Month: July 2021

VANCOUVER, CANADA – When the COVID-19 vaccines started rolling out across the United States, Canada was short of supply and its leaders faced harsh criticism for not being better prepared. Expected deliveries from Europe were delayed and the country had no capability to produce its own vaccines.

By mid-July, that changed. More doses of vaccines started to arrive and Canada quickly passed the United States in vaccination rates.

As of Wednesday, 71.4% of Canadians had received at least one dose, with 57.6% having received two doses. In the United States, by comparison, 57.7% had received the first dose and 49.8% the second.

It was a different story three months earlier, when the United States had inoculated 43.2% with one dose and 29.9% were fully vaccinated with two doses. In Canada at that time, 31.3% had received a first dose and only 2.8% had gotten the second.

All vaccines being used in Canada — Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca — require two doses. The single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is approved but has not yet been utilized.

 

Dr. Brian Conway, the medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Center, believes Canada has overtaken the U.S. in vaccinations because its political leaders are in greater agreement about the value of the vaccines than their southern neighbors.

“All politicians of all stripes, in terms of major political parties, and even minor political parties, have been supportive of the vaccination program. And within the next couple of weeks, 80% of eligible Canadians aged 12 and up will be doubly vaccinated,” Conway said.

 

Nazeem Muhajarine, an epidemiologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and part of a national research committee on COVID-19 variants, echoes Conway and says Canadians themselves have approached vaccinations with more unity.

“The sense of, you know, that you are part of a collective purpose versus kind of, you know, you being an individual person, individual rights and responsibilities, which is so important in the U.S., is not as important here,” Muhajarine said.

 

“So added this extra incentive for people, which is not just protect yourself or others, but also to get your province over the percentage that you need to keep going on a reopening plan,” Tworek said.

Many public health officials across Canada are starting to wind down mass vaccination clinics and are now going to beaches, farmers markets, summer fairs and sporting events.

It is hoped this will not only motivate more people to get vaccinated, but also make it easier to get the vaccine, especially for those in more remote communities or facing other challenges.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

Florida reported a record 21,683 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, making the Southeastern U.S. state the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The state’s previous record was 19,334 cases reported on January 7, before vaccinations had become widely available, according to federal health data, The Associated Press reported.

Florida, with a population of nearly 21.5 million people, now accounts for about one-fifth of all new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., the CDC said. The state had reported about 17,000 new cases on Friday, the same day state Governor Ron DeSantis barred schools from requiring that students wear masks when they return to in-person classes in August.

AdventHealth, one of the state’s largest health care systems, said on Friday that its Central Florida Division would not perform nonemergency surgeries in an effort to conserve resources because of the increase in COVID-19 patients in the region.

Since the start of the pandemic, Florida has recorded 2.6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 39,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Cruises return

The cruise ship industry, which is a big part of Florida’s tourism industry, was hit hard when the pandemic began in early 2020. On Saturday, the Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras ship was to set sail from Port Canaveral, Florida, the first ship since March 2020.

The ship, planning a seven-day voyage to the Caribbean, was running at just 70% of its normal 5,282-passenger capacity.

The pandemic forced cruise lines to suspend trips leaving from U.S. ports. Carnival Cruise Line is requiring — at least for its July and August voyages — that 95% of its passengers and crew be vaccinated, according to the AP.

A day earlier, Royal Caribbean announced that six passengers — four fully vaccinated adults and two unvaccinated minors — had tested positive for COVID-19. All six were Americans, Royal Caribbean spokesperson Lyan Sierra-Caro told the AP. She said the six, who were not all traveling together, had disembarked in Nassau, the Bahamas, after a seven-day cruise. Royal Caribbean planned to fly the six back to the U.S. on private transportation, Sierra-Caro said, according to the AP.

 

Florida also is home to several major theme parks, including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld. On Saturday, Universal and SeaWorld began asking guests to wear masks indoors. Universal also is requiring employees to wear masks while indoors and to practice social distancing protocols.

“The health and safety of our guests and team members is always our top priority,” Universal said in a statement.

On Friday, the Walt Disney Co. started requiring employees and guests older than 2 to wear masks indoors and on Disney transportation and said it would be requiring all salaried and nonunion employees who work at its properties in the U.S. to be fully vaccinated. As of now, face coverings are not required outdoors at the parks.

 

Those Disney employees who are unvaccinated will have 60 days to receive the shots.

Across the country, the state of Arizona, in the U.S. Southwest, is dealing with a worsening outbreak caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus, as well as low vaccination rates in the state, health officials said.

“Unlike last summer when we were headed into school w/ declining rates, the match has been lit and the kindling is aflame this time,” Dr. Joe K. Gerald, a University of Arizona researcher who tracks COVID-19 data, said on Twitter, according to AP.

The state reported more than 2,000 new daily COVID-19 cases for the first time in nearly five months, according to an AP report. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients topped 1,000 for a third straight day as well, according to officials.

Arizona, with a population of 7.2 million, has reported 925,169 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 18,224 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins.

Vaccine distribution

The CDC also reported that as of Saturday, the U.S. had distributed 400.6 million vaccine doses and had administered 345.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which include the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna and the one-dose Johnson & Johnson.

