Until teens are fully vaccinated, Walensky said, “they should continue to wear masks and take precautions when around others who are not vaccinated to protect themselves, their friends, family and community.”
Walensky said that ahead of the announcement recommending the Pfizer-BioNTech shot for adolescents as young as 12, “CDC observed troubling data regarding the hospitalizations of adolescents with covid-19.”
She cited a CDC weekly report set to be published Friday, saying its findings “force us to redouble our motivation to get our adolescents and young adults vaccinated.”
Here are some significant developments:
Maryland closing its mass-vaccination sites in coming weeks
With demand for coronavirus vaccinations falling, Maryland has started closing its mass-inoculation sites and shifting resources to mobile and community-based clinics, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Thursday.
The Greenbelt mass-vaccination clinic has closed, and the Aberdeen site will close June 19. The site at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore will close July 2; sites at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis and The Mall in Columbia in Howard County will close July 3.
Six Flags in Prince George’s County — which was one of the state’s first mass-vaccination sites and has been one of the most popular — will remain open through July 17. Some sites, including clinics at the Baltimore Convention Center and Montgomery College, do not yet have closing dates. Full information on where to get vaccinated in Maryland is available here.
Six Virginia Indian tribes receive covid fund relief
KING WILLIAM, Va. — The sign outside a new health center in the Richmond countryside features splashes of green and blue — symbols of nature dear to the Upper Mattaponi tribe, which overhauled the facility using federal coronavirus relief dollars.
The tribe hopes the center will significantly improve the quality of life of tribal citizens and surrounding community members who previously had to travel farther to visit a doctor or pharmacy or lab — a hardship intensified by the pandemic.
The tribe is one of six in Virginia granted federal recognition by Congress in 2018, a designation that made them eligible for funding through the Cares Act.
Worried parents navigate a maskless mayhem as the U.S. reopens
The boys were begging to see their beloved St. Louis Cardinals play on their home field, which had finally reopened to fans, so Stephanie Malia Krauss and Evan Krauss carefully considered what it would mean to bring their young sons to a baseball game: They’d be surrounded by people, but the seating was socially distant and masks were required.
Then, just over a week before the game, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated public health guidelines, stating that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks outside or inside, no matter the crowd size.
Krauss thought they’d settled the question — Is a baseball game safe for my children? — but now she wasn’t sure anymore.
When the CDC abruptly changed its guidance on mask-wearing last month, many parents voiced frustration about the lack of clarity for families.
Biden lays out plan to share 25 million vaccine doses abroad
The Biden administration announced a plan Thursday to share 25 million vaccine doses globally by the end of June, routing about three-quarters through international public health organizations while reserving the remaining 25 percent for direct donations to handpicked nations.
Under the White House approach, about 19 million doses will be shared with Covax, the World Health Organization-backed initiative to distribute vaccine doses equitably around the globe. White House officials said that about 7 million doses would go to Asia, 6 million would go to Latin America and the Caribbean, and 5 million would go to Africa, working with global partners such as the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meanwhile, the United States would directly share about 6 million doses with nations experiencing severe coronavirus outbreaks, including India, which has been hard-hit by the virus in recent weeks.
“We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values,” President Biden said in a statement, reiterating his previous vow to share as many as 80 million doses globally by the end of the month.
The Biden administration has been under pressure to detail its plans to share doses from the nation’s vaccine stockpile, particularly as the pandemic recedes in the United States while continuing to surge abroad. More than half of Americans have received at least one shot of coronavirus vaccine, according to The Washington Post’s tracker, compared to about 1 in 10 people globally.
“Importantly, we have secured enough vaccine supply for all Americans,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus coordinator, touting the nation’s “best-in-class vaccination program” and saying that the Biden administration would ramp up efforts this month to get more Americans immunized. “We will continue to donate additional doses across the summer months as supply becomes available.”
U.S. isn’t added to E.U. safe travel list in latest update, but American tourists can remain hopeful
PARIS — The European Council on Thursday updated its list of countries that are deemed safe in the context of the pandemic, but decided to not add the United States.
The only addition to the list of countries outside the European Union was Japan, the others being Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and — subject to reciprocity — China.
