White House on Tuesday publicly acknowledged that President Biden does not expect to meet his goal of having 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated by July 4 and will reach that milestone only for those aged 27 and older.

It would be the first time that Mr. Biden has failed to meet a vaccination goal he has set. If the rate of adult vaccinations continues on the current seven-day average, the country will come in just shy of Mr. Biden’s target, with about 67 percent of adults partly vaccinated by July 4, according to a New York Times analysis.

White House officials have argued that falling short by a few percentage points is not significant, given all the progress the nation has made against Covid-19. “We have built an unparalleled, first of its kind nationwide vaccination program,” Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said at a new briefing. “This is a remarkable achievement.”

In announcing the goal on May 4, Mr. Biden made a personal plea to the unvaccinated, saying getting a shot was a “life and death” choice. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 150 million Americans have been fully vaccinated and 177 million have received at least one dose.

But health experts warn that the falloff in the vaccination rate could mean renewed coronavirus outbreaks this winter when cold weather drives people indoors, with high daily death rates in areas where comparatively few people have protected themselves with shots.

“I give credit to the Biden administration for putting in place a mass vaccination program for adults that did not exist,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “But now we’ve hit a wall.”

Unless tens of millions more Americans get vaccinated in the next few months, he said, “I think, come winter, we are going to again see a surge. And that surge is going to occur exactly where you would expect it to occur — in areas that are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated.”

Young adults aged 18 to 26 have so far proven particularly hard to persuade. “The reality is many younger Americans that felt like Covid-19 is not something that impacts them, and they’ve been less eager to get the shot,” Mr. Zients said.

He said it would take “a few extra weeks” to reach more of that group to achieve the goal of 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated.

Lazaro Gamio contributed reporting.

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With Vaccination Aim in Doubt, Biden Warns of Variant’s Risk

With Vaccination Goal in Doubt, Biden Warns of Variant’s Threat

WASHINGTON – With the United States failing to meet its self-imposed deadline of 70 percent of adults being partially vaccinated against the coronavirus by July 4th, President Biden stepped up efforts to inject Americans on Friday, warning that those who refuse to risk becoming infected with a highly contagious and potentially fatal variant.

In an afternoon appearance at the White House, Biden avoided mentioning the 70 percent target he set in early May and instead trumpeted about another milestone: 300 million shots in his first 150 days in office. But even as he was celebrating the success of the vaccination campaign, he sounded gloomy about the worrying Delta variant, which is spreading in states with low vaccination rates.

“The best way to protect yourself against these variants is to get vaccinated,” said the president.

His remarks came as his government made one final push over the next two weeks to meet the July 4th goal. Vice President Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra, Minister of Health and Human Resources, were both out on Friday to inspire enthusiasm for the vaccine. Ms. Harris went to Atlanta, where she found that less than half of the people in Fulton County, where the city is located, had at least one chance, and Mr. Becerra went to Colorado.

Mr Biden took office in January warning of a “dark winter” as deaths were near the peak and vaccinations barely underway, and he has generally tried to portray the virus as a withdrawal while he was out for six months approaching in office.

A leaflet distributed by the White House ahead of Friday’s statements found that in 15 states and the District of Columbia, 70 percent or more of adults had received at least one injection. “The results are clear: America is starting to look like America again and is entering a summer of joy and freedom,” the document reads.

But vaccination and infection rates are inconsistent across the country.

And while those who have taken a “wait and see” stance are becoming more open to vaccination, 20 percent of American adults still say they definitely won’t get the vaccine or will only get vaccinated when needed, according to a poll published last month by Kaiser Family Foundation.

State health officials are trying to convince the hesitation. In West Virginia, where just over a third of the population is fully vaccinated, Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus tsar, said that young people are particularly difficult to attract.

“Back in the pandemic there was a narrative that really haunts us, namely that young people are really protected,” he said. “There is a false belief that many young people who are otherwise healthy still have relatively free travel and that if they get infected they are fine.”

In Louisiana, where only 34 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and only 37 percent are receiving at least a single dose, state officials on Thursday announced a new lottery for anyone in the state who received a dose, with a grand prize of $ 1 million.

And in Wyoming, with vaccination rates almost identical to Louisiana, Kim Deti, a health department spokeswoman, said “politicization is a problem” as officials try to increase the number of people vaccinated. But she said there were other reasons for the rate slowdown in her state as well.

“We have had relatively low Covid 19 illnesses nationwide for some time, which has an impact on the perception of threats,” Ms. Deti wrote in an email. “Since schools are open all school year and most companies have almost everything open for the past year, some people may find it more difficult to identify the personal need for a vaccination.”

