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Ryan W. Miller
| USA TODAY
Again affects COVID-19 vaccine and test appointments
Winter weather causes thousands of COVID-19 vaccine and test appointments to be canceled.
Accuweather
President Joe Biden will announce a $ 4 billion US commitment to the global vaccine alliance known as COVAX, which aims to help poor countries vaccinate their populations, according to a senior administration official.
Biden will outline the promise during Friday’s virtual meeting with G7 members. The White House plans to release $ 2 billion immediately and use the additional $ 2 billion as leverage to help other affluent countries contribute to the global vaccination effort, according to the official, who informed reporters about the condition of anonymity.
The European Commission’s executive commission also plans to double its contribution to the program, with a commitment of about $ 1.2 billion.
In December, COVAX officials said they had a shortfall of more than $ 4 billion in pledges that, if left unchecked, would result in a ‘prolonged pandemic with serious economic consequences’ for both rich and poor countries.
Scientists and advocates fear that the new coronavirus will continue to mutate as affluent countries accumulate vaccines, and that this in turn will threaten the US and others.
There are already more contagious variants in the US and around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday that at least 1,549 cases of the coronavirus variant were first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in the US.
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In the headings:
► After weeks of tense negotiations, California lawmakers on Thursday agreed on a $ 6.5 billion proposal aimed at getting students back in the classroom this spring after months of closures due to the pandemic.
► President Joe Biden will visit Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility near Kalamazoo, Michigan on Friday, where he will hold the case for his nearly $ 2 trillion COVID-19 relief package as Democrats prepare to push it through Congress.
►In a seven-day period ending on Thursday, the United States reported an average of less than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths per day, the first time this has happened since early December, according to a US TODAY analysis of the Johns Hopkins University data. The 13,841 deaths reported in the past week are 41% lower, nearly 10,000 deaths, seen in the peak week last month.
“Two women in Florida have dressed up as ‘grandmothers’ to try and get their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, an Orange County health official told local reporters on Thursday. The young women wore hoods and glasses, and dr. Raul Pino said they were successful in getting their first shots.
► News agents in more than a third of the US have reported delays in the delivery of vaccines due to the winter storm that swept across much of the country, forcing websites to close and cancel appointments due to a lack of shots.
📈 Today’s numbers: According to Johns Hopkins University data, the US has more than 27.8 million cases of coronavirus and 493,000 deaths. The global total: More than 110.2 million cases and 2.44 million deaths. According to the CDC, more than 73.3 million doses of vaccines have been distributed and approximately 57.7 million have been administered.
📘 What we read: Do you want a carefree fourth of July? Vaccinations with COVID-19 must be accelerated – and fast, says the panel of vaccine experts from USA TODAY. Read the full story.
Pfizer and its associate, BioNTech, said on Friday that they would like an update of their Emergency Food and Drug Administration authorization to store their COVID-19 vaccine in normal freezers.
Currently, the vaccine must be stored between -112 ° F and -76 ° F and it is shipped in a special thermal container full of dry ice to keep it at the ultra cold temperature.
Pfizer and BioNTech said new data show that doses remain stable when stored for up to two weeks between -13 ° F and 5 ° F, which are the most common temperatures for pharmaceutical freezers.
The companies said the new temperatures could be an alternative or a supplement to the existing ultra-cold storage, keeping doses viable for up to six months. Doses can also be stored for five days at normal cooling temperatures, between 36 ° F and 46 ° F, before application.
Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines are very effective in preventing COVID-19, but public health and logistics experts said the requirements for ultra-cold storage are one of the limiting factors in making the vaccine available worldwide.
CVS Health plans to contact Americans living in underserved communities to help them plan COVID-19 vaccine appointments amid signs that white people are getting the free vaccine at higher rates than black Americans.
The pharmacy chain said on Friday that it would help people who are considered socially vulnerable areas in the federal government, send emails and text messages to provide help and education in the vaccination process.
