Coronavirus Updates September 2021

[Babyblue033]

Yes please tell the babies to delay their arrivals because people who care for brand new human beings don't believe that they should be vaccinated...

NY hospital pausing delivering babies after Covid-19 resignations

NY hospital pausing delivering babies after Covid-19 resignations

A hospital in upstate New York is "pausing" deliveries of babies because of the number of maternity unit employee resignations over the state's Covid-19 vaccination requirements, health officials say.

www.cnn.com

 

[Missy]

U.S. Is Closing In on 400 Million Doses Administered

More than 5.66 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, enough to fully vaccinate close to 37% of the world’s population. The most recent rate was about 33.4 million doses a day. In the U.S., as debate picks up over booster shots, 379 million doses have been given. Read the full story here.

 

[Missy]

Europe moves toward boosters​

Europe is getting closer to a decision on providing a third booster shot to some populations as countries work to mitigate the fallout of a potential rise in infections this winter amid waning vaccine effectiveness. The U.K.’s drug regulator cleared booster shots from Pfizer and AstraZeneca this week, with a government advisory panel set to recommend whether the nation should go ahead with rolling out a third dose in the coming days. Britain is already offering extra shots to people 12 and older with severely weakened immune systems. The European Medicines Agency is reviewing booster data from Pfizer and Moderna, with a decision on the use of a Pfizer booster dose six months after the second shot expected in the next few weeks. The moves are in line with the U.S. plans to roll out booster shots beginning Sept. 20, subject to approval from health officials. “There is still overall considerable protection from severe disease and hospitalization in the general population” from the initial vaccines, Marco Cavaleri, head of vaccines strategy at the EMA, said Thursday in a briefing. “However, an increase in breakthrough infections has been reported in different parts of the world due to the delta variant” and most EU members are now discussing whether vulnerable groups would benefit from a third dose. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has pleaded for a moratorium on boosters. Governments should wait at least until the end of the year, helping poorer countries get access to more shots, he said Wednesday. Europe is also looking at the possible authorization of second-generation vaccines that may increase overall supplies. The EMA may clear a shot from Novavax this year, with discussions expected to advance over the coming weeks, Cavaleri says. The EMA is awaiting the submission of clinical data from CureVac’s shot for assessment imminently, and discussions with China’s Sinovac Biotech and the developers of Russia’s Sputnik shot have been constructive, Cavaleri says. A shot from Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline is also under review, but none of these are currently under U.S. consideration for clearance.—Suzi Ring

 

[Missy]

What's the Right Dose for COVID Boosters?​

— FDA must demand dosing data before giving full approval​

by Garth W. Strohbehn, MD, MPhil, William F. Parker, MD, PhD, and Alex Tabarrok, PhD

The Biden administration says booster shots are coming, but the FDA hasn't decided on the dose. Moderna wants a half-shot booster. Pfizer a full shot. But could the best dose for Americans and for the world be even less?
COVID-19 vaccines are the first successful use of mRNA vaccine technology, so a lot remains unknown. But identifying the smallest dose needed to provide effective boosting is critical to protect Americans from adverse effects, increase confidence in vaccines, and mitigate global vaccine inequity.

We've known since earlier this year that a half-dose of the Moderna vaccineproduces antibody levels similar to the standard-dose and newer information suggests that even a quarter-dose vaccine may do the same. If a half or quarter dose is nearly as effective as a standard dose for first and second shots then a full dose booster may well be an overdose. The essential task of a booster is to "jog" the immune system's memory of what it's supposed to fight. Data from the world of hepatitis B suggest that the "reminder" need not be as intense as the initial "lesson." And in the cases of tuberculosis, meningitis, and yellow fever vaccines, lower doses have been as good or better than the originals.
Lower doses could also reduce risks of adverse effects. Concerns about vaccine-associated inflammation of heart muscle, called myocarditis, in adolescents and young adults were validated in a large observational study out of Israel. Compared to lower doses of vaccine, boosting with the full dose may increase the risk of myocarditis. Presumably, this is why the FDA mandated Pfizer to study lower vaccine doses as a condition of granting full approval to the two-shot series.

