This live coverage has ended.For Wednesday’s live updates, click here .The White House said Tuesday that 350 medical workers were on the ground in Gulf Coast states hit hard by both the delta variant and Hurricane Ida, the storm that left at least four people dead and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of residents after making landfall Sunday .The group of doctors, nurses and others were providing emergency medical care in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama as part of the government’s “surge response,” according to Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House’s covid-19 response team.The states were facing twin crises, with health-care systems strained by record infections and storm damage cutting off electricity and other crucial services.“As they respond to delta, our personnel remained on the ground as Hurricane Ida made landfall and are mobilizing in the aftermath of the storm, augmenting the strong efforts of hard-working local health-care personnel,” Zients said in an afternoon briefing.“We are providing critical clinical care, conducting patient movement to relieve strained hospitals and continuing to administer treatment for covid-19 patients.”In another development Tuesday, a pair of senior Food and Drug Administration officials who oversee the agency’s reviews of coronavirus vaccines are retiring, the FDA said.Marion Gruber, who leads the Office of Vaccines Research and Review, will depart FDA at the end of October.Philip Krause, Gruber’s deputy, will leave the agency in November.In Pennsylvania Gov.Tom Wolf (D) announced Tuesday that masks must soon be worn inside all K-12 schools , public and private, as well as early-learning and child-care centers in the state.“The aggressive delta variant has changed everything for us,” the governor said in a news conference.
The requirement will take effect Sept.7.Here’s what to know A pair of senior Food and Drug Administration officials who oversee the agency’s reviews of coronavirus vaccines are retiring, the FDA said Tuesday.Marion Gruber, who leads the Office of Vaccines Research and Review, will depart the FDA at the end of October.
Philip Krause, Gruber’s deputy, will leave the agency in November.Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told staff that he would serve as the acting head of the vaccine office as the agency searches for a permanent replacement, according to an internal memo shared with The Washington Post.The FDA — and its vaccine office — has been at the center of the government’s effort to speed coronavirus vaccines and other therapies.The agency remains under considerable pressure to approve vaccines for children under age 12, a decision that probably remains months away.The Biden administration this month also announced a plan to roll out coronavirus booster shots in September, a public pledge that frustrated some government officials and outside scientists who warned that the White House was getting ahead of the FDA and other regulators.White House officials sidestepped questions about whether Gruber and Krause’s departures were linked to pressure on the agency.“As the president said last week, FDA is the gold standard, and we are all grateful for the tireless work of the senior team and the whole staff at FDA, especially during the pandemic,” White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said at a news briefing Tuesday.Gruber has been at the FDA for more than 30 years, and Krause for more than a decade.Their planned departures were first reported by BioCentury.FDA officials Tuesday said the officials’ departures would not hamper the agency’s work.“We are confident in the expertise and ability of our staff to continue our critical public health work, including evaluating COVID-19 vaccines,” FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said in a statement.“We have put together a plan that will allow us to continue prioritizing science, while meeting timelines that are important to ensuring the end of this devastating pandemic,” acting FDA commissioner Janet Woodcock wrote in a memo to staff shared with The Post.
The White House on Tuesday called for more employers to mandate vaccines for their workforces, saying they’ve proved an effective tool for boosting immunizations around the country.“Bottom line, vaccination requirements work,” Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House’s covid-19 response team, said in a news briefing.“We need more businesses and other employers, including health-care systems, school districts, colleges and universities, to step up and do their part to help end the pandemic faster.”Tens of millions of Americans are now covered by vaccination requirements of some sort, many through their workplace or school.
Several major cities, including New York and San Francisco, have also started requiring vaccinations to enter restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues.The pace of vaccinations has picked up in August after sagging earlier in the summer.Over the past week, an average of nearly 900,000 shots were administered daily, up 5 percent from the week before and nearly 80 percent since mid-July, according to data tracked by The Washington Post .
The federal government expects U.S.mortality rates to be elevated by 15 percent over pre-pandemic norms in 2021 and not return to normal levels until 2023, according to a report released Tuesday by the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs.The trustees concluded that these elevated mortality rates, along with lower immigration and depressed fertility rates, have had a significant effect on the trust funds supporting Medicare in the short term.But the report found that Medicare’s main trust fund will still be able to pay out full benefits until 2026, a timeline unchanged since last year.More than 600,000 Americans have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that began in early 2020, and case levels have increased in recent weeks, leading to projections of a spike in deaths later this year.
