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Covid vaccine charges rise as Individuals rush to get photographs amid delta fears

Covid vaccine rates rise as Americans rush to get shots amid delta fears

Nurse Darryl Hana gives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to a person at a three-day vaccination clinic at the Providence Wilmington Wellness and Activity Center on July 29, 2021 in Wilmington, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images

The pace of US vaccinations is picking up again as the Delta variant leads to a new surge in coronavirus cases in the US, especially in states with the lowest vaccination rates and worst outbreaks.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that nearly 800,000 shots were recorded nationwide on Sunday, the highest total in a day in weeks. The 7-day average of reported vaccinations, including first and second vaccinations, rose by 16% over the past week to 615,000 vaccinations per day (as of Thursday).

The stark contrast in hospital stays and deaths between vaccinated and unvaccinated people has become evident in recent weeks and could convince people on the fence to get the syringes, said Jen Kates, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. The overwhelming majority of severe Covid cases – 97% of hospital admissions and 99.5% of Covid deaths – occur in those who are not vaccinated, US health officials say.

“Cases are on the rise and almost everyone who is hospitalized and dies is not vaccinated,” she said. “The data is right there and I think people are realizing that vaccines are our best bet to control this.”

The number of first doses of vaccines has risen faster than the overall rate in the past few days, meaning new people are getting their very first vaccinations. According to the CDC, an average of about 390,000 first doses were given daily for the past seven days, 31% more than a week ago.

“That’s the marker you want to see – the first doses are going up,” Kates said, because it represents new people getting their first shots. This includes people receiving a first vaccination with the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The pace of daily vaccinations remains far from peak, with more than 3 million daily vaccinations (both doses counted) reported in mid-April. But the upward trend in first doses is encouraging, officials say.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia reported increases in average daily first doses compared to the previous week, up from 37 states with increasing first dose rates a week ago.

States with the worst outbreaks see the biggest jumps in vaccination rates, a CNBC analysis of data from the CDC and Johns Hopkins University shows. In the 10 states with the highest average daily new cases per capita, first doses increased 46% week-to-week, significantly higher than the 31% national increase. This group consists of Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama, Nevada, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Georgia.

“Y’all, we’re going to have a tough couple of weeks,” said Dr. Mississippi state health officer Thomas Dobbs told reporters last week. The state has only fully vaccinated 34.4% of its population, compared to 49.4% of the total US population.

“Delta hits us very hard. We expect we will continue to put additional pressure on the health system, ”he said, noting that there were 13 hospitals across the state with“ zero intensive care beds ”. The breakout there is a strong argument for getting the shots. About 93% of the state’s Covid cases and 89% of deaths in the past month were unvaccinated, he said.

The Delta variant is spreading across the country, causing new spikes in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, especially in states with poor vaccination records. It is significantly more contagious than the original variety. And unlike the ancestral Covid strain, it is just as easily transmitted from both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people who have contracted the virus, federal health officials have warned.

Many of the states that have seen dramatic increases in vaccination rates have high community infection rates and low vaccination rates. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia are among the top 10 least vaccinated states in the country.

State health officials attribute the rising rates to a combination of factors, including fears of the more contagious Delta variant.

“Last week we doubled the number of people who initiated the vaccine,” said Dr. Joseph Kanter, medical director of the Louisiana Department of Health, told reporters in a call hosted Thursday by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “And this week we are well on the way to double that number again. So we are well on the way to quadruple our vaccination rate within two weeks.”

In Alabama, first doses rose 62% to about 7,400 a day in the past week. It has the fifth lowest vaccination rate in the country among people 12 years and older, while its outbreak, which averages 35 new cases per day per 100,000 population, is the sixth worst in the US

Alabama Health Officer Dr. Karen Landers said concerns about the Delta variant, along with educational efforts and partnerships with local leaders, were the likely reasons for the increased interest in the jab.

“We continue to emphasize the importance of getting vaccinated and we know that the increase in variants, and certainly the delta variant, is more contagious,” she said. “We have the feeling that more and more people understand this need.”

