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Support for School Vaccine Mandates Is Declining, Survey Shows
A growing share of parents say they oppose routine childhood vaccines as a prerequisite for school attendance—a setback for public-health advocates.
In a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 28 percent of adults said that parents should have the choice not to vaccinate their school-age children, even if it creates health risks for others. In 2019, 16 percent of adults held that view.
The latest survey—called the KFF COVID-10 Vaccine Monitor, found that, compared with in 2019, fewer adults believe that healthy children should have to get the MMR vaccine (which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella) in order to attend public school. Seventy-one percent of adults now are in favor of the MMR vaccine requirement, down from 82 percent in 2019, as reported in a Pew Research Center survey.
The changes in attitude are drawn largely along political party lines. KFF reported that 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now say “parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children”—an increase among this demographic from 20 percent in 2019. Currently, just 11 percent of Democratic-leaning adults agree with that statement, a proportion that has remained relatively unchanged since 2019, according to the data.
School nurses say vaccine mandates are critical
Linda Mendonca, the president of the National Association of School Nurses, said the results aren’t surprising given the battles over COVID vaccines in the past two years.
“It’s not terribly shocking with what we’ve been through during the pandemic and how people responded to the COVID vaccine,” she said.
Nonetheless, getting children vaccinated is critical to protecting people from illness and death. All states require vaccinations against measles, mumps, rubella, and other childhood diseases with some limited exemptions as a condition for school attendance.
Said Mendonca: “It is the position of the NASN that [the vaccination requirement] is about public health. Reaching a high vaccination coverage of school-aged children is what we strive to do.
“We know that vaccines save lives and prevent disease,” she added. “As school nurses, we certainly do what we can to promote health among school-aged children.”
Nurses are vaccine advocates and trusted source of advice
Mendonca points to several ways that school nurses actively encourage families to vaccinate their children. An integral part of their role involves routinely monitoring and ensuring that students are in compliance with vaccine requirements, she said. Additionally, many schools host vaccine clinics that are coordinated, promoted, and staffed by school nurses. And, as trusted members of the school community, school nurses make logical partners in the fight against vaccine hesitancy among families.
“School nurses have good rapport with families. Many times there are multiple siblings that go through the school, and families get to know the school nurse,” said Mendonca, who adds that because of their positive relationships with families, nurses are likely to effectively educate families on why it’s important that they vaccinate their children against contagious—and potentially deadly—diseases.
Mendonca offers this advice to school nurses when communicating with vaccine-hesitant parents: “Meet them where they are. Instead of shoving information down their throat that maybe they don’t want to hear, try to work with them and help them understand [the importance of vaccines].”
Instead of shoving information down their throat that maybe they don’t want to hear, try to work with them and help them understand [the importance of vaccines].”
Linda Mendonca, president, National Association of School Nurses
It may be easy for the public to forget why it’s so important to continue receiving vaccines such as the MMR, which has been in regular use in the United States by children over 12 months for more than 30 years—leading to far lower prevalence of the diseases it protects against.
But, as Mendonca notes, very real and pressing reasons persist as to why school nurses and other public-health advocates continue to educate the public on its importance.
“There have been outbreaks of measles recently. It is still prevalent. We don’t see it as much, but if we stop vaccinating, we are going to see more of these diseases,” Mendonca said. “We need to maintain that level of herd immunity.”
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Are in-office mandates killing productivity?
After worker productivity climbed to near-record levels during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the reslting shift to hybrid and remote work, it fell hard in the first half of 2022 — leaving experts to scratch their heads as to why.
On Thursday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released third-quarter data showing business productivity had increased marginally — up just 0.3% from the previous quarter — and worker output had risen a paltry 2.8%. But compared to the same quarter a year ago, productivity is still down 1.4%, a decline that represents the first instance of three consecutive declines in productivity since 1982.
“The reasons behind it [are] more technical than just workers are lazier right now,” said Sinem Buber, lead economist with ZipRecruiter. “People are not seeing a reason to work harder. They’re also burned out.”