The European Union’s 27 member states are expected to “gradually lift the travel restrictions” for residents from the nine nations, including those placed on nonessential travel.
The determination is made based on a country’s “epidemiological situation and overall response to COVID-19, as well as the reliability of the available information and data sources.”
The decision to keep Thailand on the list may come as a surprise to some — the country has seen more new coronavirus cases per capita over the past seven days than the United States has, and far fewer people in Thailand are vaccinated.
The decision to not include the United States will have limited impact on fully vaccinated American travelers, who are already welcome in a number of E.U. nations and will gain access to more places within the next days or weeks.
France is expected to reopen for vaccinated American tourists next week, regardless of the E.U. white list.
The European Council’s next update is expected in two weeks and the United States could still be added to the list then, barring a resurgence in the number of new cases or the spread of variants.
Half of U.K. adult population now fully vaccinated, Boris Johnson says
The United Kingdom has fully vaccinated half of its population against the coronavirus almost six months after beginning its vaccination program, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday.
“This is an amazing achievement,” he said in a video statement. “After months of sacrifice, we’re getting to do many of the things we’ve yearned to do for a long time.”
Johnson thanked what he called the “jabs army” — doctors, nurses, vaccinators, volunteers, scientists and members of the military — for the success of Britain’s largest vaccination program.
“Please keep coming forward for both vaccine doses when it’s your turn,” he added. “Only two doses can give you maximum protection.” (The one-shot vaccine offered by Johnson & Johnson was approved for use in the United Kingdom last week.)
More than 26 million people have had both of their shots, according to U.K. official figures. U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday that three-quarters of adults have had their first shot.
Only a handful of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, have access to enough doses to widely vaccinate their populations. The divide has been particularly stark between high-income and middle- and low-income countries, the former of which had the financial means to pre-purchase doses that provided them a virtual monopoly on the limited resource.
Scientists have warned that the longer the virus circulates in unvaccinated populations, the more chances there are for highly transmissible variants to develop, such as the ones fueling waves in South and East Asia. Some public health advocates and political leaders have called on countries with vaccine surpluses, such as the United States, to share doses with countries facing vaccine deserts.
Fauci, Walensky express concern about areas in U.S. with low vaccination levels
Anthony S. Fauci said he’s “fairly certain” that the United States overall won’t experience “the kind of surges we’ve seen in the past” given the national vaccination levels.
But the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert said he remains concerned about states where vaccination levels are low. There, “you may continue to see higher levels of cases as we get into the summer,” Fauci said in a Thursday morning interview on CNN’s “New Day.”
In an interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky also expressed concern about pockets of the nation with lower vaccination rates.
“I worry that this virus is an opportunist and that where we have low rates of vaccination are where we may see it again,” she said. “The issue now is to make sure we get to those communities as well.”
Both interviews came a day after the Biden administration said June will be a “national month of action.” Federal officials announced private-sector initiatives as well as community-based outreach efforts meant to encourage the remaining unvaccinated population to get their shots.
Fauci said for the nation overall, if vaccinations continue, “the prognosis is good.”
As of Thursday, 41 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated and about 51 percent has received at least one dose, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
“One thing we want to make sure is that we don’t declare victory prematurely and feel that because things are going in the right direction that we don’t have to keep vaccinating people,” Fauci said on CNN. “We’re on a really good track now to really crush this outbreak and the more people we get vaccinated the more assuredness we’re going to have that we’re going to be able to do that.”
China’s Bat Hunter and Bat Woman under scrutiny as coronavirus lab-leak theory gets another look
In the video, the researchers scale the cavern wall, their headlamps ghostly blue.
“If our skin is exposed, it can easily come in contact with bat excrement and contaminated matter, which means this is quite risky,” says Tian Junhua, one of the bat hunters.
The video was released by national science authorities and offers a rare glimpse of field conditions on the eve of the pandemic. The video is perhaps even more notable for what it doesn’t reveal. Nothing is known outside China about the science gleaned from that expedition by the Wuhan CDC.
Tian has not spoken publicly for more than a year.
