n the U.S., more than a quarter of a million new pediatric cases were reported over the last week. Plus, what the results of a new poll on vaccine hesitancy among Americans showed.
As kids head back to school for in-person learning, over 250,000 children have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week.
In order to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, Japan has extended its coronavirus restrictions on Tokyo and other regions until the end of September, Reuters reported. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that Japan’s medical system still needed support, despite vaccinations rising and new cases decreasing. "Inoculation of all those who wish to be vaccinated will be completed in October or November," Suga said. "And from then, we will be able to ease restrictions by using proof of vaccination or testing results." Suga’s popularity within Japan has fallen due to the country’s handling of the coronavirus, which surged to new heights following the Olympic Games. Last week, Suga announced he would step down as prime minister.
Missouri is experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases among those aged 5-19 as students return to the classroom for in-person instruction in the new school year. According to The Associated Press, 2,964 cases have been reported across nearly two dozen school districts in the past two weeks. At least one of the schools has been closed for cleaning due to an outbreak in the school. In the Pleasant Hill school district, located southeast of Kansas City, 7% of the district’s population was told to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposures, the AP said. The district has since approved a mask mandate to help prevent future outbreaks in the school.
A dairy farmer in Stafford, England, is just one of many business owners across the U.K. experiencing “constant worry” due to driver shortages amid the pandemic. Over the past weekend, Henry Bloxham was told to dump thousands of liters of milk since there were no drivers to come pick up the order, the BBC reported. Typically, he is not allowed to sell his product to other companies, but due to the circumstances surrounding the driver shortages, he was allowed to sell 6,000 liters elsewhere rather than pouring all the milk down the drain. It is estimated that there are 100,000 fewer drivers across the U.K. now compared to times before the pandemic, the BBC said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on mask mandates in state schools took a major blow on Wednesday after a judge ruled that the state cannot enforce the ban, The Associated Press reported. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper cited evidence that wearing a mask does provide some protection from contracting COVID-19. However, this is not the final say on the ban. Appeals courts are still working on sorting out whether DeSantis’s ban is legal, which he signed back on July 30, the AP said.
The FBI is investigating three Vermont state troopers who allegedly created fake coronavirus vaccination cards, CBS News reported. Details about the creation of the fake cards were not provided since it is an active investigation, but the three officers in question have already resigned. “If these allegations are proved to be true, it is reprehensible that state troopers would manipulate vaccination cards in the midst of a pandemic, when being vaccinated is one of the most important steps anyone can take to keep their community safe from COVID-19,” Vermont State Police Director Colonel Matthew Birmingham said. According to CBS News, the number of fake vaccination cards is on the rise amid the surge associated with the delta variant, not just in Vermont, but also worldwide.
Bulgaria is dealing with a rapid surge of coronavirus infections thanks to the delta variant, and many in the country remain hesitant to get the vaccine, The Associated Press reported. Only 20% of adults in the country are fully vaccinated out of a total population of 7 million. It has the lowest vaccination rate in the European Union, which includes 27 nations across the continent. About 69% of the EU population is vaccinated, the AP reports. Krasimira Nikolova, a 52-year-old restaurant worker, told the AP that she chose not to get the vaccine due to doubts over its effectiveness. “I don’t believe vaccines work,” she told the AP. “I already had the virus. I don’t believe it’s so dangerous.” At a hospital in the northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse there said "we are open every day." “But people who want to be vaccinated are very few.”
A staff distributes free masks before the "We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert" in New York's Central Park, Saturday, Aug. 21, 2021. We Love NYC, The Homecoming Concert celebrate its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic despite surging cases and hospitalizations due to the delta variant. (AP Photo/Jeenah Moon)
COVID-19 is likely “here to stay with us” as the virus continues to mutate, global health officials said Tuesday. “I think this virus is here to stay with us and it will evolve like influenza pandemic viruses, it will evolve to become one of the other viruses that affects us,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said at a press briefing. Other health experts have previously voiced similar warnings, and WHO officials said that if the world had taken early steps to stop the spread of the virus, the situation today could have been different, CNBC reported. “We had a chance in the beginning of this pandemic,” Maria Van Kerhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said Tuesday. “This pandemic did not need to be this bad.”
Vaccine hesitancy is on the decline as the U.S. sees surges driven by the delta variant, a poll by ABC News and The Washington Post. Vaccine hesitancy, defined as people who say they definitely or probably will not get the coronavirus vaccine, dropped from 32% as of Jan. 13, 2021, to 17% as of Sept. 1, 2021, the poll found. However, many still hold out on receiving the vaccine. Even with the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine, only 16% of unvaccinated Americans said the move made them more likely to get the jab. An astounding 82% said it made no difference. Among those who work, only 16% said they would get vaccinated if their employer required it, with many more saying they’d quit, the poll found.