Still, Landers said, misinformation about vaccines is slowing progress. Many people don’t understand the drug approval process and wait for the FDA to give the vaccines full approval before receiving the syringes. Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have all been granted temporary emergency approvals and are awaiting final approval.

“We know that many of our employees in Alabama are still not listening to the information we provide regarding scientific evidence,” she said. “We must continue to fight misinformation in our state.”

Conspiracy theories have also run amok and hampered vaccination efforts in neighboring Mississippi, local health officials say.

“We hear everything from the microchip insertion to the depopulation plan, which uses the vaccine to magnetize people. I mean, you name it, we heard it,” said Dr. Dan Edney, chief medical officer for the Mississippi Department of Health, told reporters last week.

An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation released in early July shows that the vaccine rate gap between counties that voted for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump has widened as the vaccine rolled out, with Democrats much more common report that they were vaccinated Republicans.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey recently joined Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former White House press secretary and Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a growing chorus of Republican figures who have been voting in recent days asked to be vaccinated.

“It is time to blame the unvaccinated people, not the normal people. It’s the unvaccinated people who are failing us, ”Ivey said last week.

A health care worker at a drive-through location established by Miami-Dade and Nomi Health in Tropical Park prepares to administer a COVID-19 vaccine in Miami, Florida on July 26, 2021.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

State health officials in Texas, where the proportion of the eligible population with a vaccination is about 5 percentage points below the US level of 66.9%, say the danger of the Delta variant is pushing people to get vaccinated. According to Johns Hopkins data, the state’s average daily case numbers rose 72% over the past week.

“We have seen increases in vaccine doses over the past few weeks,” wrote Chris Van Deusen, director of media relations for the Texas Department of State Health Services, in an email. “We’ve talked a lot about how serious the situation is with the Delta variant as cases and hospitalizations increase, and people seem to get the news.”

California saw a 16% weekly increase in the number of people getting their first dose of vaccine, Governor Gavin Newsom told reporters Monday, including an increase in the vulnerable zip codes “hardest hit by this pandemic”.

“In part because of the Delta and increases in the number of cases and hospital admissions, we are now seeing increased interest in the Covid vaccination in select areas and states,” said Dr. Arthur Reingold, epidemiology director at the University of California, Berkeley.

Officials hope the trend will continue as governments and companies increase pressure on employees and customers to get the shots.

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs requires that all health care workers working in Veterans Health Administration facilities be fully vaccinated against Covid vaccinations. Governors in California and New York last week announced plans to mandate vaccines for state employees or to have strict health protocols. Biden put forward a similar federal policy on Thursday, urging governors to offer $ 100 payments to people who receive their first doses of vaccine. Google was one of the first major employers to say it will make vaccines mandatory for anyone who returns to the office this fall.

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U.S. Authorities Search Paperwork From Troubled Covid Vaccine Producer

U.S. Authorities Seek Documents From Troubled Covid Vaccine Manufacturer

That decision does not mean the F.D.A. has broadly authorized Johnson & Johnson to distribute doses made by Emergent on an emergency basis. The F.D.A. signed off on previous batches of vaccine made at the Baltimore factory but with a warning that it could not guarantee the company had followed good manufacturing practices. The agency has cleared the equivalent of up to 75 million doses, but tens of millions remain in limbo.

In a conference call with investors on Thursday, Emergent executives announced a $41.5 million hit from being forced to discard doses the F.D.A. had deemed unusable, and said the company had spent another $12.4 million to address manufacturing issues in Baltimore.

The newly disclosed inquiries from federal and state agencies underscore a dramatic reversal of fortune for a company that has spent much of the last two decades effectively cornering the market for biodefense, becoming the government’s go-to contractor for products to protect against bioterrorism and infectious disease outbreaks.

For most of the last decade, the government has spent nearly half of the annual budget of the nation’s emergency medical reserve, the Strategic National Stockpile, on Emergent’s anthrax vaccine alone, crowding out investments in products such as masks that were in short supply during the pandemic, a New York Times investigation found.

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

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the government turned to Emergent to produce vaccines and treatments. Thanks to a lucrative deal struck in May 2020, Emergent earned record profits and awarded executives record bonuses.