Speaking to students at a vaccination mobilization event at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia on Friday, Ms. Harris warned of the dangers of misinformation and formulated the decision to get vaccinated to regain power from the virus.

Updated

June 20, 2021, 4:23 p.m. ET

“Let’s arm ourselves with the truth,” she said. “When people say that it looks like this vaccine was made overnight – no, it didn’t. It is the result of many years of research. “

When setting the July 4th goal in early May, Mr Biden said the meeting would show that the United States has taken “a serious step towards a return to normal,” and for many people it already seems to be to be. This week California and New York lifted virtually all of their pandemic restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.

But the time frame is tight. Analysis by the New York Times shows that if the adult vaccination rate continues at the seven-day average, as 67.6 percent of American adults have at least one vaccination, the country will just miss Mr. Biden’s 70 percent target received by July 4th.

According to the CDC, 65 percent of adults had received at least one injection by Friday. But the number of Americans getting their first injection has steadily declined to about 200,000 a day since Mr. Biden announced that June would be a “month of action” to achieve his goal.

“I don’t see any intervention that could really bring back an exponential increase in demand to get the kind of numbers we probably need to get to 70 percent,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the Association of State’s chief medical officer and area health officer.

Experts say the difference between 67 percent and 70 percent is insignificant from a disease control perspective. But from a political point of view, it would be the first time that Mr Biden has set a pandemic-related goal that he has not achieved. He has always set and exceeded relatively modest goals, including his pledge to have 100 million shots in the arms of Americans by his 100th day in office.

“The 70 percent target is not a fixed number; not getting it right doesn’t mean the sky is falling, ”said Jen Kates, director of global health and HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. “On the other hand, it has symbolic meaning. Much effort has been put into reaching this point and not hitting it, a reminder of how difficult the remaining distance will be. “

In the White House, Mr Biden’s aides are now saying they are less concerned with meeting the 70 percent target than they are in making the nation feel the sense of normalcy the president promised. Just a few months ago he was talking about small family barbecues on July 4th, and now large gatherings are possible.

To prove it, the White House is also planning a grand celebration of “independence from the virus” on July 4th with fireworks on the National Mall here in Washington and a gathering of more than 1,000 military personnel and key workers who will join Mr. Biden . Ms. Harris and her spouses watch the festivities from the South Lawn.

When the 70 percent target was announced on May 4th, Mr Biden made a personal appeal to all those who had not been vaccinated: “That is your decision. It’s about life and death.”

A month later, in early June, he attempted to win the nation over by proclaiming a “Month of Action” and suggesting incentives, including offering free childcare for parents and carers while they receive their shots. He also promised a national advertising campaign that resembled an election campaign.

Since then, White House officials say, nonprofit and community groups across the country have held testing and vaccination events, particularly in black churches. Planned Parenthood has invested in paid phone banking, and the Service Employees International Union has partnered with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to run vaccination clinics and promotions.

When asked about the July 4th deadline this week, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator, specifically avoided saying the nation would break the 70 percent threshold by that date would achieve.

“We have made tremendous progress,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people continue to get their first shots every day, and we’re going to get 70 percent, and we’re going to go beyond 70 percent in the summer months.”

Annie Karni contributed the coverage from Washington and Amy Schoenfeld Walker from Trumbull, Conn.

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Nations weigh mandates and incentives to drive up vaccination charges.

Nations weigh mandates and incentives to drive up vaccination rates.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed economic and social upheaval around the world, but Covid-19 vaccines have made the gap even wider: while some poor countries are asking for doses to save their populations, some rich countries are being inundated by gunfire and are missing to customers.

For example, a handful of US states have tried to incentivize more people to be vaccinated. But in Moscow, as Covid hospital admissions spiked this week, city government took a tougher line, ordering vaccinations for many workers in public jobs.

Some other governments have also tried to require vaccines. A province in Pakistan has announced that it will cut salaries for officials who have not been vaccinated starting next month. And the UK, which is seeing an increase attributable to the spread of the Delta variant of the virus, is considering making syringes mandatory for all healthcare workers.

The Moscow Times quoted the city’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, on Wednesday as saying, “When you go out and come into contact with other people, you are an accomplice in the epidemiological process – a chain in the link that is spreading this dangerous virus . “The mandate he announced focuses on education, entertainment, healthcare and hospitality and will continue until at least 60 percent of employees are vaccinated, the newspaper reported.

In the UK, officials said vaccinating health workers would help stop the virus from spreading in hospitals. Nadhim Zahawi, the UK’s vaccines minister, said there was a precedent for such a requirement. “Of course, surgeons are vaccinated against hepatitis B so we definitely think about it,” he told Sky News last month.