The FDA demanding a similarly thorough process from boosters may bring added benefits. The majority of unvaccinated people cite side effects and safety concerns as major reasons for remaining unprotected. Reducing the booster dose to the smallest amount needed to generate an immune response might even help restore confidence in the regulatory process among the mildly skeptical unvaccinated.
The chosen booster dose also has profound implications for global vaccine equity. Producing boosters for developed countries will reduce the supply of first and second doses available to countries where most people haven't received a first dose. A slower vaccine rollout in the developing world isn't just unfair -- it increases the death toll and likely facilitates the emergence of more variants. After all, it was from unvaccinated populations beyond America's shores that the Delta variant first emerged.
The Biden administration says it wants 100 million boosters in 2021 alone. If we can boost 100 million Americans with the equivalent of only 25 million "full doses," then the remaining 75 million doses that were budgeted for can be donated abroad to low-income countries who need the protection of first and second shots, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives while simultaneously enhancing our own safety. Vaccinating the world ought to remain a top priority both scientifically and diplomatically.

Both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have ongoing trials with low-dose boosters using antibodies as their key endpoint. Consistent with the backbone the FDA has thus far shown in the booster debate, the agency should demand this data before approving a booster shot, or at the very least make full approval conditional upon its emergence. Preventing booster "over-dosing" is a straightforward but critical step to ensure that Americans are protected from adverse effects and also that the precious global vaccine supply is used optimally.
There is still time to avoid conspicuous vaccine consumption and reduce potential risks of rare adverse side effects by demanding that lower dose boosters be appropriately vetted and considered. Many lives and America's global image depend on it.
The views expressed in this op-ed do not represent the views of the U.S. federal government or the authors' employers.
Garth W. Strohbehn, MD, MPhil, is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan and a member of the Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management and Research, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. William F. Parker, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Chicago and assistant director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, based in Chicago, Illinois. Alex Tabarrok, PhD, is the Bartley J. Madden chair in economics at the Mercatus Center and a professor of economics at George Mason University, based in Arlington, Virginia.

 

[Missy]

Living in the most locked-down city​

Living in Melbourne, I’ve been thinking a lot about hugs lately. Australia’s second-largest city is currently in its sixth lockdown since the start of the pandemic, which coupled with other stay-at-home orders has given the country the dubious honor of seeing more lockdowns than anywhere other than China. The last time I got a real hug was from my dad back in April. That was right before Lockdown 4. What does six lockdowns look like? It’s more than 220 days of only being allowed to go out for groceries, medical treatment, a Covid test or limited amounts of exercise—and don’t stray more than three miles (5 kilometers) from home. Sure, they were interspersed with periods of pre-2020 style freedom—once the stringent curbs had wiped out all cases we could enjoy the cafe culture, sporting events and cultural life that has made Melbourne the world’s most livable city, mask-free. But then another infection would emerge, and the restrictions would be slapped back in place. Twenty months into the pandemic, it’s wearing us down. As the rest of the world lives with Covid, Australia is stuck. To outsiders, its situation seems OK: The country of 25 million has seen fewer than 79,000 cases since the pandemic began. Of the 4.64 million people who’ve died from Covid-19 worldwide, just 1,116 were here. People wearing face masks cross Bourke Street in Melbourne. Photographer: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images AsiaPac We’ve done this by having zero tolerance for the virus, a strategy that’s proving difficult to move on from. Emboldened by stints entirely Covid-free, Australia didn’t prioritize ramping up vaccinations until the more wily delta variant got through its border curbs, seeding an outbreak that continues to burn in places like Melbourne and Sydney despite the restrictions, defying attempts to eliminate it. That’s forced a realization that the Covid Zero strategy that made Australia a haven for most of the pandemic has reached its limit. Now, the parts of the country that have accepted that are having to get used to higher caseloads and the prospect of more deaths as the price of moving beyond lockdowns, even as record numbers of people line up for shots. With just 34% of Australia’s population fully vaccinated, the curbs will continue in some form. To those in Europe and the U.S., Melbourne looks like a time warp of 2020: exhausted families juggling work and home schooling, young adults like me who desperately want to see loved ones or just have a drink with a friend. The stop-start lockdowns have created a crisis of mental health: Lifeline, a charity that offers 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention, saw the four busiest days in its 57-year history last month. Going from counting every case to living with Covid is a vast psychological shift in a place where a lot of folks don’t know anyone who’s even had the virus, let alone died from it. Australia is headed for a pivotal—and fraught—few months. We could really use a hug.—Matthew Burgess

