Day: September 10, 2021

WASHINGTON – Just over two months ago, on Independence Day, President Joe Biden declared that the United States was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.”

Vaccines had driven down the average daily death toll from COVID-19 from more than 3,400 at the start of the year to around 400 in early July.

It didn’t last.

On Thursday, with about 1,500 Americans dying of COVID-19 each day, according to ourworldindata.org, Biden announced new measures aimed at beating back the virus again.

Public health experts applaud the stepped-up efforts, including new vaccine mandates and increased access to testing. But some say they do not go far enough. And they note that the Biden administration’s mixed messaging deserves some of the blame for the current situation.

‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’

Despite vaccines that are safe, effective, free and widely available, one-quarter of the adult population has not yet taken its first shot.

The highly contagious delta variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus has ripped through this unprotected population like California wildfire, overwhelming hospitals in parts of the country and dampening the economic recovery that was starting to take hold.

The United States has the highest death rate and the second-lowest vaccination rate among major industrialized nations, according to ourworldindata.org.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said.

The United States is also unusual among industrialized nations for the level of political division over pandemic measures.

Resistance to COVID-19 restrictions that started among conservatives during the Trump administration has persisted under Biden.

Republican elected officials have pushed back against mask and vaccine mandates as unconstitutional infringements of personal liberty. The Republican governors of Texas and Florida have barred local school districts from requiring masks in classrooms.

Biden’s new plan will require teachers and federal employees to be vaccinated. It mandates that private businesses with more than 100 employees must require their workers to get the shots or be tested weekly.

Biden took aim in his speech Thursday at “elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19.”

Those officials shot back.

“See you in court,” Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem wrote on Twitter.

Inconsistent approach

Experts say the administration has also undermined its own efforts with its inconsistent approach toward vaccine boosters.

Biden said in his speech Thursday that boosters will be available for eligible people as soon as the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorize them.

The administration says it is responding to research showing that “breakthrough” infections among vaccinated people are more common with delta than with previous variants, and that vaccinated people can still spread the virus. There is some indication that vaccine efficacy wanes with time, but it is not yet clear how significant that is.

Experts question if most people need boosters, however.

“Breakthrough” infections may be more common with delta, but they tend to be mild. Studies from around the world show that people who received both their shots (or one shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine) are protected extremely well from serious illness, hospitalization and death.

While boosters might be a good idea for the elderly and others whose immune systems tend to be weaker, “I don’t think that we have data yet that indicates everyone needs a booster,” infectious disease physician Monica Gandhi at the University of California-San Francisco told VOA.

And focusing on the need for boosters undermines the effort to get people their first shots, she said.

“Saying in one breath, ‘Get vaccinated,’ and then in the second, ‘Well, they don’t actually seem to be working out well’ — I think it had a profound impact on the people who are reluctant to vaccinate,” Gandhi said.

The on-again, off-again guidance for masks hasn’t helped, either.

In May, the CDC took the unusual step of saying vaccinated people no longer had to wear masks, but unvaccinated people did.

It was a “very American” message, Gandhi said: ” ‘We’ll give you a prize if you get vaccinated.’ ”

But “no other country had differentially removed masks for one population,” she added. “Every country, when they lift masks, they just lift it for everyone.”

‘Not safe’

Overall, public health officials said the Biden administration is doing the right thing. The administration is mandating vaccines under its purview to make workplaces safe.

“It is not safe at this moment to return to a workspace where there are large numbers of unvaccinated people. It is just not,” said Brown University School of Public Health Dean Ashish Jha at a news briefing. “While I appreciate the rights of people who choose not to be vaccinated, people also have a right to be able to go to work and not get infected, not get sick and not die.”

Jha said the administration also should have required vaccination at colleges and universities and for interstate travel, areas where the federal government has jurisdiction.

“These things largely work,” he said. “People don’t love them, but they work.”

Source: Voice of America

New U.S. studies released Friday show that COVID-19 vaccines provide strong protection against hospitalizations and death, even in cases involving the highly contagious delta variant.

One study, which followed 600,000 people from April through mid-July, found that people who were not vaccinated were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and 11 times more likely to die than those who were fully vaccinated.

The unvaccinated were 4.5 times more likely to get infected, according to the study released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC also released two other studies that show vaccine protection appearing to wane in older populations, particularly those 75 and older.

The studies also show an increase in milder COVID-19 infections among fully vaccinated people.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said during a White House COVID-19 briefing Friday that the data showed “vaccination works and will protect us from the severe complications of COVID-19.”

