Tag Archives: COVID vaccine

NYC health care workers refusing COVID-vax could be fired

August 26, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

Health care workers who refuse to get the coronavirus vaccine could be fired under an emergency edict expected to be approved Thursday by the New York State Health Department, The Post has learned.

“Covered entities may terminate personnel who are not fully vaccinated and do not have a valid medical exemption and are unable to otherwise ensure individuals are not engaged in
patient/resident care or expose other covered personnel,” the proposed rule states.

All 450,000 health-care workers in the Empire State’s hospitals, nursing homes and other settings are required to start getting the vaccine by Sept. 27 to help curb the spread of the highly contagious Delta strain.

The policy was announced by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Health Department last week.

At the time, DOH officials said they were still finalizing the rules when asked whether employers could discipline health-care workers — including dismissal.

Health care workers who refuse to get the coronavirus vaccine could be fired under an emergency edict seeking DOH approval.

The revised edict, expected to be approved by the DOH’s planning council under new Gov. Kathy Hochul, clearly gives medical-facility directors the authority to fire those who spurn the vaccine.

It will likely spark outcry, as vaccination mandates have already provoked a backlash, including protests outside Staten Island University/Northwell Health.

The Big Apple’s largest police union — the Police Benevolent Association — has threatened to sue the city if cops are required to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

But health advocates say its unacceptable for medical workers not to get the jab, especially given the fact they work in facilities with vulnerable, immuno-compromised patients or residents.

The regulation covers all workers, contract staff and volunteers at the facilities who “could potentially expose other covered personnel, patients or residents to the disease.”

The revised edict is expected to be approved by the DOH’s planning council under new Gov. Kathy Hochul.

It requires all medical and health care facilities, including home care agencies, to regularly report to the state the lists of all employees who are vaccinated, not vaccinated or qualified for a medical exemption.

As The Post reported in recent weeks, a high rate of medical workers remain unvaccinated at hospitals and nursing homes.

Nearly a quarter of hospital workers statewide — 23 percent — are still unvaccinated, according to DOH data posted Wednesday.

In New York City, 25 percent of hospital workers are unvaccinated. Nearly a third of hospital workers are unvaccinated in Staten Island, Brooklyn, and The Bronx.

Meanwhile, 29 percent of nursing home workers statewide have not gotten their COVID-19 shots.

In New York City, 28 percent of nursing home workers are unvaccinated. The worst rate is in Brooklyn, where 37 percent of staffers have refused vaccination.

Health care workers could see a rise in firings under an emergency edict.

More than 55,000 New York deaths are linked to COVID-19, including 16,000 nursing home residents.

The state has also seen an uptick in new infections tied to the Delta strain. Since early July, cases have risen 10-fold, and 95 percent were identified as the more contagious variant.

Unvaccinated people are five times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to individuals who have their shots, the state data shows.

Those who are unvaccinated have more than 11 times the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 or dying, a study released last week by the NYS DOH and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

“The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. They offer the benefit of helping to
reduce the number of COVID-19 infections, including the Delta variant, which is a critical
component to protecting public health,” the DOH directive states.

“Certain settings, such as healthcare facilities and congregate care settings, pose increased challenges and urgency for controlling the spread of this disease because of the vulnerable patient and resident populations that they serve.

Advocates say it’s unacceptable for health care workers not to get the vaccine.

“Unvaccinated personnel in such settings have an unacceptably high risk of both acquiring COVID-19 and transmitting the virus to colleagues and/or vulnerable patients or residents, exacerbating staffing shortages, and causing an unacceptably high risk of complications,” DOH officials say in the order.

Currently, state medical facilities are required to offer the vaccine to workers, and some already began imposing mandatory COVID-vaccination policies.

President Biden also announced last week that as a condition of participating in the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, the US Department of Health and Human Services will impose new regulations requiring nursing homes to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for workers.

“The Department has determined that these emergency regulations are necessary to control the spread of COVID-19 in the identified regulated facilities or entities…Current circumstances and the risk of spread to vulnerable resident and patient populations by unvaccinated personnel in these settings necessitate immediate action,” DOH said.

