August 4, 2021 US coronavirus news

Roughly 49.8% of the total US population have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here is some more data from the CDC:

The US Agency for International Development announced $720 million in new funding “to expand and intensify the fight against Covid-19 abroad, respond to humanitarian crises exacerbated by Covid-19, and support a global recovery while preparing for future pandemic threats,” according to an agency release.

According to USAID, “approximately $445 million of the total funding is for sub-Saharan Africa to support Covid-19 response and vaccine readiness and urgent humanitarian needs consistent with the African Union’s continental Covid response strategy.”

The release added: “This funding will also help countries to reduce Covid-19 cases and deaths until vaccines are more widely available, including programs to expand Covid-19 testing, keep health workers safe with protective equipment such as masks and gloves, increase countries’ oxygen supply, fight misinformation, better equip laboratories, and strengthen disease surveillance.”

Just days after hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the four-day Lollapalooza festival in Chicago’s Grant Park, a September festival in nearby Hyde Park has been canceled due to concerns over Covid-19, organizers announced Wednesday.

The festival was to take place on Sept. 11 and 12 on Chicago’s Midway Plaisance Park.

CNN’s Natalie Andes contributed to this report.

Fans make their way into the Deer District before Game 6 of the NBA basketball finals game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, July 20.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) has connected at least 491 positive cases of Covid-19 to people who gathered in Milwaukee’s Deer District to cheer on their hometown Bucks throughout their historic playoff run and NBA Finals victory.

The 491 cases were from people who “self-declared” that they had attended a Deer District gathering at some point during the month of July, according to Milwaukee Health Department spokesperson Emily Tau.

WDHS spokesperson Elizabeth Goodsitt cautioned that while the 491 confirmed cases were from people who either attended an NBA Finals game inside the arena or gathered in the Deer District while the games were being played, they cannot be certain that the virus was acquired in these specific settings.

“Also, we are likely undercounting or underrepresenting cases who attended and then got sick but did not report, or interview was not completed, or information was not completely documented,” Goodsitt told CNN over email Wednesday.

The Deer District is the name of the entertainment district outside the Bucks’ home arena, which served as a gathering point for thousands of fans throughout the postseason. The Bucks NBA championship victory on July 20 brought roughly 100,000 people to the Deer District to party and watch the win on massive outdoor screens, according to an earlier statement from the Milwaukee Police Department.

WDHS contract tracers are still conducting interviews and are routinely asking people who have Covid-19 about any large events they may have attended.

“This question allows us to gather information on a wide variety of large gatherings, including the basketball victory celebrations,” Goodsitt said.

The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque is reversing course and now requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination for faculty, staff and students before the start of the semester, according to updated information posted on the university’s website.

In an Aug. 2 letter to the university community, university president Garnett S. Stokes said that due to rising cases of Covid-19 throughout the country and across New Mexico due to the Delta variant, the university had to reconsider its announcement on July 8 that they would not mandate vaccinations and effective Aug. 5, faculty, staff and students must be vaccinated no later than Sept. 30. 

Stokes said the policy change was “not a decision that has been made lightly,” and that “In short, with cases of Covid and its variants slowly increasing, if we wish to return to a fully operational campus in a manner that protects the safety of our community, encouraging vaccination and mask wearing is not enough.” 

There will be accommodations made for disability, medical condition, or sincere religious belief, the letter said.

The Los Angeles City Council will consider a motion that would require proof of vaccination in order to enter indoor public spaces like retails stores, gyms and restaurants, expanding on a similar order in New York City.

A motion introduced Wednesday by two city council members calls for the Los Angeles City Attorney to develop an ordinance that will require people to show proof of having received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to access indoor public spaces for shopping, concerts, movies, and sporting events.

The legislation goes beyond the requirement announced Tuesday in New York, adding retail stores to the list of indoor public places where residents would need to present proof of vaccination. Los Angeles residents are also required to wear face masks while in indoor public spaces, regardless of vaccination status.

Council President Nury Martinez and member Mitch O’Farrell introduced the legislation as Los Angeles County endures a surge in coronavirus cases, driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

More context: Despite a relatively high vaccination rate, the number of people hospitalized in Los Angeles has tripled in the past month, and cases have increased twenty-fold, according to county health data.

“Hard-working Angelenos, their customers, and the general public deserve to be safe in public spaces. The vaccines are our most effective form of protection, and the time to act is now,” O’Farrell added in a statement.

More than 200 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported globally, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Three countries account for more than 40% of cases:

The World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

 Since then:

Now, 97 days after that, there are a total of 200,014,602 reported cases of Covid-19 worldwide and at least 4,252,873 deaths.