Out of public view, however, concern about the company’s ability to deliver was mounting, as The Times has reported. A series of audits by customers, federal officials and the company’s own evaluators found repeated shortcomings in efforts to disinfect and prevent contamination, and a top federal official warned that the company would have to be “monitored closely.”

After it was discovered in late March that a batch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been cross-contaminated with material from the AstraZeneca vaccine, federal inspectors descended on the factory, and members of Congress launched an investigation into both the company’s Covid-19 manufacturing work and its contracts with the stockpile.

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Biden Seeks to Revive Vaccine Effort With New Guidelines and Incentives

Biden Seeks to Revive Vaccine Effort With New Rules and Incentives

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday sought to revive the nation’s stalled push to vaccinate Americans against the surging Delta variant of the coronavirus, announcing new requirements for federal workers to be vaccinated and urging local and state governments to offer $100 to anyone willing to get a shot voluntarily.

His announcement included only federal civilian employees, but hours later the Pentagon said members of the military would also be subject to the same rules: Get vaccinated or face regular testing, social distancing, mask wearing and limits on official travel.

Although those steps fall short of a mandate, Mr. Biden also ordered the Defense Department to move rapidly toward one for all members of the military, a step that would affect almost 1.5 million troops, many of whom have resisted taking a shot that is highly effective against a disease that has claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans.

The announcement marked the first time he has suggested that a mandate could come for active-duty members of the military before any of the three federally authorized vaccines receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

In a speech from the East Room of the White House, Mr. Biden effectively conceded that the worst-in-a-century viral scourge he once thought was under control had come roaring back, threatening public health and the economic recovery that is central to the promise of his presidency.

But after months of trying to persuade and cajole, the president on Thursday cast the crisis as one that pits the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, and said those refusing to get a coronavirus shot should expect inconveniences as long as they decline a vaccine that protects them and others from illness and death.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Mr. Biden said, calling it an “American tragedy” and talking directly to the 90 million Americans who are eligible for a vaccine but have not gotten one. “People are dying and will die who don’t have to die. If you’re out there unvaccinated, you don’t have to die. Read the news.”

Mr. Biden said that federal workers who remained unvaccinated would have to submit to the extra inconveniences — essentially creating a two-tier system for the government’s more than four million employees and hundreds of thousands of private contractors who work at federal facilities around the world.

The president’s move stopped short of a vaccine mandate for federal workers. But the president said he hoped that by imposing new requirements on daily work life, more unvaccinated federal employees will choose to get a shot.

Mr. Biden said he was ordering agencies to find ways to ensure that all federal contractors — even those working for private businesses out of their own offices — could be required to be vaccinated as a condition of their work with the federal government. That could extend the president’s plan to millions more workers, including those in places where vaccination rates are stubbornly low.

“If you want to do business with the federal government, get your workers vaccinated,” the president said bluntly.

Mr. Biden urged companies and local governments to mimic his new vaccine requirements for federal employees, which he noted had the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The group said on Thursday that the president’s new rules were “prudent steps to protect public health.”

But the administration’s move quickly sparked consternation from some of the federal government’s largest unions representing teachers, police officers and postal workers, who called for negotiations on the subject.

“Forcing people to undertake a medical procedure is not the American way and is a clear civil rights violation no matter how proponents may seek to justify it,” Larry Cosme, the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said in a statement.

The president also announced that small and medium-size businesses would be reimbursed for providing paid leave so employees and their families could get vaccinated. He called on school districts to host a “pop-up vaccination clinic” to get children vaccinated before the start of school. And he urged private businesses, sport leagues and other institutions to get their employees vaccinated.

Appealing directly to Americans who are “unvaccinated, unbothered and unconvinced,” Mr. Biden asked them to recall the depths of the lockdowns during 2020 and to “really remember just how dark that winter was.”

“With incentives and mandates, we can make a huge difference and save a lot of lives,” he said.

Coronavirus vaccines are available to Americans ages 12 and older. But as of Thursday, just 57.7 percent of those eligible were fully vaccinated, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figure is much higher among the oldest Americans; nearly 80 percent of Americans 65 or older are fully vaccinated.

