The survey was carried out shortly after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine for youth as young as 12.
Approval of vaccinations for school attendance appeared to be influenced by the vaccine status of respondents along with party-line affiliations, where Democrats were most in favor compared with Republicans.
On Thursday, a panel that advises the FDA insisted that faster vaccine approvals should be available with the possibilities of dangerous variant threats and a fall surge.
Here are some significant developments:
CDC: ER visits for suspected suicide attempts among teenage girls rose during pandemic
In the early months of 2021, visits to emergency departments for suspected suicide attempts increased more than 50 percent for adolescent girls compared with the same period in 2019, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report, which analyzed emergency department visit data during certain weeks in 2020 and 2021, found that trips for suspected suicide attempts among adolescents ages 12 to 17, a majority of whom were girls, began to increase in May 2020. From February to March 2021, the visits among girls increased 50.6 percent compared with 2019. For boys, the increase was 3.7 percent.
However, the report’s authors emphasized that their findings do not mean suicide deaths among adolescents have increased.
Although the pandemic’s effect on mental health has been well-documented, the authors noted that their findings appear to provide new insights into the psychological toll younger Americans are experiencing.
After covid-19, hotel industry may scrap some services for good
As Americans travel more, they are encountering a hotel industry that has undergone dramatic transformations and might never return to its pre-pandemic business model.
Some properties, particularly in leisure-centric areas like Florida, are scrambling to find enough workers to staff bustling properties. Many others, meanwhile, have still not brought back all their workers amid a continued travel slump.
But one thing that hotels across the board are considering is whether many of their customers are willing to accept fewer services than before, such as daily room cleanings and sizable breakfast spreads, analysts say, and that might mean a smaller hotel workforce in the years following the pandemic.
The leadership of hotel brands like Hilton, Park and Host have increasingly touted savings and increased efficiency from reducing labor costs on services like cleaning in calls and presentations to investors since the economy began to recover last year.
Contagious delta variant now makes up 90 percent of new coronavirus cases in Britain
The more contagious delta coronavirus variant first discovered in India now accounts for more than 90 percent of new cases of the virus in Britain, health authorities there said Friday.
In a weekly update, Public Health England said that new cases in the country rose by nearly 30,000 over the past seven days. Britain has a high nationwide coronavirus vaccination rate, with about 75 percent of adults having received a first dose. More than 42 percent of the population is fully inoculated, figures show.
But the delta variant that tore through India in March and April is now driving a surge in cases among mostly unvaccinated populations in Britain, jeopardizing plans to ease public health restrictions later this month.
Data from Public Health England, a government agency, confirmed that at least 42 people have died in England after contracting the delta variant, the Guardian newspaper reported. Of those, 23 were unvaccinated, seven had received a first dose more than 21 days before, and 12 died more than 14 days after receiving a second dose.
“While vaccination reduces the risk of severe disease, it does not eliminate it,” Jenny Harries, chief executive of Britain’s Health Security Agency, said in a statement accompanying the new data Friday.
Public Health England also said that new research suggests that the delta variant “is associated with an approximately 60% increased risk of household transmission compared to the Alpha variant,” which was first identified in Britain last year.
That variant was also highly transmissible and ripped through England before rapidly spreading around the globe.
Britain has recorded more than 4.5 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, as well as over 128,000 deaths.
Metro board approves fare reductions, service increases in bid to lure back riders
Metro board members passed a slate of fare reductions and service increases Thursday in their bid to lure more people to transit while seeking to provide service workers and low-income passengers with a break on transportation costs.
The shifts are the first significant fare changes in at least three years for the transit agency, coinciding with altered travel patterns that have emerged as the coronavirus pandemic recedes. Companies and the federal government are increasingly granting flexibility to work from home, which has decreased the demand for Metro during traditional workday rush hours.
The changes represent Metro’s most aggressive efforts to lure riders back after a historic drop in ridership and fare revenue that has forced it to rely on federal aid. Although riders are returning, the slow pace of growth — with projections showing it could take years for ridership to hit pre-pandemic levels — is prompting Metro to reconsider how it operates before more downtown workers resume their dormant commutes this fall.
Turkey expands eligibility for coronavirus vaccinations
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Friday on Twitter that public transportation workers and drivers would be eligible beginning this weekend. The day before, he announced that food production workers and the employees of cafes and restaurants would also be included, the Associated Press reported.
