Health Advisories

[njr]

^ I am definitely not an anti-vaxxer, but they were kids then and had no say in the matter. Now that they’re “adults” they feel free to “exercise their rights” (even though they are being selfish and stupid!)

[jo]

The New York Times

This New Covid Vaccine Could Bring Hope to the Unvaccinated World

Carl Zimmer 14 hrs ago


In early 2020, dozens of scientific teams scrambled to make a vaccine for Covid-19. Some chose tried-and-true techniques, such as making vaccines from killed viruses. But a handful of companies bet on a riskier method, one that had never produced a licensed vaccine: deploying a genetic molecule called RNA.

The bet paid off. The first two vaccines to emerge successfully out of clinical trials, made by Pfizer-BioNTech and by Moderna, were both made of RNA. They both turned out to have efficacy rates about as good as a vaccine could get.

In the months that followed, those two RNA vaccines have provided protection to tens of millions of people in some 90 countries. But many parts of the world, including those with climbing death tolls, have had little access to them, in part because they require being kept in a deep freeze.

Now a third RNA vaccine may help meet that global need. A small German company called CureVac is on the cusp of announcing the results of its late-stage clinical trial. As early as next week, the world may learn whether its vaccine is safe and effective.

CureVac’s product belongs to what many scientists refer to as the second wave of Covid-19 vaccines that could collectively ease the world’s demand. Novavax, a company based in Maryland whose vaccine uses coronavirus proteins, is expected to apply for U.S. authorization in the next few weeks. In India, the pharmaceutical company Biological E is testing another protein-based vaccine that was developed by researchers in Texas. In Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam, researchers are starting trials for a Covid-19 shot that can be mass-produced in chicken eggs.

a person standing posing for the camera: Ingmar Hoerr, a biologist and one of CureVac’s founders.© Sebastian Gollnow/picture alliance via Getty Images Ingmar Hoerr, a biologist and one of CureVac’s founders.
Vaccines experts are particularly curious to see CureVac’s results, because its shot has an important advantage over the other RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. While those two vaccines have to be kept in a deep freezer, CureVac’s vaccine stays stable in a refrigerator — meaning it could more easily deliver the newly discovered power of RNA vaccines to hard-hit parts of the world.

“It’s gone largely under the radar,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. But now, he added, “they look pretty well positioned to clean up the global market.”

For CureVac’s co-founder, the biologist Ingmar Hoerr, the company’s Covid-19 vaccine trial is the culmination of a quarter-century’s worth of work with RNA, a molecule that helps turn DNA into the proteins that do the work of our cells. As a graduate student at the University of Tübingen in the 1990s, Dr. Hoerr injected RNA into mice and found that the animals could make the protein encoded by the molecules. He was surprised to find that the mice’s immune systems made antibodies against the new proteins.

Here, Dr. Hoerr thought, might be the basis for a new kind of vaccine. “I was thinking, Wow, if this works like that in humans, then we have a completely new pharmaceutical possibility,” he said.

At the time, only a few scientists in the world considered an RNA vaccine a serious possibility. But proponents thought it might change medicine. You could, in theory, craft an RNA molecule to immunize people against any virus. You might even be able to create an RNA vaccine to cure cancer, if you could make an RNA molecule that encoded a tumor protein.

a tall building in a city: CureVac’s headquarters in Berlin in November.© Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images CureVac’s headquarters in Berlin in November.
In 2001, Dr. Hoerr co-founded CureVac to chase the idea, but for the first few years the company struggled to survive. To keep the lights on, it took orders from other labs for custom-built RNA molecules. On the side, CureVac’s scientists tinkered with their own designs for RNA vaccines.

Over time, they found subtle tweaks to RNA vaccine molecules that caused cells to make more proteins. The more potent the RNA, the lower the dose they needed in vaccines.

CureVac’s researchers also figured out how to put the RNA molecules in fatty bubbles to protect them from destruction on their journey to cells. And perhaps most important, they used a form of RNA that could stay stable at relatively warm temperatures. Instead of requiring a deep freezer, CureVac’s vaccine could be refrigerated.

In time, other companies entered the RNA vaccine business as well: BioNTech in Germany in 2008, then Moderna in Boston in 2011. Their experiments began showing that these vaccines could protect animals against an assortment of viruses. In 2013, CureVac injected human volunteers with a rabies RNA vaccine, in the first clinical trial of the technology against an infectious disease.

a person standing in a kitchen: A worker checked diluent in vials at a plant in central France of the pharmaceutical company Fareva, which produces a component of the CureVac vaccine.© Guillaume Souvant/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A worker checked diluent in vials at a plant in central France of the pharmaceutical company Fareva, which produces a component of the CureVac vaccine.
For years, CureVac and other RNA vaccine companies toiled on perfecting their vaccines. CureVac’s first attempt at a rabies vaccine demonstrated it was safe, but it yielded a weak response from the immune system. The company has since retooled that vaccine, and the updated version has shown promise in early clinical studies. But other efforts ended in failure. In 2017, CureVac announced that its RNA vaccine against prostate cancer offered no benefits to patients.

Despite these setbacks, the company earned a solid reputation. “They ticked the boxes for scientific acumen, speed, scale and access,” said Nicholas Jackson, the head of vaccine research and development at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a foundation that supports vaccine research. C.E.P.I. gave $34 million to CureVac in 2019 to support its development of RNA vaccines for future pandemics.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, CureVac, BioNTech and Moderna all jumped in to make RNA vaccines. But BioNTech and Moderna soon pulled ahead, thanks in part to deep-pocketed allies. BioNTech teamed up with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, while Moderna worked with the National Institutes of Health and received a billion dollars from the U.S. government as part of Operation Warp Speed.

CureVac lagged behind. C.E.P.I. provided the company with $15 million, but CureVac would require far more. “If you do this, you need a considerable amount of cash,” Franz-Werner Haas, the chief executive of CureVac, said in an interview. “And the considerable amount of cash was not there.”

In March 2020, German newspapers reported that President Donald J. Trump had offered CureVac $1 billion to move its operations to the United States. CureVac denied the reports, but the chief executive suddenly left, to be replaced by Dr. Haas.

