More COVID-19 Vaccination megasites have opened this week across the country, including at a casino in Missouri and Yankee Stadium in New York – where a long line formed on Friday for local residents.
Legendary MLB player Mariano Rivera was there, encouraging people to make their moves. “Now, it is time to support him and inform him that it is okay to be vaccinated,” said Rivera.
More sites are on the way. In California, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara County will become the state’s largest vaccination site when it opens early next week, according to the county and the San Francisco 49ers. The goal is to be able to vaccinate up to 15,000 people a day.
The news came after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said President Joe Biden in a letter dated Thursday that the league is making all of its 32 stadiums available as vaccination sites for the general public, Michael George reported for “CBS This Morning: Saturday”.
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All of these properties may be required. Another COVID vaccine may be on the way in the United States. Johnson & Johnson filed an application with the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday for approval of emergency use authorization for its single-dose vaccine. After receiving the green light, Johnson & Johnson he said he hopes to deliver 100 million doses to the country by June.
The vaccine is 85% effective against the most severe viral symptoms and 66% effective in general in preventing moderate to severe illnesses. It would be the third vaccine available on the market, joining the stressed supplies of Pfizer and Moderna
“Clearly, we don’t have enough RNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna right now to deal with the pandemic in the United States, let alone the world,” said former FDA chief scientist Dr. Jesse Goodman.
More than 26 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States, and almost 460,000 people have died from the virus. More than 36 million vaccines currently on the market have been administered across the country, and 7.5 million people are fully vaccinated.
Variants of the rapidly spreading coronavirus can threaten progress. A strain first identified in South Africa it has now been found in Virginia, one of three states reporting cases. Another strain, first detected in the UK, has been found across the country, and recently in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Health officials said the person with the first documented case of the variant in Kalamazoo County had no travel history.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to announce updated guidelines this week to get children back to school. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC said this week “There is growing data to suggest that schools can reopen safely and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated.”