Generally, during times of recession and low Gross Domestic Product (GDP,) employers cut work hours and employees to handle decreasing output. But because of an extreme dearth of talent and the Great Resignation, where workers — especially knowledge workers — have been resigning in record numbers, organizations have been reluctant to do layoffs.
Fewer workers also means more pressure on existing employees to maintain or grow output.
“Businesses have been struggling with labor shortages…and they’ve seen how hard it is to fill open positions. It can take months and months to find a qualified candidate,” Buber said. “Production has also gone down because workers believe regardless of their performance, they’ll continue to keep their jobs. That curbs ambition.”
The drop in worker productivity coincided with a period when many organizations were requiring employees to return to the office. A recent survey by Resume Builder found that 90% of companies will require employees to get back into the office at least part of the week in 2023. And a fifth of those companies said they would fire workers who refuse.
Caroline Walsh, a vice president of research for Gartner’s HR research practice, said there are no definitive answers as to why business worker productivity dropped so precipitously; at this point, employers and economists need to be asking more questions before making any snap decisions on work policies, she said.
While some executives openly argue that forcing workers to return to their cubicles will boost productivity, research does not bear that out, Walsh said.
“We saw a knee-jerk reaction earlier this year. We know CEOs and other executives were worried that work wouldn’t get done, but we didn’t actually see work not getting done — until organizations began mandating a return to the office,” Walsh said.
When organizations mandate a presence in the office, they typically give employees three pieces of information: who goes back; when they go back; and how often they go back. But they often don’t tell employees why they need to go back to the office, according to Walsh.
“That’s incredibly disempowering and disengaging for employees, particularly for those who’ve shown over time they can work remotely, which we know has improved feeling of inclusion,” Walsh said.
In fact, forcing a return to office or attempting to monitor remote employees with software that tracks their activity usually results in presenteeism — pretending to be working harder by signing into video conferences or sending out more emails, but without any real productive output, Walsh explained.
The only time in-office strategies have had a positive impact on productivity is when organizations require a minimum number of in-person days per year, efforts aimed at periodic team collaboration and corporate culture and community building — both during onsite and offsite events.
Along with calls to return to the workplace, what’s also increased over the past year is stress; it’s at an all-time high, according to a Gallup workplace report. Fifty-eight percent of employees say they’re more stressed, and 48% say they worry more, according to Gallup.
Worker stress and worry has built up over time, with an uncertain economy has just adding to the tension even as employees have had to deal with more change than at any time before.
With the ongoing worker shortage, organizations have had to ask employees to take on more duties — typically without higher compensation. “We were running on adrenaline in the first two years of the pandemic, and now [with] all that extra work we’ve taken on…, we’re seeing this come to a head and that adrenaline and goodwill is no longer sufficient to drive employees forward,” Walsh said.
Some experts have speculated that productivity declines are a result of hybrid and remote workers pushing back after they scrambled at unsustainably hard levels in 2000 and 2001. A workforce now empowered by low unemployment — particularly in the technology sector — is enabling “a certain amount of absenteeism on and off the job.”
“The problem is that many people who work need supervision. In the new work environment, many workers are left on their own with limited supervision and few metrics or targets for what needs to be accomplished,” said Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Utah-based executive consultancy Janco Associates. “Productivity is not the focus of younger workers, they need to have targets for what is to be accomplished. Metrics are key to improved productivity.”
In the second quarter of this year, business sector labor productivity decreased 4.1%, according to BLS data. Product and services output decreased 1.4%, even as hours worked increased 2.7%. And in the first quarter of 2022, labor productivity fell 7.4%.
Compare that to the first quarter of 2021, when worker productivity grew by 4.2% in the middle of the pandemic and the fourth quarter of 2021, when productivity increased 6.6% — and output increased 9.1%, according to BLS data. That growth was among the highest in decades, leading some at the time to speculate the nation was experiencing a tech boom not seen since the early 2000s.