CureVac’s researchers moved ahead with their limited resources, designing an RNA molecule encoding a protein found on the surface of the coronavirus, called spike. Experiments on hamsters showed that it could protect the animals from the virus.

In June, the German government invested 300 million euros (about $360 million) in CureVac’s Covid-19 research, and other investors soon followed. In December, after promising data from early safety studies, the company started its final, so-called Phase 3 trial, recruiting 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America. The company will get its first look at the data when 56 volunteers develop Covid-19. If most of them are in the placebo group, and few in the vaccinated group, it will be proof that the vaccine works.

Dr. Haas said he expected to have that data by mid-May. There is no way to know in advance how CureVac will fare. But given the performance of other RNA vaccines, along with CureVac’s own early results, some scientists have high expectations.

“I would just be really surprised if it didn’t work well,” said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who has collaborated with CureVac on an RNA-based vaccine for H.I.V.

Still, CureVac’s vaccine is facing a challenge that Pfizer and Moderna didn’t have: new variants that may be able to blunt its effectiveness. Experiments in mice have suggested that the vaccine works well against the B.1.351 variant, which first emerged in South Africa.

Last year, CureVac partnered with a number of large companies to scale up production of its Covid vaccine, in case its clinical trials turned out well. The company also negotiated a deal with the European Union for 225 million doses, as well as an option to add another 180 million doses in subsequent months.

But now it is not clear who might receive the CureVac vaccine if it becomes available next month. In January, the European Union gave emergency authorization to a vaccine from AstraZeneca, planning to rely on that company for most of its supply. But AstraZeneca fell drastically short of its supply promises, prompting the bloc to retaliate with a lawsuit.

In April, the European Union finally fixed this shortfall, negotiating with Pfizer and BioNTech to get 1.8 billion doses of their vaccine between now and 2023. That arrangement has left analysts wondering how much demand will be left for CureVac.

“They’re going to miss the boat on the major, advanced-economy markets,” said Dr. Kirkegaard. “The U.S., Europe and Japan are going to be largely vaccinated using these Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.”

Dr. Haas countered that most of the bloc’s doses from Pfizer-BioNTech won’t come until next year. “CureVac sees itself as a major player in ending the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe and elsewhere,” he said.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that if the CureVac vaccine worked, it would be in the mix, thanks to two advantages: It is an mRNA vaccine, and it was created in Europe. It is also possible that individual European nations will make side deals with the company.

Billions of other people in low- and middle-income countries have yet to receive a vaccine, and experts say that CureVac may meet some of their demand. “We still need a lot of vaccine globally,” said Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “I think a lot of people can benefit from it.”

The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are challenging to distribute in the developing world because of the equipment and power supply required to freeze these vaccines. CureVac’s RNA vaccine can stay stable for at least three months at 41 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can sit for 24 hours at room temperature before it is used.

“The stability is a real advantage,” Dr. Jackson said. C.E.P.I. is “in very active discussions” with CureVac, he said, about distributing the company’s vaccine through Covax, an initiative to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

But CureVac is also designing a new generation of vaccines with a goal of eventually moving into markets in the United States and other wealthy nations. Because its potent RNA requires only a small dose, the company could potentially create vaccines for different variants and mix them in a single shot.

But such possibilities are meaningless until CureVac can prove that its vaccine works. Mary Warrell, a vaccine researcher at the University of Oxford, is reluctant to speculate about the fate of the vaccine before that milestone.

“Prediction during this pandemic has rarely been profitable,” she warned.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.

[jo]

The new liberalized rules on mask-wearing.


abc7.com/mask-mandate-indoor-mandates-covid-us-masks-fully-vaccinated-people/10626758/

[jo]

http://instagram.com/p/CO-NkcnDMEy

[jo]

LOL!

Not very seriously -- but ...

[jo]

When to wear a mask or not --

www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/opinion/mask-cdc-guidelines-experts.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[jo]

Great news for NEW YORK! Report from the NYTimes --

‘A Momentous Day’: New York Lifts Most Virus Restrictions

Officials made the move after more than 70 percent of adults in the state had received a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Customers in restaurants in New York State will no longer be required to be separated six feet apart.

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní
June 15, 2021
Updated 1:11 p.m. ET


Restaurants will no longer be forced to space tables six feet apart or use physical partitions; movie theaters will be allowed to pack their auditoriums without spacing seats apart; and entering commercial buildings won’t require a temperature check.

With 70 percent of adults in New York having received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday that effective immediately the state was ready to “return to life as we know it.” Nearly all restrictions on businesses and social gatherings have been eliminated, he announced at a news conference.

The changes, which will take effect immediately, mark yet another milestone in the economic recovery of a state that was once an epicenter of the pandemic, and are expected to bring back the type of scenes familiar to most New Yorkers in prepandemic times.

With the order, the state, in most cases, will end capacity limits and no longer require social distancing, disinfection protocols and health screenings, instead making it optional for businesses to impose such health precautions on their premises.



“This is a momentous day and we deserve it because it has been a long, long road,” Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday.


In addition to the changes in protocols at restaurants, movie theaters and commercial buildings, barber shops and hair salons won’t need to ask their customers for contact tracing information and gyms and fitness centers won’t need to abide by strict disinfecting protocols to clean their exercise equipment.

Mr. Cuomo set the 70 percent threshold that triggered the end of the restrictions last week as a way to spur on the state’s reopening and incentivize people to get vaccinated, saying “virtually all” coronavirus rules would expire. Fourteen other states and Washington, D.C., have all reached the same threshold, according to the latest federal data, with Vermont topping the list at 84 percent.



New York lifts most virus restrictions after 70 percent of state adults have gotten at least one shot.
On Tuesday, California also lifted nearly all of its restrictions — “reopening day,” as Gov. Gavin Newsom called it — including capacity limits on businesses and social distancing requirements, with some exceptions, just as 72 percent of adults there received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Even so, the move in New York comes as health officials remain vexed by low vaccination rates in ZIP codes across the state, and in pockets of New York City.