Read original article here

Health

Baby younger than 1 dies from COVID in Louisiana: Officials

August 26, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

A baby died of COVID-19 in Louisiana before even reaching their first birthday, state health officials reported on Wednesday.

The Louisiana Department of Health did not disclose the infant’s name, gender or exact age, but said it was the first coronavirus-related death of a child in the state in six months.

“Each COVID-19 death in Louisiana has been heart wrenching, but the loss of such a young child, who could not be vaccinated yet, is tragic and a stark reminder of the difficult circumstances we are in throughout Louisiana,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement.

Thirty-one percent of new cases reported by the state on Wednesday were in people younger than 18 years old, with 63 kids hospitalized in health care centers over the last week alone, state health officials said.

At least 11 children have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, the department said.

State Health Officer Joseph Kanter called the baby’s death “heartbreaking,” and reminded residents that getting vaccinated was the best way to protect against the virus.

“The best way we can protect ourselves, our loved ones and young children who are not eligible to get the vaccine is to get vaccinated ourselves and wear a mask. It’s really that simple,” Kanter said.

State Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter urged Louisiana residents to get vaccinated in the wake of the baby’s death.

AP Photo/Melinda Deslatte, file

The state, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, reported the highest number of deaths since the first wave in spring of 2020 – with a majority of deaths in people who’ve yet to be fully vaccinated, The Advocate reported.

There have been 12,226 COVID-related deaths in the state, according to the state.

Read original article here

Illinois COVID Update Today: IL reports 4,451 cases, 40 deaths; COVID mitigations could return, Gov. JB Pritzker says

August 25, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

CHICAGO (WLS) — Illinois Department of Public Health officials reported 4,451 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 40 related deaths Wednesday..

There have been 1,499,022 total COVID cases, including 23,816 deaths in the state since the pandemic began.

Illinois COVID vaccine map shows how many residents vaccinated by county

The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from Aug. 17-24 is at 5.8%.

Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported testing 78,206 specimens for a total of 28,393,030 since the pandemic began.

As of Tuesday night, 2,197 patients in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 515 patients were in the ICU and 240 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.

A total of 13,861,875 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of Tuesday. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 24,196. On Tuesday, 28,624 vaccines were administered.

RELATED: Johnson & Johnson booster shot generates huge spike in COVID antibodies, company says

Governor JB Pritzker says Illinois may impose greater mitigations if the number of cases continues to rise and if the number of available hospital beds continues to fall.

“If we are not able to bring these numbers down, if hospitals continue to fill, if the hospital beds and ICUs get full like they are in Kentucky – that’s just next door to Illinois – if that happens, we’re going to have to impose significantly greater mitigations,” Gov. Pritzker said.

In several regions of the state, ICU bed availability, is below the warning threshold of 20%. In Chicago, it’s at 18% and at 16% in suburban Cook County and lower still in Lake and McHenry.

At Northwestern Medicine’s Huntley Hospital in McHenry County, administrators say they are running at and above capacity. Most of their ICU beds are being occupied by non-COVID patients but as COVID cases rise, they have had to get creative to make extra room.

“So what we have had to do is open up alternative care spaces to be able to deliver care to our community. We have opened up here at McHenry Hospital our incident command just so that we can truly coordinate patients that are being discharged from the hospital, but then quickly pulling up the patients from the emergency department or other areas,” said Catie Schmit, chief nurse executive at Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital.

The situation in southern Illinois very concerning, where there’s just one ICU bed currently available for a 20-county region.

Meanwhile the governor has not been specific about what kind of greater mitigations he could impose, like a return to indoor capacity limits for instance. But he has said that’s something he hopes the state would never have to go back to.

Read original article here

Health

Pregnant nurse with baby die of COVID after refusing vaccine

August 25, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

A 32-year-old pregnant Alabama nurse and her unborn child died of COVID-19 after the woman refused to get vaccinated against the virus, according to a report.

Haley Mulkey Richardson worked in the labor and delivery unit at a Pensacola hospital, and contracted COVID-19 about three weeks before her death Friday, according to Al.com.