When the boom-and-bust cycles are viewed longer term, the annual productivity growth rate since February 2020 is 2.3%, higher than the 1.4% average during the previous business cycle from 2007 to 2019 — and slightly above the long-term average since 1947 of 2.1%.
Productivity declines are happening at a time when many companies are virtually wringing their collective hands as they try to fill vacancies. So far this year, the US has added 202,800 IT jobs even as more than 4 million US workers have quit their job every month for the past year.
he tech sector, in particular, is seeing the lowest unemployment rate in recent memory – just 2.3%.
At the same time, the Great Resignation has een an exodus of people from the workforce for a myriad of reasons. Many re-evaluated their work-life balance and career choices; others simply left for better pay and benefits. Knowledge workers want flexible conditions, including continuing hybrid/remote work options and fewer work days. Employers have responded by frantically deploying new strategies to fill the talent void, including removing college degree requirements from job listings and hiring outside of traditional geographies.
ZipRecuiter’s Buber sees the Great Resignation as the primary driver of productivity declines among knowledge workers, pointing to the exodus of veteran employees that required organizations to train new hires. Beyond that, rolling out return-to-office mandates only made matters worse and accelerated the mass workplace exodus. Thought many companies moved to reverse course, some damage had already been done.
“I can quit my job if I’m called back to office,” Buber said. “Quit rates make workers less productive as they begin new jobs.”
Another issue affecting productivity, Buber argued, is motivation. When new employees are hired, they often come in with pay and benefits equal to or better than veteran employees. Even as companies have raised wages for their workforce, it’s often across the board, ignoring seniority.
“So, the link between hard work and raises is broken,” Buber said.
Starting with the uptick in the third quarter, however, Buber does expect productivity to return to levels seen in the first two years of the pandemic as the Great Resignation slows and employees settle into a new normal.
“Productivity is a very difficult number to predict; it’s hard to see what’s coming in the next quarter,” she said. “But over the next couple of years, once the quit rates go back to normal levels and we have more tenured people with institutional knowledge…, when the new hires have learned the job…, we will see the productivity levels go back up.”
Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.
Covid-19 Mask Mandates and Travel News: Live Updates
All it took was one confirmed Covid case among the 2.4 million residents of Wuhu, a city in the farmland of eastern China, for the government there to lock down residents without warning.
After watching Shanghai — China’s richest, most sophisticated metropolis — humbled and traumatized by the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and a resulting weekslong shutdown, officials across the country have every incentive to jump early, even if residents have no time to prepare.
Inhabitants of the urban districts of Wuhu in Anhui Province awoke on Sunday morning to official orders to stay at home and get tested — daily — until the government decides that it has stamped out cases of the Omicron variant, which is straining China’s “zero Covid” policy to its limits.
The Wuhu government said it took the drastic step after one school student tested positive. Despite the stay-at-home command, many in Wuhu rushed out to stock up on food before the restrictions took full force, videos and pictures online show.
“I don’t think many people have supply shortages now, because it’s just started,” Megan Liu, a Wuhu resident who works for a foreign trade company, said in a telephone interview. “But I see many people have been madly hoarding supplies.”
While global attention has fallen on Shanghai, where 27 million people have been cooped up in their homes for weeks in China’s largest lockdown, there are over 20 other Chinese cities, large and small, under lockdowns or heavy restrictions on movement, according to Caixin, a Chinese magazine.
Many have millions of residents, but names unfamiliar to most foreigners, like Lu’an, Yongcheng and Siping. Qindong, a town with 15,000 residents in northwest China, imposed a virtual shutdown although it has not recorded any cases of Covid. One person there was identified as a close contact of a confirmed case, officials said.
The closure of each town and city, officials maintain, brings China closer to beating Covid. But each closure also burdens populations and an economy weary after over two years of pandemic restrictions.
