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yehbru

Opinion: The one unforgivable thing about the Covid-19 response - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Trump Biden Covid Pandemic Vaccine US Politics

shared by yehbru on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The first case of Covid-19 in the United States was reported 11 months ago, on January 20, 2020. Since that time, more than 18 million Americans have been diagnosed and more than 329,000 have died.
  • The trouble started first in the Northeast during the spring, and then spread in other major urban areas, quickly overwhelming hospitals and nursing homes. High death rates were due in part to a lack of knowledge on how to treat the infection.
  • This last upturn in cases, unlike the first two, has not waned. Instead, the spread of the virus has only accelerated, with the nation going into Covid-19 overdrive in the last month. The rate of new cases and deaths across the country makes it impossible now to attribute a single cause to the alarming surge.
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  • Covid-19 is crushing the healthcare system, with the California Department of Public Health reporting around 39,000 daily new cases and hundreds of deaths a day as of December 23
  • First and foremost, it is important to adhere to the key public health measures: masks, social distancing, avoidance of crowds. This approach remains effective, even if it has been adopted unevenly across the country. After 11 months, however, adhering to these measures can be extremely tedious and at times seemingly intolerable -- even for the most ardent public health fans, including myself.
  • Yes, it has given hope to the world, but it also may seduce people into thinking wrongly that it will be OK to ease up on preventative measures before the vaccine is widely available.
  • Forgoing masks and social distancing will only compound this national tragedy. We are currently seeing roughly 200,000 daily new cases and more than 2,500 deaths in the U.S. per day
  • Of the Trump administration's many Covid-19 failures, its inability to develop a modern, convenient and reliable national testing program is the most unforgivable.
  • Germany and South Korea have made this the cornerstone of their effective control programs, while Hong Kong has placed test kit vending machines in subway stations. And professional sport leagues have made testing several times a week a core approach to their containment strategy.
  • Yet we are only performing averages of less than 2 million tests per day in the U.S. While this is about double the rate in September, it still falls far short of what is necessary. In April, experts called for at least 5 million tests a day by early June to ensure a safe social opening, and 20 million tests a day by mid-summer to remobilize the economy. Others have hoped for even more aggressive goals to "test nearly everyone, nearly every day."
  • President-elect Joe Biden appears to understand the value of this strategy, which could bridge the many vulnerable months between now and the development of vaccine-induced herd immunity.
Javier E

Axios Future - 0 views

www.axios.com/...d9-4a60-9c57-7c708af6599f.html

pandemic public health us travel quarantine pre-existing conditions

shared by Javier E on 27 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • 1 big thing: America's poor health is jeopardizing its future
  • An analysis published this week by researchers at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness found at least 130,000 of America's 212,000 COVID-19 deaths so far would have been avoidable had the U.S. response been in line with that of other wealthy countries.
  • That failure is even more glaring when you consider that just last year the U.S. was ranked as the country most prepared for a pandemic, according to the Global Health Security Index.
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  • What that index didn't take into account — and what has compounded months of governmental failures — is that even before COVID-19 arrived on its shores, the U.S. was an unusually sick country for its level of wealth and development.
  • High blood pressure, obesity and metabolic disorders are all on the rise in the U.S.
  • Healthy life expectancy — the number of years people can expect to live without disability — is 65.5 years in the U.S., more than two decades fewer than in Japan.
  • 65,700 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2019, more than double the number in 2010. Those deaths account for more than half of all drug overdose fatalities worldwide and held down life expectancy in the U.S.
  • Mortality for mothers and children under 5 is 6.5 per 1,000 live births in the U.S., compared to 4.9 for other wealthy countries.
  • Context: Lancet Editor-in-Chief Richard Horton has called COVID-19 a "syndemic" — a synergistic epidemic of a new and deadly infectious disease and numerous underlying health problems. The U.S. is squarely in the heart of that syndemic.
  • A study published in August found cardiovascular disease can double a patient's risk of dying from COVID-19, while diabetics — who number more than 30 million in the U.S. — are 1.5 times more likely to die.
  • All in all, more than 40% of American adults have a pre-existing health condition that puts them at higher risk of severe COVID-19.
  • Those conditions are particularly prevalent in minority communities with unequal health care access that have disproportionately suffered from COVID-19.
  • A report from McKinsey earlier this month estimated that poor health costs the U.S. economy about $3.2 trillion a year
  • For every $1 invested in targeting population health, the U.S. stands to gain almost $4 in economic benefit, and altogether health improvements could add up to a 10% boost to U.S. GDP by 2040.
  • The bottom line: There is no excuse for the way the U.S. has mishandled COVID-19, but the seeds of this catastrophe were planted well before the novel coronavirus arrived on American shores.
  • 2. How movement spread COVID-19
  • What's happening: Researchers in Germany studied the effect of entry bans and mandatory quarantines on COVID-19 mortality, and found the earlier such measures were implemented, the greater the effect they had on limiting deaths.
  • Of note: The study found mandatory quarantines for incoming travelers were more effective than outright entry bans, largely because such bans often exempted citizens and permanent residents, while quarantines usually applied to everyone.
  • The U.S. lost track of at least 1,600 people flying in from China in just the first few days after the ban went into effect, according to reporting from the AP.
  • Border controls are of little use if governments don't track and quarantine travelers coming from infected areas.
  • The bottom line: A virus only moves with its host. One lesson we should learn for future pandemics is that restricting that movement is key to controlling a new pathogen, even though the costs of such controls will only grow in a globalized world.
hannahcarter11

COVID news: Arizona, South Dakota no masks; Denver schools go virtual - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...3771651001

arizona masks schools covid

shared by hannahcarter11 on 19 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The U.S. death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 250,000, including 1,700 reported Wednesday alone. Hospitalizations across the nation have exploded, with almost 80,000 Americans now receiving inpatient treatment.
  • Still, some governors remain unconvinced that mandatory facial coverings are a necessary tool in curbing the pandemic. 
  • Thirty-six states have some type of statewide mask requirement
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  • But he suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not help halt the surge, adding that it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask due to various local restrictions.
  • She said cases were increasing in many states with mandates, adding that communities were free to establish local regulations. 
  • The U.S. has reported more than 11.5 million cases and more than 250,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 56.4 million cases and 1.35 million deaths.
  • As state officials and lawmakers urged the shutdown of a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Iowa, managers at the plant reportedly placed bets on how many would end up getting sick.
  • As COVID-19 cases pile up at a staggering rate, Republicans and Democrats remain in stark disagreement over the threat of the virus and the steps necessary to mitigate its spread.
  • That has surprised political scientists and public health experts who thought that, if the pandemic worsened, the partisan gap would begin to close
  • European officials announced a modest gain in the continent's battle against the virus.
  • Still, an average of 4500 lives are lost to COVID-19 in Europe every day, Kluge said.
  • He described further lockdowns as a last resort and said that if mask use reached 95%, lockdowns would not be needed.
  • Almost 100,000 long-term care U.S. residents have died in the coronavirus pandemic, and advocates for the elderly say tens of thousands more are succumbing to neglect by overwhelmed staffs and slow declines from isolation imposed as protection from COVID.
  • Although the COVID-19 outbreak is looking worse than ever, news from vaccine makers is fueling optimism
  • That means we can begin inoculating health care and other essential workers even before we’re done with the Thanksgiving leftovers,
  • The vaccine being developed Oxford researchers and U.K.-based AstraZeneca appears to trigger a "robust immune response" in healthy adults, including those aged 56 and older, the university said in a release.
  • The U.S. has become the first country to have 250,000 people die from COVID-19, nearly 19% of the global total of 1.35 million fatalities.
  • The death toll the virus has inflicted among Americans is more than twice as large as the number of U.S. service members who died in World War I.
  • Colleges are scrambling to prevent a massive spread, with some urging or requiring students to quarantine or receive a negative coronavirus test before traveling home. Without those precautions, college leaders say, students should consider abstaining from their holiday plans and instead opt for a celebration closer to campus.
  • Boston University's recommendation is that students either stay in Boston for the holiday or go home and not come back. Kenneth Elmore, dean of students, says the school is urging students to think of the greater good. 
  • As Arizona's COVID-19 trends spike, the state is giving hospitals $25 million to bolster staffing, but Gov. Doug Ducey said Wednesday that he won't impose a statewide mask mandate.
  • Ducey suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not effectively curb the spread of the virus, and emphasized that about 90% of the state is under a local mask mandate. He also said it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask.
  • More than 90,000 students in the state's largest school district will return to virtual learning starting Nov. 30 through the end of the semester.
  • The district reported about 13 cases per week when it first opened early childhood education centers. Cases have now surpassed 300 per week.
  • There are some reasons for this. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging the nation's pandemic-related rodent problem, points out restaurants have reduced service, which means fewer food scraps are ending up in the dumpsters on which rats and mice often feed.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to "think twice" about traveling and having indoor gatherings for the holidays.
  • "As we get into the colder weather, we should really think twice about these kind of dinner parties where you're not sure of whether the people that are in your bubble (are safe)," he said. "Then you're going to start seeing these unanticipated infections related to innocent home gatherings, particularly as we head into the holiday season."
Javier E