Many universities in the United States now require at least some students and employees to be vaccinated. Earlier this week, the University of California’s system announced that it would make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for all faculties, staff and students, including the university’s health care system, this fall.

Federal officials have repeatedly made it clear that most companies with at least 15 employees have the right to require workers to be vaccinated.

But the need for vaccines continues to meet resistance from some.

In 15 American states, not a single college had announced any type of vaccine requirement until last month. Days ago, 178 Houston Methodist Hospital employees who refused to receive a coronavirus injection were suspended. And on Saturday, protesters are expected at the New York State Bar Association offices in Albany, where officials will discuss a report recommending prescribing a coronavirus vaccine for all New Yorkers unless doctors exempt them.

But for the undecided, persuaded, incentives to get the vaccine remain common: there are lotteries in California, college scholarships in New York state, and free drinks in New Jersey.

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Health

Experiences of Extreme Covid or Demise After Vaccination Are Uncommon, however Not Surprising

Reports of Severe Covid or Death After Vaccination Are Rare, but Not Unexpected

In the past few months, a constant headline hit has highlighted the amazing effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines in the field, particularly mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Studies have shown that the vaccines are more than 90 percent effective in preventing the worst outcomes, including hospitalization and death.

But alongside this good news, there have been rare reports of severe Covid in fully vaccinated people.

For example, on June 3, Napa County announced that a fully vaccinated woman who was more than a month after her second Moderna vaccination had died after being hospitalized with Covid. The over 65-year-old woman with previous illnesses had tested positive for the alpha variant identified for the first time in Great Britain.

While these cases are tragic, they are unusual – and not unexpected.

“I am very sad that she had such a serious illness that she actually died,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and vaccines expert at Vanderbilt University. But, he noted, “we expected the occasional breakthrough infection to occur.”

Such cases shouldn’t prevent people from getting vaccinated, scientists said. “There is no vaccine in history that has ever been 100 percent effective,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This is your best chance to avoid serious, critical illness. But as with everything in medicine, it is not perfect. “

Severe Covid is rare in fully vaccinated people. In a paper released last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had received reports of 10,262 breakthrough infections as of April 30. That’s only a tiny fraction of the 101 million Americans who have been vaccinated to that date, though the agency noted that these are likely to be a “significant minority” of breakthrough infections.

Of these groundbreaking cases, 10 percent of patients were hospitalized and 2 percent died – and in some of those cases, patients were hospitalized or died of something unrelated to Covid-19. The average age of the deceased was 82 years.

Updated

June 11, 2021, 2:36 p.m. ET

Older adults, who are at higher risk of Covid complications, are also more likely to develop breakthrough infections as they are known to build weaker immune responses to vaccines. People with compromised immune systems or other chronic health conditions may also be at increased risk.

Some of the variants – especially Beta, which was first identified in South Africa – may be more likely to evade vaccine-induced protection. But beta isn’t common in the United States right now, noted Dr. Conductor.

The alpha variant that infected the Napa County woman is highly contagious, but vaccines offer good protection against it – as well as against the original strain of the virus.

“Breakthrough infection stories, while exceptionally rare, can be confusing to the public,” said Dr. Napa County’s health officer Karen Relucio in an email. “We know that with stories like this one could be tempted to question the effectiveness of vaccines.”

But the vaccines are highly effective, she stressed. In Napa County, the breakthrough infection rate in fully vaccinated people is just 0.04 percent, she said.

Nationwide, the rate is even lower. According to the California Department of Health, there were 5,723 breakthrough cases in more than 17.5 million fully vaccinated residents as of June 2, a rate of 0.032 percent. Of these cases, only 7 percent are known to have been hospitalized and 0.8 percent to have died. In these cases, too, it is unclear whether Covid was the main cause of death.

Breakthrough infections are likely to decline as more people are vaccinated and community transmission rates decline. “The virus will find fewer and fewer people to become infected – it will be more difficult for the virus to get through the population,” said Dr. Conductor. “These are great vaccines. So that the vaccines work optimally – individually and collectively – as many people as possible must be vaccinated. “

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Anheuser-Busch to present away free beer when America hits its vaccination objective.

Anheuser-Busch to give away free beer when America hits its vaccination goal.

Brewing giant Anheuser-Busch said on Wednesday that he would offer Americans another incentive to get vaccinated: free beer.

The company said in a statement that it will buy “America’s next round” of beer, seltzer or soft drink once the country meets President Biden’s goal of giving 70 percent of the adult population at least one coronavirus vaccination by July 4 receive. 63 percent of American adults have received at least one dose.

