Tag: coronavirus

State Department to designate most countries with ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory

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The State Department said Monday that it would start updating its travel advisories this week to drastically increase the number of countries that get the “Level 4: Do Not Travel” designation.

In a statement, the department said roughly 80 percent of countries worldwide would soon be marked at the highest warning level. As of Monday afternoon, about 16 percent of countries had that label.

“This alignment better reflects the current, unpredictable, and ever-evolving threat posed by covid-19,” the department said in an email. “We continue to strongly recommend U.S. citizens reconsider all travel abroad, and postpone their trips if possible.” Continue reading.

Federal turf wars over coronavirus rescues created ‘health and safety issues,’ watchdog concludes

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Bureaucratic infighting put evacuees, officials and U.S. communities at risk of the coronavirus, a report says

A chaotic effort to return hundreds of Americans to the United States in the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak — including bureaucratic infighting over whether flights out of Wuhan, China, were an “evacuation” or “repatriation” — put the evacuees, federal officials and even U.S. communities at risk, a government watchdog concluded.

The U.S. government-led missions, which included an operation to evacuate Americans from a virus-stricken cruise ship off the coast of Japan in February 2020, were plagued by “serious fundamental coordination challenges,” the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report requested by Congress and released Monday.

The episodes have already been the focus of a whistleblower complaint that sparked a pair of investigations, including a review conducted by lawyers at the Department of Health and Human Services. Those prior reports documented safety lapses, including health officials being told to remove protective gear when meeting with the Wuhan evacuees to avoid “bad optics.” Continue reading.

Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters

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About 31 percent of adults in the United States have now been fully vaccinated. Scientists have estimated that 70 to 90 percent of the total population must acquire resistance to the virus to reach herd immunity. But in hundreds of counties around the country, vaccination rates are low, with some even languishing in the teens.

The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. The New York Times examined survey and vaccine administration data for nearly every U.S. county and found that both willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. The phenomenon has left some places with a shortage of supply and others with a glut.

For months, health officials across the United States have been racing to inoculate people as variants of the coronavirus have continued to gain a foothold, carrying mutations that can make infections more contagious and, in some cases, deadlier. Vaccinations have sped up and, in many places, people are still unable to book appointments because of high demand. In Michigan, where cases have spiraled out of control, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, recently urged President Biden to send additional doses. Continue reading.

All about your coronavirus vaccine card (and what to do if you lose it)

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NOTE: The Washington Post is providing this article free of charge to all to read.

There are various ways to document that you received a coronavirus vaccine. Some people have snapped selfies proudly displaying the Band-Aid on their upper arm. Some vaccination sites are handing out stickers. But the official form of documentation is the small white vaccination record card issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which you receive after your first shot.

“You do want to make sure you keep it safe,” says Kelly Moore, deputy director of the Immunization Action Coalition. “You do want to make a copy of it and keep that on file, not because it’s the only record, but because it’s the one that you control.”

Here’s what Moore and other experts say you need to know about the cards and what you should do after receiving one. Continue reading.

White House faces new obstacles in COVID-19 fight

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President Biden is facing a series of fresh obstacles in getting the coronavirus pandemic under control in the United States.

Several states have seen an uptick in cases even as millions of Americans are vaccinated each day, which can be attributed in part to the lifting of restrictions on masks and businesses and general pandemic fatigue more than a year after the virus began to spread widely. More contagious variants are spreading throughout the country, and experts warn that new variants could pop up until the country reaches a greater degree of immunity.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week. While many health experts praised it as the right move, an extended pause could drive up vaccine hesitancy, posing yet another challenge for Biden. Continue reading.

U.S. will allocate $1.7 billion to fight variants as new global infections almost double

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NOTE: This article is provided free of charge for all to read by The Washington Post.

The White House announced Friday that it will allocate $1.7 billion to fight coronavirus variants as the nation races to vaccinate people before the pathogen can mutate in new and concerning ways.

The funding, which will come from the most recent federal stimulus package, will target the detection, surveillance and mitigation of the variants. The original strain of the coronavirus now makes up only about half of infections in the United States. Continue reading.

CDC finds less than 1 percent of fully vaccinated people got COVID-19

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the agency has documented about 5,800 “breakthrough” COVID-19 cases among the millions of Americans who are fully vaccinated, totaling far less than 1 percent of fully vaccinated people.

“Vaccine breakthrough infections make up a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated,” the CDC told The Hill in a statement. “CDC recommends that all eligible people get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as one is available to them.”

The CDC told The Hill on Thursday that about 7 percent of the recorded breakthrough cases resulted in hospitalization and about 1 percent of the people who contracted breakthrough infections died.  Continue reading.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: April 16, 2021

A Message on Daunte Wright 

The Governor and First Lady are praying for Daunte Wright’s family and loved ones as Minnesota mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement. The death of Daunte Wright is a tragedy. He was a young man, a father, a friend, and a son. We must take meaningful action to fight systemic injustice, pursue bold police accountability reforms, and make lasting change.

In these challenging times, the Governor’s duty is to preserve the First Amendment right of peaceful protests while protecting public safety. We must ensure communities have the space they deserve to grieve and call for change.

Continue reading “Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: April 16, 2021”

Woman blames Trump for anti-vaxxer friend’s COVID-19 death: ‘He could have saved so many lives’

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After a West Virginia woman died from COVID-19, her best friend blames former president Donald Trump’s refusal to enthusiastically embrace vaccinations.

The former president got his shot in private before leaving office and has offered meager approval since leaving the White House, and Anastacia Kelley feels certain her college roommate would have gotten one for herself if Trump had gotten his in the public eye, reported The Daily Beast.

“Absolutely, without a doubt,” Kelly told the website. “If he had come out and even taken a picture of himself getting it, he could have saved many lives.” Continue reading.

Johnson & Johnson vaccine suspension – a doctor explains what this means for you

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A panel of experts met on April 14, 2021, to review evidence on blood clots that have been reported in seven people after they received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunization. It delayed voting on a recommendation to the CDC so that members can further evaluate risk and data. The clotting, which resulted in one woman’s death, led the CDC and FDA on April 13, 2021, to pause use of the J&J vaccine. Dr. William Petri, an infectious disease physician and immunologist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, answers questions to help put this development in context.

What is this potential side effect of the J&J vaccine for COVID-19?

The potential side effect is a blood clot in the veins that drain blood from the brain. This is called central venous sinus thrombosis. In the vaccine-associated cases of this, platelets in blood, which are important for making clots, have been lower than normal. This same side effect has been seen in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine that also uses an adenovirus to deliver the coronavirus spike glycoprotein. In the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the clotting disorder has been linked to antibodies against platelet factor 4 (PF4) that are apparently induced by the adenovirus backbone of the vaccine. This antibody causes the clotting disorder by activating platelets to clot. 

Continue reading “Johnson & Johnson vaccine suspension – a doctor explains what this means for you”