Warnings Ignored: A Timeline of Trump's COVID-19 Response - The Bulwark - 0 views

thebulwark.com/ne-of-trumps-covid-19-response

timeline trump response pandemic history policy politics

shared by Javier E on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • the White House is trying to establish an alternate reality in which Trump was a competent, focused leader who saved American people from the coronavirus.
  • it highlights just how asleep Trump was at the switch, despite warnings from experts within his own government and from former Trump administration officials pleading with him from the outside.
  • Most prominent among them were former Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb, and Director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council Dr. Luciana Borio who beginning in early January used op-eds, television appearances, social media posts, and private entreaties to try to spur the administration into action.
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  • what the administration should have been doing in January to prepare us for today.
  • She cites the delay on tests, without which “cases go undetected and people continue to circulate” as a leading issue along with other missed federal government responses—many of which are still not fully operational
  • The prescient recommendations from experts across disciplines in the period before COVID-19 reached American shores—about testing, equipment, and distancing—make clear that more than any single factor, it was Trump’s squandering of out lead-time which should have been used to prepare for the pandemic that has exacerbated this crisis.
  • What follows is an annotated timeline revealing the warning signs the administration received and showing how slow the administration was to act on these recommendations.
  • The Early Years: Warnings Ignored
  • 2017: Trump administrations officials are briefed on an intelligence document titled “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.” That’s right. The administration literally had an actual playbook for what to do in the early stages of a pandemic
  • February 2018: The Washington Post writes “CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak.” The meat of the story is “Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.”
  • May 2018: At an event marking the 100 year anniversary of the 1918 pandemic, Borio says “pandemic flu” is the “number 1 health security issue” and that the U.S. is not ready to respond.
  • One day later her boss, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer is pushed out of the administration and the global health security team is disbanded
  • Beth Cameron, former senior director for global health security on the National Security Council adds: “It is unclear in his absence who at the White House would be in charge of a pandemic,” Cameron said, calling it “a situation that should be immediately rectified.” Note: It was not
  • January 2019: The director of National Intelligence issues the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to national security. Among its findings:
  • A novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat, with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.”
  • Page 21: “We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”
  • September, 2019: The Trump Administration ended the pandemic early warning program, PREDICT, which trained scientists in China and other countries to identify viruses that had the potential to turn into pandemics. According to the Los Angeles Times, “field work ceased when funding ran out in September,” two months before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan Province, China.
  • 2020: COVID-19 Arrives
  • anuary 3, 2020: The CDC is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China
  • January 6, 2020: The CDC issues a travel notice for Wuhan due to the spreading coronavirus
  • Note: The Trump campaign claims that this marks the beginning of the federal government disease control experts becoming aware of the virus. It was 10 weeks from this point until the week of March 16 when Trump began to change his tone on the threat.
  • January 10, 2020: Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert warns that we shouldn’t “jerk around with ego politics” because “we face a global health threat…Coordinate!”
  • January 18, 2020: After two weeks of attempts, HHS Secretary Alex Azar finally gets the chance to speak to Trump about the virus. The president redirects the conversation to vaping, according to the Washington Post. 
  • January 21, 2020: Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the CDC tells reporters, “We do expect additional cases in the United States.”
  • January 27, 2020: Top White House aides meet with Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to encourage greater focus on the threat from the virus. Joe Grogan, head of the White House Domestic Policy Council warns that “dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in the United States for many months.”
  • January 28, 2020: Two former Trump administration officials—Gottlieb and Borio—publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal imploring the president to “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic.” They advocate a 4-point plan to address the coming crisis:
  • (1) Expand testing to identify and isolate cases. Note: This did not happen for many weeks. The first time more than 2,000 tests were deployed in a single day was not until almost six weeks later, on March 11.
  • (3) Prepare hospital units for isolation with more gowns and masks. Note: There was no dramatic ramp-up in the production of critical supplies undertaken. As a result, many hospitals quickly experienced shortages of critical PPE materials. Federal agencies waited until Mid-March to begin bulk orders of N95 masks.
  • January 29, 2020: Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro circulates an internal memo warning that America is “defenseless” in the face of an outbreak which “elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”
  • January 30, 2020: Dr. James Hamblin publishes another warning about critical PPE materials in the Atlantic, titled “We Don’t Have Enough Masks.”
  • January 29, 2020: Republican Senator Tom Cotton reaches out to President Trump in private to encourage him to take the virus seriously.
  • Late January, 2020:  HHS sends a letter asking to use its transfer authority to shift $136 million of department funds into pools that could be tapped for combating the coronavirus. White House budget hawks argued that appropriating too much money at once when there were only a few U.S. cases would be viewed as alarmist.
  • Trump’s Chinese travel ban only banned “foreign nationals who had been in China in the last 14 days.” This wording did not—at all—stop people from arriving in America from China. In fact, for much of the crisis, flights from China landed in America almost daily filled with people who had been in China, but did not fit the category as Trump’s “travel ban” defined it.
  • January 31, 2020: On the same day Trump was enacting his fake travel ban, Foreign Policy reports that face masks and latex gloves are sold out on Amazon and at leading stores in New York City and suggests the surge in masks being sold to other countries needs “refereeing” in the face of the coming crisis.
  • February 4, 2020: Gottlieb and Borio take to the WSJ again, this time to warn the president that “a pandemic seems inevitable” and call on the administration to dramatically expand testing, expand the number of labs for reviewing tests, and change the rules to allow for tests of people even if they don’t have a clear known risk factor.
  • Note: Some of these recommendations were eventually implemented—25 days later.
  • February 5, 2020: HHS Secretary Alex Azar requests $2 billion to “buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment.” He is rebuffed by Trump and the White House OMB who eventually send Congress a $500 million request weeks later.
  • February 4 or 5, 2020: Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and other intelligence officials brief the Senate Intelligence Committee that the virus poses a “serious” threat and that “Americans would need to take actions that could disrupt their daily lives.”
  • February 5, 2020: Senator Chris Murphy tweets: Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.
  • February 9, 2020: The Washington Post reports that a group of governors participated in a jarring meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield that was much more alarmist than what they were hearing from Trump. “The doctors and the scientists, they were telling us then exactly what they are saying now,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said.
  • the administration lifted CDC restrictions on tests. This is a factually true statement. But it elides that fact that they did so on March 3—two critical weeks after the third Borio/Gottlieb op-ed on the topic, during which time the window for intervention had shrunk to a pinhole.
  • February 20, 2020: Borio and Gottlieb write in the Wall Street Journal that tests must be ramped up immediately “while we can intervene to stop spread.”
  • February 23, 2020: Harvard School of Public Health professor issues warning on lack of test capability: “As of today, the US remains extremely limited in#COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs haveCDC test kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
  • February 24, 2020: The Trump administration sends a letter to Congress requesting a small dollar amount—between $1.8 billion and $2.5 billion—to help combat the spread of the coronavirus. This is, of course, a pittance
  • February 25, 2020: Messonier says she expects “community spread” of the virus in the United States and that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.” Trump is reportedly furious and Messonier’s warnings are curtailed in the ensuing weeks.
  • Trump mocks Congress in a White House briefing, saying “If Congress wants to give us the money so easy—it wasn’t very easy for the wall, but we got that one done. If they want to give us the money, we’ll take the money.”
  • February 26, 2020: Congress, recognizing the coming threat, offers to give the administration $6 billion more than Trump asked for in order to prepare for the virus.
  • February 27, 2020: In a leaked audio recording Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee and author of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (reauthorization of PAHPA), was telling people that COVID-19 “is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
  • March 4, 2020: HHS says they only have 1 percent of respirator masks needed if the virus became a “full-blown pandemic.”
  • March 3, 2020: Vice President Pence is asked about legislation encouraging companies to produce more masks. He says the Trump administration is “looking at it.”
  • March 7, 2020: Fox News host Tucker Carlson, flies to Mar-a-Lago to implore Trump to take the virus seriously in private rather than embarrass him on TV. Even after the private meeting, Trump continued to downplay the crisis
  • March 9, 2020: Tom Bossert, Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser, publishes an op-ed saying it is “now or never” to act. He advocates for social distancing and school closures to slow the spread of the contagion.
  • Trump says that developments are “good for the consumer” and compares COVID-19 favorably to the common flu.
  • March 17, 2020: Facing continued shortages of the PPE equipment needed to prevent healthcare providers from succumbing to the virus, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden call on Trump to use the Defense Production Act to expand supply of medical equipment
  • March 18, 2020: Trump signs the executive order to activate the Defense Production Act, but declines to use it
  • At the White House briefing he is asked about Senator Chuck Schumer’s call to urgently produce medical supplies and ventilators. Trump responds: “Well we’re going to know whether or not it’s urgent.” Note: At this point 118 Americans had died from COVID-19.
  • March 20, 2020: At an April 2nd White House Press Conference, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who was made ad hoc point man for the coronavirus response said that on this date he began working with Rear Admiral John Polowczyk to “build a team” that would handle the logistics and supply chain for providing medical supplies to the states. This suggestion was first made by former Trump Administration officials January 28th
  • March 22, 2020: Six days after calling for a 15-day period of distancing, Trump tweets that this approach “may be worse than the problem itself.”
  • March 24, 2020: Trump tells Fox News that he wants the country opened up by Easter Sunday (April 12)
  • As Trump was speaking to Fox, there were 52,145 confirmed cases in the United States and the doubling time for daily new cases was roughly four days.
yehbru

