Now that the CDC has accredited booster pictures for all three licensed vaccines within the U.S., the company in addition to the FDA will flip to evaluating the protection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11.
If licensed, the vaccine could be the primary COVID-19 shot accessible to youthful youngsters. In Might, the FDA licensed the emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine in youngsters 12 and older.
Over the following two weeks, the companies will resolve whether or not new data showing the vaccine is 90% effective is convincing sufficient to justify authorizing COVID-19 vaccines for kids ages 5 by way of 11. The info launched Friday reported that solely three youngsters of the 1,500 who obtained the vaccine throughout the research later contracted COVID-19. All three had gentle signs, and there have been no extreme instances or deaths.
In the meantime, Individuals will quickly have the ability to select among the many Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines as a COVID-19 booster shot. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky late Thursday signed off on permitting clinics, medical doctors and pharmacies to mix-and-match COVID-19 booster shots.
Walensky additionally endorsed a second shot for all 15 million Individuals who obtained the one-dose J&J vaccine, in addition to a booster dose for sure teams of people that acquired the Moderna vaccine.
Additionally within the information:
►Aiming to encourage extra vaccinations by way of pleasant competitors, Salt Lake County well being officers analyzed vaccination status by astrological sign. On the high spot had been Leos with a 70% vaccination price whereas Scorpios had been in final at 46%.
►Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced Thursday that he plans to convene a particular session of the state legislature in November to fight COVID vaccine mandates by companies.
►The U.S. has now delivered 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses all over the world as a part of its pledge to donate 1.2 billion doses overseas, White Home deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a Thursday news conference.
►Three African lions on the Indianapolis Zoo have examined constructive for the delta variant and have been taken off exhibit, officers stated Thursday.
►In Michigan, about 70 Beaumont Well being staff resigned slightly than take the COVID-19 vaccine and 370 have been suspended for failing to fulfill an Oct. 18 deadline for vaccination, the well being system announced Thursday.
►Eating places, film theaters and plenty of retail shops in Moscow shall be closed for 11 days beginning Oct. 28, together with different new restrictions as Russia recorded the highest numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths for the reason that pandemic started.
►Ready for some sun? Hawaii’s governor welcomed again vacationers as COVID-19 instances and hospitalizations dropped.
📈 Immediately’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded greater than 45 million confirmed COVID-19 instances and greater than 733,000 deaths, in accordance to Johns Hopkins University data. International totals: Greater than 242 million instances and 4.9 million deaths. Greater than 189 million Individuals — 57.2% of the inhabitants — are absolutely vaccinated, in response to the CDC.
📘 What we’re studying: Many native well being officers face a ‘depressing’ job of combating COVID regardless of restrictive legal guidelines and abuse. Read more here.
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Slicing off boosted unemployment does not spur job seekers
Earlier this yr, an insistent cry arose from enterprise leaders and Republican governors: Reduce off a $300-a-week federal complement for unemployed Individuals. Many individuals, they argued, would then come off the sidelines and take the thousands and thousands of jobs that employers had been determined to fill.
But three months after half the states started ending that federal fee, there’s been no important inflow of job seekers.
In states that lower off the $300 test, the workforce — the quantity of people that both have a job or are searching for one — has risen not more than it has within the states that maintained the fee. That federal support, together with two jobless support applications that served gig staff and the long-term unemployed, ended nationally Sept. 6. But America’s total workforce truly shrank that month.
“Policymakers had been pinning too many hopes on ending unemployment insurance coverage as a labor market enhance,” stated Fiona Greig, managing director of the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which used JPMorgan checking account knowledge to check the problem. “The work disincentive results had been clearly small.”
Labor shortages have endured longer than many economists anticipated, deepening a thriller on the coronary heart of the job market. Firms are keen so as to add staff and have posted a near-record variety of accessible jobs. Unemployment stays elevated. The financial system nonetheless has 5 million fewer jobs than it did earlier than the pandemic. But job progress slowed in August and September.