Updated 

July 29, 2021, 10:02 p.m. ET

During his campaign against former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden promised that he could vanquish the virus despite the polarized politics of the country he inherited. Just weeks ago, Mr. Biden hosted a Fourth of July party at the White House to declare “independence” from the virus. Now, he must reckon with rising caseloads and hospitalizations that are threatening a return to work and school in the fall.

Behind the scenes, Mr. Biden’s top public health officials have been deliberating for weeks, including in daily calls, about the best way to push more people to get vaccinated without prompting legal challenges or an anti-vaccine backlash.

A July 27 internal assessment for the senior leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services delivered the grim news about the trajectory of the pandemic: deaths up 45 percent from the previous week, hospitalizations up 46 percent and cases surging. “Since the lowest value observed on June 19, 2021, cases have increased 440 percent,” the assessment concluded.

Aides said the president hoped his solution could become a model for state and local governments and businesses around the country. But his announcement on Thursday lagged the efforts of many of those very institutions, which moved more quickly than the Biden administration to grapple with the issue.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California both announced on Monday that they would require hundreds of thousands of government workers to get inoculations or face weekly testing. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York soon followed suit.

Numerous businesses — including Netflix, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Washington Post, Ascension Health, Lyft, Google and Morgan Stanley — all announced get-tough policies that require their workers to get shots as a condition of employment. Unvaccinated workers at MGM casinos will be tested regularly, at their own cost, and if they test positive they will be required to quarantine.

In a joint statement this week, dozens of medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, called for all health care and long-term care workers to be vaccinated. The Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to require many of its employees to get a shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its earlier stance and recommended that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas where rates of transmission are high.

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

“This is a very fluid situation,” said Dr. Richard E. Besser, the chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the C.D.C. “There’s a lot of uncertainty and change.”

Few in Mr. Biden’s administration doubted that the president could force federal employees to take the vaccine as a condition of employment. But a heavy-handed mandate was more likely to backfire, most argued.

The solution Mr. Biden announced on Thursday is aimed at sidestepping accusations that the president is using the power of his office to force shots in people’s arms. Instead, officials hope the new workplace rules will make employees want to become vaccinated.

When it comes to the military, Mr. Biden signaled that he could take a tougher stance, placing the armed forces firmly at the center of an escalating debate over vaccine mandates.

As commander in chief, the president has the authority to order the troops to take an experimental vaccine — a move that would have a deep reach into areas of the country with low rates of vaccination. The bulk of federal workers live in the Washington region, including the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, where rates of vaccination are already high.

“I think it would have a much bigger impact in parts of the country that have low vaccination rates and also get into populations that have been reluctant and hopefully show them that getting a vaccine is not problematic,” said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition.

Members of the military are regularly given vaccines, and unvaccinated service members are sometimes not allowed to deploy abroad and face other restrictions. But as a political matter, forcing vaccines on the military would be all but certain to set off a firestorm among Mr. Biden’s critics.

Many members of the military have been reluctant to take coronavirus vaccines. Dr. Besser said he was surprised the administration has not required them to do so sooner. Military leaders cannot require the shots because they are currently authorized on an emergency basis. Mr. Biden could order them, but has been reluctant to exercise that authority.

The White House was already taken aback, some military officials said, by the blowback to its door-to-door vaccine information campaign and has since treaded carefully on mandates, especially for troops.

Younger troops have been most hesitant to get the shot, calculating that their symptoms would be mild if they caught virus. But the Delta variant has been hitting younger patients, and with more force.

Dr. Besser said Mr. Biden’s move “makes sense,” adding, “It’s highly contagious, people in the military are in very close quarters with each other, and in terms of force readiness you wouldn’t want to see Covid ripping through unvaccinated soldiers.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a polio survivor, encouraged people to get the vaccine. With the virus on the rise in conservative swaths of the country, Mr. McConnell is among a handful of Republican leaders who are now explicitly calling for vaccination.

“Honestly, it never occurred to me we’d have difficulty getting people to take the vaccine,” he said.

Dr. Patrick Godbey, the president of the College of American Pathologists, which is advocating for greater use of Covid-19 testing, said even before Mr. Biden spoke that the events of this week had changed the discussion. His own medical institution, in Brunswick, Ga., has not yet required workers to get vaccinated, he said.