Most residents of Wuhu contacted on Tuesday said they accepted the restrictions, provided that the government kept up food and medicine supplies and allowed chronically ill people to visit hospitals. But some said that their neighborhoods were struggling to deal with residents’ needs, especially with elderly and frail people unable to care for themselves or order food online. Some complained about sharp rises in prices for vegetables and meat.
“Ordinary folk are unhappy with the city government for not making the right arrangements for food,” said Zhu Xiaoping, a resident of Wuhu, noting the rising prices. “If you have to lock down a city, I think the government should make sure that each neighborhood is prepared to deal with all the food needs.”
Asked what could happen if people’s needs were not met, Ms. Zhu had a simple answer: “Like Shanghai.”
The comprehensive shutdown of Shanghai since early April has become a warning for people across China.
Officials want to avoid its experience of failing to snuff out the Omicron variant, prompting the central government to press for tougher measures that strangle economic life and kindle public anger. Ordinary people want to avoid the suffering of residents in Shanghai, where staple foods like rice and eggs have been in short supply, and some residents have died after being denied prompt medical care.
Senior Chinese officials and Communist Party-run newspapers have said in recent days that China will not weaken its commitment to “zero Covid.” The risk from wider spread of the coronavirus was too great, Ma Xiaowei, the director of China’s National Health Commission, wrote in a party newspaper, The Study Times.
“Our country has a big population, regional development is uneven, and medical resources are generally inadequate,” Mr. Ma wrote. China, he added, “must clearly oppose the erroneous ideas around now about ‘living with the virus.”
Such arguments have come under growing challenge from Chinese people, including medical experts. The lockdowns in Wuhu and elsewhere have drawn online criticism that they were too hasty. Chinese people have also ridiculed the bureaucratic euphemisms that officials increasingly use to describe lockdowns. Xining, a city of 1.6 million residents in northwest China, has called its restrictions “static management.”
“Logistics halted, workplaces stopped, transport halted — I really don’t get what the difference is between this and a lockdown,” said one comment responding to the Xining government’s explanation.
Residents of Wuhu voiced more stoic resignation than opposition. That may change if the shutdown there extends into the weeks, even months, of closure that some Chinese cities have endured.
“I personally think shutting down sooner makes it easier to control, and then it can be rapidly solved,” Xia Zhenxing, a businessman on the edge of Wuhu, said. He was not in the shut-down area of the city, but said his online business selling green bean cake — a local specialty — was suffering from China’s rolling restrictions.
“Every aspect of business is affected by the pandemic,” he said. “It’s tough, but it is what it is.”
Liu Yicontributed research.
Covid Live Updates: Boosters, Mandates and China
With new coronavirus cases low but rising sharply in recent days, the city of Philadelphia announced on Monday that it will reinstate an indoor mask mandate a little more than a month after lifting it, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so.
“This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic,” said Cheryl Bettigole, the city’s health commissioner, in a news conference. She acknowledged that the average number of daily new cases, currently at 142, is still nowhere near what it was at the beginning of the year, when the Omicron variant was pushing the seven-day average to nearly 4,000.
But she said that if the city failed to require masks now, “knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, then it will be too late for many of our residents.” Over the past week, the city reported that the number of residents who had died of Covid-19 passed 5,000.
The mandate will go into effect next week. A spokesman for the city’s health department said it would end when case numbers and rates go beneath a certain threshold.
The decision comes as cases are ticking up across the country, fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2. While the national increase is so far relatively small — about 3 percent over the last two weeks — the growth in cases in Northeastern cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., has been significantly steeper. Some colleges in the Northeast, including Columbia, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, have reinstated indoor mask mandates in recent days.
Speaking at a virtual news conference on Monday afternoon, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said that he would follow the advice of his health team in making any determination on reinstating mask mandates in spite of his positive test result on Sunday, rising virus cases in the city and Philadelphia’s decision.
“I am not special as being the mayor. What happens to me personally should not determine how I make policies,” Mr. Adams said. “It should be what happens to the City of New York.”