The move also comes as reports spread widely that Americans are struggling to navigate through different scheduling systems, website crashes and a slow implementation of the two hitherto approved vaccines.
CVS also said it would hold vaccination clinics in the most vulnerable communities it serves and send vaccination carts to neighborhoods to make it easier for people to take their shots.
Research published in 2020 concluded that approximately 34% of COVID-19 deaths during the study period were black people, although this makes up only 12% of the U.S. population. According to CVS, internal data indicate that 35% of Black Americans do not intend to be vaccinated if they can do so first.
– Nathan Bomey
When can most people get a COVID-19 vaccine? Do teachers need to be vaccinated before schools can reopen? When will life be normal again?
These are some of the basic questions that the White House has sometimes struggled to answer as President Joe Biden tackles the biggest issue of his presidency: ending the pandemic and getting the economy and daily life back on track.
Biden has promised not only to address the challenges more intelligently and better than his predecessor, but also to concede when things go wrong.
Yet both erroneous communication and the difficulty of making predictions for an evolving situation have led to confusion about some goals and timelines.
Biden is also accused of setting the standard too low in some areas to make it easier to achieve victory. Some pagans have questioned whether his promise of 100 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days was too slow after vaccinations increased during January. Biden is going to blow past the target, and Andy Slavitt, Biden’s senior adviser on COVID-19 response, called the 100 million target “a floor, not a ceiling”.
– Maureen Groppe and Courtney Subramanian
A recent study found that pregnant women in the state of Washington were infected with COVID-19 at a higher percentage than others of the same age.
In addition, infection rates among pregnant women of color were much higher than researchers expected, according to the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The study provides further evidence that pregnancy should be considered a high-risk health condition for COVID-19 vaccine priority, said senior author, dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf, an OB-GYN at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said.
“Our data indicate that pregnant people did not avoid the pandemic as we hoped it would happen, and that communities of color bear the greatest burden,” Waldorf said.
Although there is little safety data on the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women, Pfizer-BioNTech on Thursday announced the start of its long-awaited clinical trial to evaluate the vaccine in pregnant women.
Participants received their first doses in the US. The trial will enroll approximately 4,000 healthy pregnant women over the age of 18 from countries in North America, South America, Europe and Africa.
– Adrianna Rodriguez
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccine can seem chaotic and incomprehensible, with numbers not picking up and assignments making no sense. White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients predicted this week that enough vaccine supplies would be available to 300 million Americans by the end of July. President Joe Biden and top health assistant, dr. Anthony Fauci, also spoke to Christmas about returning to normal.
The distribution of vaccines from the federal government has flourished since Biden took office and has increased to 57% since 2005. As of this week, it has been sending up to 13.5 million doses per week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70 million doses have been distributed. However, to meet Zients’ prediction, the distribution of the federal government will have to increase significantly. At the current level, this will only happen in the fall.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety, is among experts trying to understand how figures from the CDC, the White House and the states fit together. He says he can not. “None of us know what’s going on,” he said.
– Elizabeth Weise
Survivors of COVID-19, which produce many antibodies against disease, carry a weapon in the fight to prevent serious complications of the coronavirus. Their antibody-rich blood plasma helps block the virus when it is transmitted early in custom patients – and can even be helpful against infections with new variants of the coronavirus.
If an outbreak caused by a variant of the coronavirus occurs in a community, the survivors could become the medicine for others who become ill, a researcher in New Jersey said.
“They essentially have the treatment for the variants in their body,” Dr. Michele Donato, lead researcher at Hackensack University Medical Center, told a group of studies on the blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors. “The plasma contains the antibodies of the virus that existed in the community at the time.”
Patients who recovered would be able to donate plasma after being symptom-free for two weeks and the plasma would be ready for use within three days, she said. “Plasma collection is a very low-tech, easy process.”
– Lindy Washburn, North-Jersey.com
Contributing Contributions: The Associated Press