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Key update Pennsylvania governor announces statewide mask mandate for schools, child-care centers By April Bethea 2:57 p.m.
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Pennsylvania Gov.Tom Wolf (D) announced Tuesday that masks must soon be worn inside all K-12 schools, public and private, as well as early-learning and child-care centers in the state.“The aggressive delta variant has changed everything for us,” the governor said in a news conference.
The requirement will take effect Sept.7 .Wolf said that while a majority of children cannot be vaccinated yet — vaccines are only approved for those 12 years of age or older — there are other reliable ways to help mitigate the spread of the virus, including wearing masks indoors.“This is a necessary step to keep our students and teachers safe and in the classroom, where they all need to be,” Wolf said.Last week, Wolf asked state lawmakers to return for a special session to consider a mask mandate .But Republican leaders rejected the request, the PennLive/Patriot-News in Harrisburg reported .Pennsylvania has averaged nearly 3,200 new coronavirus cases a day in the past week, according to a tracker by The Washington Post.
Childhood obesity rose significantly during the pandemic, according to a new study.The greatest change was among children ages 5 to 11, who gained an average of more than five pounds, adjusted for height, according to the study, published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network.For the average 5-year-old (about 40 pounds), that is a 12.5 percent weight gain.For the average 11-year-old (about 82 pounds), it is a 6 percent weight gain, according to the study.Before the pandemic, about 36 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds were considered overweight or obese, and that increased to 45.7 percent.What is alarming about this study is “how large the change was in a very short period of time,” said Barry Popkin, an obesity researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He added that about 15 other studies in both high- and low-income countries reflect a similar trend when it comes to pandemic-spurred obesity in children.
Advertisement Updates continue below advertisement Google pushes its return to office to 2022 By Danielle Abril 1:26 p.m.Link copied Link
Google has delayed its plans to bring employees back to the office to Jan.10, 2022, because of the “uncertainty” of the pandemic as the delta variant surges across the nation.The company had originally aimed to bring workers back on Oct.
18, with plans to have all returning employees vaccinated.But on Tuesday, the company updated its timeline, saying that after Jan.10, it will enable its locations worldwide to determine when to end the current policy that allows employees to work from the office on a voluntary basis.Google said employees will have 30 days’ notice before they are expected to return to the office.“The road ahead may be a little longer and bumpier than we hoped, yet I remain optimistic that we will get through it together,” Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google-parent Alphabet, said in a companywide email.
“The ability to reconnect in person has been re-energizing for many of us, and will make us even more effective in the weeks and months ahead.”In July, Pichai told employees that the company had high vaccination rates among its workforce, which originally led to the plan to return people to the office in mid-October.At that time, some employees already had returned voluntarily.Google joins Apple, Amazon and Facebook in postponing the return to office to January.
When the Food and Drug Administration last week for the first time fully authorized a coronavirus vaccine, the question instantly was: What would this mean to vaccine skeptics? The first major poll since then is in, and it shows vaccine hesitancy hitting a new low — though there is no major shift yet.And that tracks with other polls that suggest a once rather stubborn core of unvaccinated Americans is slowly but steadily warming to the vaccine.The Axios/Ipsos poll shows 20 percent of Americans now say they are either “not very likely” or “not at all likely” to get the vaccine, and 14 percent have effectively ruled it out.Both represent the lowest numbers recorded.
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Key update Florida withholds funds from two school districts requiring masks — despite court decision against state ban on mandates By Valerie Strauss 12:05 p.m.
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Florida officials are withholding some funding from two counties with tough school mask mandates — despite a court decision against the state’s ban on such restrictions and a move by the U.S.Department of Education to investigate states with these bans.Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced late Monday that the Florida Department of Education has withheld school funding equivalent to the monthly salaries of school board members in Alachua and Broward counties over their votes to require all students to wear masks unless they had a medical exemption.The superintendents of both counties said Tuesday that they would continue to mandate masks without a parental opt-out, and Alachua Superintendent Carlee Simon said her district has joined with others to take legal action against the state.
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Key update Honolulu to require proof of vaccination in most public places By Derek Hawkins 11:24 a.m.Link copied Link
Honolulu is set to become the latest major U.S.metropolitan area to require people to show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues and other public spaces.Mayor Rick Blangiardi announced Monday that the policy, called Safe Access Oahu, would take effect Sept.