“I feel fine, no fever, no running nose, no aches and pains,” the mayor said, adding that with his health history of diabetes, “I would probably have had different outcomes if I was not vaccinated and boosted.”
Under Philadelphia’s Covid response plan, mitigation measures are triggered when caseloads or case trajectories pass certain thresholds. Since early March, as Omicron swiftly receded, the city had been at Level 1, or “all clear,” meaning most mandatory measures — including indoor mask mandates as well as proof-of-vaccine requirements in restaurants — had been lifted. Masks have no longer been required at city schools, though people visiting hospitals or riding public transportation still have had to wear them.
The indoor mask mandate is reinstated automatically when the city rises to Level 2, in which average new daily case counts and hospitalizations are still low but “cases have increased by more than 50 percent in the previous 10 days.” The health departments spokesman said over the last 10 days case the average number of news cases had risen nearly 70 percent.
Philadelphia’s system “allow us to be clear, transparent and predictable in our response to local Covid-19 conditions,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in a statement after the announcement was made. “I’m optimistic that this step will help us control the case rate,” he added.
The city’s decision is at odds with the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Basing its designation on hospital admissions among other benchmarks, the C.D.C. considers Philadelphia to have a “low” community level, and thus does not advise required masking.
Asked about the difference, Dr. Bettigole emphasized that “local conditions do matter” in making these decisions, and brought up the inequities in the virus’s impact. “We’ve all seen here in Philadelphia, how much our history of redlining, history of disparities has impacted, particularly our Black and brown communities in the city,” she said. “And so it does make sense to be more careful in Philadelphia, than, you know, perhaps in an affluent suburb.”
Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.
Covid-19 Live Updates: Case Counts, Mandates and News
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday for the second time in five months, one day before she was scheduled to join President Biden on a diplomatic trip to Europe.
Ms. Psaki took a test for the virus on Tuesday morning and it came back positive, she said in a statement, adding that she would not join Mr. Biden and top officials at a NATO summit where the president will press allies to use more economic sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Ms. Psaki said that she had two meetings with Mr. Biden on Monday that were socially distanced, and that she and the president were not considered to have been in close contact based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The C.D.C. defines close contact as being less than six feet away from an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more in a 24-hour period.
Mr. Biden tested negative for the virus on Tuesday, Ms. Psaki said in her statement.
- Cases
- Deaths
400%
of last winter’s peak
About this data
Sources: State and local health agencies (cases, deaths); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalizations).
“Thanks to the vaccine, I have only experienced mild symptoms,” she said. “In alignment with White House Covid-19 protocols, I will work from home and plan to return to work in person at the conclusion of a five-day isolation period and a negative test.”
Ms. Psaki’s positive case comes as the White House is grappling with the toll of an enduring two-year-old pandemic while also resuming the usual routine of the presidency, including overseas travel.
The administration has faced a series of positive cases in recent days. Last week, Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, tested positive. Ms. Harris stood alongside Mr. Biden during a bill signing that same day. The vice president tested negative on Sunday, a spokeswoman for her, Sabrina Singh, said on Tuesday.
Mr. Biden also had to cancel face-to-face meetings with Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland last week after the prime minister received a positive result. The president was with Mr. Martin at a gala the night before but was not in close contact with him, according to White House officials.
Congress has seen a flurry of recent cases as well. Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said on Tuesday that he had tested positive.
Hillary Clinton also announced a positive test result on Tuesday, writing on Twitter that she had “some mild cold symptoms” but was “feeling fine.” She said former President Bill Clinton had tested negative but was quarantining.
“Movie recommendations appreciated!” she wrote.
While virus cases in the United States have been on the decline, a highly transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 is spreading rapidly in parts of China and Europe. The spike in cases in Europe was caused in part because government officials relaxed precautions too quickly, a senior World Health Organization official in the region, Dr. Hans Kluge, said on Tuesday.
Still, White House officials have said they are focused on returning the United States to a place of prepandemic normalcy, and the White House has not reimposed mask-wearing mandates or capacity restrictions meant to mitigate the spread of the virus.