The silencing of scientists, the blanket denials, the careful guarding of raw data and biological samples — these elements have been emblematic of the approach by Chinese authorities at every stage of the coronavirus outbreak. And they continue to obstruct the world’s ability to get answers.
U.S. Embassy in Kabul urges Americans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible as covid-19 spreads
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a warning Thursday urging American citizens to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible because of the worsening coronavirus situation there.
“New cases and deaths from COVID-19 haven risen sharply throughout Afghanistan. Hospitals are reporting shortages of supplies, oxygen, and beds,” the Embassy said in a statement. It added that U.S. citizens have reported being denied admittance to hospitals because of a lack of space.
“The U.S. Embassy strongly suggests that U.S. citizens make plans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible,” the alert said.
Afghanistan appears to be in the grip of a third wave of infections, driven in part by the spread of the Alpha variant first discovered in Britain, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
The country has recorded about 75,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths, but testing resources are scant. And just 1.3 percent of the population has received a single dose of coronavirus vaccine, according to Our World in Data, which tracks publicly available figures.
Afghanistan’s health-care infrastructure has been battered by years of war. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month issued a travel alert warning that “even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants and should avoid all travel to Afghanistan.”
The landlocked nation has kept its shared borders with Iran and Pakistan open throughout the pandemic and has maintained direct flights to India, which recently suffered one of the world’s worst outbreaks of the virus.
“Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited,” the U.S. Embassy said.
Syrian diplomat in Russia walks back statement that Assad was immunized with Sputnik V vaccine
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not yet been immunized against covid-19, the country’s ambassador to Moscow said Thursday, just hours after declaring that the leader had received Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
“President Assad was sick with coronavirus. … He has high antibodies. In this regard, he does not need to be vaccinated,” Ambassador Riad Haddad said Thursday, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
The agency previously quoted Haddad as saying that Assad had been vaccinated, along with other senior government officials, with an initial batch of Sputnik V doses.
“Sputnik V is already in Syria. The first batch of Sputnik has been used to vaccinate doctors and the country’s top officials. It has already been done. The population is now being inoculated,” Haddad said, Interfax reported.
“Yes, he has been vaccinated,” the agency quoted Haddad as saying in response to a question about Assad’s immunization status.
Later, Interfax revised the story, saying, “Significant changes were made to the headline and text … at the request of the [Syrian] embassy.”
Assad and his wife, Asma, contracted the virus in March and were flown to Moscow for treatment. They have since recovered.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Haddad did not say how many doses of Sputnik V vaccine have arrived in Syria. Damascus has also received vaccine doses through the United Nations-backed Covax initiative for equitable vaccination, as well as through donations from the United Arab Emirates.
Officially, Syria has reported more than 24,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 1,800 deaths since the pandemic began. But with few testing centers, doctors and aid workers in Syria say that those numbers are vast undercounts.
Indonesia cancels annual hajj pilgrimage for second year in a row
Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said at a news conference that Saudi Arabia, home to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, had not yet set a quota for travelers from Indonesia, which normally sends more than 220,000 pilgrims each year.
The journey, one of the five pillars of Islam, begins next month. But Qoumas said it was too late to prepare and implement the health protocols needed to ensure that a large group of pilgrims remains safe while traveling during the pandemic, local media reported.
Last year, Saudi Arabia severely curbed the number of pilgrims allowed to travel to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s second-holiest city, limiting visitors to those who were already inside the country. In 2019, before the covid-19 outbreak, nearly 2.5 million people traveled to Saudi Arabia for the hajj.
Bahrain recommending Pfizer-BioNTech booster for those already vaccinated with China’s Sinopharm
DUBAI — A top Bahraini health official says the country is now offering Pfizer-BioNTech doses to high-risk individuals who have already received two jabs of Sinopharm in the latest development to cast doubt on the Chinese-developed vaccine’s effectiveness.
Waleed Khalifa al-Manea, Bahrain’s undersecretary of health, told the Wall Street Journal that people fully vaccinated with Sinopharm who are over 50, with chronic illnesses or obese are being urged to get a booster of Pfizer-BioNTech six months after their last Sinopharm shot.
