(Cases and Hospitalizations continued declining on this report (3rd week) - 2,087 Daily Deaths, A new High for the Delta wave - Vaccinations at a strong pace on this report (916K/day))
In the 24 hours since the last report:
Administered: 916K (Very Strong) (31K J&J - OK)
People Vaccinated, First Shot: 391,000 (Strong).
Fully Vaccinated: 463,000 (Very Strong)
Boosters: 70K
% of Total Population With at least a First Shot: 63.7% (up 0.1)
% of Those 18+ Years of Age (Adults w/1st shot): 76.4% (up 0.2)
% of Those 65+ Years of Age (w/1st shot): 93.1% (flat) (82.9% Fully Vaccinated - up 0.1)
Cases and Hospitalizations still high, but continued declining on this report. I expect a steeper drop in cases over the next couple of weeks, based on Delta waves elsewhere.
2,087 Daily Deaths - A new High for the Delta wave.
Vaccinations Strong.
News Clippings:
Washington Post reports: The Southern Baptist Convention's organization that sends thousands of missionaries overseas announced last week that it will require missionaries and their children ages 16 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The Hill reports: (You're gonna love this one...) Biden's vaccine mandate is narrowly targeted toward the 80 to 100 million American citizens who get up and go to work but ignores the 60 million Americans on welfare, the thousands who illegally cross our southern border every day, the 640,000 Postal Service workers and Congress, among others. Biden's vaccine mandate is not about getting the vulnerable vaccinated. It is about the Biden administration unfairly and unnecessarily forcing hard-working Americans to choose between their bodily autonomy and their livelihood.
The week reports: Monoclonal antibodies produced by Regeneron and Eli Lilly have become widely accepted as a successful treatment for COVID-19, reducing symptoms quickly and keeping infected people out of the hospital if they act quickly enough. Doctors and vaccine skeptics alike are proponents... The more people who get vaccinated, the fewer people there will be who need any sort of coronavirus remedy. Beyond that, the infusions also take a lot of time and require a lot of attention from hospital staff. They're also more expensive, costing the federal government about $2,100 per dose. "It's clogging up resources, it's hard to give, and a vaccine is $20 and could prevent almost all of that," said Dr. Christian Ramers.
The Guardian (UK) reports: Who says it’s no big deal if the Covid vaccine temporarily disrupts menstrual cycles? It’s probably a minor effect of the immune response (it also occurs with several other types of vaccines, like HPV) but it’s not a good look when the medical establishment can’t be bothered to notice. This week the BMJ published a report by Dr Victoria Male, a lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London (https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2211 ). More than 30 000 reports of these events had been made to MHRA’s (UK) yellow card surveillance scheme for adverse drug reactions by 2 September 2021, across all covid-19 vaccines currently offered (in the UK). Most people who report a change to their period after vaccination find that it returns to normal the following cycle and, importantly, there is no evidence that covid-19 vaccination adversely affects fertility. (about a quarter of menstruating women who contract COVID-19, report menstrual disruptions)
WSJ reports: West Virginia Was a Covid-19 Vaccine Success Story, but Now Cases Are Surging. State’s vaccination rate now lags behind others; 922 people with Covid-19 are hospitalized in West Virginia, up from 52 in early July. At 46%, West Virginia has the lowest percentage of its eligible population fully vaccinated of any state, according to CDC.
AP reports: Florida reported 11,275 new daily cases on Friday, about half the number from last month. Florida was averaging more than 21,000 cases a day in August. Epidemiologists say the state’s rates of vaccination has outpaced the national average... AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division says the number of COVID-19 patients at its hospitals stands at 850 people, several hundred patients fewer than this summer.
Also: Two of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s children have tested positive for the coronavirus. A statement issued Friday says Newsom, his wife and two other children have since tested negative for the virus. All four of the governor’s children are under 12, the age when children can be vaccinated.
Also: South Carolina is setting records for COVID-19 hospitalizations, and new cases are approaching the peak levels of last winter.