​ ​ ​ ​ Tracking the recovery​

New York City Defies Doomsayers. Here’s Why​ The Big Apple is emerging as one of the world’s most resilient big cities in the wake of the pandemic. The secret to its success is more than just its size, writes Bloomberg Opinion’s Noah Smith. Get the full story here. Photographer: ANGELA WEISS/AFP Photographer: ANGELA WEISS/AFP

 

[Missy]

What Singapore did right.

​

​ ​

Here’s the latest news from the global pandemic. CDC advisers set meeting for next week on Covid booster shots Vaccine czar Kono will win Japan leadership race, say economists British among hardest hit as living costs rise during pandemic

Overcoming vaccine hesitancy​

With the delta variant wreaking havoc on pandemic recovery and economic reopening plans around the world, the last thing any country needs is vaccine hesitancy. Yet it plagues developed and developing economies alike, regardless of their health-care standards. One bright spot in Asia has been Singapore, which had fully vaccinated 81% of its population as of Sept. 5. Among elderly age 70 and above, the vaccination rate was 85 percent, well ahead of peers like Hong Kong. Here's how they did it: 1. Fighting fake news Singapore clamps down hard on misleading information, educating the public through FAQs on its health ministry website, through social media including WhatsApp messages, and by using its contentious fake news law against false reports on Covid or vaccines. It's also pegged its reopening plan to the level of vaccination, giving people in the small, travel-starved nation an incentive to get shots. Social gathering rules are also now less strict for fully inoculated people, who are allowed to dine in at restaurants in groups of five. The unvaccinated only have the option to eat in pairs at open-air hawker centers or coffee shops. People sit and wait after receiving a dose of the Sinopharm Covid vaccine at the Mount Elizabeth hospital vaccine center in Singapore. Photographer: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP 2. Persuading the elderly Singapore's ministers have made multiple videos targeted at the elderly, explaining why they need to get vaccinated in different languages and Chinese dialects such as Teochew, Cantonese and Hokkien. The prime minister's video on the same topic in English is featured on the front page of the health ministry's website, under a “Get Vaccinated” section. There are also music videos featuring local celebrities who are popular with the elderly. In a city where the very old often live alone in public high-rise apartments, Singapore sends mobile vaccination teams to those neighborhoods. Trucks armed with loudspeakers also make the rounds. The government sends volunteers and staff from its grassroots association to visit unvaccinated seniors at home and answer questions on Covid and the vaccine. These outreach volunteers also help the elderly get to vaccination centers, or arrange for home vaccinations. 3. Making vaccines widely accessible As Singapore secured more vaccine supplies, it ramped up its delivery infrastructure. It included more clinics as part of its national rollout network, and told seniors they can walk in for a jab without an appointment. Singapore has been known for many social campaigns over the decades—it created a state-funded dating agency to spur marriages and sets racial quotas in public apartment complexes to prevent ethnic ghettos. This might be its most critical one yet, helping make its population one of the most vaccinated in the world. It is now talking about starting boosters this month. But while its high inoculation rate has given it an edge in the race to reopen safely, it's still treading cautiously. Its current goal: encouraging the population to restrain social activities to prevent an exponential rise in cases, and it wants to avoid reversing on its reopening trajectory. That's a less concrete target than vaccinations, and may not be as easily achieved.—Stephanie Phang and Livia Yap

​ ​ ​ Track the recovery​

Inside the Brutal Realities of Supply Chain Hell​ The pandemic has thrown the vital but usually humdrum world of logistics into a tailspin, spurring shortages of everything: masks and vaccine vials, semiconductors, plastic polymers, bicycles, and even baseball bobbleheads. The system underpinning globalization is too rigid to absorb today’s rolling tremors from Covid-19, or to recover quickly from the jolts to consumer demand or the labor force. Read the full story here.