The best way to get to the bottom of the Covid-19 lab leak theory (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US China Politics Covid19 Pandemic Origins

shared by yehbru on 31 May 21 - No Cached
  • On Wednesday, President Joe Biden called for an inquiry by US intelligence agencies into the true origins of Covid-19.
  • The "lab leak" explanation, which was panned and dismissed by a number of analysts, gained new life after the Wall Street Journal reported on a previously undisclosed US intelligence report revealing that three researchers from the Wuhan lab became so sick with Covid-19-like symptoms in November 2019 -- before official reports of the first outbreak -- that they had to seek hospita
  • The Biden administration should itself -- separate and apart from the World Health Organization -- lead a multilateral effort to investigate the origins of the virus.
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  • The lab leak theory has been judged by at least one US intelligence agency as the more likely explanation for Covid-19's origins, while two agencies think the virus was more likely spread to humans from an infected animal
  • An investigation into the true origins of the virus is essential not only for scientific reasons, but also because policymakers around the world need this knowledge to better prepare themselves for future pandemics.
  • It should be no surprise, then, that the WHO's own investigation into the origins of Covid-19 concluded that a lab leak was probably not the cause of the pandemic and that infection from natural sources was more likely. But investigators were only permitted to examine research conducted by Chinese state scientists and did not have full access to the data or facilities that would have allowed them to assess whether the virus that causes Covid-19 may have been present before cases of the disease were first confirmed in China in December 2019.
  • Beijing, for its part, considers the case closed and has argued that the attention should be turned to other countries for the role they may have played in the early days of the pandemic.
  • More specifically, the Biden administration is calling on the WHO to complete a second phase of its investigation in a way that allows "international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak."
  • Biden has been eager to redouble our engagement and work together with America's friends and allies around the world. Getting to the root cause of a pandemic that has already killed nearly 3.5 million people globally presents a golden opportunity to do just that.
anonymous

US coronavirus: The slowing Covid-19 vaccination rate is worrying experts. Here's what some states are doing to change the trend - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 05 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • As the US may miss a vaccination goal set by President Joe Biden for July 4, officials are warning against complacency and states are ramping up measures to encourage reluctant residents to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
  • A multitude of states and companies in the last month have hoped to create demand for vaccines by awarding prizes to those inoculated.
  • It had fallen to under a million a day on average earlier in the week.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday that the best way for the country to avoid another Covid-19 surge -- and another shut down -- is to get vaccinated.
  • A recent CNN analysis of CDC data found that the pace of newly-vaccinated adults will fall short of the Biden administration's goal of 70% of adults with one dose by July 4.
  • At present, 12 states have already met Biden's one-dose goal: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
  • The push to increase vaccinations is highlighted by further evidence that the mass vaccination programs this year have contributed greatly in the fight against Covid-19.
  • A daily average of 49,000 new cases reported to the CDC at the start of May has fallen to less than 14,000 Thursday.
  • Nearly 170 million people -- just over half of the total US population -- have received at least one dose of vaccine, and about 137.5 million people -- 41.4% of the population -- are fully vaccinated.
  • The CDC says vaccinated people may stop wearing masks in most cases, but unvaccinated people should continue to use them.
  • Hawaii, which has maintained some of the toughest travel restrictions throughout the pandemic, is beginning to loosen rules on air travel, dropping its testing and quarantine requirements for people flying between the Hawaiian islands starting June 15. All pandemic restrictions will be lifted once the full vaccination rate reaches 70%,
  • In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear announced the state's new Covid-19 vaccine incentive which will give vaccinated adults "a shot at a million dollars," he said.
  • More than 2 million Kentuckians have already been vaccinated, but Beshear anticipates "a significant increase" following Friday's announcement, he said.
  • In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis presented Sally Sliger with a super-sized check for $1 million as the winner of the first drawing in the state's 'Comeback Cash' initiative.
  • As vaccines continue to go into the arms of eligible teens and adults, health officials remain concerned over the safety of children. Only those ages 12 years and older are currently eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine in the US.
  • Research showing an increase in Covid-19 hospitalization rates among adolescents in the US is a reminder that even children can suffer from the virus,
  • As a result, bans on school mask mandates in states like Texas are irresponsible and could result in more children getting sick, Offit said.
  • About 1.4 million new doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered since Thursday,
  • The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), on which Offit sits, is set to meet on June 10 to discuss what the FDA should consider in either authorizing or approving the use of coronavirus vaccines in children under 12.
  • Both Moderna and Pfizer are running trials for their vaccines in children ages 11 and under.
rerobinson03