The C.D.C. issued guidelines last month that suggested that most Americans could stop wearing masks, and even before that, governors across the country had moved on their own to roll back pandemic restrictions.
The announcement of Ms. Psaki’s positive test came minutes after she was scheduled to deliver the daily press briefing with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. She and Mr. Sullivan were not considered to have been in close contact on Tuesday, White House officials said.
Ms. Psaki did not meet with Mr. Biden on Tuesday, the officials said.
Chris Meagher, a deputy White House press secretary, filled in for Ms. Psaki at the briefing. He said that no members of the news media were considered to have been in close contact with Ms. Psaki during the daily press briefing on Monday.
The White House said Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary, would travel to Europe with Mr. Biden.
Ms. Psaki’s last positive test, in October, also came as the White House was preparing for international travel. She dropped out of a trip to Europe after learning that members of her family had contracted the virus. Her own positive test came days later.
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
Covid Live Updates: Latest News, Case Counts and Mandates
Pfizer-BioNTech is expected to announce as soon as Tuesday that it has asked federal regulators for emergency authorization for a second booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine for adults 65 and older, according to two people familiar with the situation. The request is based heavily on data from Israel, where such shots are authorized for a somewhat broader group.
Pfizer’s chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, said repeatedly over the past week that he believed the additional dose would be necessary to bolster protection against infection, and that Pfizer and its partner BioNTech were submitting data in support of a request for authorization to the Food and Drug Administration.
“The protection that you are getting from the third, it is good enough, actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, referring to booster shots. “It’s not that good against infections.” The timing of Pfizer’s request was first reported by The Washington Post.
Pfizer’s move could reignite a tortuous debate among scientists that raged late last year over when and if people need booster shots. Some public health experts vigorously opposed additional shots for the general population, but then changed their minds after the Omicron variant proved more agile at evading the vaccines’ shield. Scientists continue to clash over how long the vaccines’ protection really lasts.
In an interview with Business Insider on Monday, Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, sounded a more cautious note than Dr. Bourla.
“For those who are immune-compromised, those who are older adults, over the age of 50 or at least 65, we want to strongly recommend and encourage” a fourth shot, he said. But he did not say how soon he thought such a shot would be needed.
Two recent studies from Israel, both published on preprint servers without peer review, arrived at mixed conclusions about a fourth shot. One study, done in conjunction with the Israeli Ministry of Health, reviewed the health records of 1.1 million people who were eligible for a fourth shot.
It concluded that those who had received the second booster of Pfizer’s vaccine were less likely to become infected with the virus or to develop severe illness. But since Israel only recently began its second booster program, researchers could not determine whether the added protection was short-lived.
A separate study of health care workers showed that while fourth shots of either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine boosted antibody levels, it had “low” efficacy at preventing infections. Researchers said those findings underscore the urgency of developing vaccines that target whatever variant is circulating.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health and various vaccine manufacturers have been studying how the vaccines could be updated.
Some senior administration officials say a fourth shot for all older Americans may make sense now, but that the general population should probably wait until the fall. The F.D.A. is expected to convene a meeting of its expert advisory committee next month to discuss the issue of fourth shots.
Asked last month whether everyone would need another injection, Dr. Peter Marks, the F.D.A.’s top vaccine regulator, said: “Barring any surprises from new variants, maybe the best thing is to think about our booster strategy in conjunction with the influenza vaccine next fall, and get as many people as possible boosted then.” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the White House, has said that any recommendation would likely be aimed at those most at risk, possibly based on underlying conditions as well as age.
Senior administration officials said Tuesday that the administration is running short on funds for vaccines. While it has enough supply to offer fourth shots to older Americans this spring, if authorized by regulators, it can’t provide them to everyone without more funding from Congress, officials said.