The release of the studies comes a day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new vaccine mandate requiring big companies to ensure their workers are vaccinated. The order could affect as many as 100 million Americans.

Republican officials in several states joined Republican calls to fight the new mandate in court.

Mississippi’s Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, said Friday that Biden’s federal vaccine requirements were “clearly unconstitutional” and that Mississippi would join other states in filing a lawsuit.

Montana’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, also promised Friday to fight the new federal vaccine mandate in court as soon as the full guidelines are released.

Also Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned parents of young children not to seek to have children younger than 12 inoculated with currently available vaccines.

The agency said several vaccine manufacturers are conducting vaccine trials involving children.

“Children are not small adults,” the FDA said in a statement, “and issues that may be addressed in pediatric vaccine trials can include whether there is a need for different doses or different strength formulations of vaccines already used for adults.”

The FDA said it is “working around the clock to support the process for making COVID-19 vaccines available for children.” The statement said the FDA scientists “very much hope to have pediatric COVID-19 vaccines available in the coming months.”

In other developments Friday, Denmark lifted the last of its COVID-19 restrictions. Vaccine passports are no longer required to enter nightclubs; the rule was removed for other venues Sept. 1.

On Saturday, Denmark will celebrate its new status with a sold-out concert for 50,000 people.

The Scandanavian country’s vaccine rollout has gone well, with 73% of its 5.8 million population fully vaccinated, including 96% of those 65 and older.

In France, former French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn was charged Friday over her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Buzyn was charged with “endangering the lives of others.”

French officials Friday also unveiled new restrictions for U.S. travelers not vaccinated against the coronavirus. Those travelers now must show “pressing grounds for travel” in addition to the previous requirement of a negative COVID-19 test.

In South Africa, health officials began vaccinating children, taking part in clinical trials of China’s Sinovac Biotech inoculation for children 6 months to 17 years.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Saturday that it had recorded 223.9 million global COVID-19 cases and 4.6 million deaths. The center said 5.6 billion vaccine doses have been administered.

Source: Voice of America

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple will be forced to loosen the grip it holds on its App Store payment system, a U.S. federal judge ruled Friday in a closely watched battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games.

Though app makers will be able to take steps to skirt the up to 30% commission Apple takes on sales, the tech giant avoided being branded an illegal monopoly in the case.

Here are some key questions on the App Store and the impact of the ruling:

How does the App Store work?

The App Store acts as the lone gateway for mobile applications of any kind onto iPhones or other Apple devices.

Apple requires developers to adhere to its rules for what apps can or can’t do, and Apple makes them use the App Store payment system for all transactions there.

Apple takes a commission of up to 30% of app purchases or transactions, contending it is a fair fee for providing a safe, global platform for developers to hawk their creations.

Apple maintains that 85% of the estimated 1.8 million apps at the digital shop pay nothing to the Silicon Valley based tech giant.

What was the ruling?

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers said that Apple’s control of the App Store did not amount to a monopoly, but that it must let developers include links to other online venues for buying content or services.

App makers will be able to provide links that users can click on to take them to another website to buy content or otherwise interact.

Apple can still require its payment system to be used for in-app purchases, meaning it should still get its share of transactions such as buying virtual gear in a game or a subscription.

Gonzalez Rogers wrote that Apple violated California’s laws against unfair competition but that it was not “an anti-trust monopolist … for mobile gaming transactions.”

Big change?

The biggest change lovers of Apple mobile gadgets might notice is that apps should start showcasing links enticing them to leave the App Store to spend money.

Apple representatives called the ruling a validation of the App Store business model.

The judge did not order Apple to let Fortnite back into the App Store, and the studio’s CEO Tim Sweeney said on Twitter that the game would return only “when and where Epic can offer in-app payment in fair competition with Apple.”

Bite out of Apple’s revenue?

It will be difficult to estimate what sort of bite the ruling will take from the company’s income.

Most of the offerings at the App Store are created by small developers who haven’t built their own payment systems the way Epic Games runs its own online shop, analyst Carolina Milanesi said.

Small developers likely see benefits to using Apple’s payment system and provided perks, such as promoting apps or handling refunds, the analyst added.

App users might also feel more comfortable trusting transactions on Apple’s platform rather than entering credit card or other information in on third-party websites.

“How many developers can do something else when it comes to payment systems and how many customers are interested in using something else?” Milanesi asked. “I don’t think this ruling is a problem for Apple from a revenue perspective.”

And Apple may be planning to more than offset any lost revenue with its own advertising business, according to the analyst.

Source: Voice of America