Also: India gave out 25 million doses during a special COVID-19 vaccination drive organized on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday... Only China has administered more. The Chinese government said this week it had given more than 2.16 billion shots and that 1 billion Chinese people were fully vaccinated. India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, has given at least one dose to more than 62% of eligible adults and two doses to about 21%. Health ministry officials say they plan to administer over a billion shots by mid-October.
Also: JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — Military leaders on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson have declared a public health emergency in response to increasing COVID-19 cases in Alaska.
Also: American Samoa reported its first case of coronavirus on Friday. The U.S. territory’s acting governor and health officials said the islands’ first case of COVID-19 was of a resident who returned to American Samoa from Hawaii this week. The infected traveler flew in on Monday, the first day of newly resumed commercial flights from Honolulu to Pago Pago. The route had been suspended since March 2020. Officials say the resident was fully vaccinated and had traveled to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. They say the traveler tested negative for COVID-19 before boarding the flight back to American Samoa. American Samoa requires all travelers to be vaccinated and to quarantine.
AL.com (Alabama) reports: Officials at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have ended a COVID vaccine requirement for employees while awaiting details about a federal mandate that could affect all health care workers.
The Los Angeles Times reports: COVID-19 vaccination rates lag in younger Black and Latino residents in L.A. County. Vaccination rates among L.A. County's Black residents up to age 49 remain below 50%, and among Latino residents in the same age group, remain below 60%, health officials said this week. These are rates far below that of older Black and Latino residents, as well as white, Asian American and Native American residents of all age groups in L.A. County... Unvaccinated Black and Latino residents are significantly more likely to contract the coronavirus compared with their white and Asian American counterparts, according to county data from August. Unvaccinated Black residents are also more likely to be hospitalized than other racial and ethnic groups.
Detroit Free Press reports: Michigan’s highest vaccination rate — 83.8%, according to the CDC... Leelanau County. The secret in Leelanau is age, education and wealth (a wealthy retirement community)... After supporting Donald Trump for president in 2016 Leelanau voters in 2020 swung to Joe Biden, who won with 52.0% of the vote, although they elected nearly all other Republicans on their ballots. (Sounds like another area of vote fraud - 2% is a classic margin for fraud)
Chicago Sun Times reports: Jesse Jackson Sr., 79, and Jacqueline Jackson, 77, were hospitalized Aug. 21 after testing positive for the virus. A week later, Jonathan Jackson revealed his mother had been moved to intensive care, though she didn’t need a ventilator. She was released from the hospital Sept. 6 and remains at home, continuing to gain strength, her son said. Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson “has made tremendous improvements” at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, where he was transferred to undergo occupational and physical therapy for Parkinson’s disease as his COVID-19 symptoms abate.
Yahoo Entertainment reports: Sarah Palin’s appearance on Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” had Twitter all abuzz Friday night and into Saturday when she proudly declared that she had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 because “I believe in silence.” (she has had COVID-19)
Digital Journal reports: (Brazilian President) Jair Bolsonaro plans to ignore NYC vaccination mandate next week (at the UN General Assembly meeting). (He has had COVID-19)
The Press-Republican (New York) reports: Upstate hospital staffing 'crisis' feared as vaccination mandate nears. "New York State’s Covid vaccine mandate will surely compound the crisis," Michelle LeBeau, Champlain Valley's president, said in an open letter to the community this week. The situation is much the same at other hospitals throughout the upstate region, said Gary Fitzgerald, president of the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance, which represents some 50 hospitals and health centers. The deadline for compliance with the state's vaccination mandate is Sept. 27, and many health care workers remain adamantly opposed to getting vaccinated, Fitzgerald said. "Things are getting worse by the day," Fitzgerald told CNHI, noting his organization has asked the state Department of Health to examine the repercussions of going forward with the vaccination mandate... "So we are having the effect we want," (Gov. Kathy) Hochul said, while also acknowledging that "there will be some individuals who will try to defy this."... Surveys taken at hospital suggest the pool of unvaccinated staffers is not spread out evenly across the workforce. Instead, those individuals are often clustered together in the same units, raising the risk that certain specialties — maternity services, for example — will be hit hard by the mandate even as nearby units weather the impact.