More than 190.8 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while more than 164.4 million had been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.

As of Saturday, 197.7 million cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 4.2 million deaths had been recorded globally, according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. led the world in number of COVID-19 cases, with nearly 35 million, and related deaths, 613,113, according to the university.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the delta variant of the coronavirus is as contagious as chickenpox and that infections in vaccinated people may be as transmissible as in the unvaccinated.

Internal CDC documents, first obtained by The Washington Post, urged staff to “acknowledge the war has changed” in light of the delta variant.

The CDC said the variant requires a new approach to help the public understand the danger, adding that evidence shows the delta variant may pose a greater risk for hospitalization and death.

The agency also emphasized that vaccines are highly effective at preventing infections, severe disease and death. The CDC said that while the vaccinated are less likely to get sick, they might be just as likely as those who are unvaccinated to pass the disease to others.

 

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said during an interview Friday with Reuters that he hopes regulators will grant full approval for COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next month. He said the move could encourage more Americans to get the shots, which are currently authorized on an emergency-use basis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that civilian federal government employees must be vaccinated or submit to regular testing and wear masks.

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said during an interview Friday with Reuters that he hopes regulators will grant full approval for COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next month. He said the move could encourage more Americans to get the shots, which are currently authorized on an emergency-use basis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that civilian federal government employees must be vaccinated or submit to regular testing and wear masks.

Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Osaka are the new prefectures to be under the state of emergency. Several other prefectures will be placed under pre-emergency measures.

Under a state of emergency, business is suspended in locations that serve alcohol or have karaoke. Under pre-emergency measures, businesses are asked not to serve alcohol.

Japan reported more than 10,000 daily coronavirus cases Thursday, the first time the country’s daily count exceeded 10,000.

Around the globe

In Israel, health officials began administering coronavirus booster shots Friday to people older than 60 who have been fully vaccinated in an effort to stop a recent spike in cases.

Italy’s Health Institute announced Friday that the delta variant accounted for almost all new COVID-19 cases in the country at nearly 95% of cases as of July 20.

German officials announced Friday that unvaccinated travelers arriving in the country will need to present a negative COVID-19 test result.

 

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference from Geneva on Friday that “hard-won gains are in jeopardy of being lost” because of the delta variant.

WHO officials have said they fear that 47 of Africa’s 54 countries will miss a September target of vaccinating 10% of their populations, a goal set earlier this year by the World Health Assembly, the world’s highest health policy-setting body. Africa accounts for less than 1% of the more than 4 billion vaccine doses administered globally.

Overall, around the globe, just 1.1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Friday more than 197 million global COVID infections and more than 4.2 million deaths from the disease worldwide.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

BLANTRYE, MALAWI – Malawi expects to receive more than 600,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine soon. In May, the country had to discard 20,000 doses due to a lack of demand. But officials say that when the new vaccine arrives, demand will be high and Malawi will be prepared.

Over the next two months, Malawi is expected to receive about 372,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and about 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Experts are warning the country needs to be ready to store and distribute it.

In May, authorities burned about 20,000 expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that went unused due to a shortage of distribution centers and widespread vaccine hesitancy, the latter caused by myths and misinformation about their safety.

 

Queen Dube is chief of health services in Malawi’s Ministry of Health. She said there will be no repeat of that incident, because a government campaign has now convinced Malawians the vaccines are safe and protective.

She notes that a recent consignment of 192,000 AstraZeneca vaccines, which the country received last Saturday were gone within days.

Even if some of the donated vaccines are due to expire soon, they will be distributed within sufficient time, she said.

“It’s this scenario where you have one week of shelf-life left that puts you in very difficult circumstances,” Dube said. “But, you know, we have created demand. Remember on 27th [July] we vaccinated 75,000 people and so even if we had all those doses that were to expire in two weeks, say for example 100,000 doses, we should be able to quickly use them within two, three days.”

Dr. Alinafe Kasiya is a public health expert with Village Reach, an international health charity that is supporting vaccine delivery in African countries.

He said countries need to think about their storage and distribution systems.

“That means a number of things; Do we have enough capacity to be able to store the vaccines that are coming?” Kasiya said. “I mean some of the vaccines might have different cold chain requirements. But also do we have a logistic system in place to be able to move these vaccines around? Do we have enough people trained? Are we opening up enough sites? Are we looking at doing more to create demand?”

Kasiya, the country director for Village Reach in Malawi, applauds Malawi’s government for creating demand for the vaccine.

Queen Dube says even though the Pfizer vaccine needs ultra-cold storage, no doses will be wasted.

“There are two things with Pfizer,” Dube said. “We now have evidence that if you take it out of an ultra-cold system you can store it at temperatures between two to eight degrees. These are normal temperatures that we store our vaccines in; and you can use it for 31 days.”

So far, Malawi has recorded about 51,000 cases of COVID-19 and nearly 1,600 deaths. Only a tiny fraction of the country’s 18 million people have been inoculated, though that number will quickly rise if more people cooperate with the government’s vaccination campaign.

 

 

 

Source: Voice of America