Moderna Seeks Full F.D.A. Approval for Covid Vaccine - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...erna-vaccine-fda-approval.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 07 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Moderna on Tuesday became the latest pharmaceutical company to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for full approval for its Covid-19 vaccine for use in people 18 and older. F.D.A. approval would allow the company to market the shot directly to consumers, and could also help raise public confidence in the vaccine.
  • Last month Pfizer and BioNTech applied to the agency for full approval of their vaccine for use in people 16 and older.
  • Moderna’s vaccine was authorized for emergency use in December, and as of Sunday, more than 151 million doses had been administered in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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  • Moderna’s full approval request comes as more than 50 percent of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, but the pace of vaccinations has dropped sharply since mid-April. A recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed signs that some hesitant people have been persuaded: About a third of people who had planned to “wait and see” whether they would get vaccinated said that they had made vaccine appointments or planned to do so.
katherineharron

US Coronavirus: After the worst day ever for deaths, this summer could be 'dramatically better' - CNN - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

covid

shared by katherineharron on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Covid-19 is now killing faster than at any point in 2020. And the new year just started.
  • The US reported its highest number of Covid-19 deaths in one day Tuesday: 4,327, according to Johns Hopkins University. In fact, the five highest daily tallies for new infections and new deaths have all occurred in 2021.
  • Over the past week, the US has averaged more than 3,300 deaths every day,
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  • More than 131,300 people are now hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
  • On Tuesday, Arizona reported a record-high 5,082 hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The same day, it broke a second record: more than 1,180 Covid-19 patients in ICU beds.
  • More than a quarter of the population in 30 US counties comes from full-time enrollment at higher education institutes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In 10 of those counties, at least 90% of staffed ICU beds are occupied, according to the NCES. Those counties include Oktibbeha County, home to Mississippi State University, where almost all ICU beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients.
  • In Williamsburg, Virginia -- home to William & Mary -- Covid-19 cases nearly tripled in one week.
  • While vaccinations continue to lag behind predictions, health experts are begging Americans to hunker down in their bubbles for these next few months as soaring hospitalizations lead to record daily deaths.
  • Mass vaccinations, warmer weather, a new presidential administration and a population building immunity could lead to a "dramatically better" summer, he said.
  • Two "remarkably effective" vaccines are already being administered, and two more vaccines -- from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca -- "are right around the corner," Offit said.
  • "We are telling states they should open vaccinations to all people ... 65 and over and all people under age 65 with a comorbidity with some form of medical documentation," Azar said.
  • If another 55% to 60% of the population can be vaccinated -- something Offit said can be done if the US gives 1 million to 1.5 million doses a day -- "then I really do think that by June, we can stop the spread of this virus."
  • The incoming Biden administration "isn't into this cult of denialism"
  • The Pfizer vaccine doses should be spaced 21 days apart, and the Moderna doses should be 28 days apart.More than 27.6 million vaccine doses have so far been distributed, according to CDC data, and more than 9.3 million people have received their first dose -- a far cry from where some experts hoped the country would be by now.
  • Fauci said, "When people are ready to get vaccinated, we're going to move right on to the next level, so that there are not vaccine doses that are sitting in a freezer or refrigerator where they could be getting into people's arm."
  • And starting in two weeks, vaccines will be distributed to states based on which jurisdictions are getting the most doses into arms and where the most older adults reside. "We will be allocating them based on the pace of administration as reported by states and by the size of the 65 and over population in each state," Azar said.
  • Only six states have administered more than 50% of the doses distributed to them, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Connecticut, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
  • Nearly 2.3 million children tested positive for Covid-19 from the pandemic's start through January 7, a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association shows
  • More than 171,000 of those cases were reported between December 31 and January 7, while over two weeks -- between December 24 through January 7 -- there was a 15% increase in child Covid-19 cases, the report said.
  • The findings mean children now represent 12.5% of all infections in the US.
Javier E

The Not-So-Soft Bigotry of COVID Indifference - The Bulwark - 0 views

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bigotry covid indifference liberty gop demographics deaths pandemic effects

shared by Javier E on 15 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • As the coronavirus pandemic continues to cut a wide swath through American communities, many have started to ignore it or, worse, rationalize the country’s mounting losses as a “sad but unavoidable” fact of life. The “sadness” appears to be of a very limited type. A recent poll found nearly 60 percent of Republicans view the deaths we’ve experienced as “acceptable.
  • There may be a relatively simple explanation for this complacency: the pandemic has disproportionately affected populations that are mostly out of sight and mind for the majority of Americans
  • COVID-19, for much of America, is something that happens to other people and many of the others are very old, very poor, people of color, or some combination of all these characteristics.
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  • Our real concern, the logic goes, should be for younger people who have their whole lives ahead of them and are sacrificing their economic futures to lockdowns. This collapse of the inter-generational compact has been far more effective at killing them off than any death panel dreamed up in Sarah Palin’s fevered imagination.
  • Similarly, ethnic and racial minorities including African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native Americans have all been disproportionately affected by COVID-19
  • Farm and food processing workers—dominated by Latino and other immigrant workers—are another population that has disproportionately been affected by COVID-19.
  • That social reciprocity has broken down to this degree ought to be an embarrassment and shame to us all.
  • Heavily agricultural regions like California’s Central Valleyand Washington State’s Yakima Valley have seen huge COVID spikes. In response, the U.S. Department of Labor has so far levied just $29,000 in fines against two companies, Smithfield and JBS, who have combined sales of $65 billion per year.
  • Adding to the misery of COVID-vulnerable populations is an unfortunate, and very human, tendency to find reasons to blame disadvantaged groups for their illness.
  • Reviewing the data and history pandemic discrimination, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the majority of America has concluded that these groups—the poor, the minority, the imprisoned, and the elderly—are the “acceptable” losses.
  • Were the situation reversed and the white, middle aged, and middle/upper classes the primary victims of the pandemic—one of the features of the 1918 influenza—COVID-19 would be a true national emergency and there would be far less complaining about disrupted schools, work, and social life brought about by social distancing requirements and economic shutdowns
  • Last are the millions of Americans behind bars. Per statistics from the Marshall Project, there have been more than 121,000 COVID-19 cases reported among prisoners and more than a thousand deaths.
  • The message seems to be that Americans have abandoned e pluribus unum (out of many, one) for “everyone—or at least every group—for themselves.”
  • Pro-lifers have for decades protested American indifference to the deaths of millions of unborn children (another invisible and voiceless minority), and they have been right to do so. Where are these champions of human life when other weak and vulnerable populations are dying at the rate of a thousand a week or more?
Javier E

You Are Going to Get COVID Again … And Again … And Again - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...639436