The U.S. saw its largest number of pediatric COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began after more than 252,000 children were diagnosed with the disease last week. They represented 26.8% of all reported COVID-19 cases that week, ABC News reported, and by region, the South had the highest number of pediatric cases with 140,000 cases. “We’re calling this the fourth wave, but it has been by far the most impactful surge, really hitting at children and adolescents.” Dr. James Versalovic, Pathologist-in-chief at the Texas Children’s Hospital, told ABC's Good Morning America. The surge comes at a time when children are returning to school while the majority are not vaccinated against COVID-19. Only about 37.7% of children ages 12 to 15 and 46.4% of adolescents ages 16 to 17 are fully vaccinated against the virus, according to ABC News. “This is a war against COVID. It is not over. We are very much in the middle of the battle,” Dr. Steven Emerson, Chief Clinical Officer at Saint Alphonsus Health System in Boise, Idaho.
South Korean health authorities are working on plans for how to live more normally with COVID-19 as 80% of adults are expected to be fully vaccinated by late October, Reuters reported. "We'll review measures that will allow us to live more normally, but any such switch will be implemented only when we achieve high vaccination rates and overall (COVID-19) situations stabilize," Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official, told reporters, Reuters reported. Currently, about 42.6% of South Korea's adult population is fully vaccinated. Once the new strategy is implemented, masks will still be required in the initial phase, Reuters said.
Following a year in which crowds almost didn't exist due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first full weekend of the college football season saw stadiums roar back to life this weekend. More than 66,000 packed Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia, and went wild to the sounds of Metallica's "Enter Sandman," while a packed Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin jumped around in unison to House of Pain's "Jump Around." The stands were packed with delirious college football fans screaming and hollering during some wildly entertaining games. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, didn't think having such large crowds of maskless fans was a good idea. “I don’t think it’s smart,” Fauci said during a CNN interview, according to The Hill. “Outdoors is always better than indoors, but even when you have such a congregate setting of people close together,” Fauci said. Fauci went on to say that he expected more schools and companies to mandate vaccines in order for people to get into events. “The rule is going to be if you want to participate, you get vaccinated. If not, sorry, you are not going to be able to do it,” Fauci said.
More than 1.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were distributed throughout the U.S. on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics, meaning 155 million Americans are fully vaccinated -- good for 54% of the population. Meanwhile, new cases and fatalities remained at high levels nationwide. More than 261,000 new cases were recorded over the 24-hour period, and 1,513 fatalities were blamed on the coronaviruson Tuesday. Worldwide, no other country was even close to the U.S. in terms of new cases discovered on Tuesday. India reported the second-highest number of new cases globally with more than 37,000. For a closer look at the vaccination effort and how the virus is spreadking, watch the video below.
Three people in Japan have died after getting injected with a contaminated batch of Moderna vaccines, though no link has been found between the doses and the reported deaths, The Guardian reported. The newest reported death, a 49-year-old man who died the day after receiving his second shot on Aug. 11, had no previous health issues other than an allergy to buckwheat. The shot he received came from a batch of Moderna vaccines that were found to have stainless steel in them, leading to a recall of 1.63 million doses. “The rare presence of stainless steel particles in the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine does not pose an undue risk to patient safety and it does not adversely affect the benefit/risk profile of the product,” Moderna and local distributor Takeda Pharmaceutical said in a joint statement.
The daily coronavirus positivity rate in Indonesia has dropped below 5%, a welcome sign that the country’s second wave may be beginning to ease, Reuters reported. The country’s positivity rate fell to 4.57% on Monday, the lowest it has been since March 2020. According to the World Health Organization, a positivity rate above 5% indicates the coronavirus is out of control. According to Johns Hopkins University figures, the positivity rate in the United States is currently 16.7%. Coronavirus restrictions in Indonesia have been eased, but President Joko Widodo urged the country not to get complacent. "People need to realize that COVID is always lurking," he said. "When our guards are down, [cases] can increase again."
The United Kingdom may not have seen the last of its COVID-19 lockdowns. While an official spokesperson for U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said that the government wasn’t planning a lockdown or “firebreak” around the October half-term, he made clear that restrictions such as a two-week lockdown remained an option if the National Health Service (NHS) became overwhelmed. “We have retained contingency plans as part of responsible planning for a range of scenarios, but these kind of measures would only be reintroduced as a last resort to prevent unsustainable pressure on our NHS,” he told The Guardian. The contingency plan comes as some scientists warn that restrictions could be necessary in the coming months with cases expected to rise this autumn. While some scientists have seen merit in the idea of a firebreaker lockdown, others have warned that the lockdowns won’t be enough without other precautions such as vaccinating younger people and including masking indoors and large gathering limitations.