Richardson, who lived outside of Mobile, was transferred to an ICU after her symptoms deteriorated, according to the report.

“After about three or four days in the hospital, the [obstetrician] told her that she was going to lose the baby,” family friend Jason Whatley reportedly said. “And she continued to get worse and worse.”

“At some point, they basically told her that we’ve got to start treating you as if you didn’t have a child. We’ve got to do what we can for you because the baby is going to pass anyway.”

Julie Mulkey, Richardson’s mother, said her daughter refused to get vaccinated even though the hospital where she worked mandated it, the outlet stated. Richardson was reportedly concerned it would cause anaphylactic reactions.

“Haley had had anaphylaxis reactions in the past,” Mulkey said. “So for that reason, she felt that it was not safe for her.

Haley Mulkey Richardson had tested positive for COVID-19 three weeks before her passing on August 20, 2021.

Facebook

“And then, of course, with all the negative reporting that has gone on, what was she to believe about what the vaccine would do to reproduction?”

The CDC has urged all pregnant women to get vaccinated, including expectant mothers who don’t have a higher risk of severe illness and pregnancy complications such as miscarriage and stillbirths.

A local doctor told the outlet that reports linking COVID-19 vaccines to infertility are baseless.

“Claims linking COVID-19 vaccines to infertility are unfounded and have no scientific evidence supporting them,” Dr. Karen Leigh Samples, Obstetrics and Gynecology Department Chair at Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children, reportedly said.

Alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the US, with less than 37 percent of the population fully inoculated against COVID-19, as it grapples with an average of more than 4,000 new cases a day, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Mulkey and her other daughter are now asking other pregnant women in Alabama to get a jab, as the state’s ICUs continue to be overwhelmed, according to the report.

“Since her illness, we have found that this is hitting many, many pregnant women that are 26-27 weeks into their pregnancies,” she said. “And the baby died two days before she would have been 27 weeks. So I understand there’s quite a few women in UAB in the same shape.”

Richardson, who left behind a daughter and her husband Jordan, made a final heavy-hearted Facebook post on August 9, before she was reportedly put on a ventilator.

“Here in the dark, in the wee hours of the morning, it is so easy to pretend that all of this was just a nightmare or that I’m just here in this hospital bed due to my own issues with Covid,” Richardson wrote. “Not for anything being wrong with my sweet baby girl whom I thought I was protecting in my own womb.”

Read original article here

World

Unvaxxed mom dies of COVID days after birth

August 23, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

An unvaccinated mother of four died on Friday after a battle with COVID-19.

Samantha Willis, 35, contracted the virus while she was pregnant, giving birth to her baby, Eviegrace, and then passing from COVID-19.

She died at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry, Northern Ireland, and her funeral was held at St. Columb’s Church, Londonderry, two weeks after giving birth.

At her funeral, her newborn baby, Eviegrace, followed her coffin in the procession alongside her close friends and family.

Willis never got to hold her newborn or even meet her because of the debilitating disease that has killed over 4.4 million people around the globe.

At the funeral, Joe Clifford, who ran the service, also baptized the newborn baby, saying it was the first time he had ever conducted both a funeral and baptism simultaneously. During the service, according to the Belfast Telegraph, he said it “speaks about death and life all interwoven.”

At Willis’ funeral, her newborn followed her coffin.

PA Images via Getty Images

He also added: “It is sadness and joy all at the same time, but never brought together as close as this. And the joy of baptism of this new life doesn’t minimize death, but rather the sadness that brings us here all in the context of faith.”

Willis’ husband, Josh, urged people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus on Twitter.

“I spent hrs in ICU on Thur/Friday with my wife who passed away,” he tweeted. “It’s real, the numbers are real. Get your vaccine so you or your family don’t have to go through what I have had to. As I write this I am laying beside her, she is 35, unvaccinated and in a coffin. Let that sink in!’

I spent hrs in ICU on Thur/Friday with my wife who passed away. It’s real, the numbers are real. Get your vaccine so you or your family don’t have to go through what I have had to. As I write this I am laying bside her, she is 35, unvaccinated and in a coffin. Let that sink in!💔 https://t.co/9qgP5tGbeB

— Signed Memorabilia (@Starsigned_Mem) August 22, 2021

Users on Twitter sent condolences in their replies, telling Josh they were sending prayers and love for his family.