covid effects response pandemic history crisis policy

shared by Javier E on 28 May 22 - No Cached
  • You’re not just likely to get the coronavirus. You’re likely to get it again and again and again.
  • “I personally know several individuals who have had COVID in almost every wave,” says Salim Abdool Karim, a clinical infectious-diseases epidemiologist and the director of the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa, which has experienced five meticulously tracked surges, and where just one-third of the population is vaccinated.
  • er best guess for the future has the virus infiltrating each of us, on average, every three years or so. “Barring some intervention that really changes the landscape,” she said, “we will all get SARS-CoV-2 multiple times in our life.”
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • that would be on par with what we experience with flu viruses, which scientists estimate hit us about every two to five years, less often in adulthood. It also matches up well with the documented cadence of the four other coronaviruses that seasonally trouble humans, and cause common colds.
  • For now, every infection, and every subsequent reinfection, remains a toss of the dice. “Really, it’s a gamble,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist and long-COVID researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. Vaccination and infection-induced immunity may load the dice against landing on severe disease, but that danger will never go away completely, and scientists don’t yet know what happens to people who contract “mild” COVID over and over again
  • Or maybe not. This virus seems capable of tangling into just about every tissue in the body, affecting organs such as the heart, brain, liver, kidneys, and gut; it has already claimed the lives of millions, while saddling countless others with symptoms that can linger for months or years.
  • considering our current baseline, “less dangerous” could still be terrible—and it’s not clear exactly where we’re headed. When it comes to reinfection, we “just don’t know enough,”
  • Perhaps, as several experts have posited since the pandemic’s early days, SARS-CoV-2 will just become the fifth cold-causing coronavirus.
  • A third or fourth bout might be more muted still; the burden of individual diseases may be headed toward an asymptote of mildness that holds for many years
  • Future versions of SARS-CoV-2 could continue to shape-shift out of existing antibodies’ reach, as coronaviruses often do. But the body is flush with other fighters that are much tougher to bamboozle—among them, B cells and T cells that can quash a growing infection before it spirals out of control
  • Those protections tend to build iteratively, as people see pathogens or vaccines more often. People vaccinated three times over, for instance, seem especially well equipped to duke it out with all sorts of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron and its offshoots.
  • promising patterns: Second infections and post-vaccination infections “are significantly less severe,” she told me, sometimes to the point where people don’t notice them at all
  • Bodies, wised up to the virus’s quirks, can now react more quickly, clobbering it with sharper and speedier strikes.
  • “There are still very good reasons” to keep exposures few and far between, Landon, of the University of Chicago, told me. Putting off reinfection creates fewer opportunities for harm: The dice are less likely to land on severe disease (or chronic illness) when they’re rolled less often overall. It also buys us time to enhance our understanding of the virus, and improve our tools to fight it.
  • Immunity, though, is neither binary nor permanent. Even if SARS-CoV-2’s assaults are blunted over time, there are no guarantees about the degree to which that happens, or how long it lasts.
  • A slew of factors could end up weighting the dice toward severe disease—among them, a person’s genetics, age, underlying medical conditions, health-care access, and frequency or magnitude of exposure to the virus.
  • for everyone else, no amount of viral dampening can totally eliminate the chance, however small it may be, of getting very sick.
  • Long COVID, too, might remain a possibility with every discrete bout of illness. Or maybe the effects of a slow-but-steady trickle of minor, fast-resolving infections would sum together, and bring about the condition.
  • Every time the body’s defenses are engaged, it “takes a lot of energy, and causes tissue damage,” Thomas told me. Should that become a near-constant barrage, “that’s probably not great for you.”
  • Bodies are resilient, especially when they’re offered time to rest, and she doubts that reinfection with a typically ephemeral virus such as SARS-CoV-2 would cause mounting damage. “The cumulative effect is more likely to be protective than detrimental,” she said, because of the immunity that’s laid down each time.
  • people who have caught the virus twice or thrice may be more likely to become long-haulers than those who have had it just once.
  • Some other microbes, when they reinvade us, can fire up the immune system in unhelpful ways, driving bad bouts of inflammation that burn through the body, or duping certain defensive molecules into aiding, rather than blocking, the virus’s siege. Researchers don’t think SARS-CoV-2 will do the same. But this pathogen is “much more formidable than even someone working on coronaviruses would have expected,
  • Seasonal encounters with pathogens other than SARS-CoV-2 don’t often worry us—but perhaps that’s because we’re still working to understand their toll. “Have we been underestimating long-term consequences from other repeat infections?” Thomas said. “The answer is probably, almost certainly, yes.”
  • the rhythm of reinfection isn’t just about the durability of immunity or the pace of viral evolution. It’s also about our actions and policies, and whether they allow the pathogen to transmit and evolve. Strategies to avoid infection—to make it as infrequent as possible, for as many people as possible—remain options, in the form of vaccination, masking, ventilation, paid sick leave, and more.
  • Gordon and Swartz are both hopeful that the slow accumulation of immunity will also slash people’s chances of developing long COVID.
  • The outlooks of the experts I spoke with spanned the range from optimism to pessimism, though all agreed that uncertainty loomed. Until we know more, none were keen to gamble with the virus—or with their own health. Any reinfection will likely still pose a threat, “even if it’s not the worst-case scenario,” Abdool Karim told me. “I wouldn’t want to put myself in that position.”
aniyahbarnett

The Covid-19 pandemic is getting worse. What happens next is up to you. - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis pandemic

shared by aniyahbarnett on 15 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • experts warned the start of 2021 would be a very rough time in this pandemic.
  • The United States just shattered its all-time records for the most Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths reported in one day:
  • On January 2, a record-high 302,506 new infections were reported in one day, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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  • "These viruses may be able to infect people who are further than 6 feet away from the person who is infected or after that person has left the space," the CDC said.
  • Many hospitals are now filled beyond capacity,
  • pandemic fatigue.
  • And many of those who are sick of taking precautions are getting sick.
  • , more people are socializing indoors.
  • "linger in the air for minutes to hours,"
  • A variant first detected in South Africa
  • Gathering with multiple friends indoors can be dangerous.
  • "If you go to a party with five or more people, almost certainly there's going to be somebody with Covid-19 at that party,"
  • more than 50% of all infections are transmitted from people who aren't showing symptoms.
  • That's an average of 3.5 people getting infected every second.Read More
  • The United States has confirmed at least 76 cases of a highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus that was first detected in the United Kingdom.
  • And the United States ranks 61st in how quickly virus samples are collected from patients, analyzed and then posted to an international database to find new variants.
  • While it may be more transmissible, there's no evidence this variant first detected in the UK is deadlier or causes more severe disease, the CDC said.
  • Some patients have been put in hospital break rooms, parking garages and gift shops.
  • As of Thursday, it has not been detected in the United States.
  • That didn't happen. Not even close.
  • As of Thursday morning, about 10.2 million vaccine doses had been administered, out of roughly 29.3 million doses that have been distributed across the United States, according to the CDC.
  • You can test
  • negative
  • but still be infected and contagious.
  • And don't think you're invincible -- even if you're young and healthy.
  • "We see severe illness among healthy, young adults with no apparent underlying causes," Hotez said.
aidenborst

US coronavirus: At this rate, January will be the deadliest month of Covid-19 in the US - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Politics US history crisis Culture policy pandemic vaccine covid-19 coronavirus death

shared by aidenborst on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • It took about 90 days for the United States to reach its first 2 million cases of coronavirus last year.
  • But it took just 10 days to hit 2.2 million cases in 2021, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
  • But officials say many Americans did the opposite over the holidays, gathering with friends or extended family. Now the consequences are becoming more evident in packed hospitals across the country.
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  • More than 27,000 new Covid-19 deaths have been reported in just the first 10 days of 2021, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
  • At this rate, more people could die from Covid-19 in January than any other month of this pandemic. December had a record high of 77,431 deaths due to Covid-19.
  • He also expressed concern about "the inevitable arrival of the more highly transmissible" strain of coronavirus that was first detected in the United Kingdom and has spread to at least eight US states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
  • There were 129,229 Covid-19 patients in US hospitals on Sunday, according to the Covid Tracking Project -- the sixth highest figure recorded. It was the 40th consecutive day that US Covid-19 hospitalizations remained above 100,000.
  • CNN medical analyst and emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen echoed that statement, telling CNN's Ana Cabrera Sunday, "The individuals who did not use masks or social distancing at the Capitol probably are also not following these guidelines when they go back to their home communities."
  • In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said his state was seeing a "real and significant increase in cases and our positivity rate from people's gatherings around the holiday."
  • "This surge that we're in right now is at least twice the rate, the seriousness, of the previous surges that we have seen," the governor said Friday. "This is our most dangerous time."
  • There were 7,497 Covid-19 patients in Florida hospitals on Sunday, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. That's about 3,000 patients more than were hospitalized in the state about a month ago, on December 12, when the AHCA reported 4,343 hospitalizations.
  • "The speed with which we are reaching grim milestones of COVID-19 deaths and cases is a devastating reflection of the immense spread that is occurring across the county," Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said.
  • "The best way to protect ourselves, slow the spread, and stop overwhelming our hospitals, is to pause participating in any activities that aren't absolutely essential," she said.
  • Meanwhile, the nation's Covid-19 vaccine rollout "is absolutely not working as intended," said Dr. Megan Ranney, a CNN medical analyst and an emergency physician.
  • "We have three times as many doses that have been distributed to states as have actually gotten in arms," she said. "We have to do something different, and we have to do something different now."
  • President-elect Joe Biden will aim to release nearly all available doses of Covid-19 vaccines in an effort to quickly ramp up the US vaccine rollout, a spokesman for his transition team said.
  • But it could also be risky, because the vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna require two doses administered weeks apart to be about 95% effective, and vaccine manufacturing has not ramped up as rapidly as many experts had hoped.
  • Officials aren't recommending patients delay receiving their second doses, she said. People should still plan to receive the second dose of Pfizer's vaccine 21 days after the first dose, and the Moderna vaccine 28 days after the first dose.
  • "Right now, the issue is not so much supply, but it's actually that last mile of getting (vaccines) from the distribution sites to, actually, people's arms," she said. "If we have more supply, that's not actually solving for the right problem."
  • If there isn't enough vaccine in reserve for people to received second doses, she said, "I think that could really fuel vaccine hesitancy and further erode public trust in these vaccines."
katherineharron

