Rates of COVID-19 vaccinations continue to slow across the United States, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. In the past week, only six states reported administering first doses at a pace of at least a quarter of their peak rate. Another six states reported administering first doses at a speed less than a tenth of their peak rate.
“We’re headed into a summer of joy, celebration, and increasing freedom from the virus. However, for all the progress we’re making as a country, too many communities remain at risk because of low vaccination levels,” Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said at a briefing Thursday.
“The low vaccination rates in some communities is an even bigger concern now that we face the threat of a new, more dangerous variant, specifically, the delta variant.” According to the CDC, approximately 44% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and about 53% has received at least one dose. An average of about 327,000 adults received their first vaccine each day last week, but to reach Biden’s goal of 70% of adults receiving at least one shot by the Fourth of July, that number will need to increase to about 722,000 adults vaccinated each day.
Also, in the news:
►The U.S. Open tennis tournament will allow 100% spectator capacity throughout its entire two weeks in 2021, the U.S. Tennis Association announced Thursday. The decision comes a year after spectators were banned from the Grand Slam event in New York because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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►California regulators Today are set to approve revised pandemic rules that end mask requirements for fully vaccinated workers, thus giving them the same freedoms as when they are off the job.
►The Taj Mahal in India reopened its doors to visitors this week. The move was part of a broad easing of restrictions by India’s local governments to revive a battered tourism industry despite a devastating infection surge that has killed hundreds of thousands.
►The Guardian reports that data from swab tests across England suggests COVID-19 cases are doubling there every 11 days, the Guardian reports. Health officials blame the surgeon for the delta variant, now the U.K.’s most prevalent.
►California’s Santa Clara County, the nation’s first county to institute a stay-at-home order, collaborates with the SAP Center, the Golden State Warriors, and the City of San Jose to raffle off more than 100 tickets to upcoming events to everyone who gets vaccinated. 70% of eligible residents in the county have one dose.
📈 Today’s numbers:
ACCORDING TO JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY DATA, the U.S. has more than 33.50 million confirmed coronavirus cases and at least 600,700 deaths. The global total: More than 177.1 million cases and more than 3.83 million deaths. According to the CDC, more than 147.75 million Americans have been fully vaccinated — 44.5% of the population,
📘What we’re reading:
Across America, employers have shied from COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Houston Methodist Hospitals took a different tact. Keep refreshing this page for the latest updates. Want more? Sign up for our Coronavirus Watch newsletter for updates to your inbox, and join our Facebook group.
officials announced. That means there are no longer sweeping state-issued mask mandates, restrictions on gathering sizes, or limits on the number of people in a restaurant, store, or another venue.
According to a news release, some rules remain, especially for “vulnerable populations in corrections, long-term care, and agriculture”. The state will also issue additional guidance on school safety protocols next week. Private businesses may still require masks, social distancing, or other safety precautions.
The decision by state officials comes as pandemic trends continue to improve and days ahead of July 1, the date previously set to roll back rules. – Dave Boucher and Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press
COVID-19 wards to care for oxygen-dependent patients,
“COVID-19 is surging in the Mission. One hundred fourteen of our colleagues now have COVID and are in isolation; one has died, and several have been medevaced,” reads the notice from Shane Pierce, an employee in the embassy’s health unit. His memo says that intensive care units at a U.S. military hospital “are at full capacity,” prompting the need to set up temporary on-site units for staff who need oxygen.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross, infection rates have surged in Afghanistan by 2,400% over the past month. Ned Price, the State Department’s chief spokesman, noted the surge in cases coincides with “an intense third wave of COVID-19 cases” across Afghanistan. Read more.
– Deirdre Shesgreen
COVID-19 from “Very High” to “High,” specifically for unvaccinated passengers.
“In preparation for the restart of cruise ships, the travel health notice was updated based on modeling estimates and to align with CDC’s guidance for fully vaccinated travelers,” Caitlin Shockey, the CDC spokesperson, told USA TODAY Thursday.
The CDC did not specify a numerical risk level for COVID-related risk for vaccinated passengers. “The level of risk for vaccinated travelers is lower, as they are less likely to get COVID-19 than cruise passengers who are not fully vaccinated,” Shockey said.
Though the health agency updated the risk level from the highest level – a four – to a three for unvaccinated passengers, it still advises against cruise travel for unvaccinated people. “CDC recommends that people who are not fully vaccinated avoid traveling on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide,” the health notice reads. – Morgan Hines
death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic is more than 200 times that of the 9/11 attacks – but Congress has yet to establish a similar blue-ribbon commission to investigate the vulnerabilities of our public health system and issue guidance for how we as a nation can better protect the American people from future pandemics,” Menendez and Collins wrote in an essay this week in The New York Times.
However, the proposal’s prospects are unclear. Many are concerned politics will get in the way of any inquiry, as happened when Republicans came out against a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Badai Ismoyo, head of the Kudus district health office in Central Java, told Channel News Asia that most infected were asymptomatic and self-isolating at home. But he said dozens were in hospitals with high fevers and declining oxygen saturation levels.
Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands and home to 270 million people, is battling a severe outbreak believed to be driven by the more transmissible delta variant. Indonesian healthcare workers, designated as a priority group, were among the first to be vaccinated when the inoculation drive started in January.
Indonesia President Joko Widodo on Thursday ordered authorities to speed up the vaccination campaign. The World Health Organization urged leaders of the world’s fourth most populated country to increase social restrictions to combat the surge of infections.
U.S. to spend $3.2 billion to help develop COVID medications.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that the United States is devoting $3.2 billion to advance the development of antiviral treatments for COVID-19. Effective oral antiviral medicines that could be taken at home early in the course of infection, similar to treatment for the flu, could save lives and prevent overwhelming surges in hospitalizations, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release.
The plan called the Antiviral Program for Pandemics, will support research to identify and accelerate the availability of treatment options for COVID-19 and build platforms for discovering and developing antivirals for future viruses, the release said. “There are few treatments that exist for many of the viruses that have what we call pandemic potential,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a White House briefing. He said he did not know what the treatments would cost.
summer and fall. First, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the alpha variant made up 66% of U.S. cases in April. First documented in the U.K., the variant is considered more transmissible and perhaps deadlier than the original strain.
Then, the delta variant tore through India last month, delaying the United Kingdom’s reopening plan. According to the CDC, it accounts for about 6-10% of coronavirus infections in the U.S. But the variant that keeps Washington state epidemiologist Dr. Scott Lindquist “up at night?”
According to the Seattle Times, the gamma variant now accounts for 16% of cases in the state and is the fastest-rising. “It’s a race between the vaccines going into people and the current or future variants,” said Kansas Health Secretary Dr. Lee Norman.
New York City will move about 8,000 homeless people out of the hotel rooms granted to them during the COVID pandemic to safeguard them against the coronavirus and back into shelters by the end of July so that the hotels can reopen, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
New York State surpassed the first-shot, 70% vaccination threshold for adults. This benchmark will trigger a pullback on safety precautions such as those still in place for social distancing.
“I don’t want to go back — it’s like I’m going backward,” Andrew Ward, 39, who has been staying at the Williams Hotel in Brownsville, Brooklyn, after nearly two years at a men’s shelter, told the New York Times. “It’s not safe to go back there. You’ve got people bringing in knives.”