“So sorry for your loss, heartbreaking reality,” wrote one user, who said they were praying for the family.

So sorry for your loss, heartbreaking reality. RIP your beautuful wife. Prayers for you, your 4 children and extended family 💔🥺

— Karen Kane Mclaughlin (@Karen_KaneMcL) August 22, 2021

While most tweets shared sentiments of grief, others related to the shocking tragedy because of their own loss during the pandemic.

“I lost my unvaccinated 42 yr old twin, 4 weeks ago,” wrote someone else. “It’s utterly heartbreaking.”

I lost my unvaccinated 42 yr old twin, 4 weeks ago. It’s utterly heartbreaking. Sending you & your family so much love ❤️❤️💔💔

— jenny mccann (@jennyeye) August 23, 2021

Josh, who runs a supply firm, posted a moving tribute on Facebook to honor his late wife, calling the tragedy “the worst day of his life.”

“Samantha had put up a strong fight for the last 16 days but in the end just wasn’t enough,” he wrote. “All I want to do now is make Samantha proud. I’m sure she’s already looking down and proud of how we are coping. We are also proud of her, she was a wonderful, loving and caring person and she has been our super hero the last few weeks. She is now our guardian angel and she will remain in our hearts and thoughts for ever more.”

Samantha Willis was unvaccinated with no underlying health conditions, according to her family.PA Images via Getty Images

He continued: “I will make sure that Eviegrace will know all about the mother she will never meet. I will never let anyone forget you and I will remember all the special times and experiences we shared together.”

Willis is survived by her husband, Josh, who urged unvaccinated people to get the COVID-19 vaccine after his tragic loss.

A GoFundMe has been created to support her family, which has now raised nearly £5,000.

According to the GoFundMe, Willis had no underlying health conditions, and was perfectly healthy until she contracted COVID-19. She battled the virus for 16 days until she eventually passed.

She is survived by her husband, Josh, her son, Shéa, and her daughters Eviegrace, Holly and Lilyanna.

Willis died of COVID-19 shortly after giving birth.

Her death comes as COVID-19 cases and deaths are on the rise in Northern Ireland. According to the Belfast Telegraph, some hospitals are at full capacity, with some over capacity.

Read original article here

NC Coronavirus update August 19: 7,020 new COVID 19 cases reported in North Carolina, daily positivity rate drops

August 19, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — North Carolina, like many other states across the country, is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

WATCH: Dr. Alexa Mieses-Malchuck answers common questions parents have about their children returning to class.

12:30 p.m.
North Carolina reports 7,020 new COVID-19 cases, but the daily percent positive rate actually went down.

Daily positive cases have not reached 7,000 since Feb. 1. Yesterday’s metrics reported 5,256 new cases. This same day last year, North Carolina reported 1,218 new cases.

However, despite the jump in cases, the rate of positive cases actually dropped from 13.2% to 12.3%–meaning the state saw a jump in the total number of tests completed.

The number of people hospitalized with the virus jumped from 2,930 yesterday to 3,083 today. That’s the most since Jan. 28.

There were also 53 more people who died from the virus.

9:20 a.m.
Just a week into the school year, over 10,000 students and staff in the Hillsborough County Public Schools district in Florida have been isolated or quarantined as districts across the state grapple with COVID-19.

Hillsborough is the seventh-largest school district in the U.S., with more than 213,000 students. As of Wednesday, 10,384 students and 338 staffers are isolated or under quarantine, the district told ABC News.

In total, there were 1,805 COVID-19 cases among students and staff, according to the Tampa-area district’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Read the full story here.

THURSDAY MORNING HEADLINES
NCDHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said North Carolina hospitals are strained with every county in the state seeing high levels of transmission.

New mask mandates take effect in five Wake County towns starting Friday morning.

The mandate includes unincorporated areas of the county as well as Garner, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville and Zebulon.