Globally, about 2.3 billion people have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, and about 1.2 billion people are fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday announced a statewide school mask mandate for students and staff returning to classrooms, saying the Delta variant made masks a necessity.

Pritzker’s school mask mandate applies to all schools throughout the state, both public and private, and for pre-K through grade 12 students, the state lawmaker said Wednesday.

“My goal has always been to safely bring all kids back into the classroom at the start of the school year and, crucially, to keep them there. Without these measures, we would likely see many more outbreaks,” he added.

Face coverings will also be required for all indoor school sports and recreation in pre-K through grade 12 schools, Pritzker said.

Chicago Public Schools last month announced their own districtwide mask mandate for the resumption of in-person classes on Aug. 30, CNN previously reported.

In cities and counties where there has been ongoing debate around mask mandates in public schools, several local health officials have reported again being intimidated by or receiving threats from anti-maskers, Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Wednesday.

This is something NACCHO is now monitoring closely.

As a return to school gets underway, “these are heated conversations sometimes that are turning nasty and out of control,” Freeman said. “We are going to see more of this in communities that have these high transmission rates and are returning to some of these mitigation efforts. We’re going to have to track it closely.”

Throughout the pandemic, public health officers have reported receiving death threats and harassment in response to their recommendations to wear masks and follow certain Covid-19 mitigation measures. For instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has spoken openly about receiving death threats.

CNN previously reported that during a live public briefing on Facebook last year, “someone very casually suggested” Los Angeles County’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, should be shot. And in Washington state, Okanogan County community health director Lauri Jones installed a new security system and asked for police patrols around her home following repeated online threats.

“Just last week, we started seeing extremist groups come out again in opposition to their public health officers’ orders in California,” Freeman said on Wednesday. “Another example, in North Carolina, involved school board meetings where parents were picketing that there was no way they were sending their kids to school in masks. Really, this is going on in different places across the country.” 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on masks last week, recommending that everyone older than age 2 wear masks in schools, whether vaccinated or not.

These pressures of the pandemic seem to be taking a toll on the public health workforce.

Freeman previously told CNN in May that NACCHO has tracked more than 250 public health officials leaving the field since the beginning of the pandemic.

The figures show the number of new (top row) and total (bottom row) COVID-19 deaths reported in the United States each week from May 29 through July 31 and forecasted over the next 4 weeks, through August 28. Models make various assumptions about the levels of social distancing and other interventions, which may not reflect recent changes in behavior. See model descriptions below for details on the assumptions and methods used to produce the forecasts.

Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths are likely to increase over the next four weeks, according to ensemble forecasts published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

When it comes to Covid-19 cases, the agency says that its forecast should be interpreted with caution — since actual numbers have fallen outside the range of previous predictions. CDC’s latest forecast predicts 350,000 to 1,800,000 new cases during the week ending Aug. 28.

The forecast predicts a total of 624,000 to 642,000 deaths will be reported by Aug. 28. 

The previous forecast, published July 28, projected up to 633,000 deaths by Aug. 21. 

According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there have been 614,342 coronavirus deaths in the United States. 

The forecast predicts that there will be 6,700 to 24,000 new confirmed Covid-19 hospital admissions likely reported on Aug. 30. 

Parents with the Education Advocates of Alachua County take part in a rally to support that children should be required to wear face coverings in Alachua County schools this year, outside the Alachua County Administration Building in Gainesville, Florida, on August 3, 2021.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office is now “finalizing health and education emergency rules this week that do not prohibit masks in schools but will require parents to have the right to opt their children out,” his press secretary Christina Pushaw told CNN. 

This comes after DeSantis signed an executive order Friday threatening to withhold state funding to any school that implements a mask mandate. 

The order leaves Florida schools with a complicated balancing act: how to keep students and staff safe from the state’s rapid Covid-19 surge while also avoiding retaliation from the governor.

After a heated school board meeting in Duval County in northeast Florida last night, where more than 70 parents and community members showed up with a range of passionate opinions about masking their children, the school board voted to recommend mask use at schools. It will also require parents to opt-out if they want their child to ditch the mask, a process which will require additional time and paperwork.

Alachua County’s school district will require students to be masked in schools for two weeks. The board said it will re-evaluate the mask policy in mid-August.

Alachua County School Director of Communications Jackie Johnson said masks are required inside school buildings, but are optional outside. 

The policy also includes exceptions. For example, parents can submit documentation from a doctor to exempt a child from the mask requirement. Johnson also said there will be some special needs situations like speech therapy where masks can be removed.

