It would become the first oral antiviral for Covid-19 if approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization.
“At the interim analysis, molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by approximately 50%,” Merck said in a news release. “7.3% of patients who received molnupiravir were either hospitalized or died through Day 29 following randomization (28/385), compared with 14.1% of placebo treated patients (53,377). Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to 8 deaths in patients who received placebo.”
Some states are seeing increased vaccinations
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has instructed the National Guard to prepare in case there are staffing shortages when a vaccine mandate and testing requirement goes into effect at the end of Monday, he said. State employees must provide proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing requirements by the deadline, and those who don’t comply will be placed on unpaid leave.
As of Thursday, more than 63% — 20,000 employees — were fully vaccinated while 12% of employees have started weekly testing, Lamont said. More than 8,000 non-compliant employees remain, yet some 2,000 have updated their status in the last two days.
“We have provided most state employees with the option to get tested weekly instead of getting vaccinated, providing more flexibility than our neighboring states. We have also provided our employees with a compliance grace period. There is no reason all our employees should not be in compliance,” Lamont said.
Connecticut is just one of several states that face pushback over mandating vaccinations for critical workers, a move that has been highlighted by health experts as necessary to protect those at a higher risk for Covid-19, but which has been met with stiff resistance from a vocal minority who wish to remain both unvaccinated and in their current roles.
In Rhode Island, the department of health announced in August that “all employees, interns, and volunteers in RIDOH-licensed healthcare facilities” would be required to get their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by Friday.
Care New England, one of the largest hospital systems in the state, reported Thursday that over 95% of its healthcare workforce has been vaccinated. Staff vaccination “continues to climb by the day and the hour,” according to the system’s CEO James E. Fanale.
Many hospitals that CNN surveyed had high vaccination rates among employees, averaging over 90% at some of the state’s largest healthcare systems.
“You will see that number go higher quickly, because what we’re finding is, you know, as more people are furloughed or suspended, that that number is going to go up,” Hochul said.
Vaccines for ages 5-11 may be available soon, but poll finds hesitancy remains
As the Delta variant continues to spread, health care employees are far from the only who deal with everyday risks on the job. The resumption of in-person learning in schools has already been complicated by Covid-19 outbreaks and the quarantining of exposed students and staff.
Yet despite evidence that vaccinations are lowering Covid-19 infections and severity among eligible age groups, there is still hesitancy among parents and guardians about inoculating children ages 5 to 11, according to a new survey.
According to the report, 58% of parents said that K-12 schools should require masks in school for all students and staff, 4% said masks should be required only for unvaccinated students and staff, and 35% said there should be no mask requirements.
There is a split between vaccinated and unvaccinated parents polled, KFF found, with 73% of vaccinated parents saying schools should require masks for all students and 63% of unvaccinated parents saying there should be no mask requirements.
The bulk of interviews, conducted September 13 to 22 from a sample of more than 1,500 adults, were before Pfizer announced that clinical trials showed their Covid-19 vaccine was safe and generated an immune response in this age group.
A formal submission to request EUA for the vaccine is expected to follow in the coming weeks, the companies said in a statement.
Death rates in nonmetropolitan areas are higher, study finds
Meanwhile, researchers are looking at the effects the pandemic is having on different parts of the nation.
Deaths from Covid-19 in nonmetropolitan areas are now occurring at more than twice the rate of deaths from Covid-19 in metropolitan areas, according to an analysis of Johns Hopkins University data from the University of Iowa’s Center for Health Policy Analysis.
After analyzing data on average Covid-19 death rates at the county level, it was determined that in the two weeks ending September 15, 2021, nonmetropolitan areas had an average of 0.85 Covid-19 deaths for every 100,000 residents. Metropolitan areas had an average half that — 0.41 Covid-19 deaths for every 100,000 residents.
Deaths in nonmetropolitan areas have outpaced those in metropolitan areas consistently since the beginning of the study in April 2020, and the numbers from September 15 are the fourth time overall that the nonmetropolitan death rate has been at least double the metropolitan death rate. However, the nonmetropolitan rate had not been double that of metropolitan areas since December 1, 2020.
The researchers used US Department of Agriculture methodology to differentiate between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. Counties were logged as metropolitan if they had an urban area with 50,000 or more people or were an outlying county with strong economic ties to an urban center. All other counties in the study were coded as nonmetropolitan.
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid, Naomi Thomas, Melanie Schuman, Augie Martin, Rosalina Nieves, Lauren Mascarenhas, Elizabeth Joseph, Melissa Alonso, Jamie Gumbrecht and Ben Tinker contributed to this report.