Fayetteville is also reinstating an indoor mask mandate. That goes into effect Friday at 5 p.m.

Nursing homes and residential care facilities are once again struggling with the pandemic. In North Carolina, nearly 200 ongoing outbreaks are happening at those facilities.

The Biden Administration announced it would begin requiring those facilities that participate in medicare or medicaid to have all of their workers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or risk losing federal funding.

WEDNESDAY
6:32 p.m.
Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin signed a mask mandate that will go into effect Friday at 5 p.m.

The mandate requires people to wear a face covering in public or private indoor spaces, including grocery stores, restaurants, gyms and other businesses.

There are exceptions to the mandate. Children younger than 2 are not required to have a face covering, for example. Other medical or religious exemptions may also apply.

5:14 p.m.
Beginning Monday at 8 a.m., masks will be required for employees and visitors in all Wayne County facilities.

The Wayne County Board of Commissioner met Tuesday and passed the mask mandate motion.

The COVID-19 vaccine is available at the Wayne County Health Department, and appointments are available by clicking here. Residents who receive the first dose of their vaccine are eligible to receive a $100 gift card, and anyone who drives someone to receive their vaccine can receive $25.

4:13 p.m.
Wake County and five local municipalities made the decision Wednesday to enact a mask mandate.

Wake County Board of Commissioners Chairman Matt Calabria is signing the declaration Wednesday afternoon and it will go into effect at 7 a.m. on Friday.

Under Wake County’s State of Emergency, the mask mandate will require people, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a face-covering inside public places such as grocery stores, restaurants and retail shops.

The restrictions apply to the unincorporated areas of the county, as well as the towns of Garner, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville and Zebulon.

Those towns join Raleigh and Cary, which have implemented mask mandates.

“The virus is surging through our community, and it’s our responsibility to take appropriate steps to protect public health and safety,” Calabria said. “Science shows wearing a mask reduces the risk of spreading COVID-19, making it one of our greatest weapons in the fight against this harmful virus. Prompt action now will prevent the need for further restrictions and enable us to beat the virus more quickly.”

In addition to wearing masks, Wake County Public Health is urging residents to get vaccinated. No-cost COVID-19 vaccines are available to anyone 12 and older at more than 200 providers in Wake County by appointment or walk-in. No ID is required. Check out the clinic schedule here.

“With local hospitals reaching critical capacity levels, it’s important that residents do their part to keep our healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed,” said Dr. José Cabañas, Wake County’s Chief Medical Officer. “Wearing a mask is a simple step we can all take to protect the health of our loved ones, especially children who aren’t old enough to get the vaccine.”

4 p.m.
Wake County Public Health has confirmed an outbreak of COVID-19 at Chatham Commons, an assisted living facility at 809 W. Chatham St. in Cary.

This is the facility’s second outbreak. The previous outbreak occurred in January. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services defines an outbreak as two or more people – residents or employees – testing positive for the virus.

3 p.m.
Gov. Roy Cooper gave a COVID-19 update and also talked about the flooding in western North Carolina in the wake of rain from tropical system Fred.

Cooper said he has declared a State of Emergency for the area where search-and-rescue efforts are ongoing.

Speaking on the pandemic, Cooper announced the final winners of the state’s vaccine lottery.

Cooper said the final winner of the $1 million cash drawing was Lilly Fowler, from East Bend in Yadkin County. She is a senior at NC State.

Fowler said she was pretty frugal and hoped to save to buy a house. She said she does want to take her cousin to Walt Disney World.

“Going into my senior year of college, I was headed to Raleigh and was worried about the number of people living there compared to where I live. So, I decided to get the vaccine,” Fowler said. “I take care of my baby sister a lot of the time and my grandmother. So, getting the vaccine is going to help not to bring anything home to them.”

The final $125,000 scholarship winner was 15-year-old Breelyn Dean of Garner, a rising high school sophomore with a 4.0 GPA.

Dean said she wants to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I hate needles, and I was already scared but I knew we had to do this,” Breelyn said. “My family all went together for moral support because they hate needles too. Even if you’re unsure, I would still get it because it helps you and other people.”