About 65 percent of adults — those 18 or older — have received at least one dose in the city, while 54 percent of city residents of all ages have gotten one dose, according to city data. Some of the lowest adult vaccination rates in the city are in the Bronx (57 percent with a first dose) and in Brooklyn (59 percent).

New Yorkers should still expect to see signs of pandemic life even with the restrictions lifted.



Businesses will be allowed to keep restrictions or safety measures in place.

The state will still abide by mask guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has advised that unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors and maintain social distancing. Some stricter restrictions will remain in correctional and health care facilities, as well as in schools, public transit and homeless shelters.

And the decision to end many of the precautions, such as allowing vaccinated customers to walk around without masks, will be up to individual businesses. Some may decide to keep them in place in order to allow their clientele to feel safe.

Over the past few months, as the virus positivity rate has reached record lows, Mr. Cuomo has lifted an array of pandemic-era rules.

Twenty-four-hour subway service resumed last month. Bars and restaurants were allowed to operate at 100 percent capacity and remain open past midnight. State officials have also loosened capacity limits to allow more people in concert halls and sports stadiums.

Luis Ferré-Sadurn

[njr]

Bad news for those of us trying to go to the U.K without a mandatory quarantine!

www.foxnews.com/health/uk-extends-covid-19-restrictions-delta-variant

Here’s hoping they will open up in July!!

Nancy

[njr]

And the idiot Governor of Florida (Ron DeSantis) is screwing the cruise industry in Florida! (I have a cruise scheduled for late March 2022 that has been postponed twice)

apple.news/AI-Az3cUqQCuEi1OmAVHc6w

apple.news/Ax3iy_U45Q2C7G1NZqxpjbQ

Nancy

[jo]

This could be how New Yorkers might be celebrating the return to the new normal --

Jun 15, 2021 13:14:45 GMT -5 jo said:

Great news for NEW YORK! Report from the NYTimes --

‘A Momentous Day’: New York Lifts Most Virus Restrictions

Officials made the move after more than 70 percent of adults in the state had received a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Customers in restaurants in New York State will no longer be required to be separated six feet apart.

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní
June 15, 2021
Updated 1:11 p.m. ET


Restaurants will no longer be forced to space tables six feet apart or use physical partitions; movie theaters will be allowed to pack their auditoriums without spacing seats apart; and entering commercial buildings won’t require a temperature check.

With 70 percent of adults in New York having received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday that effective immediately the state was ready to “return to life as we know it.” Nearly all restrictions on businesses and social gatherings have been eliminated, he announced at a news conference.

The changes, which will take effect immediately, mark yet another milestone in the economic recovery of a state that was once an epicenter of the pandemic, and are expected to bring back the type of scenes familiar to most New Yorkers in prepandemic times.

With the order, the state, in most cases, will end capacity limits and no longer require social distancing, disinfection protocols and health screenings, instead making it optional for businesses to impose such health precautions on their premises.



“This is a momentous day and we deserve it because it has been a long, long road,” Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday.


In addition to the changes in protocols at restaurants, movie theaters and commercial buildings, barber shops and hair salons won’t need to ask their customers for contact tracing information and gyms and fitness centers won’t need to abide by strict disinfecting protocols to clean their exercise equipment.

Mr. Cuomo set the 70 percent threshold that triggered the end of the restrictions last week as a way to spur on the state’s reopening and incentivize people to get vaccinated, saying “virtually all” coronavirus rules would expire. Fourteen other states and Washington, D.C., have all reached the same threshold, according to the latest federal data, with Vermont topping the list at 84 percent.



New York lifts most virus restrictions after 70 percent of state adults have gotten at least one shot.
On Tuesday, California also lifted nearly all of its restrictions — “reopening day,” as Gov. Gavin Newsom called it — including capacity limits on businesses and social distancing requirements, with some exceptions, just as 72 percent of adults there received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Even so, the move in New York comes as health officials remain vexed by low vaccination rates in ZIP codes across the state, and in pockets of New York City.





About 65 percent of adults — those 18 or older — have received at least one dose in the city, while 54 percent of city residents of all ages have gotten one dose, according to city data. Some of the lowest adult vaccination rates in the city are in the Bronx (57 percent with a first dose) and in Brooklyn (59 percent).

New Yorkers should still expect to see signs of pandemic life even with the restrictions lifted.



Businesses will be allowed to keep restrictions or safety measures in place.

The state will still abide by mask guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has advised that unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors and maintain social distancing. Some stricter restrictions will remain in correctional and health care facilities, as well as in schools, public transit and homeless shelters.

And the decision to end many of the precautions, such as allowing vaccinated customers to walk around without masks, will be up to individual businesses. Some may decide to keep them in place in order to allow their clientele to feel safe.

Over the past few months, as the virus positivity rate has reached record lows, Mr. Cuomo has lifted an array of pandemic-era rules.

Twenty-four-hour subway service resumed last month. Bars and restaurants were allowed to operate at 100 percent capacity and remain open past midnight. State officials have also loosened capacity limits to allow more people in concert halls and sports stadiums.

Luis Ferré-Sadurn

[jo]

More easily transmissible variants pose threat...but vaccine hesitancy still thrives, esp with Generation Z.


www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gen-z-wants-to-wait-a-little-bit-to-get-covid-vaccine-experts-say-there-s-no-time-to-waste/ar-AALYIiW?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

[jo]

Worrisome news again all over the world about the increase in Covid19 infections...

including the USA --

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-infections-rising-almost-50-across-us-fda-may-issue-warning-on-j-j-vaccine-report-says-live-covid-19-updates/ar-AAM2Yem?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

[jo]

It's even more weary and disheartening the second time around -- as the Delta variant spreads around the world!

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/asia-u-s-reel-from-delta-4-billion-shots-given-virus-update/ar-AAMIwWQ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

[jo]

On the issue of mental health, especially with successful athletes --

[jo]

Some comforting news about the Delta variant - report from FORTUNE:

fortune.com/2021/08/03/covid-delta-variant-wave-uk-have-already-receded-us/

[jo]

The NYTimes publishes these charts daily --

I hope no subscription wall prevents seeing the graphical illustrations. If so, I am sorry... I could not reproduce the charts themselves.