Now, Turkey has made everyone over the age of 45 eligible for a vaccine. According to available figures, more than 16 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, while over 22 percent of the people have received a first dose.
Infections surged earlier this year as the more transmissible alpha variant, first discovered in Britain, swept across the country amid a relaxation of restrictions.
Authorities here have implemented a gradual reopening of the economy as the tourism season kicks off.
Turkey has recorded more than 5.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, as well as over 48,000 deaths.
A political guide to the late-pandemic European soccer championships
The geopolitical action in Europe may be at the leaders summit of the Group of Seven nations in Cornwall, England. But on Friday afternoon in Rome, the real battles begin. Italy hosts Turkey in the opening fixture of the UEFA European men’s soccer championships, arguably the sport’s second-most-popular international tournament after the FIFA World Cup. This year’s iteration, still dubbed by its organizers as Euro 2020 in recognition of when it was supposed to be staged, is being billed as a coming-out party of sorts for the continent after months of pandemic-induced stasis.
“It will be the perfect opportunity to show the world that Europe is adapting,” Aleksander Ceferin, president of the UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, told reporters. “Europe is alive and celebrating life. Europe is back.”
A lot could still go wrong.
Chile imposes new lockdown in capital as cases spike
The Chilean capital, Santiago, was set to enter a full lockdown beginning Saturday amid an alarming rise in new coronavirus cases and despite a soaring vaccination rate.
The number of new cases nationwide topped 7,700 Thursday as patients flooded hospital wards and ICU capacity in the greater Santiago region reached 98 percent, Reuters reported.
The agency quoted Jose Luis Espinoza, the president of Chile’s National Federation of Nursing Associations, as saying that his members were “on the verge of collapse.”
Chile has fully vaccinated about 58 percent of its population of 19 million, while 75 percent have received at least one dose. The immunization drive, however, has relied almost entirely on the Chinese-made CoronaVac vaccine, which has proved less effective than Western-made shots such as those developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.
According to Chile’s Health Ministry, more than 20 million vaccine doses have been administered, more than 15.8 million of which were the CoronaVac vaccine. Another 3.6 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses were used, as well as a smaller number of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot.
Reuters cited the Health Ministry as saying that among the new cases between Wednesday and Thursday, 73 percent were people who had not been fully inoculated. About 74 percent were under the age of 49, the report said.
In April, the University of Chile published a study that the authors said showed that CoronaVac, which is made by China’s Sinovac Biotech, was more than 56 percent effective two weeks after the second dose. But a first dose provided just 3 percent protection.
Experts in Chile have blamed the recent surge in cases on a mix of factors, including pandemic fatigue, travel, more transmissible variants and subpar protection from CoronaVac.
South Africa ‘technically’ enters third coronavirus wave, public health institute says
The country’s rolling seven-day average caseload reached nearly 6,000 on Thursday, the institute said, a benchmark the government previously set to monitor a potential third wave after a devastating surge earlier this year.
“South Africa technically entered the third wave today,” the NICD said in a statement, adding that hospitalizations were also on the rise.
According to the World Health Organization, the number of new infections in South Africa jumped by nearly 29 percent over the past seven days.
The previous wave was driven by the more-virulent beta variant that is now dominant there. Beta also showed some resistance to available coronavirus vaccines, including the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot available through the United Nations-backed Covax initiative, which seeks the equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide.
South African authorities have struggled to ramp up a national vaccination campaign, fully inoculating less than 1 percent of the population of some 58 million, according to Our World in Data, which tracks publicly available figures.
South Africa is the pandemic’s hardest-hit nation in Africa, with more than 1.7 million total infections and over 57,000 deaths.
N.Y. legislature passes bill to make forging vaccination cards a felony
New York state lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that would make forging a coronavirus vaccination card a felony. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) for approval.
The legislation, which would punish anyone who falsifies a coronavirus vaccination card or passport with up to four years in prison, comes amid a boom in businesses requiring or incentivizing vaccinations. Reports of people faking the documents have also increased.
“We’re using vaccine cards and passports to make everything safer from baseball to Broadway,” said state senator Anna M. Kaplan (D), one of the bill’s sponsors. “But the system relies on individuals being truthful about their vaccination status in order to keep everyone safe. We’re already seeing anti-vaxxers spread tips online for how to create fake cards in order to get around vaccination mandates, and we need to put a stop to this effort to defraud the public so that our recovery from the pandemic can keep moving forward.”