 

[Missy]

From the NYT


”

The U.S. has reached another potential turning point in the pandemic. But this is also a moment when the Covid-19 data is unusually tricky to read. In today’s newsletter, I’ll try to make sense of it, with help from four charts created by my colleague Ashley Wu.​

On the one hand, the country may be on the verge of a virtuous cycle of declining cases. Although scientists don’t understand why, Covid has often followed a two-month cycle: When cases begin rising in a country, they often do so for about two months, before starting to decline. In the U.S., the Delta wave began in early July, a bit more than two months ago.​

On the other hand, schools across the country have recently reopened, and some other activities — like crowded college football games and Broadway plays — have restarted. All this socializing has led some epidemiologists to predictthat cases could surge this month.​

Right now, it is hard to figure out what’s happening from the much-watched charts that track daily Covid cases. Those charts have recently been messy because of Labor Day. With testing centers and laboratories closed for the holiday weekend, cases plunged artificially during the long weekend, before surging — also artificially — in the days after. As a result, the seven-day average of Covid cases (the measure that many trackers highlight) has been distorted for much of this month.​

We have tried to smooth over the fluctuations by reassigning some of the positive tests from the day after Labor Day to the holiday itself. We kept the total number of confirmed cases the same but imagined that they followed a more normal weekly pattern (which is probably closer to reality).​

You can see the result in the dotted line below:​

Charts show the 7-day daily average.The New York Times​

Our adjusted line does not fully eliminate the Labor Day noise, but it does offer a clearer picture. And that picture is encouraging. The number of new cases has fallen more than 10 percent since Sept. 1.​

The state-by-state data is consistent with that trend. In some states where the Delta wave struck early, like California, Florida and Missouri, cases have been falling for even longer. In states where Delta arrived later, like Colorado and Massachusetts, the wave has begun to show signs of cresting.​

The data on hospitalizations, which can be more reliable than the cases data, is also consistent with it. The seven-day average of the number of hospitalized Americans peaked on Sept. 3 and has since fallen about 7 percent:​

Chart shows the 7-day daily average.The New York Times​

The most likely scenario seems to be that the Delta wave has peaked in the U.S., after slightly more than two months of rising cases and hospitalizations. (Here is The Morning’s longer explanation of Covid’s mysterious two-month cycle.)​

Worse than Europe​ ​

Still, there are two important caveats to the encouraging trends.​

One, the current Covid situation remains terrible in much of the U.S. Hospitals in the Mountain West, Southeast and Appalachia are filled with Covid patients. Doctors and nurses are overwhelmed and exhausted. The number of nationwide Covid deaths — which typically lags the trends in new cases by a few weeks — has continued rising recently. About 2,000 Americans are dying every day.​

Chart shows the 7-day daily average.The New York Times​

The situation here is worse than in almost any other country. The U.S. death rate over the past two weeks, adjusted for population, is more than twice as high as Britain’s, more than seven times as high as Canada’s and more than 10 times as high as Germany’s. If Mississippi were its own country, it would have one of the world’s worst total death tolls per capita, CNN’s Jake Tapper notedyesterday.​

Why? One reason is that the U.S. — after getting off to an excellent start — now trails many of these countries in Covid vaccination rate. Almost one in four American adults still has not received a shot. The unvaccinated continue to be disproportionately people without a college degree and Republican voters.​

The vaccines radically reduce the chances of serious Covid illness, and deaths are occurring overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated. Yet many people have chosen to leave themselves unprotected. It’s a modern tragedy, caused by the widespread distrust that Americans feel toward society’s major institutions and exacerbated by online disinformation.​

Charts show the 7-day daily average.Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention​