US Coronavirus: As US inches closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths, one model projects about 115,000 more could die in next four weeks - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

covid

shared by katherineharron on 02 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The US topped 20 million total infections and inched closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths on the first day of 2021 -- proof of a grim reality continuing into the new year.
  • 115,000 could die over the next month
  • The US topped 20 million total infections and inched closer to 350,000 Covid-19 deaths on the first day of 2021 -- proof of a grim reality continuing into the new year.
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  • more than 77,500 died in December, the country's deadliest month.
  • The US reported a record 125,379 hospitalized Covid-19 patients nationwide Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. That number dipped slightly Friday, with 125,057 hospitalizations reported -- about an 163% increase from two months ago.
  • "We're also worried that at some point soon we're going to have a really tough time finding the space and the staff to take care of all the sick patients coming in with Covid-19 who really need our help," said Dr. Nicole Van Groningen of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
  • Experts fear that in the coming weeks -- following holiday travel and gatherings -- the US could see another surge of cases that could drive hospitalizations and deaths even higher.
  • Georgia announced Friday a total of more than 8,700 new Covid-19 cases in the state -- a new high. Maryland on the same day reported its second-highest number of daily cases. New York, meanwhile, added nearly 16,500 new cases -- a day after it hit its highest ever one-day case count.
  • Texas health officials reported record-high Covid-19 hospitalizations across the state for the fifth day in a row, with more than 12,400 patients.
  • ICU capacity in many parts of the state remains dangerously low. In Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, zero beds are available. One health official said earlier this week the surge of patients has been pushing hospitals to the "brink of catastrophe."
  • The variant has been found in at least 30 countries and has also been detected in Colorado, California and Florida.
  • "The discovery of the additional cases leads county health officials to believe that the new strain of the virus is widespread in the community," a county spokesperson said.The new cases were found in two men in their 40s and a man in his 50s, officials said.
  • "Currently, the US is doing less sequencing than many other countries -- a recent report from (genomics database) GISAID estimated that the US is sequencing 0.3% of positive cases versus the UK that's at about 7%."
  • the vaccines approved in the US require two doses based a few weeks apart. And the nation will continue to do it that way and will not follow the UK's decision to potentially delay second doses, Fauci told CNN on Friday.
  • "The fact is we want to stick with what the science tells us, and the data that we have for both [vaccines] indicate you give a prime, followed by a boost in 21 days with Pfizer and 28 days with Moderna. And right now, that's the way we're going with it, and that's the decision that is made," Fauci said. "We make decisions based on data. We don't have any data of giving a single dose and waiting for more than the normal period of time" to give the second dose, he added.
leilamulveny

US coronavirus: Americans head to polls amid harrowing surge in cases and hospitalizations - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

polls cases pandemic

shared by leilamulveny on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN)As Americans head to the voting booths Tuesday, the devastating Covid-19 pandemic looms: surging across the US yet again, setting grim records and forecast to take tens of thousands more lives across the country in the coming months.
  • In just one month, the country's 7-day case average nearly doubled.
  • Last Friday, the US reported 99,321 new cases -- the highest single day number of infections recorded for any country. And at least 31 states set daily infection records in October.
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  • Hospitalizations are also surging, with the number of patients nationwide rising by more than 10,000 in just two weeks, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.
  • As of Tuesday afternoon, the US reported 9.3 million cases of the virus and more than 232,000 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
  • Researchers from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation project that 399,163 Americans could lose their lives to Covid-19 by February 1.
  • However, more than 130,000 lives could be saved by March if Americans wore masks, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
  • For those who are hoping to cast their ballot Tuesday, the CDC told CNN people recovering from Covid-19 or quarantining from being exposed to the virus can still go vote safely
  • "When possible, alternative voting options -- which minimize contact between voters and poll workers -- should be made available for people with Covid-19, those who have symptoms of Covid-19, and those who have been exposed," the CDC spokesperson said.
  • Meanwhile, more bad news, this time on Covid-19 cases in children.
  • There were 61,000 new cases in children during the last week of October, "which is larger than any previous week in the pandemic," the AAP said in a statement. And since the start of the pandemic through October 29, more than 853,000 children have tested positive for the virus, the AAP said. Nearly 200,000 of those cases were during the month of October.
chrispink7

Which Countries Are Handling The COVID-19 Crisis Best? New Public Opinion Data Offer Answers - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...lic-opinion-data-offer-answers

shared by chrispink7 on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • The latest polling data from the company YouGov show Vietnam to lead the list of countries most supportive of their governments’ efforts to combat COVID-19. To be exact, 95% of Vietnamese people think their government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well. But this doesn’t mean the Vietnamese people are letting down their guard. Of the 26 countries measured by the YouGov researchers, Vietnam also exhibits the highest level of COVID-19 fear; 89% of the Vietnamese population are “very” or “somewhat” concerned they will contract the disease. This finding is interesting, as one might assume that fear should drop to the extent that citizens believe their government has things under control. Then again, unprecedented events often produce unexpected results.
  • Other countries that are handling the crisis well, at least in the eyes of its citizens, include India, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Finland. Where does the United States stand? Toward the bottom of the pack. According to the most recent YouGov polling data, less than half (49%) of Americans think the government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well. This squares with other polling data in the United States. A recent Pew Research poll, for instance, found that 65% of Americans felt that the federal government was too slow to take major steps to address the threat posed by COVID-19.
  • The three countries where citizens show the weakest support of their governments’ handling of the pandemic are Spain, France, and Japan. In each of these countries, less than 40% of people are supportive of their governments’ handling of the crisis. And then there’s the case of Sweden. Interestingly, the data show a significant increase in Swedish citizens’ support of the way their government has handled the crisis. Currently, 57% of Swedes think their government is handling the pandemic “very” or “somewhat” well compared to 41% a month ago. This may have to do with the fact that more Swedes are buying into the government’s contrarian approach to managing the crisis. Unlike most of the developed world, Sweden decided not to close businesses and schools. A recent article in Bloomberg suggests that COVID-19 infections and fatalities are beginning to plateau in Sweden and the popularity of Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has soared.
Javier E