Main Page --

www.nytimes.com/international/


Most current graphs -- please follow the link


Global Hot Spots :

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html



Global Vaccination Status :


www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

State of the virus
Update for Aug. 4

The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots for vaccinated people, citing the billions of people in poor countries who have not yet had a single shot.

Israel and Russia are giving boosters to certain groups of people, Germany plans to start next month, and several European countries say they will probably follow suit. Pfizer is seeking U.S. authorization for boosters.
The world passed 200 million officially recorded coronavirus cases and approached 4.25 million deaths, though the real toll is believed to be much higher. The worst recent outbreaks have been in a scattered array of countries, like Fiji, Botswana, Cuba, Georgia, Malaysia and Spain.

The highly contagious Delta variant, relaxed restrictions and vaccine resistance among a sizeable minority have driven cases sharply higher in wealthy countries with some of the highest vaccination rates.

More than 4.25 billion vaccine doses have been given worldwide, or 55 per 100 people. In many wealthy countries more than 80 percent of adults have been inoculated, while in many poor ones the rate remains below 5 percent. See each country’s progress here.

[jo]

From the latest NYTimes update -- our part of the world is now the epicenter of the latest upsurge

Outbreaks surge across Asia

A number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region are being overwhelmed by their biggest coronavirus waves in months, as the Delta variant of the virus races through populations with relatively low vaccination levels.

Thailand: Only 6 percent of people are fully vaccinated, according to Times data. On Saturday, the government reported 21,838 new coronavirus cases and 212 deaths, both single-day records. In Bangkok on Saturday, more than 1,000 people protested the government’s failures to handle the pandemic.

The Philippines: Less than 10 percent of the country is fully vaccinated. The health ministry recorded more than 11,000 new infections, the highest daily total since April. On Friday, after the capital imposed a two-week lockdown, desperate people jammed vaccination sites.

Australia: Less than 20 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. The country recorded the most new cases since last August, with a vast majority in New South Wales where a weekslong lockdown has failed to stem an outbreak that began around Sydney.

Malaysia: Just over 25 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. The country reported 20,889 new cases on Friday, its third consecutive day of record numbers.




Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

China said it would provide two billion Covid-19 vaccine doses this year to the world.
Tens of millions of people worldwide are on the brink of famine after the pandemic worsened crises caused by conflict and climate change.

We are now on the strictest of lockdowns for 2 weeks! Head of households have been asked to impose lockdowns within his/her own family to aid the government efforts.

Btw, Manila itself has opened 3 sites for 24/7 vaccinations!


Jo

[jo]

www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/23/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine

The article may be a little confusing because it was being updated by the minute insofar as developments are concerned before and after the full approval granted the Pfizer vaccine.

LIVE
Updated
Aug. 23, 2021, 5:03 p.m. ET28 minutes ago
28 minutes ago
Covid-19 Updates: F.D.A. Grants Full Approval to Pfizer-BioNTech Covid Vaccine
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will be sending guidelines to the country’s 1.4 million active duty service members mandating that they be vaccinated, the Pentagon said. And President Biden addressed the nation about vaccination.


Here’s what you need to know:
The F.D.A. grants full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
N.Y.C. will require shots for all education staff, including teachers and principals.
The Pentagon moves to make vaccination mandatory in line with the F.D.A.’s approval.
Taiwan begins using a homegrown vaccine after months of shortages in imports.
Rice University says a testing glitch led to high rates of false positives.
Health officials warn people not to treat Covid with a drug meant for livestock.
A hospital finds an unlikely group opposing vaccination: its workers.
A local government in Australia killed its impounded dogs over coronavirus fears.
The F.D.A. grants full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.


TRANSCRIPT

0:00/1:25
Biden Praises Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Approval
President Biden lauded the final approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration and implored unvaccinated Americans not to wait any longer to be inoculated.

After a strict process, the F.D.A. has reaffirmed its findings that the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and the F.D.A. has given its full and final approval. So let me say this loudly and clearly: If you have, if you’re one of the millions of Americans who said that they will not get the shot when it’s — until it has full and final approval of the F.D.A., it has now happened. The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. It’s time for you to go get your vaccination, and get it today — today. It’s an important moment in our fight against the pandemic. Remember when we were trying to get? 70 percent of the people over 18, at least one shot? Well, we’ve not only gotten that done, we’ve gotten 71 percent of everyone aged 12 and older their first shot. And that’s over 200 million Americans. And over 170 million are now fully vaccinated. Third, states that have been lagging are seeing their vaccination rates grow faster. In fact, in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, more people got new vaccinations in the past month than in the prior two months combined. The progress we’re making on vaccinations now is going to produce results in the weeks ahead.


1:26
Biden Praises Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Approval
President Biden lauded the final approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration and implored unvaccinated Americans not to wait any longer to be inoculated.CreditCredit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and older, making it the first to move beyond emergency-use status in the United States.

The decision will set off a cascade of vaccine requirements by hospitals, colleges, corporations and other organizations. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will be sending guidelines to the country’s 1.4 million active-duty service members mandating that they be vaccinated, the Pentagon announced on Monday.

United Airlines recently announced that its employees will be required to show proof of vaccination within five weeks of regulatory approval.

Oregon has adopted a similar requirement for all state workers, as have a host of universities in states from Louisiana to Minnesota. In New York, the F.D.A.’s approval also brought into force a requirement announced in May that all students attending in-person classes at State University of New York and City University of New York schools be vaccinated.

The approval comes as the nation’s fight against the pandemic has intensified again, with the highly infectious Delta variant dramatically slowing the progress that the country had made over the first half of the year. In a nine-minute speech Monday afternoon, President Biden he said he hopes the development will motivate many of the roughly 85 million unvaccinated Americans who are eligible for shots to get them. He told corporate, state and local leaders: “Do what I did last month. Require your employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements” such as frequent testing.