“People are now looking at it; they are evaluating it in their own institutions, and that’s an important step forward,” he said, adding, “It’s a real line in the sand when the federal government comes out and does it.”

Jennifer Steinhauer and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

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Biden requiring federal staff to show Covid vaccine standing or undergo strict security guidelines

Biden requiring federal workers to prove Covid vaccine status or submit to strict safety rules

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about the pace of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccinations in the United States during remarks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 29, 2021.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

“This is not about red states and blue states. It’s literally about life and death,” he said. “With freedom comes responsibility. Your decision to be unvaccinated impacts someone else.”

The new rules and perks come as officials at all levels of government struggle to bolster Covid vaccination rates that have flattened out in recent weeks, even as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads nationwide.

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Some state and regional leaders have already put new vaccine protocols in place. California and New York announced earlier this week that they will require most state employees to either get vaccinated or face mandatory weekly Covid testing.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser earlier Thursday reimposed a requirement that masks be worn indoors, a measure that had been lifted months earlier, when new cases and deaths from Covid were on the decline.

Some major private corporations, such as Facebook and Google, are also making vaccination mandatory in order for employees in the U.S. to return to work.

In its own buildings, the federal government is requiring that every employee and on-site contractor “attest,” or confirm, their vaccination status, according to a White House fact sheet.

Those who do not will be required to wear a mask on the job, regardless of their location, and must comply with Covid testing once or twice per week, the White House said.

They will also have to be physically distanced from all other employees and visitors, and they may face restrictions on official travel, according to the fact sheet.

“It’s an American blessing that we have vaccines for each and every American,” Biden said Thursday afternoon. “It’s such a shame to squander that blessing.”

Biden also announced that a Covid reimbursement program, which paid back small- and medium-sized businesses that offered paid leave for their employees to get vaccinated, would be expanded to include workers’ family members and kids, as well.

And Biden called on school districts across the country to host pop-up vaccination clinics in the coming weeks, while directing federal pharmacy program partners to work with schools.

In his speech, Biden repeatedly stressed that despite the rise in cases, the vaccines remain highly effective at saving lives and preventing severe illness from Covid, including the delta variant. He noted that the overwhelming majority of people hospitalized and killed from the virus have not been inoculated, describing the current crisis as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Biden also attempted to assuage fears about so-called breakthrough infections among vaccinated people, saying that such cases are rare. He added that as of now, medical officials say there is no need for fully vaccinated people to seek out a booster shot — though he suggested that could change in the future.

“The vaccines are safe, highly effective. There’s nothing political about them,” Biden said, underscoring the point by praising Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for consistently supporting vaccinations.

“And his state’s in pretty good shape,” Biden added.

The Biden administration had previously discouraged federal agencies from requiring vaccination for on-site work.

The president in May had also proclaimed that, “If you’ve been vaccinated, you don’t have to wear your mask.”

But after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its guidance on wearing masks indoors, Biden, who is fully vaccinated, said he would follow the agency’s recommendations.

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Biden would require federal staff to get the Covid vaccine or undergo testing

Biden will require federal workers to get the Covid vaccine or submit to testing

President Joe Biden is expected to announce this week that his government will vaccinate federal employees against the coronavirus or undergo rigorous testing, NBC News reported Wednesday.

Biden will give a speech on Thursday to reveal the new rules following a review of the White House’s internal guidelines, two government officials told NBC. It is unclear when the changes will take effect.

Biden is also expected to announce new moves by his administration to increase the U.S. vaccination rate, which has slowed significantly in recent months and has fallen below the White House’s earlier targets, NBC reported.

The new measures come as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads around the world, including the United States, where it represents a large proportion of new infections.

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Public health officials warn the US could face another surge in cases this fall. They also point out that the overwhelming majority of people hospitalized or killed by Covid are unvaccinated and that “breakthrough infections” tend to be milder among those vaccinated.

In preparation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed their guidelines on wearing masks indoors on Tuesday. The CDC now recommends that fully vaccinated people and children wear masks indoors again in places with high Covid transmission rates and in schools.