Bahrain and neighboring United Arab Emirates — both of which relied heavily on Sinopharm for their rapid vaccine rollouts — announced they were offering third-dose Sinopharm booster shots starting in mid-May after studies showed that some of those vaccinated hadn’t developed sufficient antibodies.
Both countries at the time said the Sinopharm third dose was for seniors, those with chronic illnesses and other high-risk individuals. The Bahraini announcement now suggests a belief that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is more effective.
Studies of Sinopharm have shown efficacy rates of around 70 percent, but other countries that have used it have reported issues, including the Seychelles, which had one of the world’s highest vaccination rates yet still reported a major coronavirus outbreak.
Bahrain, which saw infections go from the low hundreds in January to more than 3,000 a day in May, also has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, with more than 47 percent of the population of 1.5 million fully vaccinated. The country has since gone into lockdown.
In the UAE, there are increasing reports of people getting infected after receiving two doses of Sinopharm. At a vaccination center recently, very few people were queuing up for the Chinese vaccine, preferring to wait for the nearby Pfizer-BioNTech option.
WHO says Vietnam coronavirus hybrid not considered a new variant ‘at this moment’
The World Health Organization’s top official in Vietnam said that the coronavirus mutation first detected in the Southeast Asian country does not meet the global health body’s definition of a new variant, though it is still very transmissible and dangerous.
Vietnam’s health minister said Saturday that through genetic sequencing, Hanoi had found a highly infectious new variant that combined characteristics of strains previously detected in Britain and India, now characterized by the WHO as the Alpha and Delta variants.
“The new variant is very dangerous,” Nguyen Thanh Long told reporters, adding that it was particularly contagious via air. Viral cultures revealed it replicates extremely quickly, as well.
But the WHO’s representative in Vietnam told Nikkei Asia in an interview published Thursday that “there is no new hybrid variant in Vietnam at this moment based on WHO definition.”
Instead, what Vietnamese officials found was a mutation of the Delta variant, Kidong Park told the magazine, referring to the B.1.617.2 strain.
“As for now, there is no alarming alert from WHO,” he said.
Vietnam, a rare developing economy to have successfully contained the coronavirus, is now battling clusters of infections that have popped up in Ho Chi Minh City, its economic hub in the south, and two industrialized provinces in the country’s north.
The communist regime has locked down much of Ho Chi Minh City and says it plans to test all 9 million people living in the metropolis. Hanoi is also struggling to accelerate a sluggish inoculation program and this week reiterated a call for international patents to be suspended to speed up vaccine production. Only about 1 percent of the country’s roughly 100 million residents has been administered at least one dose of a vaccine.
Vietnam reported 245 new infections on Wednesday, slightly below the seven-day average of 255. There have been at least 7,870 cases and 49 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
India’s Supreme Court orders government to fix sputtering vaccination policy amid crisis
NEW DELHI — Calling India’s decision to charge people ages 18 to 44 for vaccines when it is provided free to other groups, “arbitrary and irrational,” the Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply criticized the faltering government vaccination policy as a second wave slammed the country.
The court raised questions over the government spending from its $4.8 billion budget allocation for vaccine procurement and whether that money could be used to provide free vaccinations for younger age groups.
The Indian government has in recent months come under fire from experts and opposition-ruled states for its muddled vaccination policy at a time when speeding up the drive is key. In several states, vaccinations for younger groups have halted as supplies from the central government have run out.
State governments’ attempts to procure vaccines directly from the international market have not worked out, as American companies such as Pfizer and Moderna say they will only engage with the federal government. India’s domestic vaccine production has not been able to keep pace with the huge numbers required to inoculate the country of over 1.3 billion people.
In March, India paused coronavirus vaccine exports in an effort to shore up the domestic program, jeopardizing the vaccination plans of dozens of low-income countries. Given the pause on exports, India’s Serum Institute has been unable to supply the millions of doses it had pledged to Covax, a global initiative for equitable vaccination.
India’s Supreme Court directed the government to review its policy, seeking details about procurement and distribution of vaccines within two weeks. The central government told the court that it aimed to vaccinate everyone above the age of 18 — more than 940 million people, by the end of the year.
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