With the vaccination rate in Florida still under 50%, both Alachua and Duval County school districts said they plan to set up vaccination sites in schools with hopes of getting as many students, staff, and community members vaccinated. 

The New York International Auto show, set for later this month, was canceled by organizers on Wednesday due to an increasing number of cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant and the local measures used to combat them.

The New York Auto Show was set to take place between Aug. 20 and 29 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. In a typical year, the 121-year-old New York Auto Show says 628,000 households attend.

New York City recently announced it will require proof of vaccination for people to enter indoor public events as well as restaurants, fitness centers and indoor entertainment venues. The policy will take effect over the next few weeks.

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and members of the White House Covid-19 response team convened a meeting of all living former US surgeon generals on Wednesday morning, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, as the White House ramps up efforts to get the rest of the population vaccinated. 

Those attending the meeting included Dr. Antonia Novello, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Dr. David Satcher, Dr. Richard Carmona, Dr. Regina Benjamin and Dr. Jerome Adams.

In a Q&A session with reporters following the meeting, Murthy talked about the misinformation about the vaccine that is spreading in some communities of color and said he spoke with the former surgeons general about ways to ramp up partnerships with trusted messengers in those communities to counter that misinformation.

Asked by CNN why the administration only began to take more urgent action in response to the Delta variant last week even though it was identified as a variant of concern in June, Murthy said he believes the CDC moved quickly to act on new information about transmission among vaccinated individuals last week. He stressed that the CDC has to strike a balance between being confident in the data that is informing decisions and moving quickly enough.

He also stressed that vaccinated people “still have a high degree of protection” and stressed that “the majority of transmission is among unvaccinated individuals.”

Addressing a question about booster shots, Murthy said it is very possible booster shots will be needed but noted that the FDA and CDC are still studying that issue.

Mayor Levar Stoney speaks in Richmond, Virginia, on August 4, 2021.

Richmond, Virginia, Mayor Levar Stoney on Wednesday announced all city employees will be required to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and provide proof of vaccination.

“The vaccine protects those who cannot get the shot, because of their health status, or because of their age,” Stoney said during a weekly press briefing.   

City employees who are already vaccinated will need to submit documentation of their vaccination status by Aug. 18, according to Stoney.  

“If you are currently unvaccinated, you will be expected to have at least one dose of the vaccine by Aug. 18 and fully vaccinated by Oct. 1,” said Stoney. 

Stoney said, “medical and religious exemptions will be granted with appropriate documentation.” 

“For the vast majority of employees, we know that the vaccine is safe, the vaccine is effective, and the vaccine is a vital lifesaving tool to protect ourselves and our community,” said Stoney. 

Covid-19 case increases in the Americas are being caused in part by surges in cases in the United States, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, said on Wednesday. 

“Over the last week, more than 1.2 million Covid-19 cases and 20,000 Covid-related deaths were reported in the Americas,” Etienne said in a media briefing from PAHO, a division of the World Health Organization.

According to the Weekly Epidemiological Report released Wednesday from the World Health Organization, the United States reported more new cases of Covid-19 in the last week than any other country. New cases in the Americas, a WHO region that includes North, South, and Central America, accounted for 30% of global new cases reported last week, according to WHO. 

People visit a market in New Orleans on August 3, 2021.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Wednesday he is not looking into requiring a vaccine passport for the state.

Edwards said he is not considering requiring the vaccine for state employees “unless and until the FDA grants full licensure to one of more of the Covid vaccines.”

Edwards said, “the least onerous thing we can do in order to try and curb transmission and give some breathing room back to our hospitals is to reinstate the mask mandate.”

Edwards called the statewide mask mandate, which went into effect Wednesday and will remain in place until Sept. 1 “a very targeted and limited approach.”

“We do need compliance because we know that this works. This isn’t theoretical anymore,” Edwards said noting the state hit a 15.4% positivity rate Wednesday.

“That’s up from 13.2% previously and when you have increasing percent positivity, you have no reason to believe, in fact you have no reason not to believe, you are approaching your peak in terms of cases. And that’s going to mean continued hospitalizations and death as well.”

Edwards highlighted while the state was reporting around two deaths a day a month ago, there have been 103 in just the past two days. 

“The capacity at our hospitals is just absolutely strained,” Edwards said.

Vials containing the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine are pictured in London on June 14, 2021.

The UK government is recommending children ages 16 and 17 receive the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine “as soon as possible,” according to a statement from Health Secretary Sajid Javid on Wednesday.