On the same day, Biden said it was “being considered” whether the White House would require vaccination of all federal employees.

A government agency has already taken the plunge. On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it would order its health care workers to get vaccinated. VA Secretary Denis McDonough said it was “the best way to protect veterans”.

Biden also endorsed the CDC’s latest mask guidelines. And on Tuesday night, the White House Bureau of Management and Household Budget announced federal agencies that they must mandate masks for employees in all federal buildings in high-transmission areas, according to NBC.

The White House did not have to make a decision on compulsory vaccination until Tuesday night.

A source familiar with the considerations told CNBC at the time that a system of “vaccination certification” – which requires federal employees to confirm their vaccination status or follow safety measures such as wearing masks and regular tests – is “an option” under strong consideration. “

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Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine will get barely weaker over time, firm knowledge exhibits, however stays robust in stopping extreme illness.

Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine gets slightly weaker over time, company data shows, but remains strong in preventing severe disease.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s effectiveness wanes slightly over time, according to newly released data from the companies, but remains strong in preventing severe disease. With coronavirus cases surging again in many states, the findings may influence the Biden administration’s deliberations about delivering a booster shot.

The vaccine had a sky-high efficacy rate of about 96 percent against symptomatic Covid-19 for the first two months, the study showed, but then declined about 6 percent every two months after that, falling to 83.7 percent after six months. Against severe disease, its efficacy held steady at about 97 percent. The data was posted online on Wednesday and has not been published in a scientific journal.

Despite the decline, the data confirm that the vaccine gives potent protection against Covid-19. Still, the study raises questions about how much protection two doses will provide in the months to come. Adding to these concerns is the rise of the Delta variant, which makes vaccines somewhat less effective against infection. The variant became dominant only after the study ended. But recent studies have also shown that vaccines remain strongly protective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant.

The findings come from 42,000 volunteers in six countries who participated in a clinical trial that Pfizer and BioNTech began last July. Half of the volunteers got the vaccine while the other half got a placebo. Both groups received two shots spaced three weeks apart. The researchers compared the number of people in each group who developed symptoms of Covid-19, which was then confirmed by a P.C.R. virus test.

When the companies announced their first batch of results, the vaccine showed an efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 of 95 percent. In other words, the risk of getting sick was reduced by 95 percent in the group that got the vaccine compared to the group that got the placebo.

That result — the first for any Covid-19 vaccine — brought an exhilarating dose of hope to the world in December when it was riding what had been the biggest wave of the pandemic. Since then, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has made up the majority of shots that Americans have received, with more than 191 million doses given so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

After the first analysis, the Pfizer and BioNTech researchers continued to follow the volunteers. The research became more challenging as time passed, because volunteers who got the placebo could ask to get the vaccine once it was authorized in their country.

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For the new study, the researchers followed the volunteers for six months after vaccination, up to a cutoff date of March 13. Looking over that entire period, the researchers estimated the vaccine’s efficacy at 91.5 percent against symptomatic Covid-19. (The study did not measure the rate of asymptomatic virus infections.)

But within that period, the efficacy did gradually drop. Between one week and two months after the second dose, the efficacy was 96.2 percent. In the period between two and four months, the efficacy fell to 90.1 percent. And between four months and six months, the efficacy hit 83.7 percent.

Each estimate came with a margin of uncertainty. But over the six months of the trial, there was a clear decline in efficacy.

The new study comes on the heels of data from Israel suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech’s protection may be waning there. But experts have pushed back against a rush to approving a booster there. The data have too many sources of uncertainty, they say, to make a precise estimate of how much effectiveness has waned. For example, the Delta-driven outbreak hit parts of the country with high vaccination rates first and has been hitting other regions later. “Such an analysis is still highly uncertain,” said Doron Gazit, a physicist at Hebrew University who analyzes Covid-19 trends for the Israeli government.

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Mississippi and Louisiana have a number of the worst vaccine charges and highest Covid hospitalizations in U.S.

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

Covid cases are doubling across several states and hospitals are starting to fill up again, especially in states with lower vaccination rates as the highly contagious delta variant rips across the country.