Cooper invited Live Nation’s Jeannine Benson to speak, and she announced that beginning Oct. 4, proof of vaccinations or negative tests will be required at all of Live Nation’s live music venues.

“Live Nation is committed to finding the best ways for shows to continue and to bring live music back to North Carolina,” said Benson, Vice President of Regional Venue Operations at Live Nation. “We are working to ensure that we are continuing to do shows in the best way for staff, artists, crew members, fans and our community. We are looking forward to continuing to bring the magic of live music to North Carolina.”

The governor also stressed his preference that students wear masks in schools. He noted many school districts have already implemented face coverings and other health measures.

“Requiring masks in schools will help keep students learning in the classroom while helping to keep COVID out,” Cooper said. “We want schools to educate children, not become hotspots for the virus, and I commend the school leaders who are looking out for the health of their students and staff.”

Dr. Mandy Cohen, the state health secretary, joined Cooper in urging people to get vaccinated.

“This is not where we want to be,” Cooper said. “But we have a sure way out — vaccines.”

Cooper said he has asked the President to authorize more National Guard help.

“It’s encouraging that our state’s vaccine rate has increased in recent weeks. We need to double down on that progress,” the governor said. “Talk with your friends and family about why it’s important for all of us to get our shots.”

Cooper said that though North Carolina has made progress with vaccinations in recent weeks, there is still more work to be done. As the state’s metrics continue to show the virus spread increasing, state health officials pushed vaccinations and the wearing of face coverings.

“Layered protection is crucial to save lives, ensure our hospitals can provide care to those who need it, and fight this more contagious Delta variant. To weather the storm – vax up, mask up and urge others to do the same,” Cohen said.

11:55 a.m.
North Carolina health officials are reporting 5,256 new cases of COVID-19 with a 13.2% positive test rate.

Throughout the state, 2,930 patients are being hospitalized with the virus. That is 102 more than Tuesday.

Throughout North Carolina, 13,952 people have died from COVID. 57 more deaths were reported on Wednesday.

NCDHHS reports 63 percent of adult North Carolinians have received as least one COVID vaccine dose.

11:20 a.m.
U.S. health officials Wednesday recommended all Americans get COVID-19 booster shots to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant and evidence that the vaccines’ effectiveness is falling.

The plan, as outlined by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top authorities, calls for an extra dose eight months after people get their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The doses could begin the week of Sept. 20.

WEDNESDAY MORNING HEADLINES
Gov. Roy Cooper will talk Wednesday afternoon about the ongoing COVID-19 surge in North Carolina, especially among children.

NCDHHS reports 6,000 kids tested positive for COVID-19 last week. That’s up from about 5,600 the week before. The same report showed 19 COVID-19 clusters in K-12 schools and 31 clusters in child care centers–a massive jump from just 9 three weeks ago.

WATCH: Granville County mourns death of teen to COVID-19

The metrics are especially concerning for parents of children under 12, who are still not eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I am a little concerned just because she is too young for the vaccination. She has to wear a mask every day. I’m just not sure how the kids are going to do honestly,” Kara Lewis said.

This comes less than a week before the start of school for the majority of students in North Carolina’s largest school district. Wake County Public School System continues to tout its COVID-19 protocols, saying it will do everything possible to keep students safe and in the classroom.

Masks are mandatory regardless of vaccination status, lunchtimes have been shortened and will be done with as little talking as possible, and seating charts are required throughout schools to allow for easier contact tracing.

Wayne County Public Schools is changing course–now requiring all students and staff to wear masks while indoor.

Classes at UNC will begin today for the fall semester. Some faculty and staff spent the first half of the week trying to get school leaders to delay the start of in-person classes because of the COVID-19 surge.

Instead, UNC is requiring students and staff to either be fully vaccinated or get tested regularly. Masks are also required indoors for everybody.

Anyone going to a Carolina Panthers football game this year will be required to wear masks in all indoor spaces. That same policy will be in place for the two college football games scheduled at Bank of America Stadium this year.

Plus, Moore County is now requiring masks for anyone entering government buildings.