The recommendation comes after the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) updated their guidance to advise all 16- and 17-year olds to receive their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The updated guidance is a change from the UK’s previous plan to only offer Covid-19 vaccines to children if they had underlying health conditions.

“In the last few weeks, there have been large changes in the way COVID-19 has been spreading in the UK, particularly in younger age groups. The adult vaccine programme has progressed very successfully and more safety data has become available, so it was important to review the advice for the vaccination of children and young people,” the JCVI said in a statement.

The UK government plans to prioritize the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for young people, while delaying a recommendation for a second dose, according to the JCVI statement.

“In the UK where there is good uptake of the vaccine amongst adults, we can take a more precautionary approach to vaccine rollout in younger people, who are at lower risk of serious harm from COVID-19,” the JCVI continued, also noting that research shows young people respond better to the vaccine than older people and are expected to have around 80% protection against hospitalization following one dose.

“COVID-19 vaccines have saved more than 60,000 lives and prevented 22 million infections in England alone. They are building a wall of defence against the virus and are the best way to protect people from serious illness. I encourage everyone who is eligible to come forward for both their jabs as quickly as possible,” Javid said.

“Those aged 12 to 15 with severe neuro-disabilities, Down’s Syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities, as well as people in this age group who are household contacts of individuals who are immunosuppressed, are already eligible for vaccination. JCVI will continue to review data and provide updates on at risk groups aged 12-15 and whether any additional groups will be added.”

Dr. Trey Dunbar, president of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Health, speaks with CNN.

A 3-week-old baby who spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit being treated for Covid-19 at a Baton Rouge children’s hospital has been released, the President of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital told CNN Wednesday morning. The 3-week-old baby was discharged last night and is not the first baby treated in this NICU for Covid.

Dr. Trey Dunbar reflected on how children are being victimized by a pandemic that has a simple solution: adult vaccination.

Across the street at the largest hospital in the state of Louisiana, Our Lady of the Lakes Hospital, is still at 100 percent capacity. 

“Where the increase really worries me is will that make an impact on our other hospital functions?” Dunbar said. “We’re dedicating a lot of time, especially on the adult campus, to taking care of people with Covid. I want to be able to make sure that we can take care of people that are in auto accidents, for example. We’re a pediatric trauma center. We’ve seen a lot more trauma over the last year. I don’t want to impact our care in trauma because we’re sort of inundated with Covid.”

For the first time in a long while, Dunbar said there was a line outside of the children’s hospital pharmacy yesterday – mostly adolescence waiting to get vaccinated. He hopes that’s a positive sign that community outreach is working. 

Dunbar said that nurses are working longer shifts and coming in on their days off. He said the hospital could use an additional five to six nurses to keep up with the influx of pediatric Covid cases and their normal needs as a pediatric trauma center.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration, said the “FDA does not recommend taking things into your own hands” regarding Covid-19 vaccine booster shots.

“It’s actually not something you’re supposed to do under emergency use authorization,” he said.  

Some background: Currently, the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control have no recommendation for booster shots. US health officials maintain there is no data to indicate the need for them. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health told CNN on Tuesday, “At the present time, though, the data in the United States does not indicate that that’s necessary.”  

On Tuesday, the San Francisco Department of Public Health announced that they will allow people who received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to get a supplemental dose of an mRNA vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna. They will be providing these supplemental doses to those who have consulted with their doctor beforehand. 

The health department maintains it aligns with the CDC and FDA. “We are not recommending, we are accommodating requests,” Dr. Naveena Bobba, deputy director of health for the department, said during a media briefing Tuesday. “We have gotten a few requests based on patients talking to their physicians and that’s why we are allowing for the accommodation.”

A health worker prepares a Covid-19 vaccine dose in São Paulo, Brazil, on July 25, 2021.

Brazil’s Health Ministry says 20% of its total population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19. 

As of late Tuesday, at least 42,756,263 Brazilians were fully vaccinated against the virus, 20.34% of the country’s total population, according to the Ministry.

Currently, close to 103 million Brazilians (102,802,001) have been partially vaccinated – 48.91% of the country’s total population, the health ministry reports. 

The Brazilian Southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul reports the highest number of fully vaccinated people with 33% of the state’s population; while the neighboring state of Sao Paulo – the most populous state of the country – has 58% of the population partially vaccinated. 

Brazil has been vaccinating most of its population in partnership with Oxford’s AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine; accounting for 48.2% of the doses applied in the country, and followed by Coronavac with 37.1% of the total number of doses. 

The remaining 11.7% were vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and 3% with Janssen’s.