Two of the states hit hardest last week — Mississippi and Louisiana and — have the nation’s worst and fourth-worst vaccination rates and rapidly climbing Covid hospitalizations.

Louisiana Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter, said Friday the state was in the middle of “a very dangerous surge.” Gov. John Bel Edwards said the outbreak there was so bad, the White House designated Louisiana as a “state of concern.” He and Kanter urged everyone, including fully vaccinated people, to wear masks indoors and work from home when possible.

“To ensure their own safety people in Louisiana should take precautions immediately. Masking and testing will limit death and suffering until we make it through this,” he said in a press release. New Orleans officials issued a citywide indoor mask advisory earlier in the week.

The surge in average new cases, which have jumped by more than 105% over the past week to a seven-day average of 7,592, has some Louisiana residents rushing to get vaccinated, state officials said. Just 41.2% of the state’s residents have had at least one Covid shot, according to CDC data, but many are rushing to get them as evidence mounts that the delta variant is attacking mostly unvaccinated people, state officials said. More than 58,000 Louisianans received their first vaccine doses last week, a 153% increase from the previous week, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Neighboring Mississippi also saw vaccinations jump last week as average daily cases climbed by more than 132% a seven-day average of 910 new cases per day as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The state’s administered at least one shot to just 38.6% of its population — ranking it last in the country.

In Mississippi, the state’s given almost 27,000 first doses administered over the seven days through Sunday, 42% more than the prior week.

“Y’all, we’re going to have a rough few weeks,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state’s former top epidemiologist, told reporters at a press conference last week. “Delta is hitting us very strongly. We anticipate that we’re going to continue to put additional pressure on the healthcare system.”

Across the nation, roughly 73% of available hospital beds are currently in use, about 4.5% are taken up by Covid patients, according to CDC data. But they account for a greater share of available ICU beds, comprising about 11.9% of all intensive care patients.

In Louisiana, Covid patients are using 8.4% of all available beds and about 16.8% of ICU beds, according to the CDC. Covid patients in Mississippi are taking up 7.2% of all hospital beds and 23% of ICU beds.

Dobbs said there are currently 13 hospitals across Mississippi that have “zero ICU beds and a significantly higher number than that have less than 10% availability.” He said 93% of the state’s Covid cases and 89% of the deaths in the past month are among unvaccinated individuals.

Vaccination rates there are also climbing. The the state administered almost 27,000 first doses over the seven days through Sunday, a 42% jump from the prior week. Vaccine reluctance is high across the state, officials said, adding that they are trying to convince residents one person at a time to get the shots. State officials pleaded with elderly and vulnerable residents earlier this month to avoid large indoor events.

“We hear it all, from the microchip insertion to the depopulation plan using the vaccine to the magnetizing people. I mean you name it, we’ve heard it,” state health department Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dan Edney told reporters last week.

Hospitals, in the meantime, are keeping a close watch on their ventilator supplies.

“Our number of cases is increasing rapidly,” Dobbs said. “Our ICU utilization is starting to rise to levels not seen since last summer, and we’re also seeing an increase in the utilization of our mechanical ventilators.”

CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed to this reporting.

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Biden says vaccine mandate for all federal workers is into consideration following VA order

Biden says vaccine mandate for all federal employees is under consideration following VA order

U.S. President Joe Biden will hold a

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

President Joe Biden said Tuesday his administration was considering whether to vaccinate federal employees against the coronavirus as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads in the United States

“This is being considered,” Biden told reporters when asked if he would impose a vaccine mandate on all government employees.

The Biden administration had previously advised federal agencies not to require vaccinations for field work.

But on Monday the Department of Veterans Affairs announced it would order its health care workers to get vaccinated, making it the first federal agency to issue such a mandate.

Veteran Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough described the new measure as “the best way to protect veterans”.

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Health

Medical Teams Name for Vaccine Necessities for Well being Care Employees

Medical Groups Call for Vaccine Requirements for Health Care Workers

A group of nearly 60 major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, called for mandatory vaccination of health workers on Monday. With the highly contagious Delta variant causing a new surge in coronavirus cases, vaccination is an ethical obligation for health care workers, the groups said in a joint statement.