He cast Pfizer’s approval as a sign of the overall progress he said his administration is making against the pandemic. While he acknowledged that the death rate, now averaging about 1,000 new deaths a day, has been climbing, he said the toll is still far lower what it was last winter because the vast majority of elderly people are vaccinated.

Mr. Biden also tried to reassure anxious parents about the growing numbers of children who are getting infected with the Delta variant, saying that severe Covid cases among children are still “very, very rare.” He promised to soon address “how we get our kids back to school safely.”

“While millions of people have already safely received Covid-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the F.D.A. approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner, said in a statement. “Today’s milestone puts us one step closer to altering the course of this pandemic in the U.S.”

Pfizer said it presented the F.D.A. with data from 44,000 clinical trial participants in United States, the European Union, Turkey, South Africa and South America. The agency said the data showed the vaccine was 91 percent effective in preventing Covid disease. That was a slight drop from the 95 percent efficacy rate that the data showed when the F.D.A. decided to authorize the vaccine for emergency use in December. Pfizer said the decrease reflected the fact that researchers had more time to catch people who became infected.

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get vaccinated with a shot that had been fully approved.

But the pollsters and other experts warned that percentage could be exaggerated. “I think that is a vanishingly small number of people in real life,” said Alison Buttenheim, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on vaccine hesitancy.

More important, Dr. Buttenheim said, would be the effect of requirements. “Mandates simplify things for people,” she said.

The regulatory action gives doctors a measure of leeway to prescribe a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine to patients, but federal officials strongly discouraged people from seeking extra shots until regulators decide they are safe and effective. Pending regulatory clearance, the federal government plans to start offering booster shots for adults next month.


The vaccine will continue to be authorized for emergency use for children ages 12 to 15 while Pfizer collects the necessary data required for full approval. A decision on whether to authorize the vaccine for children younger than 12 could be at least several months away, and Dr. Woodcock said no such children should be given any Covid-19 vaccine at this point because regulators have not collected enough data yet from clinical trials on safety or the proper dosage.





So far, more than 92 million Americans — 54 percent of those fully inoculated — have gotten Pfizer shots. Most of the rest received Moderna’s vaccine.

Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A.’s top vaccine regulator, said that the Pfizer vaccine’s licensure followed a rigorous review of hundreds of thousands of pages of data and included inspections of the factories where the vaccine is produced. The agency, which has been under pressure to work ever faster on vaccine decisions, finished its review 97 days after Pfizer filed the required data — or in about two-fifths the normal time for such an evaluation, he said.

“The public and medical community can be confident that although we approved this vaccine expeditiously, it was fully in keeping with our existing high standards for vaccines in the U.S.,” he said.

Dr. Marks said that federal health agencies would continue to monitor the vaccine’s safety and that the F.D.A. would require Pfizer to continue to study the risks of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart, including the long-term outcomes for recipients. The F.D.A. in June attached warnings to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines noting possible increased risk of those conditions after the second dose.

Although Pfizer is now free to market the drug under the name Comirnaty, the company said only the federal government will distribute doses in the United States.



Health experts and state officials welcomed the development. With the Delta variant driving up caseloads across the country, “full approval could not come at a more important time,” said Dr. Richard Besser, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He called on schools and businesses to require vaccination before allowing people to congregate indoors.

Less than two months after it appeared to have curbed the spread of the virus, United States is now averaging around 150,000 new cases a day and more than 90,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients.

Vaccination rates have also rising in recent weeks, likely in part because of rising fears about the virus. Providers were administering about 837,000 shots a day. Mr. Biden said the most recent seven-day total was the highest since early July. He said more people in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi — all states that are being ravaged by the Delta variant — got their first shots in the past month than in the previous two months combined.



Some experts have estimated that full approval might convince just five percent of those who are unvaccinated to get shots. Even if that’s so, “that’s still a huge slice of people,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the chief health officer for Mississippi. He said licensure will help “shake loose this false assertion that the vaccines are an ‘experimental’ thing.”



Dr. Marks, the vaccine regulator, cited a series of other myths about the vaccines as a major impediment to fighting the pandemic, including false claims that the shots would cause infertility, foster rather than prevent Covid disease or had led to thousands of deaths. “Let me be clear. These claims are simply not true,” he said.

The F.D.A. is in the midst of a decision-making marathon related to coronavirus vaccines. The next major one looming for regulators is whether or not to authorize booster shots. The Biden administration said last week it plans to offer third shots to adults who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines eight months after their second injection, starting Sept. 20. Third shots are already authorized for some people with immune deficiencies, but the risk-benefit calculus is different for the general population.

Federal health officials said that both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccines, which rely on similar technology, wane in potency over time. That trend, they said, is converging with the rise of the particularly dangerous Delta variant, making those who completed their vaccinations at the start of the year increasingly vulnerable to infection.

Some health experts have challenged the decision to recommend booster shots as premature, saying the data shows that the vaccines are holding up well against severe disease and hospitalization, including against the Delta variant. Boosters would only be warranted if the vaccines were failing to prevent hospitalizations with Covid-19, some of those experts have said.

Regulators are still reviewing Moderna’s application for full approval of its vaccine. That decision could take several weeks. Johnson & Johnson is expected to apply soon for full approval.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

0:00/1:20
N.Y.C. Requires Vaccination for All School Employees
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said every employee of the city’s Department of Education must receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27.

So today, a major announcement to ensure the safety of our schools, of our kids, of all the adults in our schools as well, today the New York City, Department of Health will be issuing an order requiring all staff in the New York City public schools to be vaccinated. This will require that all staff of every kind — principals, teachers, custodians, food service, you name it, needs to have at least one dose by Sept. 27, the entire staff, by Sept. 27, at least one dose. And we know this is going to help ensure that everyone is safe. Now, we’re going to start immediately working with labor unions. I spoke to the leaders of the key unions over the last few days, and we’re going to start bargaining with them immediately on the impact of this decision and how to ensure we can implement it properly and fairly. We’re going to work together. And what a perfect moment for this given the big news today. And we’re so thrilled the F.D.A. has announced today the full approval of the Pfizer vaccine. This is a game-changing moment. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time to have the full approval of the vaccine. We now have it. This helps us move forward and we’re moving forward with our schools with this new vaccine mandate.