Israel began offering a fourth shot in late December, starting with health care workers, then broadening eligibility to those 60 and older and other vulnerable groups.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that many Americans with immune deficiencies get three shots as part of their initial series, followed by a fourth shot as a booster.
A study released by the C.D.C. last month showed waning protection after a booster shot of either Moderna’s or Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. While the study did not break down cases by age, underlying conditions or the presence of immune deficiencies, the researchers said the findings illustrated the possible importance of a fourth shot.
The study analyzed hospitalizations and visits to emergency rooms and urgent care clinics in 10 states by people who received booster shots of either Moderna’s or Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. The study showed the level of protection against hospitalization fell from 91 percent in the two months after a third shot to 78 percent after four to five months. Effectiveness against visits to emergency rooms or urgent care clinics declined from 87 percent to 66 percent.
But other recent studies suggest that three doses of a Covid vaccine — or even just two — are enough to protect most people from serious illness and death for a long period of time. While antibody levels fall off, other parts of the immune system can remember and destroy the virus over many months if not years, according to at least four studies published in top-tier journals in recent weeks.
Covid-19 Live Updates: Testing, Mask Mandates and Omicron News
SEOUL — Elated fans of BTS gathered on Thursday for the K-pop group’s first live concert in South Korea in over two years, an event that was expected to draw as many as 15,000 people — despite Covid restrictions that barred cheering, screaming or singing.
“It still feels like a dream,” said Park Hyunjun, 40, a freelance video producer from the city of Incheon, west of Seoul. Outside Seoul Olympic Stadium on Thursday, she held a poster bearing the concert’s slogan: “Of course, nothing has changed between us.”
It was the first large-scale gathering of BTS fans in South Korea since the band’s last concert in their home country, in October 2019. The multibillion-dollar act performed live in Los Angeles in November, but for most of the pandemic it has been livestreaming instead.
In 2020, the group set a Guinness world record for attracting the most viewers for a livestreamed music concert. The pandemic did not only pause the band’s live concerts: Five of BTS’s seven members have been infected with the coronavirus. They have since recovered from Covid-19.
The concert Thursday, the largest approved by the South Korean government since the pandemic began, was taking place amid an Omicron wave that has driven caseloads in the country to unprecedented highs. On Thursday, the health authorities reported 327,549 new daily cases. But the government, which says the country must learn to live with the virus, has been loosening some restrictions.
In and around the stadium on Thursday, 750 safety personnel were enforcing virus protocols, muting the festivities somewhat.
“Please get moving once you’re done taking pictures,” fans taking group photos in front of the stadium’s entrance were told. “Please keep your distance to prevent the spread of Covid.”
Fans’ temperatures were being taken before they entered the stadium. Rapid antigen kits were being made available for people with high temperatures, said the band’s agency, Hybe. And concertgoers had to enter through designated entrances, and during specific time slots, so they would not flow in all at once.
Fans were also prohibited from cheering, screaming or singing along during the concert, and they had to keep their masks on, except to drink water. And attendance at the stadium, which can seat about 70,000 people, was being limited to 15,000.
“I’m curious what kind of atmosphere there will be with everyone masked and no one screaming,” said Yu Haram, 17, who has followed the band for four years and was about to see them live for the first time.
Throughout the pandemic, Ms. Yu said, she had followed the band online, sometimes gathering with her classmates to watch livestreams together. “I’m finally seeing them,” she said, “and I’m nervous.”
The concert was the first of a three-day series, with more scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. It was being livestreamed for people who couldn’t attend in person.
Yang Ji-woong, 15, said he had listened to the BTS song “Mikrokosmos” throughout the pandemic alone in his room and was looking forward to seeing it live.
“I’m frankly a bit worried about Covid,” he said. “But I want to enjoy this moment as much as I can.”
Covid-19 Live Updates: Mask Mandates, Restrictions and Vaccines
No vaccine card?
For diners in New York City restaurants starting this week, that is no problem.
To mark the occasion, Rocco Sacramone is planning to put 300 balloons outside his restaurant, Trattoria L’incontro in Astoria, along with speakers that will play Frank Sinatra’s iconic “New York, New York.”
