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Grace Hauck
| USA TODAY
President Biden’s appeal, get the vaccine ‘after visiting the Pfizer factory
President Biden visited a Pfizer vaccine factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a severe winter hampers plans to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine.
Team video, USA TODAY
President Joe Biden visited a Pfizer plant in Michigan on Friday and emphasized vaccine safety, saying that Americans should be vaccinated “when it’s their turn and available”.
He pleaded with Americans to be vaccinated while seeking to highlight his administration’s vast enterprise to increase the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
The president’s message came amid delays in sending vaccines due to winter storms across the country. Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to the White House for the COVID-19 response, said that federal partners plan to deliver on Saturdays and that missed doses are expected to be delivered “next week. ”
“I cannot give you a date when this crisis will end. But I can say that we are doing everything possible to make that day come sooner or later,” said Biden after visiting Pfizer’s facilities.
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In the headlines:
►After the initial confusion, most hospitals, clinics and vaccination centers now have protocols and systems in place to ensure that the last dose of the vaccine is used.
►The United States plans to open five more community vaccination centers, including one in Philadelphia and four in Florida, in Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa, said Salvitt on Friday.
►The FDA is reviewing data from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial and plans to consult the agency’s independent advisory committee on February 26. “We should hear from them soon,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday.
►Pfizer said on Friday that it was seeking authorization to store its vaccine in normal pharmaceutical freezers, instead of the deep-frozen temperatures that doses currently require.
► California plans to reserve 10% of the first doses of vaccine for educators, school staff and childcare providers starting in March to help put children back in class, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.
► Experts say the United States could rapidly expand the country’s limited test supply and increase speed by authorizing rapid testing of paper antigens. The downside: rapid tests are less accurate when compared to laboratory tests, which take longer to complete and cost $ 100 or more.
📈 Today’s numbers: The United States has more than 28 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and 495,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Global totals: More than 110.8 million cases and 2.45 million deaths. More than 78.1 million doses of vaccines have been distributed in the United States and about 59.5 million have been administered, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: “He shouldn’t be dead”: One year after the death of COVID-19’s father, the family faces loss.
The president and three members of a California school board resigned after mocking parents at a live broadcast about the reopening of a school they seemed to think was private.
Greg Hetrick, superintendent of the Oakley Union Elementary School District in Costa County, announced that council members sent their resignations in a letter to the school community on Friday, calling it a “pitiful situation”.
The video for the Wednesday night meeting circulated on social media and appears to capture board members mocking parents who have written letters asking the board to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic. “They want to tease us because they want their nannies back,” said council chairwoman Lisa Brizendine.
Council members also use profanity and laugh at parents who use medical marijuana. At the end of the recording, council members seem shocked to receive a message alerting them that the live broadcast is public. In a statement, board members expressed their “sincere apologies” and said they “deeply regret the comments made at the meeting”.
Growing evidence suggests that a smartwatch or wearable like a Fitbit can help alert users to a possible COVID-19 infection before a positive test result.
Wearables such as the Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy smartwatch, Fitbit and other devices can collect cardiac and oxygen data, as well as sleep and activity levels. Researchers are studying whether a body’s health data could signal an impending COVID-19 infection.
A COVID-19 infection may not be imminent for a person whose cardiac or activity data suggests a potential infection. But the increased likelihood – and the ability to alert the patient to take the test and possibly quarantine it – can provide a vital tool to prevent the disease from spreading and tracking it, the researchers say.
These findings, if proven, can lead to remote medical alerts for other possible viruses, flu and undue stress.
– Mike Snider
Argentine Minister of Health resigns amid vaccine scandal
President Alberto Fernández dismissed the Argentine Minister of Health on Friday after a well-known local journalist said he had received the coronavirus vaccine preferably after asking the minister.
The president “instructed his chief of staff to request the resignation of the Minister of Health” Ginés González García, responsible for the COVID-19 government strategy, said a government official, who was not authorized to disclose the information, and spoke to Associate Press under condition of anonymity.
The shooting comes on the heels of news in recent days that mayors, legislators, activists and people close to the political power have received vaccines, despite not being in the priority group of doctors, health personnel and elderly people authorized to receive them.
Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine is here to stay, despite the new study
A new study from Israel rekindled public debate on Friday over the spacing between the two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but the U.S. government is not changing its commitment to the original schedule.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can be just as effective if the dose interval is longer than the recommended 21 days, according to the new study from Israel. If doses could be administered more separately, more people could be protected more quickly. Vaccine supplies, which remain very limited now, are expected to increase in late spring.
But government officials want to maintain the dosing schedule that has been scientifically proven to be effective, warning that changing it may weaken the vaccine’s effectiveness against variants, or even lead to the creation of new variants that escape this protection.
The current schedule provides “an ideal answer when you’re dealing with variants,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease physician, at a news conference.
– Karen Weintraub
Africa reaches 100,000 known COVID-19 deaths
Africa has exceeded 100,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 while the continent praised for its initial response to the pandemic now struggles with a dangerous resurgence and medical oxygen is often desperately short.
The continent of 54 nations with about 1.3 billion people has barely seen the arrival of large-scale supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, but a variant of the dominant virus in South Africa is already posing a challenge to vaccination efforts. Still, if doses are available, the continent should be able to vaccinate 35% to 40% of its population before the end of 2021 and 60% by the end of 2022, said John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Control and Prevention of Diseases.
Health officials, who breathed a sigh of relief last year, when African countries did not see a large number of deaths from COVID-19, now report an increase in the number of fatalities. Africa’s CDC on Friday said the total deaths are 100,294.
– The Associated Press
Contributing: Courtney Subramanian, USA TODAY; The Associated Press