It’s a worrying toll that occurs as U.S. hospitals are struggling to keep up with the volume of patients and more children are facing the virus. Hoping to manage the spread and prevent unnecessary deaths, officials are implementing mandates for vaccination in the workplace and masking in schools.
But with only 54% of the population fully vaccinated, the rate of people starting vaccines every day has declined over the past month.
Another strong layer of protection, according to experts, is masking.
The CDC recommends that people, even those who are completely vaccinated, wear masks inside areas with significant or elevated community transmission. More than 99% of the population lives in a county with one of these designations.
In Ohio, children’s hospitals are overflowing with covid-19 and respiratory cases, said Gov. Mike DeWine, who encouraged schools to issue mask warrants as the state legislature told him it would cancel any warrants it issued.
“Reasonable people may disagree, but we can all agree that we need to keep our children in the classroom so they don’t fall behind and so that their parents can go to work and not have time. free to see the kids at home, “DeWine said.
The combination of masks and vaccines is the way to keep children in school, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Tuesday.
“If you surround kids with vaccinated people and have everyone with a mask on, you can get a situation where kids will be relatively safe in school,” Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Fight against brewing for the mandates of vaccines
In an effort to manage the spread of the virus, many officials and experts have promoted vaccination warrants, but others oppose such measures.
Because the warrant does not require health care workers to receive the first dose of the vaccine until Sept. 27, the judge’s order states that the temporary restraining order “is virtually ineffective to date.”
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 28.
Following the sentencing, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s press secretary, Hazel Crampton-Hays, said in a statement that the governor is considering all legal options.
“Governor Hochul is doing everything in her power to protect New Yorkers and combat the Delta variant by raising vaccine rates statewide,” Crampton-Hays said.
In Los Angeles, despite a warrant to inoculate all city employees against the virus, nearly a quarter of police are asking for an exemption, according to Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office. Those who are not vaccinated will need to show weekly test results and a negative COVID result if they show up regularly at work.
On Nov. 1, Nevada workers serving “vulnerable populations” will have to prove vaccination testing under a new emergency regulation passed Tuesday.
New hires must have at least one dose before the start date and must follow the required vaccination schedule to continue working. Workers are allowed to apply for a medical or religious exemption.
The reinforcement meeting will never be a blow
Unlike other meetings to discuss the vaccine, this one, with Pfizer’s requests to authorize a third dose for most people, will be no problem.
“This will be much more messy than in December,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. The FDA committee was quick to recommend authorization for vaccines developed by Pfizer and its rival Modern last December.
When the FDA Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products meets Friday, duel data will be presented, some of which suggest the need for enhancers, but other data suggest that there is no such need.
Three separate articles published last week in the CDC’s weekly morbidity and mortality report suggest we don’t need boosters.
On the other hand, an Israeli study found that over time, the power of vaccines to prevent people from getting very sick with Covid-19 decreased. Analyzing diseases in the second half of July, this study found that those who had received the second dose of Pfizer vaccine in March had 70% more protection against serious illness than those who received the second vaccine in January.
President Joe Biden last month announced plans to begin administering booster doses next week. Although she would not say directly whether that date would be met, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday that she has hope on the schedule to administer the doses.
If reinforcement is approved, experts will have to wait and see how much protection is added with the third dose.
“I hope this keeps us going for a long period of time, but I don’t know now,” Fauci said. “We just have to make the push and then follow people long enough to determine what the durability of this protection is.”
Ben Tinker and Deidre McPhillips, Liam Reilly, Kay Jones, Lauren Mascarenhas, Artemis Moshtaghian, Jenn Selva, Andy Rose, Elizabeth Cohen and Virginia Langmaid of CNN contributed to this report.