1:21
N.Y.C. Requires Vaccination for All School Employees
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said every employee of the city’s Department of Education must receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27.CreditCredit...Stephanie Keith for The New York Times
New York City will require every employee of the city’s Department of Education — including teachers, principals, custodians and all central office staff — to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27, without the option of instead submitting to weekly testing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday.

Hours later, Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced that all employees of public, private and parochial schools in his state must be fully inoculated by Oct. 18 or be tested once or twice a week for the coronavirus. He said the rules also apply to all state employees and all substitute teachers, who are already in short supply.

Both announcements came as the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those 16 and older on Monday, a step that is expected to clear the way for many vaccine mandates by public and private employers across the country.

The F.D.A.’s approval also brought into force a requirement announced in May that all students attending in-person classes at State University of New York and City University of New York schools be vaccinated.

New York City’s mandate will affect some 148,000 city employees. It is an escalation of Mr. de Blasio’s effort to slow the spread of the Delta variant by getting more city residents vaccinated. New York is home to by far the largest public school district in the country, with roughly 1 million students.

Education staffers are the first group of city workers to face a full vaccine mandate. The announcement also opens the door to a broader vaccine mandate of city workers, which the mayor said Monday the city was considering. Last month, Mr. de Blasio issued a mandate for city workers that allowed for those unvaccinated to submit for weekly coronavirus testing.

“We know this is going to help ensure that everyone is safe,” Mr. de Blasio said during a news conference on Monday, adding that city schools had extremely low virus transmission last year. The mandate, the mayor said, will help the city “build on that success.”

Mr. de Blasio’s push is likely to be unpopular with some D.O.E. employees, but is broadly supported by the city’s powerful teachers’ union. The city is still negotiating with the United Federation of Teachers and other unions representing education staff on what will happen to employees who do not comply with the mandate. The city announced last month that educators who did not comply with the requirement to be vaccinated or submit to testing would be suspended without pay, and a similar consequence is likely for staffers who refuse to be vaccinated under the new mandate.

On Monday, Michael Mulgrew, U.F.T. president, acknowledged that the city had the legal right to create such a mandate, but said key details were still being hashed out.

“While the city is asserting its legal authority to establish this mandate, there are many implementation details, including provisions for medical exceptions, that by law must be negotiated with the U.F.T. and other unions, and if necessary, resolved by arbitration,” Mr. Mulgrew said in a statement.

Mr. de Blasio said that, even if bargaining is stalled or does not succeed, the mandate will still go forward.

The mayor and Meisha Porter, the schools chancellor, said they expect a high level of compliance from schools staff on the new mandate. “I do not expect a staffing shortage,” Ms. Porter said.

In New Jersey, the new rules also apply to employees of public and private preschools, officials said.

The state’s largest teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, a close ally of Mr. Murphy’s, made clear last week that giving teachers the flexibility to be tested in lieu of vaccination was a priority. The union said it did not have an estimate of how many teachers were already vaccinated.

Sean M. Spiller, the president-elect of the N.J.E.A. who is also the mayor of Montclair, N.J., said the teachers union supported the governor’s directive and that Mr. Murphy was committed to the “health and safety of N.J.E.A. members and the students we serve.”

Neither New York City nor New Jersey’s new mandates will require vaccination for eligible secondary school students. Mr. de Blasio said such a policy was “not on the table” for the city. Even so, on Friday the city said that about 20,000 high school athletes who participate in high-risk sports like basketball and football would have to be vaccinated by the start of their sport’s season.

New York City joins the states of Oregon and Washington State, and the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago, which have each announced full vaccine mandates for teachers in the last few weeks that have no testing option. California has a mandate similar to New Jersey’s that includes a testing option.

The fact that all teachers and staff in New York City’s 1,800 public schools will now have to be fully vaccinated is likely to reassure many parents who are anxious about sending their children back into classrooms next month.

Mr. de Blasio has been adamant that all students will return to schools in person on Sept. 13. But with three weeks to go until the first day of classes, he has not yet said how the city will handle testing or the quarantining of positive cases, a delay that has deeply frustrated parents and educators. Neither the city nor New Jersey is offering a remote learning option.

The precise percentage of teachers who have been vaccinated is still unknown. City officials have said that more than 63 percent of all Department of Education employees are vaccinated, but they have said that their figures do not include employees who got their shots outside New York City. About 75 percent of teachers who live in New York City have received at least one dose. By contrast, only about 43 percent of Police Department employees have been vaccinated.

Mr. Mulgrew has estimated that 70 or even 80 percent of his members are vaccinated, regardless of where they live, but his union also lacks definitive numbers. The new mandate will end the guessing game.

Mr. de Blasio said the city would announce more details on school safety — including long-awaited information on testing and quarantining — later this week.

— Eliza Shapiro and Tracey Tully

The Pentagon moves to make vaccination mandatory in line with the F.D.A.’s approval.
Video

TRANSCRIPT

0:00/1:10
Pentagon to Require Vaccinations for Active-Duty Troops
Following the Food and Drug Administration’s final approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, Pentagon officials said they were working on a timeline for requiring vaccinations for all active-duty service members.

The F.D.A. approved full licensure of the Pfizer vaccine this morning and has also, I’m sure you’re aware, back in August on the 9th, the secretary articulated that it was his intent to mandate Covid-19 vaccines upon F.D.A. licensure or by mid-September to seek a waiver from the president. So now that the Pfizer vaccine has been approved, the department is prepared to issue updated guidance requiring all service members to be vaccinated. A timeline for vaccination completion will be provided in the coming days. The health of the force is, as always, of our military and our civilian employees, families and communities is a top priority, and so it is important to remind everyone that these efforts ensure the safety of our service members and promote the readiness of our force, not to mention the health and safety of the communities around the country in which we live. We’re preparing now actionable guidance to the force we’re going to move forward making that vaccine mandatory. We’re preparing the guidance to the force right now, and that the actual completion date of it, in other words, how fast we want to see it get done, we’re working through that guidance right now.