“We are proud to perform in times of need as well as at times of great celebrations, and last year was no different,” said Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch. “We look to brighter days with renewed optimism and are proud to work with the White House to make a meaningful impact on our country, our communities and our consumers.”

Reaching your vaccination goal by Independence Day may not be easy. The pace of vaccination in the US has slowed, but the greatest advances in recent weeks have been in vaccinating 12-15 year olds who are not eligible for the free beer. However, progress has been made to reach some groups, including Latinos and those without college degrees, with the highest rates of vaccination reluctance, according to the Kaiser Foundation.

The offer from Anheuser-Busch comes because other companies and federal states have introduced their own promotional gifts to promote vaccinations. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said Tuesday that the state would be giving away guns and other prizes, including trucks and lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, to vaccinated residents.

Other states, including California, New Mexico and Ohio, have started lottery drawings to give out cash prizes to those vaccinated.

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Public well being prof on Taiwan outbreak, vaccination progress

Public health prof on Taiwan outbreak, vaccination progress

The recent Covid-19 outbreak in Taiwan is a lesson that a containment strategy that targets zero local transmission may not be sustainable in the long term, a public health professor said Tuesday.

Before the recent explosion in cases, Taiwan had reported very few Covid infections for over a year – and most were imported. This allowed daily activities to continue largely normally and the island received international praise for its containment measures.

But it made Taiwan “completely vulnerable” to new variants of the coronavirus that are more communicable and potentially more serious, said Benjamin Cowling, professor and head of the epidemiology and biostatistics department at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health.

“Probably less than 1% of their population have a natural infection, and therefore natural immunity, and … less than 1% have been vaccinated – so they are almost entirely susceptible,” Cowling told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia.

Taiwan, with a population of around 24 million, has reported more than 8,500 confirmed Covid cases and 124 deaths as of Monday, official data showed.

It is a warning to other parts of Asia that this strategy of elimination is also trying, it is not necessarily sustainable in the long run.

Benjamin Cowling

Hong Kong University School of Public Health

Cowling said Taiwan will have a hard time controlling the recent outbreak. Authorities may need tougher social distancing measures as testing capacity hasn’t been ramped up enough and the island’s vaccination progress has been slow, he added.

“It is a warning to other parts of Asia that are also trying this elimination strategy, it is not necessarily sustainable in the long term,” said the professor.

Asian economies have generally shown lower tolerance to Covid infection compared to their competitors in other regions.

Governments in Hong Kong and Singapore, for example, have been quick to tighten measures to curb small upward movements in cases. Meanwhile, countries like the US and UK are still reporting thousands of cases every day, but faster vaccination has allowed countries to lift restrictions.

Like many of its regional competitors in Asia, Taiwan faced challenges in securing Covid vaccines, Cowling said. Part of Taiwan’s hurdle is politics, the professor said.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a Facebook post last week that the government had bought vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Moderna. She accused China Blocking of a deal with Germany’s BioNTech, which has developed a vaccine together with US pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Beijing rejects Tsai’s allegations.

China claims Taiwan as a runaway province that will one day have to be reunited with the mainland – if necessary by force. The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, which is a democratic, self-governing island.

“There are a lot of policies out there when it comes to getting vaccines into Taiwan,” Cowling said. “I think they will do it, but right now they won’t be able to vaccinate enough people to stop the current outbreak. They have to use social distancing and bans to deal with it.”

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Prime Minister on assessments, tracing and vaccination

Prime Minister on tests, tracing and vaccination

Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister.

Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images

SINGAPORE — Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday that the country’s Covid restrictions may be relaxed after June 13 if the situation improves.

“Barring another super-spreader or big cluster, we should be on track to bring this outbreak under control,” he said in a televised address.

“If our situation continues to improve, and the number of community cases falls further, we should be able to relax the restrictions after 13 June,” he said.

The Southeast Asian nation saw the number of local coronavirus infections climb higher in April, and imposed tighter measures twice in May, to stem the spread of the virus.

Starting on May 8, Singapore lengthened quarantines for travelers arriving from overseas, closed indoor gyms and limited social gatherings to groups of five.

It later announced a ban on dine-in, capped public gatherings to groups of two, and said all workers who can work from home must do so from May 16 to June 13. At that time, the government said it would review the measures two weeks later.

The surge in cases also led to another delay of the travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong.

Singapore’s government last week warned of “heightened uncertainties” in the months ahead because of the pandemic, but maintained its growth forecast at 4% to 6% for 2021. The country’s economy grew 1.3% in the first quarter of 2021, the fastest pace in more than a year.

As of Sunday, the country reported 62,028 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 33 deaths from the disease.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.