An evaluation of state-by-state knowledge by The Related Press discovered that workforces within the 25 states that maintained the $300 fee truly grew barely extra from Might by way of September, in response to knowledge launched Friday, than they did within the 25 states that lower off the fee early, most of them in June. The $300-a-week federal test, on high of standard state jobless support, meant that most of the unemployed obtained extra in advantages than they earned at their previous jobs.
Absolutely vaccinated individuals make up lower than 1% of COVID deaths
Scientists knew the COVID-19 vaccines had been extremely efficient at stopping extreme illness and loss of life, however they didn’t know precisely how efficient till the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention released data showing what experts called a “modern miracle.”
As of Oct. 12, the company discovered solely 7,178 deaths occurred amongst absolutely vaccinated individuals within the U.S. In a rustic that has reported greater than 720,000 COVID-related deaths, the absolutely vaccinated make up lower than 1%
“We had been all hoping for one thing to assist save our neighbors and our sufferers and positively this knowledge is great,” stated Dr. Joseph Teel, vice chair of medical operations for the division of household drugs and neighborhood well being at Penn Drugs. “It’s a contemporary miracle in some ways.”
The vaccine will not be a miracle as a result of it labored, well being specialists say. Scientists have been engaged on mRNA know-how for greater than 30 years for different illnesses. The COVID-19 vaccine is a miracle as a result of it labored so nicely regardless of the uncertainty of a brand new illness amongst a various inhabitants, an unprecedented scale-up and an absence of uptake.
— Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Florida army service members, contractors file swimsuit to halt vaccine mandate
A lawsuit filed in Tampa and representing Southwest Florida asks for a temporary restraining order and injunction concerning service members and a compulsory COVID-19 vaccine order.
The swimsuit, filed by the Liberty Counsel in Florida’s Center District Court docket on Oct. 15, states that members of the Military, Navy, Air Drive, Marines, and Coast Guard, and federal workers and federal civilian contractors, have been unlawfully mandated to get the COVID-19 vaccines or face dishonorable discharge from the army or termination from employment.
“The Biden administration has no authority to require the COVID pictures for the army or for federal workers or civilian contractors,” stated Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “Nor can the Biden administration faux that the federal Spiritual Freedom Restoration Act and the First Modification don’t apply to its illegal mandates.
— Rachel Heimann Mercader, Naples Daily News
CDC sending workforce to Guam to check COVID-19 deaths
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention will ship a workforce to Guam to analyze why so many COVID-19 sufferers arrive on the island’s hospitals useless.
Final month, the U.S. territory’s Division of Public Well being and Social Companies reported that “useless on arrival” instances made up about two-thirds of latest COVID-19 deaths on Guam.
The CDC workforce is coming on the request of Division of Public Well being and Social Companies Director Artwork San Agustin, the Pacific Each day Information reported.
The workforce is predicted to take a deep dive into the info, “to have a look at what truly occurred” and analyze whether or not the sufferers had comparable comorbidities, Chief Public Well being Officer Chima Mbakwem stated Thursday.
— The Related Press
7-week-old child dies from COVID-19 in Kentucky
A 7-week-old was among the 53 new COVID-related deaths reported in Kentucky on Thursday.
The day by day replace shared to the state’s web site included a further loss of life within the 0-9 age vary, however did not embrace any particulars. Gov. Andy Beshear stated on Twitter that the infant was 7 weeks previous.
In a noon new convention, Beshear stated the toddler was believed to have “a number of points” and “problems” along with COVID-19.
“It can affect anybody, whether or not or not it’s the solely reason behind us dropping somebody,” he stated. “If it is what places it over the sting, and even simply contributes to that loss, there’s one thing that we are able to do about that, and that is everyone getting vaccinated, doing what it takes, masking when it is acceptable, to guard each other.”
— Sarah Ladd, Louisville Courier Journal
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY; The Related Press