13 and apply to both customers and employees, as well as volunteers and contractors of the covered businesses.It applies to both the city and county, covering the whole of Oahu.Customers who don’t have proof of vaccination will be allowed inside if they can show they tested negative for the coronavirus within the previous 48 hours.Children under 12 are exempt.“Given the continued high #COVID19 rates on O‘ahu and the strain to our hospital and emergency medical systems, we want to create safe spaces for employees and customers so they can feel confident the people around them are safe,” Blangiardi, an independent, said in a statement.The region joins New York, San Francisco and New Orleans in issuing such rules.The recent full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by federal health regulators is expected to pave the way for more vaccine requirements.
Two weeks ago, dozens of maskless Independence, Mo., residents gathered at an indoor city council meeting to debate a proposed mask mandate.The majority of council members in the Kansas City suburb rejected the mandate.Now, the city’s health department is warning all attendees that they were “likely exposed” to the coronavirus.In a statement Monday, department officials said they have learned that at least one person who attended the meeting has tested positive for the virus.“All individuals in attendance at this meeting who were in the Chamber … should get tested, especially if showing any symptoms,” the department cautioned.
NFL ramps up frequency of coronavirus testing for vaccinated players and staffers By Mark Maske 9:52 a.m.Link copied Link
Vaccinated NFL players and team staffers will be tested weekly for the coronavirus, under the protocols for the 2021 regular season developed by the league and the NFL Players Association.Those protocols were sent to the teams Monday, 10 days ahead of the NFL’s season-opening game scheduled for Sept.
9 in Tampa between the Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys.The once-per-week testing for vaccinated players and staffers represents an increase from the testing frequency of once every 14 days under the protocols in effect during training camp and the preseason.The NFLPA had sought a return to daily testing for vaccinated players and staffers, citing concerns over the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.
As pandemic persists, counties confront emergency measures to house the homeless By Rebecca Tan and Karina Elwood 9:28 a.m.Link copied Link
The camping cots at the indoor gyms were meant to be a short-term fix.When Montgomery County, Md., relocated 150 clients from its homeless shelters into recreation centers shortly after the pandemic began last year, officials thought it would last only a few months — an emergency measure to space out and protect some of the county’s most vulnerable from the novel coronavirus.More than 16 months later, the Long Branch and Gwendolyn Coffield recreation centers are still serving as shelters, an increasingly uneasy arrangement as Montgomery reopens and the pandemic persists.Using hotels or overflow facilities has been effective in curbing virus infection rates among the homeless, who tend to be older and sicker than the general public, experts say.But as the pandemic wears on, communities have been forced to confront the sustainability of these measures, even while the recently expired eviction moratorium threatens to push additional people onto the streets.
Liberty University pivots to virtual classes amid coronavirus outbreak By Susan Svrluga 9:20 a.m.Link copied Link
Liberty University switched abruptly to virtual classes beginning Monday — just a week after they began — because of a spike in coronavirus cases.The decision to temporarily pause indoor events, teach online and ramp up other safety measures was not taken lightly, according to a university announcement Friday.“The campus infection rate is higher than at anytime last year, our only local hospital is reaching capacity for ICU COVID treatment, and we project our Annex quarantine capacity to be reached soon,” school officials wrote.On Aug.
15, the campus reported just three positive cases, according to the school’s online dashboard .By Aug.24, that number among students had spiked to 124.There are an additional 35 cases among the faculty and staff.Nearly 500 people have been asked to quarantine.The dashboard, last updated Wednesday, reported 274 students on the Lynchburg, Va., campus in quarantine and an additional 111 commuter students and 107 employees in quarantine.
Los Angeles school district’s mandatory mass testing program seen as model for nation By Erica Werner 9:13 a.m.Link copied Link
LOS ANGELES — As hundreds of thousands of children return to class in the nation’s second-largest school district, they are participating in what amounts to a massive public health experiment unfolding in real time: Every single student, teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles public schools must get tested for the coronavirus every single week — indefinitely.Even the fully vaccinated are required to get tested.
Those who test positive stay home for at least 10 days.And those who decline to get tested cannot come at all.Along with multiple other protocols the Los Angeles Unified School District is implementing — including masking for all and mandatory vaccines for teachers and staff — it amounts to by far the most aggressive anti-coronavirus campaign undertaken or announced by a major school district in the United States.It comes as classrooms nationwide struggle to return to in-person learning amid the delta variant surge, with some governors trying to block mask mandates even as outbreaks have shut down schools or delayed planned re-openings in Florida, Texas, Iowa and elsewhere..