Life Is Worse for Older People Now - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...673507

agism age health culture crisis policy history pandemic

shared by Javier E on 25 Mar 23 - No Cached
  • A major reason older people are still at risk is that vaccines can’t entirely compensate for their immune systems. A study recently published in the journal Vaccines showed that for vaccinated adults ages 60 and over, the risk of dying from COVID versus other natural causes jumped from 11 percent to 34 percent within a year of completing their primary shot series
  • A booster dose brings the risk back down, but other research shows that it wears off too. A booster is a basic precaution, but “not one that everyone is taking,”
  • Unlike younger people, most of whom fully recover from a bout with COVID, a return to baseline health is less guaranteed for older adults. In one study, 32 percent of adults over 65 were diagnosed with symptoms that lasted well beyond their COVID infection
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  • For every COVID death, many more older people develop serious illness. Risk increases with age, and people older than 70 “have a substantially higher rate of hospitalizations” than those ages 60 to 69,
  • Where America has landed is hardly a new way of life but rather one that is simply more onerous. “One way to think about it is that this is a new risk that’s out there” alongside other natural causes of death, such as diabetes and heart failure,
  • The antiviral Paxlovid was supposed to help blunt the wave of old people falling sick and ending up in the hospital—and it can reduce severe disease by 50 to 90 percent. But unfortunately, it is not widely used; as of July, just a third of Americans 80 or older took Paxlovid.
  • The reality is that as long as the virus continues to be prevalent, older Americans will face these potential outcomes every time they leave their home. That doesn’t mean they will barricade themselves indoors, or that they even should. Still, “every decision that we make now is weighing that balance between risk and socialization,”
  • Persistent coughs, aches, and joint pain can linger long after serious illness, together with indirect impacts such as loss of muscle strength and flexibility, which can affect older people’s ability to be independent, Rivers said. Older COVID survivors may also have a higher risk of cognitive decline. In some cases, these ailments could be part of long COVID, which may be more prevalent in older people.
  • Before the pandemic, the association between loneliness and higher mortality rates, increased cardiovascular risks, and dementia among older adults was already well established. Increased isolation during COVID amplified this association.
  • Even older adults who have weathered the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic still face other challenges that COVID has exacerbated. Many have long relied on personal caregivers or the staff at nursing facilities. These workers, already scarce before the pandemic, are even more so now because many quit or were affected by COVID themselves
  • “Long-term care has been in a crisis situation for a long time, but it’s even worse now,” Muramatsu said, noting that many home care workers are older adults themselves
  • Older people won’t have one single approach to contending with this sad reality. “Everybody is trying to figure out what is the best way to function, to try to have some level of everyday life and activity, but also keep your risk of getting sick as low as possible,”
  • Again, many of these people did not have it great before the pandemic, even if the rest of the country wasn’t paying attention. “We often don’t provide the basic social support that older people need,” Kenneth Covinsky, a clinician-researcher at the UCSF Division of Geriatrics, said. Rather, ageism, the willful ignorance or indifference to the needs of older people, is baked into American life.
  • It is perhaps the main reason older adults were so badly affected by the pandemic in the first place, as illustrated by the delayed introduction of safety precautions in nursing homes and the blithe acceptance of COVID deaths among older adults. If Americans couldn’t bring themselves to care at any point over the past three years, will they ever?
brickol

Coronavirus vaccine: when will it be ready? | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-vaccine-when-will-it-be-ready

COVID-19 crisis

shared by brickol on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Even at their most effective – and draconian – containment strategies have only slowed the spread of the respiratory disease Covid-19. With the World Health Organization finally declaring a pandemic, all eyes have turned to the prospect of a vaccine, because only a vaccine can prevent people from getting sick.
  • About 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create such a vaccine, at least four of which already have candidates they have been testing in animals. The first of these – produced by Boston-based biotech firm Moderna – will enter human trials imminently.
  • This unprecedented speed is thanks in large part to early Chinese efforts to sequence the genetic material of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19
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  • Sars-CoV-2 shares between 80% and 90% of its genetic material with the virus that caused Sars – hence its name. Both consist of a strip of ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside a spherical protein capsule that is covered in spikes. The spikes lock on to receptors on the surface of cells lining the human lung – the same type of receptor in both cases – allowing the virus to break into the cell. Once inside, it hijacks the cell’s reproductive machinery to produce more copies of itself, before breaking out of the cell again and killing it in the process.
  • Coronaviruses have caused two other recent epidemics – severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in China in 2002-04, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which started in Saudi Arabia in 2012. In both cases, work began on vaccines that were later shelved when the outbreaks were contained.
  • Though nobody could have predicted that the next infectious disease to threaten the globe would be caused by a coronavirus – flu is generally considered to pose the greatest pandemic risk – vaccinologists had hedged their bets by working on “prototype” pathogens.
  • All vaccines work according to the same basic principle. They present part or all of the pathogen to the human immune system, usually in the form of an injection and at a low dose, to prompt the system to produce antibodies to the pathogen. Antibodies are a kind of immune memory which, having been elicited once, can be quickly mobilised again if the person is exposed to the virus in its natural form.
  • Some of the Covid-19 vaccine projects are using these tried-and-tested approaches, but others are using newer technology.
  • Cepi’s original portfolio of four funded Covid-19 vaccine projects was heavily skewed towards these more innovative technologies, and last week it announced $4.4m (£3.4m) of partnership funding with Novavax and with a University of Oxford vectored vaccine project.
  • Clinical trials, an essential precursor to regulatory approval, usually take place in three phases. The first, involving a few dozen healthy volunteers, tests the vaccine for safety, monitoring for adverse effects. The second, involving several hundred people, usually in a part of the world affected by the disease, looks at how effective the vaccine is, and the third does the same in several thousand people. But there’s a high level of attrition as experimental vaccines pass through these phases.
  • There are good reasons for that. Either the candidates are unsafe, or they’re ineffective, or both. Screening out duds is essential, which is why clinical trials can’t be skipped or hurried. Approval can be accelerated if regulators have approved similar products before.
  • No vaccine made from genetic material – RNA or DNA – has been approved to date, for example. So the Covid-19 vaccine candidates have to be treated as brand new vaccines, and as Gellin says: “While there is a push to do things as fast as possible, it’s really important not to take shortcuts.”
  • It’s for these reasons that taking a vaccine candidate all the way to regulatory approval typically takes a decade or more, and why President Trump sowed confusion when, at a meeting at the White House on 2 March, he pressed for a vaccine to be ready by the US elections in November – an impossible deadline.
  • In the meantime, there is another potential problem. As soon as a vaccine is approved, it’s going to be needed in vast quantities – and many of the organisations in the Covid-19 vaccine race simply don’t have the necessary production capacity. Vaccine development is already a risky affair, in business terms, because so few candidates get anywhere near the clinic. Production facilities tend to be tailored to specific vaccines, and scaling these up when you don’t yet know if your product will succeed is not commercially feasible. Cepi and similar organisations exist to shoulder some of the risk, keeping companies incentivised to develop much-needed vaccines. Cepi plans to invest in developing a Covid-19 vaccine and boosting manufacturing capacity in parallel, and earlier this month it put out a call for $2bn to allow it to do so.
  • The problem is making sure the vaccine gets to all those who need it. This is a challenge even within countries, and some have worked out guidelines. In the scenario of a flu pandemic, for example, the UK would prioritise vaccinating healthcare and social care workers, along with those considered at highest medical risk – including children and pregnant women – with the overall goal of keeping sickness and death rates as low as possible. But in a pandemic, countries also have to compete with each other for medicines.
  • Because pandemics tend to hit hardest those countries that have the most fragile and underfunded healthcare systems, there is an inherent imbalance between need and purchasing power when it comes to vaccines.
  • Outside of pandemics, the WHO brings governments, charitable foundations and vaccine-makers together to agree an equitable global distribution strategy, and organisations like Gavi, the vaccine alliance, have come up with innovative funding mechanisms to raise money on the markets for ensuring supply to poorer countries. But each pandemic is different, and no country is bound by any arrangement the WHO proposes – leaving many unknowns.
andrespardo