“Spring is in the air, and it could not be a better time for us right now,” Mr. Sacramone said, adding: “We’re back!”
Last week, Mayor Eric Adams confirmed that beginning Monday the city would no longer require patrons in restaurants, bars and gyms and other places indoors to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, part of a sweeping rollback of restrictions that includes lifting a mask requirement in public schools.
New Yorkers will still be required to wear masks in a number of settings, including on the subway, and in taxis. Masks and vaccination are still required at Broadway shows through April 30, and individual business owners may continue to require either as they see fit. The city’s vaccine mandates for private employers and municipal workers remain in place.
“We are open for business and N.Y.C. has its groove back,” Mr. Adams said on Friday in Times Square, declaring that the city was winning its battle with the virus that has killed tens of thousands of New Yorkers.
The announcement has been met with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
Some public health experts and local officials have raised concerns that easing restrictions is premature and could send the message that Covid is no longer a risk.
“Like everything else to help the pandemic, specifically, when it comes to Covid mandates, there’s a lot of different opinions and feelings,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, which represents restaurants and nightlife venues. “But the vast majority of people I’ve heard from are relieved.”
The restaurant industry has been one of those hardest hit by the pandemic, forcing many owners to drastically rethink their businesses in order to survive. Many leaned on delivery, some for the first time. Temporary approvals for to-go drinks and more outdoor dining also helped get businesses through the toughest days, and there have been efforts to make both permanent.
But the city’s unemployment rate is still stubbornly high — inflated, Mr. Rigie said, by the many jobs in restaurants and hospitality that have not yet returned.
For many, simply surviving to this point is cause for celebration.
“I feel very grateful to be in our community, because we were being rooted for,” said Kalkin Narvilas, who owns the restaurants Saggio and Uptown Garrison in Upper Manhattan. “So even if it wasn’t enough to let’s say thrive, it was enough to survive.”
Over the past two years, Mr. Narvilas has watched as restaurants that had anchored neighborhoods, and that he had looked up to, closed their doors. He and his staff leaned into creative solutions during the early days of the pandemic, he said, and worked hard to make the most tentative patron comfortable — even using a hospital grade air filter. But even so, he said, keeping up with changing rules had strained the businesses, and he welcomed the lifting of the mandate.
“We have to undo some damage, and it’s not going to be overnight,” Mr. Narvilas said. “But when are you going to start that?”
For some, the change will mean little.
Matthew Chan, who owns the Kosher Chinese restaurant Chop Chop, in the Fort George neighborhood of Manhattan, had to get creative to keep the lights on at his business, which relied heavily on Yeshiva University across the street.
He found himself scouring Facebook groups to find people seeking Kosher Chinese food in communities as far-flung as Silver Spring, Md., and Boston, a pivot he has made permanent. The mandate change has less of an impact now that he spends his days driving orders to customers all over the Northeast.
“People think I’m crazy, but I’m alive and I still can help all my family,” he said.
New York City lifts COVID vaccine and mask mandates Monday; New Jersey ends masking for schools
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York City is taking another step to bounce back from the pandemic, with the city set to drop several safety protocols, including a school mask mandate and vaccination requirements for businesses.
Restaurants and indoor venues will no longer have to require proof of vaccination.
However, some public indoor businesses like Broadway shows, are keeping their mask and vaccine requirements through at least the end of this month.
You’ll also still need to wear your mask on mass transit or when you see a doctor.
In public schools, masks will be optional for students ages 5 and up.
Masks are still required for those participating in early childhood programs and in the nurse’s office.
Right now, the COVID infection rate is at 1.8%. That’s the lowest level since August.
In New Jersey, they are also ending their mask mandate for schools and daycares.
It also marks the end of New Jersey’s public health emergency on Monday.
ALSO READ | Mayor Eric Adams says Key to NYC, public school masks mandate both end on Monday
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