AP -
May 6, 2021
On a cloudy spring day, hundreds lined up in their cars on the Canadian side of the border crossing that separates Alberta and Montana. They had driven for hours and camped out in their vehicles in hopes of receiving the season’s hottest commodity — a COVID-19 vaccine — from a Native American tribe that was giving out its excess doses. … While more than 30% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.
AP News -
May 5, 2021
President Joe Biden on Tuesday set a new vaccination goal to deliver at least one shot to 70% of adult Americans by July Fourth as he tackles the vexing problem of winning over the “doubters” and those unmotivated to get inoculated. Demand for vaccines has dropped off markedly nationwide, with some states leaving more than half their available doses unordered. Aiming to make it easier to get shots, Biden called for states to make vaccines available on a walk-in basis and he will direct many pharmacies to do likewise.
CNN -
May 5, 2021
Pfizer expects to file for full FDA approval for its Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 16 to 85 this month, and will seek emergency use authorization for its vaccine for children ages 2 to 11 in September, the company said during an earnings call on Tuesday. The company's vaccine safety and efficacy study in children age 6 months to 11 years old is still going. "We expect to have definitive readouts and submit for an EUA for two cohorts, including children age 2-5 years of age and 5-11 years of age, in September," Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said, adding that the readout and submission for children 6 months to 2 years is expected in the fourth quarter of 2021.
NBC News -
May 5, 2021
Although no vaccine is currently authorized in the United States for people under 16, the FDA is expected to approve Pfizer's request to amend its emergency use authorization to include adolescents ages 12 to 15 as early as next week, according to a senior administration official with knowledge of the situation.
Fox News -
May 5, 2021
Vaccine development company Novavax on Monday announced it has expanded its Phase 3 clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine to children between the ages of 12 and 17. The company said it's testing its COVID-19 vaccine — NVX-CoV2373 — on some 3,000 pediatric patients across 75 U.S. locations. The company is testing two doses of its vaccine candidate spaced 21 days apart.
The Atlantic -
May 5, 2021
The era of mass vaccinations is ending: Although these big sites were key to speeding up vaccinations after a rocky start in the winter, many are beginning to find themselves idle as the country’s daily vaccination rate falls from its mid-April peak. ... But with more than half of Americans still unvaccinated, the COVID-19 immunization campaign is far from over. It is now entering a new phase. Instead of in convention centers and arenas, shots will be distributed across a larger number of smaller sites: pharmacies, doctors’ offices, churches, mosques, factory parking lots, barbershops, bars, breweries, even individual homes.
CBS News -
May 5, 2021
Adults who get vaccinated against COVID-19 at CVS pharmacies inside Target stores nationwide will also get a $5 coupon, starting this week, the discount retailer announced on Tuesday. Target offers immunization shots at nearly all of the 600-plus CVS pharmacies inside its stores.
CBS News -
May 5, 2021
Grocery shoppers are seeing sticker shock at the supermarket. … Americans are paying more for the basics. Citrus fruit prices are up 9.8%, bacon increased 8.1% and beef is up 7.1%. At the gas station, prices are up more than 22% from a year ago.
NPR -
May 5, 2021
Haiti has one of the lowest death rates from COVID-19 in the world. As of the end of April, only 254 deaths were attributed to COVID-19 in Haiti over the course of the entire pandemic. The Caribbean nation, which often struggles with infectious diseases, has a COVID-19 death rate of just 22 per million. In the U.S. the COVID-19 death rate is 1,800 per million, and in parts of Europe. the fatality rate is approaching 3,000 deaths per million.
AP -
May 4, 2021
The FDA is expected to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for young adults age 12 and older by next week, according to a federal official and a person familiar with the process, setting up shots for many before the beginning of the next school year. … The federal official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the FDA’s action, said the agency was expected to expand its emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine by early next week, and perhaps even sooner. The person familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, confirmed the timeline and added that it is expected that the FDA will approve Pfizer’s use by even younger children sometime this fall.
Wall Street Journal -
May 4, 2021
The next generation of Covid-19 vaccines in development could come as a pill or a nasal spray and be easier to store and transport than the current handful of shots that form the backbone of the world-wide vaccination effort. These newer vaccines, from U.S. government labs and companies including Sanofi SA, Altimmune Inc. and Gritstone Oncology Inc., also have the potential to provide longer-lasting immune responses and be more potent against newer and multiple viral variants, possibly helping to head off future pandemics, the companies say.
CBS News -
May 4, 2021
As the pace of vaccinations continues to slow across the country, more than 20 states are not ordering all the available COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated to them by the federal government, according to a CBS News tally. The figure is the latest sign of lessening demand for vaccinations around the country, as health officials shift from triaging a flood of people clamoring for the shots to targeting harder-to-reach communities.
NPR -
May 4, 2021
President Biden on Tuesday is set to announce new steps to reach rural Americans in the push to get as many people as possible vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official tells NPR. This emphasis comes as rural hospitals are raising alarms about the pace of vaccination — even among their own employees. The Biden administration is moving into a new phase of its vaccination campaign, one where it knows doctors and health care professionals are often more persuasive than the government.
Bloomberg -
May 4, 2021
High school senior Emma Burkey received her “one and done” Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on March 20, and within two weeks was in an induced coma following seizures and clotting in her brain. … the family believes her condition is linked to the vaccine but hasn’t yet been contacted by the company or U.S. health regulators, and that a connection hasn’t been independently confirmed. Burkey’s family can’t look to J&J to cover the medical costs not picked up by her insurance because a 2005 law … shields manufacturers and health-care providers from state and federal liability in instances of public health and bioterrorism emergencies.
ABC News -
May 4, 2021
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to suspend all remaining COVID-19 restrictions imposed by communities across his state, signing into law on Monday freshly passed legislation giving him sweeping powers to invalidate local emergency measures put in place during the pandemic — including mask mandates, limitations on business operations and the shuttering of schools. In addition to signing the law, which goes into effect July 1, the Republican governor also signed a pair of executive orders to move more quickly, meaning that existing coronavirus measures enacted by local governments — such as requiring masks — would be abolished immediately.
Vox -
May 3, 2021
A new report from the CDC found that anxiety appears to have caused a series of adverse effects from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, rather than the shot itself. From April 7 to 9, the CDC received reports of “clusters of anxiety-related events” after patients received the J&J vaccine, including hyperventilation, low blood pressure, headaches, difficulty breathing, lightheadedness, nausea, and fainting, among others, at five mass vaccination sites. At four of those sites, administrators temporarily suspended offering coronavirus vaccines due to the high relative frequency of patients fainting — 8.2 people per 100,000, according to the CDC. For comparison, 0.05 people per 100,000 faint after receiving an influenza vaccine.