1:10
Pentagon to Require Vaccinations for Active-Duty Troops

Following the Food and Drug Administration’s final approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, Pentagon officials said they were working on a timeline for requiring vaccinations for all active-duty service members.CreditCredit...Carl Court/Getty Images
Full federal approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for those 16 and older is opening the way for institutions like the military, corporate employers, hospitals and school districts to announce vaccine mandates for their employees.

National medical groups hailed the step. A joint statement by the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and American Nurses Association called it “a major step forward in the worldwide effort to end this pandemic.”

“Today’s news marks a critical moment for people who were concerned about getting vaccinated due to the vaccines being authorized for emergency use,” the statement said. “With millions of data points on the vaccine’s safety and efficacy over nearly nine months of vaccinations, every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t’ is crossed.”

The groups added, “With the Delta variant surging, there has never been a better time to get vaccinated.”

One of the first and largest to move ahead was the Pentagon, which announced on Monday that it was moving ahead with plans to require all active-duty troops to be vaccinated. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will soon send specific vaccination guidelines to the country’s 1.4 million active-duty service members, the Pentagon said.

Mr. Austin had already received authorization from President Biden to mandate vaccines for troops once the vaccine was fully approved, and he is moving swiftly to put the plans into action, said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

“These efforts ensure the safety of our service members,” Mr. Kirby said during a news briefing on Monday. He said the deadline date for getting vaccinated was still being determined.

The move is intended to harden the country’s defenses against the highly contagious Delta variant, which has driven new cases and hospitalizations up across the country, especially in areas with low rates of vaccination, where many military bases are situated.

Mr. Biden announced last month that all federal employees and on-site contractors must be vaccinated against the coronavirus, or else submit to regular testing and other measures. The requirement applied to the 766,372 civilians working for the Defense Department, but not active-duty service members.

Mr. Austin has previously said that he would not be comfortable imposing a mandate before vaccines were fully approved by the F.D.A. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that there was an undercurrent of resistance to the vaccine in the armed forces.

The Defense Department’s website said that as of Aug. 18, more than one million service members have been vaccinated, along with more than 300,000 civilian employees.

Vaccine mandates for college students may also gather pace.

The F.D.A.’s approval brought into force a requirement in New York, announced in May, that all in-person students at State University of New York and City University of New York schools be vaccinated. CUNY’s website said that after federal approval students “have 45 days to get fully vaccinated or will be subject to potential academic withdrawal.”

The University of Minnesota System, with five campuses and 60,000 students, announced on Monday that the coronavirus vaccine would be added to the university’s list of mandatory immunizations. And the president of Louisiana State University told reporters that his school would also require vaccination. Each institution had previously said it would do so once the F.D.A. gave a coronavirus vaccine final approval.

The drugstore chain CVS said on Monday that its pharmacists would have to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 30 and that all corporate employees and other workers who interact with patients had until Oct. 31 to comply. The requirement affects about 100,000 employees, the company said. Workers may request exemptions for medical or religious reasons.

Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International, a union that represents around 1.3 million workers in grocery stores, pharmacies, meatpacking and other fields, praised the approval as a way to convince hesitant people to get vaccinated but warned against mandates that did not take employees’ concerns into consideration.

New York City announced on Monday that every employee of the city’s Department of Education, from principals to janitors, would have to receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27. Hours later, Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced that all state employees and employees of public, private and parochial schools in his state must be fully inoculated by Oct. 18 or be tested once or twice a week for the virus. And Chevron became the first major American oil producer to require its field workers to get vaccinated.

Before the F.D.A.’s announcement, the three coronavirus vaccines available in the United States, made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, were all being administered in the United States under an emergency use authorization. (The Pfizer vaccine remains available on that basis for youths 12 to 15 and for extra doses for some immunocompromised people.)

The F.D.A.’s approval action on Monday could reinforce the legal standing of some mandates and pave the way for some organizations to impose stricter requirements and no longer allow employees the option of frequent testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated.

Officials also hope that full federal approval will quiet some of the vaccine misinformation online and induce more hesitant people to get vaccinated. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that three out of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot once it was fully approved.

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, wrote on Twitter on Monday that he thought full approval of the vaccine would make a difference, “mostly by providing confidence to businesses, schools, and yes, our military to mandate vaccines. And it is already starting to happen.”

Stephanie Saul, Eliza Shapiro, Tracey Tully and Coral del Mar Murphy-Marcos contributed reporting.

— Daniel E. Slotnik and Helene Cooper

[jo]

Disheartening news and analysis --


From Bloombeerg.

Expect more coronavirus surges, experts say

FOR ANYONE hoping to see light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel over the next three to six months, scientists have some bad news: Brace for more of what we’ve already been through.

Outbreaks will close schools and cancel classes. Vaccinated nursing home residents will face renewed fears of infection. Workers will weigh the danger of returning to the office as hospitals are overwhelmed, once again.

Almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated before the pandemic ends, experts agree. Maybe both. An unlucky few will contract the virus more than once. The race between the waves of transmission that lead to new variants and the battle to get the globe inoculated won’t be over until the coronavirus has touched all of us.

“I see these continued surges occurring throughout the world,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and an adviser to US President Joseph R. Biden. “Then it will drop, potentially somewhat precipitously,” he said. “And then I think we very easily could see another surge in the fall and winter” of this year, he added.

With billions of people around the world yet to be vaccinated and little chance now of eliminating the virus, we can expect more outbreaks in classrooms, on public transport and in workplaces over the coming months, as economies push ahead with reopening. Even as immunization rates rise, there will always be people who are vulnerable to the virus: Newborn babies, people who can’t or won’t get inoculated, and those who get vaccinated but suffer breakthrough infections as their protection levels ebb.

The next few months will be rough. One key danger is if a vaccine-resistant variant develops, although it is not the only risk ahead. In the coming months, Bloomberg will explore the pandemic’s long-term impact on economies and markets, the pharmaceutical industry, travel and more.