The second caveat is that the encouraging trends of the past couple of weeks are not guaranteed to continue.​

Covid’s two-month cycle is not a scientific law. There have been exceptions to it, and there will be more. Maybe those packed football games will cause new outbreaks that are not yet visible in the data. Or maybe the onset of colder weather or some mysterious force will lead case numbers to rebound in coming weeks. The pandemic has spent almost two years surprising people, often for the worse. As my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli has written, Covid has given everybody a crash course in scientific uncertainty.​

For now, the best summary may be that Covid is both an unnecessarily bad crisis in the U.S. and one that appears to be slowly becoming a little less bad. If recent history repeats itself — a big if — U.S. cases will keep declining during the early autumn.”​

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

One of my brothers went to dinner at a friend's house Friday night. Everyone was "fine". He's vaccinated as are most of his friends (but I'm not sure if they all were that night). One felt sick Sunday and came back positive for COVID. His rapid is negative but we'll get PCR tomorrow hopefully. My baby goes to their house while I'm at work so FX he's negative. I so wish the kiddos were eligible and I'd worry so much less.

 

[Dancing Fire]

I have a common cold and I thought I had contracted Covid from our grandkids. All 3 of our grandkids caught the cold 2 weeks ago and gave it to me and my wife.

 

[Austina]

My double vaxxed friend had 2 negative lateral flow tests, and then a positive PCR @Asscherhalo_lover. Fortunately, because she’s vaccinated, she said it was like a really severe cold, and she’s fine now.

 

[TooPatient]

Just found out that a friend is very sick. Her husband and kids are also sick. The kids are doing okay. Her husband is pretty sick. She is having a rough time. She has multiple autoimmune issues plus some other health stuff that hasn't been identified yet. Her kids are too young to be vaccinated. She is allergic to one of the things in the vaccine, if I remember correctly. She has to be awful sick to post asking for people to help by dropping meals on their porch. (I am working on a couple of meals now...)

 

[TooPatient]

One of my dog rescue friends (never met in person, just talk rescue) is in the hospital on a ventilator. She is an amazing woman who works hard to save so many. She helped save one of mine. So many alive because of her. Hoping for the best!

 

[Karl_K]

@TooPatient prayers are outgoing.

 

[MamaBee]

One of my dog rescue friends (never met in person, just talk rescue) is in the hospital on a ventilator. She is an amazing woman who works hard to save so many. She helped save one of mine. So many alive because of her. Hoping for the best!

I’m so sorry for her and her family..@TooPatient I hope she improves so she can go home soon.

 

[Missy]

Goodbye, and good riddance

Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seat belt.

www.seattletimes.com

Goodbye, and good riddance​

Sep. 26, 2021 at 6:02 am

By
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Syndicated columnist

“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.”
— From the song “Wild World” by Cat Stevens

This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.
No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of health care professionals.
Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye.


And here’s two more: Good riddance.


Not to minimize any of this. A few weeks ago, a hospital in upstate New York announced it would have to “pause” delivering babies because of resignations among its maternity staff. So the threat of difficult ramifications is certainly real. But on the plus side, your quitting goes a long way toward purging us of the gullible, the conspiracy-addled, the logic-impaired and the stubbornly ignorant. And that’s not nothing.


We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “There’s no freedom no more,” whined one man in video that recently aired on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seat belt.

It’s an unfortunately common refrain. Can’t smoke in a movie theater? Can’t crank your music to headache decibels at two in the morning? Can’t post the Ten Commandments in a courtroom? “There’s no freedom no more.” Some of you seem to think freedom means no one can be compelled to do, or refrain from doing, anything. But that’s not freedom, it’s anarchy.


Usually, the rest of us don’t agonize over your intransigence. Often it has no direct impact on us. The guy in “The Daily Show” clip was only demanding the right to skid across a highway on his face, after all. But now you claim the right to risk the health care system and our personal lives.


So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.

The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seat belt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done.


But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.
That’s why we were glad President Joe Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit.

And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf Wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives.


And that’s really no choice at all.

© 2021, The Miami Herald
Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Email: [email protected]