A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel is meeting today to weigh the risks versus the benefits of COVID-19 vaccinations for young adults after reports of heart inflammation among a small number of teen vaccine recipients.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration had confirmed – as of June 14 – 323 cases of myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, or pericarditis, inflammation of the sac that surrounds the heart, in people younger than 30 who had received either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. That’s out of more than 310 million doses administered in the U.S.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said in May that the “relatively few” reports of myocarditis “appear to be mild” and are below the expected baseline rates. CDC director Rochelle Walensky told Fox News she expects a similar finding today.
“I think what we will see in this analysis for ACIP … is the risk of this quite rare and generally mild disease in the context of the benefits of what vaccination can do with regard to COVID-19,” Walensky told Fox News. Read more here.
Also in the news:
►Budget airline Frontier is passing along some COVID safety costs to passengers, even as the airline has stopped taking passenger temperatures before flights. The Denver-based airline has a $1.59 “COVID recovery charge,” spokesman Zach Kramer said.
►70% of Californians ages 12 and up have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday on Twitter.
►Deaths among Medicare patients in nursing homes soared by 32% last year, with two devastating spikes eight months apart, a government watchdog reported Tuesday in the most comprehensive look yet at the ravages of COVID-19 among its most vulnerable victims.
►Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he will end the state’s public health state of emergency on July 1, more than 15 months after he initially declared it because of the coronavirus pandemic.
►About 900 U.S. Secret Service employees tested positive for the coronavirus from March 2020 to 2021, according to government records obtained by a government watchdog group.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has more than 33.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and at least 602,400 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 179 million cases and more than 3.88 million deaths. More than 150.42 million Americans have been fully vaccinated — nearly 45.3% of the population, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: Doctors are seeing an increase in mental health issues and feelings of guilt among people recovered from COVID-19. Here’s why.
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India surpasses 30 million infections, second to US in total cases
India has become the second country, after the United States, to report 30 million infections. The United States has reported about 3.5 million more cases than India. At the latest rate of reported cases, India would overtake the United States’ case counts in about 11 weeks, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Brazil is second only to the United States in reported deaths: about 602,000 in the United States to Brazil’s 505,000. At the latest weekly rate of deaths, Brazil could surpass the U.S. in about eight weeks.
It’s not clear how underreporting and access to testing have affected the counts in the three countries.
– Mike Stucka
Jill Biden promotes vaccination in Mississippi, Tennessee
First lady Jill Biden visited Mississippi and Tennessee, which have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, to talk vaccine safety and effectiveness and to promote the shot she called “a miracle.” Biden’s visit to Jackson on Tuesday was one leg of the Biden administration’s nationwide tour to encourage the millions of Americans who still haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 to do so. Mississippi’s vaccination rate of 30% is the lowest among the states and 15% below the national average.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of questions,” Biden said. “And as a teacher, as a mom, as a nana, I wanted to give people the best answers I could.”
– Sarah Haselhorst and Keisha Rowe, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
Meet Peter Marks, a key player in battle against the pandemic
Dr. Peter Marks has played a key role in nearly every major vaccine-related decision since the United States’ COVID-19 outbreak began. Marks, who runs a division of the Food and Drug Administration, helped make the decision to ditch 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, worried they might have been manufactured under unsafe conditions. In April, he was part of the group that ordered the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when it appeared the shots were causing a potentially fatal side effect. What’s he really like? Read more here.
“I’m a pretty boring person who feels very lucky to work with a lot of tremendously talented people making sure we do the right thing by public health,” he said. “I’m very happy to be in the right place at the right moment to help be a part of that.”
– Karen Weintraub
Delta variant now 20% of new US infections
The Delta variant now represents more than 20% of coronavirus infections in the U.S. in the last two weeks, or double what it was when the CDC last reported on the variant’s prevalence. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned that the U.S. could be following the United Kingdom’s course, where the variant has become the dominant strain because of rapid spread among youths. Fauci says indications are that the vaccines remain effective against the variant.
The Delta variant, first detected in India, is accounting for half of new infections in the regions that include Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
World case rates lowest since February
U.S. infection rates for COVID this week are beginning to plateau, and there is increasing concern that could be because of the Delta variant, according to the Johns Hopkins Weekly Situation report.
Though the Alpha variant still remains the most prominent variant in the nation, its prevalence fell slightly to give way to the Delta variant last week. “If this jump is indicative of a longer-term increasing trend, the delta variant could quickly become the dominant variant in the US,” the report says.
But globally, cases and deaths continued to decrease over the past week with a 6% and a 12% decrease, respectively. That’s 2.5 million cases, the lowest weekly case incidence since February 2021, and 64,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological update.
Most regions reported a decrease in deaths. But Africa reported over 132,000 new cases and over 1,900 new deaths, a 39% and 38% increase, respectively, compared to the previous week, the update said. Less than 1% of people on the continent have been even partially vaccinated.
Houston hospital workers fired or resign over COVID-19 vaccine requirement
More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system have been fired or resigned after the medical system implemented a mandate requiring a COVID-19 vaccine and a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit over it.
The hospital system had previously required employees to complete their immunization by June 7. 178 employees were suspended for two weeks without pay for not complying.
And after the suspension period ended Tuesday, 153 employees either resigned or were terminated for not completing their inoculations, the Houston Methodist Hospital system told the Associated Press.
A federal judge threw out the lawsuit last week that had been filed by 117 employees over the requirement. Employees have appealed.
Contributing: The Associated Press.