“We’re going to see hills and valleys, at least for the next several years as we get more vaccine out. That’s going to help. But the challenge is going to be: How big will the hills and valleys be, in terms of their distance?” Mr. Osterholm said. “We don’t know. But I can just tell you, this is a coronavirus forest fire that will not stop until it finds all the human wood that it can burn.”

The five well-documented influenza pandemics of the past 130 years offer some blueprint for how Covid might play out, according to Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist and professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark. She is an expert on the ebb and flow of such events.

While the longest global flu outbreak lasted five years, they mostly consisted of two to four waves of infection over an average of two or three years, she said. Covid is already shaping up to be among the more severe pandemics, as its second year concludes with the world in the middle of a third wave — and no end in sight.

It’s possible that the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 won’t follow the path set by the pandemics of the past. After all, it is a different, novel and potentially more transmissible pathogen. And with a death toll of more than 4.6 million people so far, it’s already more than twice as deadly as any outbreak since the 1918 Spanish flu.

Despite brutal initial waves and relatively high vaccination rates, countries including the US, UK, Russia and Israel are flirting with record numbers of cases. Immunization is helping to moderate incidences of severe cases and deaths, but surging infections mean the virus is reaching the young and others who remain unvaccinated, leading to rising rates of serious disease in those groups.

Nations where vaccination has been sparse — including Malaysia, Mexico, Iran and Australia — are in the midst of their biggest outbreaks yet, fueled by the contagious delta strain. With the virus still spreading out of control in vast swathes of the planet, another novel variant could quite feasibly emerge.

History shows the commonly held belief that viruses automatically get milder over time — to avoid completely wiping out their host population — is wrong, according to Ms. Simonsen. Although new mutations aren’t always more severe than their predecessors, “pandemics can in fact get more deadly during the pandemic period, as the virus is adapting to its new host,” she said.


MORE COVID SURGES

Early in the Covid outbreak, there was good reason to hope that vaccines would provide long-term protection, much like childhood shots that stop diseases such as polio.
Coronaviruses have a “proof-reading” mechanism that fixes the in-born errors caused when the virus replicates, reducing the likelihood of variants emerging when the virus is transmitted from one person to another.

The number of global cases has been so vast, however, that mutations are occurring anyway.

“With the pandemic, we have this enormous force of infection,” said Kanta Subbarao, director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne. “That has counterbalanced the ability of the virus to proof-read.”

As a result, COVID could be like the flu, requiring regular vaccine top-ups to remain effective as the virus evolves.

Some researchers say SARS-CoV-2 is poised to become completely resistant to the first generation of vaccines. A study from Japan, which has yet to be published or peer-reviewed, suggests that potentially dangerous mutations in the delta variant are already being picked up in a global database used to track such developments. Reports of current strains breaking through vaccinations or triggering higher fatality rates have not held up to rigorous scrutiny thus far.

“This is a scenario we hope won’t happen,” Ms. Simonsen said. “My God, we would have to do it all again.”

Other even grimmer possibilities for the coming months include the emergence of a novel influenza virus or another coronavirus making the leap from animals into humans.

“As long as there are animal reservoirs of coronavirus there is still the possibility that another zoonotic coronavirus could emerge in the future,” Subbarao said. “There is that in the background, the risk of still dealing with this one when another one emerges.”


HOW WILL COVID END?

What seems clear is that the pandemic will not be over in six months. Experts generally agree that the current outbreak will be tamed once most people — perhaps 90% to 95% of the global population — have a degree of immunity thanks to immunization or previous infection.
The key element should be vaccination, they say.

“Without vaccination, one is like a sitting duck, because the virus will spread widely and find most everybody this autumn and winter,” said Ms. Simonsen.

More than 5.66 billion doses of vaccine have been administered around the world, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. But the success of rollouts in some regions, such as the European Union, North America and China, masks the failure in others. Most countries in Africa have only given enough vaccine to cover less than 5% of their populations with a two-dose shot. India has administered enough to cover only about 26%.

The pandemic will end at different times in different places, just as previous outbreaks have, said Erica Charters, associate professor of the history of medicine at Oxford University and the coordinator of a project on how epidemics end. Governments will have to decide how much of the disease they are comfortable living with, she said.

Approaches vary. While some countries are still shooting for zero Covid cases, the world is unlikely to eradicate the virus completely.

Nations like Denmark and Singapore, which have managed to keep cases relatively contained, are already moving toward a post-pandemic future with fewer safety restrictions. Others, such as the U.S. and U.K., are opening up even as infection numbers near records. Meanwhile, China, Hong Kong and New Zealand have vowed to keep vigilantly working to eliminate the virus locally. As a result, they are likely to be among the last places to leave behind the disruption wrought by walling out the pandemic.

“The end process is not going to be uniform,” Charters said. The pandemic “is a biological phenomenon, but it’s also a political and social phenomenon.”

“Even now we have different approaches to it.”

It’s likely to be messy, leaving a lasting legacy for years to come. Until then, most of us will need to brace for many more months in the pandemic’s grip.

“We have to approach it with our eyes wide open and with a great deal of humility,” Osterholm said. “Anybody that thinks we’re going to be over this in the next few days or a few months is sorely mistaken.” — Bloomberg

[jo]

[njr]

My ex-husband just got his Pfizer Covid booster through our local health dept. I have a friend who is working there and said they weren’t busy at all and you could just walk in. My mom & I already scheduled our flu shots for Oct. 1st, so will wait a bit after that to get our boosters.

[jo]

Mostly mild side effects from booster shots.

www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/covid-boosters-produce-mostly-mild-side-effects-cdc-says/ar-AAOVc89?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

[njr]

Scheduled Pfizer boosters for Oct. 11th for me and mom at Walgreens! So much closer and more convenient than driving 12 miles to the health department.

Nancy

[njr]

Got our Pfizer boosters yesterday. Just a sore arm.

[jo]

A thoughtful article from The Washington Post on what is happening to the virus --

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-does-a-pandemic-start-winding-down-you-are-looking-at-it/ar-AAQ9uZE?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531