Black people four times more likely to die from Covid-19, ONS finds | Society | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...to-die-from-covid-19-ons-finds

coronavirus crisis corona economics race

shared by andrespardo on 07 May 20 - No Cached
  • Black people four times more likely to die from Covid-19, ONS finds
  • Black people are more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people, according to stark official figures exposing a dramatic divergence in the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales. The Office of National Statistics found that the difference in the virus’s impact was caused not only by pre-existing differences in communities’ wealth, health, education and living arrangements.
  • after other pre-existing factors had been accounted for, and females from those ethnic groups were 1.6 times more likely to die from the virus than their white counterparts.
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  • The risk of Covid-19 death for people from Chinese and mixed ethnic groups was found to be similar to that for white people.
  • Guardian research last month confirmed suspicions that minority groups faced the greatest risk from the coronavirus and showed that areas with high ethnic minority populations in England and Wales tended to have higher mortality rates in the pandemic.
  • “We cannot ignore how important racial discrimination and racial inequalities, for example, in housing, are, even among poorer socio-economic groups,” she said. “These factors are important but are not taken into account in most statistical modelling of Covid-19 risk factors.”
  • These groups are more likely to work in frontline roles in the NHS in England: nearly 21% of staff are from ethnic minorities, compared with about 14% of the population of England and Wales. Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani populations have been shown to face higher levels of unemployment and child poverty than white groups.
  • The authors called for further research on the contribution of occupational risk and whether people from BAME backgrounds were placed at increased risk of exposure and infection.
  • To try to understand how much of the difference in Covid-19 morbidity was to do purely with ethnicity, the statisticians adjusted for age as well as region, rural and urban classification, area deprivation, household composition, socio-economic position, highest qualification held, household tenure, and health or disability as recorded in the 2011 census.
  • After all these factors were accounted for, Indian men and women were less likely than people from Bangladeshi and Pakistani background to die from Covid-19, but were still 1.3 times and 1.4 times more vulnerable than white people.
  • The ONS also checked to see if, within ethnic groups, socio-economic class made a difference. They found that the differences in risk of Covid-19-related death across ethnic groups were of similar magnitudes within all three socio-economic classes.
  • Some groups may be over-represented in public-facing occupations and could be more likely to be infected by Covid-19 . About 12.8% of workers from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds work in public-facing transport jobs such as bus, coach and taxi driving, compared with 3.5% of white people. The ONS said it plans to conduct further work to identify occupations that are particularly at risk.
  • Like the ONS data, the study found that people of black and Asian backgrounds were at higher risk of death, and it ruled out the idea that this was largely due to higher rates of underlying medical problems in these groups.
  • “It doesn’t have to be like this. As a society that prides itself on justice and compassion, we can and must do better.”
  • The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that people from deprived social backgrounds were also at a higher risk, and again this finding could not be explained by other risk factors.
  • The research accounts for health problems reported by people who filled in the 2011 census, but Hanif said differences in the extent of other underlying diseases in different ethnic groups in Britain – so-called co-morbidities – which have not been accounted for by the ONS, may be significant. For example, in the UK people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent are
  • “We have commissioned Public Health England to better understand the different factors, such as ethnicity, obesity and geographical location that may influence the effects of the virus.”
katherineharron

US Coronavirus: The CDC is tracking a recent uptick in Covid-19 cases. Its chief says spring breakers and eased restrictions concern her - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

covid

shared by katherineharron on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Top US health officials say they're encouraged by the accelerating Covid-19 vaccinations.
  • not enough Americans are fully vaccinated yet to suppress the spread of the virus
  • eased restrictions across the country coupled with spring break crowds could spell trouble,
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  • "We need to hang in there for just a little while longer because we can see a time in the next couple of months where we will have a lot more people vaccinated and we will really be able to blunt infection rates," she added.
  • Covid-19 cases in the country have seen a slight increase, according to Walensky, while a highly contagious -- and potentially more deadly -- variant is circulating.
  • "If we choose to invest in prevention right now, we will ultimately come out of this pandemic faster and with fewer lives lost," the CDC director said.
  • "These findings should be a jolt of hope for all of us and to serve as a catalyst for everyone to roll up their sleeves when the vaccine is available," Walensky said.
  • "You've got to continue to do what we're doing: more vaccinations and continue to do public health measures until we actually do turn the corner."
  • More than a quarter of Americans have gotten at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to CDC data. About 14% of the US population is fully vaccinated.
  • more than 70% of people 65 and older have received at least one shot.
  • That 65 and older population has also seen a larger decline in Covid-19 case rates, death rates and hospitalizations than any other age group and now account for a smaller share of total hospitalizations than they did a few months ago, according to an analysis of CDC data.
  • So while the US is getting closer to turning the corner, it's not there yet.
  • vaccines have likely already saved at least 40,000 American lives so far
  • As more states try to get more shots into arms faster, officials have unveiled timelines for expanded eligibility -- and in many cases have set a date for when the vaccines will be open to anyone 16 and older.
  • Pfizer's vaccine is the only one available for use by people who are 16 and older while the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are both authorized for people 18 and older.
  • "We will get to the point pretty quickly where we're saying, 'OK, now we're into the really hard phase of this where we're down to the population that is not so willing to get the vaccine,'" Freeman said.
  • "The hesitancy is worrisome not just here, but all across the country, and I expect as a country we'll get to 50% vaccination rate of the population. But we're going to have a harder time getting from 50% to 70%," Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN earlier this week.
zoegainer

Trump Administration Declines to Tighten Soot Rules, Despite Link to Covid Deaths - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-epa-soot-covid.html

trump administration deaths health covid US

shared by zoegainer on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The Trump administration on Monday declined to tighten controls on industrial soot emissions, disregarding an emerging scientific link between dirty air and Covid-19 death rates.
  • the Environmental Protection Agency completed a regulation that keeps in place the current rules on tiny, lung-damaging industrial particles, known as PM 2.5, instead of strengthening them, even though the agency’s own scientists have warned of the links between the pollutants and respiratory illness.
  • In April, researchers at Harvard released the first nationwide study linking long-term exposure to PM 2.5 and Covid-19 death rates
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Mr. Biden’s environmental policy proposals include a pledge to “prioritize strategies and technologies that reduce traditional air pollution in disadvantaged communities.
  • Douglas Buffington, the deputy attorney general of West Virginia, said the rule “represents a big win for West Virginia coal.”
  • “If they had been tightening it could have been a huge blow to the coal industry,” he said
  • Already, president-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is planning to move forward quickly in his first months in office to reinstate and strengthen many of the environmental rules rolled back by Mr. Trump
  • “We’re starting to see evidence that long-term exposure to air pollution — which disproportionately affects communities of color & low-income communities — is linked to COVID-19 death rates.”
  • Although the E.P.A.’s own staff scientists recommended tightening the current emissions rule, Mr. Wheeler said the scientific evidence was insufficient to merit doing so.
  • PM 2.5 pollution contributes to tens of thousands of premature deaths annually, and that even a slight tightening of controls on fine soot could save thousands of American lives
  • “There is a growing body of evidence that it is linked to neurological damage. And there is a growing body of evidence linking exposure of PM 2.5 to elevated levels of increased Covid morbidity.”
  • “The arguments against this rule are strong,” he said. “Even before that Harvard study there was very strong scientific evidence that stronger controls are merited. The Covid crisis reinforced that, but we didn’t need the Covid crisis to tell us that.”
  • The new rule retains a standard enacted in 2012, during the Obama administration. That rule limited the pollution of industrial fine soot particles — each about 1/30th the width of a human hair, but associated with heart attacks, strokes and premature deaths — to 12 micrograms per cubic meter
  • When E.P.A. scientists conducted that mandatory review, many concluded that if the federal government tightened that standard to about nine micrograms per cubic meter, more than 10,000 American lives could be saved a year.
  • The scientists wrote that if the rule were tightened to nine micrograms per cubic meter, annual deaths would fall by about 27 percent, or 12,150 people a year.
  • After the publication of that report, numerous industries, including oil and coal companies, automakers and chemical manufacturers, urged the Trump administration to disregard the findings and not tighten the rule
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