In April, state attorneys general urged Twitter, eBay and Shopify to crack down on the sale of fake or illicit vaccination cards.
Making or buying fake vaccination cards is also against federal law.
“By misrepresenting yourself as vaccinated when entering schools, mass transit, workplaces, gyms, or places of worship, you put yourself and others around you at risk of contracting COVID-19,” the FBI warned earlier this year.
China invites Taiwanese to get vaccinated
Beijing has invited residents of Taiwan to visit China for vaccinations in a move that seems certain to infuriate the democratically elected government in Taipei.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement Friday that Taiwanese residents were welcome to be inoculated as long as they followed coronavirus restrictions, Reuters reported. While Beijing has shut its borders to most international travelers, it claims sovereignty over the self-ruling island of Taiwan; Taiwanese holding certain permits can still enter the People’s Republic.
The World Health Organization recently authorized the Chinese-developed Sinopharm and Sinovac coronavirus shots for emergency use during the pandemic, despite doubts about their effectiveness against symptomatic infection.
While China has administered more than 800 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, Taiwan is off to a sluggish start. The island of roughly 23.5 million people, which had been a model of coronavirus containment until a recent spike in infections, has only inoculated about 3 percent of its population.
Taiwan recently received over 1.2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Japan. The United States, Taiwan’s most important ally, has also pledged at least 750,000 shots.
Beijing has offered to send Chinese-made vaccines to Taiwan, which bars imports of Chinese pharmaceutical goods. In its statement, the Taiwan Affairs Office urged Taipei to “quickly remove artificial obstacles for mainland vaccines being sent to Taiwan and allow the broad mass of Taiwan compatriots to receive the safe and highly effective mainland vaccines.”
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has accused Beijing of blocking at least one vaccine deal that her government had hoped to sign with a European drugmaker.
The Taiwan Affairs Office said that at least 62,000 Taiwanese were vaccinated by Beijing as of May 31, although opinion polls in Taiwan have shown that only a small minority would opt for Chinese-made shots.
Rates of anxiety and depression among college students continue to soar, researchers say
College students are feeling more anxious and depressed as they sleep less and spend more time on their phones, researchers said after spending four years monitoring the behaviors of young people.
Dartmouth College researchers began tracking 217 students when they entered the school as freshmen in 2017 in the hopes of understanding how they behave. They’ve seen students’ stress levels rise and fall, usually in tandem with midterm and final exams. But since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, rates of depression and anxiety have soared — and have showed no signs of coming down, said Andrew Campbell, a researcher and computer science professor.
The research points to how the public-health crisis is affecting young people and raises questions about what will be done to support them, a group that struggled disproportionately with mental health issues for years before the pandemic set in.
Federal government will maintain expansive work-from-home policies after the pandemic
The Biden administration on Thursday told federal agencies that more employees can return to their offices as the threat of the coronavirus pandemic ebbs, but it also laid out a permanent work-from-home expansion that will drastically alter the federal government’s workplace culture.
Federal agencies no longer have to limit the number of staffers allowed in their offices to 25 percent occupancy, the administration said in the first major announcement on pandemic staffing it has issued since January.
But the 20-page memo to federal agencies also maintains what started as an experiment in March 2020 to contend with the public health crisis — for the immediate future and potentially the long term.
A fully vaccinated cruise set sail in the Caribbean. Two passengers just tested positive for the coronavirus.
When the Celebrity Millennium departed St. Maarten in the Caribbean on Saturday “with celebration and fanfare,” the cruise was hailed as a milestone both for the cruise line and the embattled North American cruise industry.
With sailings from the United States still paused, the voyage was seen as a way for Americans to return to a favorite vacation pastime at least relatively close to home. But despite a requirement that all passengers over 16 be vaccinated, the celebratory cruise couldn’t avoid the virus that shut the industry down 15 months ago.
Two passengers who were sharing a room on the ship tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, two days before the cruise was scheduled to end. The results came as part of required end-of-cruise testing, Celebrity Cruises said in a statement Thursday evening.
"Review" - Google News
June 12, 2021 at 01:42AM
https://ift.tt/2TmI6N7
Covid-19 live updates: CDC to review potential link between heart inflammation and mRNA vaccines - The Washington Post
"Review" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YqLwiz
https://ift.tt/3c9nRHD
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Covid-19 live updates: CDC to review potential link between heart inflammation and mRNA vaccines - The Washington Post"
Post a Comment