Gateway Pundit reports: Wild Brawl Breaks Out at New York City Restaurant After Group Asked to Show Proof of Vaccination Before Being Allowed Inside (chubby ladies on the Upper West Side in a feeding frenzy) https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/watch-wild-brawl-breaks-new-york-city-restaurant-group-asked-show-proof-vaccination-allowed-inside/
Deseret news reports: The delta variant has raised the bar for vaccines. The delta variant is so contagious that it will change the way the COVID-19 vaccines work in the future, Moderna president Stephen Hoge told CNBC... CDC said there were 12,908 severe COVID-19 breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated people that resulted in hospitalization or death, according to CNN. (out of 181 million people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, or about one in 14,000)
The Daily Mail (UK) reports: Delta variant 'will hunt anyone who's not had jab', advisers warn. No 10 (Downing Street, Office of the UK Prime Minister) has been told that 'such is the nature' of the more transmissible variant that it is 'almost inevitable' it will eventually infect anyone who has not received both jabs... Officials at the (UK) Department of Health yesterday said they expected that the proportion of over-16s to have at least one dose of a vaccine to pass 90 per cent by the end of the week.
Hindustan Times reports (India): Delta variants still predominant in Maharashtra but sub-lineage AY.4 gaining pace... The AY.4 sub-lineage of the Delta variant was first identified in Maharashtra in April when 46 swabs tested positive for novel coronavirus infection. In July, out of the samples sequenced, around 4% were identified with AY.4. But to everyone’s surprise, the number jumped to 44% in August, becoming the predominant sub-lineage... In total, there are 12 sub-lineages AY.1-AY.12 of Delta variant. AY.4 to AY.11 are predominantly found in the United Kingdom. At present, AY.4 is a ‘variant of interest’ but medical experts fear that it could become a contributory factor in the anticipated third wave (in India). “It could become the dominant strain and needs to be watched closely. So far there is no indication to suggest that it is more transmissible, or more likely to cause breakthrough infections or immune escape when compared to earlier sub-lineages of the Delta variant... States like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are also recording a rise in AY.4 in India. On Wednesday, a bulletin by INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium) stated that AY.4 was the most frequently seen sub-lineage in the recent sequences from India, as well as globally... Scientists are emphasising conducting more genome sequencing especially for a populated state like Maharashtra which was the major contributor to the total caseload in India. In mid-March, the state was contributing 62% of India’s daily new cases and had a share of 58% in the country’s active cases.
Xinhua (communist China) reports: Delta variant’s incubation period ‘significantly’ shorter. Chinese researchers have reported the complete transmission chain of the Covid-19 Delta variant and its viral kinetics and clinical characteristics, providing data for the prevention and control against the strain. The relevant study was conducted by researchers from the Guangzhou Eighth People’s Hospital and other research institutes. It was based on an outbreak in May caused by the Delta variant in Guangzhou in south China’s Guangdong Province. researchers found that the Delta variant had a significantly shorter incubation period, higher viral load, and a more extended period of viral shedding. When a person gets infected by a respiratory virus, the virus particles will bind to viral receptors, like the ACE2 receptors in Covid-19 that line the respiratory tract. The infected individuals, who may not yet be experiencing any of the viral symptoms, go on shedding viral particles during daily activities like talking, exhaling, and eating, which is called viral shedding. The Delta variant can spread for four generations in 10 days, with the fastest intergenerational transmission taking less than 24 hours. The researchers also found the Delta strain in Guangzhou was mainly spread through direct and interproximal contact. Transmission via dining accounts for 31.41 per cent of infections, followed by household contact accounting for 30.13 per cent, community transmission at 18.59 per cent and other transmission routes including work and social contact at 19.87 per cent.
ABC4.com (Utah) reports: Delta variant putting more 40 to 50-year-olds in the hospital, Utah doctor says. “What we have also seen is in our facilities is a lowering of the overall age of our ICU cases. In particular in our severe illnesses,” says Intermountain Healthcare Infectious Disease Doctor Todd Vento. “So we might see a patient that is 40-50 instead of say 60-70.” Doctor Vento says that’s because those over 60 are vaccinated well above 80 percent.