“With the recent surge in Covid-19 and the availability of safe and effective vaccines, our health organizations and societies are advocating that all healthcare and long-term care employers require their employees to receive the Covid-19 vaccine,” said it in the statement. “This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical obligation of all healthcare workers to put patients and residents of long-term care facilities first and to take all necessary steps to ensure their health and well-being.”

The declaration was signed by a wide variety of professional associations, including representatives of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and infectious disease experts.

In recent weeks, more and more hospitals and health systems have announced that all employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has stated that the mandates are legal and many hospitals already require their employees to get flu vaccinations.

“Health organizations rarely agree, but here they speak with one voice and unanimity,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who organized the joint declaration. “I think that shows the widespread recognition that this is the right thing for this country.”

Although many healthcare workers have been eligible for vaccination since December when the first vaccinations were approved, a significant number remain unvaccinated. In New York, for example, about one in four hospital employees has not yet been vaccinated, according to state data. Only 58.7 percent of nursing home workers nationwide are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some healthcare workers have spoken out against vaccine requirements. A small group of employees sued the Houston Methodist Hospital over his mandate. The lawsuit was dismissed last month and more than 150 hospital employees were fired or quit for refusing to be vaccinated.

Some employers have been reluctant to request the vaccines, which are currently under emergency approval, until they have received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. This approval is expected but could take months.

Dr. Emanuel said some hospitals and health organizations used the lack of full approval as an excuse to postpone vaccine mandates. The joint statement stated that the Covid-19 vaccines were shown to be safe and effective.

“With more than 300 million doses administered in the United States and nearly 4 billion doses administered worldwide, we know the vaccines are safe and highly effective in preventing serious illness and death from Covid-19,” said Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the immediate past president of the AMA, said in a statement.

The joint statement said that exceptions could be made for the small subgroup of workers who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

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Politics

In Louisiana, Public Well being Employees Fight Vaccine Misinformation

In Louisiana, Public Health Workers Combat Vaccine Misinformation

Mayor Adrian Perkins, a Shreveport native and graduate of West Point and Harvard Law School who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was sued last year when he tried one. On Friday, he announced a new advisory urging residents to wear masks indoors, a day after the parish commission voted to postpone action on a mandate.

The falsehoods filling social media feeds dwarf whatever vaccine salesmanship power he has, he said. One complicating phenomenon, he said, was the sharing of misinformation between the Black community, which has a long-held skepticism of vaccines, and a white population that sees the vaccine and virus restrictions as government overreach.

Dr. Whyte framed her struggles getting people vaccinated as part of a broader negligence of public health. She said her department was continually underfunded despite significant rates of syphilis and maternal and infant mortality. It is wrestling with infant vaccinations and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and is fighting an increase in drug overdoses.

Her department has 99 employees, but few for preventing and tracking infectious disease. She oversees one epidemiologist and a community health worker supervisor who has no one to supervise. She is starting to see some help from federal funding appropriated during the pandemic: She plans to hire three community health workers soon, a social worker to replace one who retired years ago, and at least one more epidemiologist, most likely with funds provided by the C.D.C. She manages contact tracing with a small team.

As Dr. Whyte explained the city’s challenges in an interview, Calandre Singh, an epidemiologist in Shreveport for the state health department, interrupted with a warning. The funeral for a police deputy in neighboring Webster Parish was set for the next day and was likely to draw hundreds of people indoors, likely without masks — a possible superspreading event. Dr. Whyte and her team consulted with the organizers, who promised to enforce social distancing and a mask requirement. No outbreak has been tied to the event thus far, she said.

Within a month, Dr. Whyte anticipates even knottier debates about the need for masks and vaccines in schools. Federal regulators have not yet authorized the vaccine for the youngest children, but those 12 to 15 have been eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine since May.

At times over the last year, Dr. Whyte has felt so emotionally wrung out that she has been tempted to quit. Her otherwise healthy husband, a physician, spent two months on a ventilator last year, an experience she describes vividly in her pitches to community members about vaccination. The exchange with Ms. Peavy at the City Council meeting had left her angry and depleted.