And finally, the Town of Cary’s indoor mask mandate goes into effect at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

WATCH: How Raleigh businesses are enforcing the mask mandate

125,000

Read original article here

Health

Vaccinated people with “breakthrough” COVID-19 Delta infections carry as much virus as the unvaccinated: study

August 19, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

A study by University of Oxford scientists has found that people who contract the Delta variant of COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated carry a similar amount of the coronavirus as those who catch the disease and have not been inoculated. The researchers stressed that vaccination still offers good protection against catching the disease in the first place, and protects against getting seriously ill with it.

The survey of real-world U.K. data indicates, however, that vaccinated people with “breakthrough” infections could still pose a significant infection risk to those who have not been vaccinated.

“With Delta, infections occurring following two vaccinations had similar peak viral burden to those in unvaccinated individuals,” the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, concludes. Viral “burden” or viral load refers to how much coronavirus-infected people carry and thus “shed,” or release into the environment around them, where it can potentially infect others.

The survey compared U.K. government data on more than 380,000 people who tested positive for the coronavirus between December and May of this year, when the first-discovered Alpha variant accounted for most of the cases in Britain, with figures for more than 350,000 people infected over the following four months, when Delta was dominant.

Biden recommends booster shots for millions o…

08:59

Oxford’s lead researcher, Dr. Sarah Walker, told The Telegraph that the study shows two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna or AstraZeneca vaccines “are still protective. You are still less likely to get infected – but if you do, you will have similar levels of virus as someone who hasn’t been vaccinated at all.”

The data used for the study do not show how likely it is that a fully vaccinated person with the Delta variant can pass on the infection to another individual, compared to an unvaccinated individual with the virus. But the high viral loads found in the study are a strong indicator that the risks of transmission from both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with the Delta variant could be similar.

The findings could have implications for policy makers who’ve banked for months on hopes that by vaccinating a large proportion of any given population, they will also protect people who cannot or will not get inoculated themselves by reducing transmissions overall.

“The fact that they [fully vaccinated people] can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped,” Walker told the British newspaper. “It comes back to this concept of herd immunity, and the hope that the unvaccinated could be protected if we could vaccinate enough people. But I suspect the higher levels of the virus in vaccinated people are consistent with the fact that unvaccinated people are still going to be at high risk.”

Pfizer CEO on vaccine supply

04:15

The message from Walker and her team at Oxford was clear: Vaccination remains the best way to protect against infection, and certainly against serious illness or hospitalization with COVID-19, including the Delta variant.

None of the coronavirus vaccines approved for use in the U.S. or U.K. thus far eliminate the risk of infection, but they all reduce that risk by between about 70% and 90% — and they’ve proven much more potent at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

“There are lots of reasons why the vaccines may be very good at reducing the consequences of having the virus,” Walker told The Telegraph. “You may well still have a milder infection and might not end up getting hospitalized.”

She said that while the results of the ongoing vaccine effectiveness study were important, “they aren’t everything, and it is really important to remember the vaccines are super-effective at preventing hospitalizations.”

Read original article here

Health

NC Coronavirus update August 18: Gov. Roy Cooper to give COVID update this afternoon as state reports increasing cases among kids

August 18, 2021 Admin Leave a comment

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — North Carolina, like many other states across the country, is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

4 p.m.
Wake County Public Health has confirmed an outbreak of COVID-19 at Chatham Commons, an assisted living facility at 809 W. Chatham St. in Cary.

3 p.m.
Gov. Roy Cooper is giving a COVID-19 update and also talked about the flooding in western North Carolina in the wake of rain from tropical system Fred.

Cooper said he has declared a State of Emergency for the area where search-and-rescue efforts are ongoing.

Speaking on the pandemic, Cooper announced the final winners of the state’s vaccine lottery.

Cooper said the final winner of the $1 million cash drawing was Lilly Fowler, from East Bend in Yadkin County. She is a senior at NC State.

Fowler said she was pretty frugal and hoped to save to buy a house. She said she does want to take her cousin to Walt Disney World.

The final scholarship winner was 15-year-old Breelyn Dean of Garner, a rising high school sophomore with a 4.0 GPA.