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Ryan W. Miller
| USA TODAY
Climate impacts COVID-19 vaccine, test visits
The winter weather is causing the cancellation of thousands of COVID-19 vaccines and testing appointments.
Accuweather
President Joe Biden is expected to announce a US $ 4 billion commitment to the global vaccine alliance known as COVAX, which aims to help poor countries inoculate their populations, according to a senior government 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 a lever to get other wealthy nations to contribute to the global vaccination effort, according to the official, who informed reporters on condition of anonymity.
The European Union’s executive committee 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 deficit of more than $ 4 billion in promises that, if not kept, would result in a “protracted pandemic, with serious economic consequences” for rich and poor countries.
Scientists and advocates fear that if wealthy nations accumulate vaccines, the new coronavirus will continue to mutate and could again threaten the United States and others.
More contagious variants are already circulating in the United States and around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday that at least 1,549 cases of coronavirus variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in the United States
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In the headlines:
►After weeks of tense negotiations, California lawmakers agreed on Thursday to a $ 6.5 billion proposal aimed at bringing students back to classrooms this spring, after months of closings because of the pandemic.
►President Joe Biden is due to visit Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility on Friday near Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he will continue to defend his nearly $ 2 trillion COVID-19 aid package as Democrats prepare to approve it in Congress.
►In a seven-day period ending Thursday, the United States reported less than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths per day on average, the first time this has happened since early December, shows a USA TODAY analysis of the data from Johns Hopkins University. The 13,841 deaths recorded in the last week fell 41%, almost 10,000 deaths, seen in the peak week of last month.
►Two women in Florida dressed as “grandparents” to try to get their second injection of the COVID-19 vaccine, an Orange County health official told local reporters on Thursday. The young women wore caps and glasses, and Dr. Raul Pino said they were successful with their first injections.
► Delays in sending vaccines have been reported by media outlets in more than a third of the United States due to the winter storm that hit much of the country, forcing locals to close and cancel appointments due to the lack of shots.
📈 Today’s numbers: The United States has more than 27.8 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and 493,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Global totals: More than 110.2 million cases and 2.44 million deaths. More than 73.3 million doses of vaccine have been distributed in the United States and about 57.7 million have been administered, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: Want a worry-free fourth of July? COVID-19 vaccinations need to be accelerated – and quickly, says the USA TODAY panel of vaccine experts. Read the full story.
Pfizer and its collaborator BioNTech said on Friday that they were seeking an update to their Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization, which would allow their COVID-19 vaccine to be stored at normal freezing temperatures.
Currently, the vaccine must be stored between -112 ° F and -76 ° F and is shipped in a special thermal container filled with dry ice to keep it in ultra-cold temperatures.
Pfizer and BioNTech said new data shows that doses remain stable when stored for up to two weeks at -13 ° F to 5 ° F, which are the most common temperatures for pharmaceutical freezers.
The companies say that the new temperatures may be an alternative or a complement to the existing deep-frozen food, which keeps the doses viable for up to six months. Doses can also be stored for five days in standard refrigeration temperatures, between 36 ° F and 46 ° F, before being administered.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is highly effective in preventing COVID-19, but public health and logistics experts say their ultra-cool storage requirements are one of their limiting factors in making the vaccine widely available worldwide.
CVS Health plans to contact Americans living in underserved communities to help them schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments amid signs that whites are getting the free vaccine at higher rates than black Americans.
The drugstore chain said Friday that it will call, send e-mail and send text messages to people living in areas considered socially vulnerable by the federal government to provide assistance and education in the vaccination process.
The shift also comes at a time when reports are widely circulating that Americans are struggling to navigate various scheduling systems, website crashes and a slow implementation of the two vaccines approved so far.
CVS also said it will maintain vaccination clinics in the most vulnerable communities it serves and send vaccination caravans to neighborhoods to facilitate vaccinations for people.
Research published in 2020 concluded that about 34% of COVID-19 deaths in the period studied were black, although they represent only 12% of the American population. CVS said its internal data indicates that 35% of black Americans do not plan to be vaccinated when they can do so.
– Nathan Bomey
When can most people get the COVID-19 vaccine? Do teachers need to be vaccinated before schools can reopen? When will life return to normal?
These are some of the basic questions that the White House sometimes finds difficult to answer while President Joe Biden addresses the biggest question of his presidency: ending the pandemic and getting the economy and daily life on track.
Biden has pledged not only to face challenges more intelligently and competently than his predecessor, but also to admit when things go wrong.
Even so, communication errors and the difficulty of making predictions for an evolving situation have led to confusion in some objectives and schedules.
Biden was also accused of setting very low standards in some areas to make it easier to claim victory. Some health experts questioned whether his promise of 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days was too slow after the pace of vaccinations in January increased. Biden is set to surpass the goal, and Andy Slavitt, Biden’s senior consultant to the COVID-19 response, called the 100 million goal “a floor, not a ceiling”.
– Maureen Groppe and Courtney Subramanian
A recent study found that pregnant women in Washington state were infected with COVID-19 at a rate 70% higher than others at similar ages.
In addition, infection rates among black pregnant women were much higher than the researchers expected, according to the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The study provides additional evidence that pregnancy should be considered a high-risk health condition for the priority of the COVID-19 vaccine, said senior author Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine .
“Our data indicates that pregnant women have not prevented the pandemic as we expected, and communities of color have borne the greatest burden,” said Waldorf.
While there is little safety data on the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women, Pfizer-BioNTech announced on Thursday the start of its long-awaited clinical trial to evaluate the vaccine in pregnant women.
Participants received their first doses in the United States. The trial will involve about 4,000 healthy pregnant women over 18 years old from countries in North America, South America, Europe and Africa.
– Adrianna Rodriguez
The launch of the COVID-19 vaccine may seem chaotic and incomprehensible, with numbers that don’t add up and allocations that don’t make sense. Jeff Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, predicts this week that sufficient vaccine supplies for 300 million Americans will be available by the end of July. President Joe Biden and public health aide, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also spoke about returning to normal – at Christmas.
The distribution of vaccines by the federal government has been growing since Biden took office, increasing 57% since January 25. This week, it reaches 13.5 million doses sent per week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say more than 70 million doses have been distributed. To meet the Zients forecast, however, the distribution of the federal government will need to increase considerably. At the current level, this would not happen until autumn.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, is among the experts trying to understand how the CDC, White House and state numbers fit together. He says he can’t. “None of us know what’s going on,” he said.
– Elizabeth Weise
COVID-19 survivors who produce many disease-fighting antibodies carry a weapon in the fight to prevent serious coronavirus complications. Antibody-rich blood plasma helps to block the virus when transfused early in newly diagnosed patients – and may even be useful against infections with new variants of the coronavirus.
If an outbreak caused by a coronavirus variant occurs in a community, its survivors could become the medicine cabinet for others who get sick, said a New Jersey researcher.
“They basically have the treatment for the variants in their bodies,” said Dr. Michele Donato, chief researcher at Hackensack University Medical Center for a study group on the blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors. “The plasma contains antibodies to the virus that were in the community at that time.”
Recovered patients would be able to donate plasma after being symptom free for two weeks, and the plasma would be ready to implant in three days, she said. “Plasma collection is an easy, low-tech process.”
– Lindy Washburn, NorthJersey.com
Contributing: The Associated Press