AP -
June 7, 2021
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the Group of Seven wealthy democracies’ summit next week to urge world leaders to commit to vaccinating the global population by the end of 2022. Johnson is expected to stress the importance of a global vaccination drive when he meets with fellow world leaders on Friday in Cornwall, on England’s southwestern coast, for the first face-to-face G-7 summit since the pandemic hit.
AP -
June 7, 2021
COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the region have been steadily dropping as more than 60% of residents in all six [New England] states have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The Deep South states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, in comparison, are the least vaccinated at around 35%, and new cases relative to the population are generally running higher there than in most of New England.
NPR -
June 7, 2021
A new kind of COVID-19 vaccine could be available as soon as this summer. It's what's known as a protein subunit vaccine. It works somewhat differently from the current crop of vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. but is based on a well-understood technology and doesn't require special refrigeration.
Today -
June 7, 2021
The head of the CDC on Friday urged parents to vaccinate their teenagers against COVID-19, citing a rise in the number of adolescents hospitalized with the disease in March and April. "I am deeply concerned by the number of hospitalized adolescents and saddened to see the number of adolescents who required treatment in intensive care units or mechanical ventilation," CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement that accompanied a new study on teen hospitalizations.
HealthDay -
June 7, 2021
For the study, the researchers analyzed rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections between October 2020 and February 2021 among more than 2,000 nursing home residents (median age 86) and staff. Antibody testing was used to determine whether they'd had a previous infection up to 10 months earlier. Residents with a previous infection were 85% less likely to be infected during the four-month study period than those who had never been infected, while staff with past infections were 60% less likely to be infected than staff who had never been infected…
Gallup -
June 7, 2021
57% in U.S. say lives are "somewhat" back to normal; 9% "completely" For first time, majority think healthy people should lead normal lives. Record-high 84% think coronavirus situation is getting better.
AP -
June 7, 2021
[Families] across the country are grieving all that they’ve lost and are left wondering if more could have been done to avoid this tragedy. There are also signs that the virus is not done devastating India’s families because even as new infections are down, thousands are still dying each day and the illness is believed to be spreading undetected in areas without access to testing.
The New York Times -
June 3, 2021
Moderna on Tuesday became the latest pharmaceutical company to apply to the FDA for full approval for its Covid-19 vaccine for use in people 18 and older. F.D.A. approval would allow the company to market the shot directly to consumers, and could also help raise public confidence in the vaccine. … Last month Pfizer and BioNTech applied to the agency for full approval of their vaccine for use in people 16 and older.
AP -
June 3, 2021
The WHO has issued an emergency use listing for the COVID-19 vaccine made by Sinovac for adults 18 and over, the second such authorization it has granted to a Chinese company. In a statement Tuesday, the U.N. health agency said data submitted to its experts showed that two doses of the vaccine prevented people from getting symptoms of COVID-19 in about half of those who got the vaccine.
CNN -
June 3, 2021
The US just recorded a seven-day average of fewer than 20,000 new daily Covid-19 cases for the first time since March 2020. The daily average of new cases dropped to about 17,248 as of Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. However, that number might be lower than reality, as some cases from the weekend and the Memorial Day holiday might not have been reported yet.
PEOPLE -
June 3, 2021
Air travel volume boomed over Memorial Day Weekend to the highest numbers since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. From Friday to Monday, an average of 1.78 million people were screened by the TSA … Air travel this past weekend was up nearly 450 percent from the 2020 numbers for Memorial Day Weekend … still down 22 percent from Memorial Day Weekend in 2019, per TSA.
NBC News -
June 3, 2021
Covid-19 vaccines have allowed nursing homes in the U.S. to make dramatic progress since the dark days of the pandemic, but senior care facilities are still experiencing scattered outbreaks that are largely blamed on unvaccinated staff members. … According to federal data, 472 nursing home deaths were related to Covid-19 in the first two weeks of May, down from 10,675 in the first two weeks of January.
BBC -
June 3, 2021
The UK has announced zero daily Covid deaths within 28 days of a positive test for the first time since March 2020. The latest figures also reported another 3,165 new cases, compared with 3,383 on Monday and 2,493 one week ago.
AP -
June 3, 2021
Will the postponed Tokyo Olympics open despite rising opposition and the pandemic? The answer is almost certainly “yes.” … “Barring Armageddon that we can’t see or anticipate, these things are a go,” … Tokyo is under a COVID-19 state of emergency, but IOC Vice President John Coates has said the games will open on July 23 — state of emergency, or no state of emergency.
STAT -
June 3, 2021
In a plea to halt the Covid-19 pandemic, four global agencies are calling for investments of up to $50 billion – mostly from wealthy nations — to boost manufacturing capacity and supplies and ease trade rules to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines and other medical products. … such an investment could reduce infections and the loss of lives, while accelerating an economic recovery, according to a statement from the WHO, the World Bank, the WTO, and the IMF.
AP -
June 1, 2021
The WHO is announcing a new nomenclature for the COVID-19 variants that were previously — and somewhat uncomfortably — known either by their technical letter-number codes or by the countries in which they first appeared. Hoping to strike a fair and more comprehensible balance, WHO said it will now refer to the most worrisome variants — known as “variants of concern” — by letters in the Greek alphabet. So the first such variant of concern, which first appeared in Britain and can be also known as B.1.1.7, will be known as the “alpha” variant.