A total lockdown remains imposed in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City as hospitals in the city struggle to deal with an influx of coronavirus patients, Al Jazeera reported. Despite the strict restrictions, more than 200 people are dying a day and thousands of infections continue to be reported. “It’s depressing. It’s heartbreaking,” said Trang, a medical volunteer who only gave her first name. “One doctor now has to treat maybe 200 to 1,000 patients. Some people blame the government; some people blame the medical system, but nobody wants this.” Some doctors are having to work 24-hour shifts and deal with the losses of their own loved ones while trying to save others. More than 7,000 new cases and 233 deaths were reported Monday.
What some scientists have called “superhuman immunity” has been identified in a series of studies this summer, NPR reported. These studies have found that people with a hybrid exposure to the virus – being exposed to COVID-19 in 2020 and immunized with an mRNA vaccine this year – show “amazing” results from the vaccine, said virologist Theodora Hatziioannou. "I think they are in the best position to fight the virus. The antibodies in these people's blood can even neutralize SARS-CoV-1, the first coronavirus, which emerged 20 years ago. That virus is very, very different from SARS-CoV-2," Hatziioannou said. Hatziioannou and her colleagues don't know if everyone who was infected with COVID-19 and then got vaccinated will have a similar response, though she believes it is common. "With every single one of the patients we studied, we saw the same thing," Hatziioannou said. The study reports data on 14 patients.
India is bracing for another possible surge in infections around its upcoming festival season. For many healthcare facilities around the country, this means adding more beds and stocking up on oxygen. Back in April, New Delhi’s premier Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and others faced a shortage in oxygen, and many patients in the capital suffocated, Reuters reported. Now, the hospital is raising its oxygen storage capacity by 50%. Along with installing a pipeline that will carry oxygen directly to COVID-19 ICUs and other equipment to keep oxygen flow high, Ganga Ram has ordered an onsite oxygen-generation plant. “In light of the possibility of the emergence of coronavirus mutants, with higher transmissibility and immune escape the hospital continues to prepare for the worst,” Satendra Katoch, medical director of the hospital, told Reuters.
The mu variant, which was first identified in Colombia in January, has now spread to 49 states and the District of Columbia, FOX News reported. Health experts are watching the prevalence of the variant, which initial data suggests could be vaccine resistant, to see if it can outpace delta. Nationwide, delta is still by far the most dominant vaccine strain, with the mu variant representing less than 1% of all cases sampled.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease expert, has said that the mu variant is “not an immediate threat." Still, some local health departments are sounding the alarm. In Los Angeles County, health officials announced that the mu variant was tied to at least 167 cases between June and August. "The identification of variants like mu, and the spreading of variants across the globe, highlights the need for L.A. County residents to continue to take measures to protect themselves and others," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of LA County Public Health, said.
Brazil has begun giving booster shots to the elderly in hopes of slowing the spread of the delta variant, Bloomberg reported. Brazil vastly ramped up its vaccination rollout in August, averaging more than 2 million inoculations a day. In some Brazilian states, more than 97% of adults have received the first dose, though less than 30% of the country has been fully vaccinated. “I am very happy, very happy, because I am going to be vaccinated and can return to work, something I have not been able to do since March of last year,” said Abdias Do Nascimento, a 67-year-old nursing home resident. Watch the video below for more.
Due to a massive surge in coronavirus patients and a severe shortage of staffing and available beds in hospitals in the northern part of the state, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) activated "crisis standards of care" on Tuesday. The DHW said the crisis standards of care help "healthcare providers and systems decide how to deliver the best care possible under the extraordinary circumstances of an overwhelming disaster or public health emergency." These are typically used when there are not enough healthcare resources to provide the usual standards of care to people who may need it, the DHW said.
“We have reached an unprecedented and unwanted point in the history of our state. We have taken so many steps to avoid getting here, but yet again we need to ask more Idahoans to choose to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. More Idahoans need to choose to receive the vaccine so we can minimize the spread of the disease and reduce the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, many of which involve younger Idahoans and are preventable with safe and effective vaccines,” Idaho Gov. Brad Little said in a statement. Idaho has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the U.S. and cases have skyrocketed there in recent weeks, The Associated Press reported. Some medical experts say the state could have 30,000 new coronavirus cases a week by mid-September, the AP reported.
While COVID-19 is still the primary cause of concern for most Americans, the flu is expected to surge this winter despite nearly disappearing last year, NPR reported. Some healthcare professionals worry that Americans will be reluctant to roll up their sleeves again, but they strongly recommend that Americans receive the flu vaccine. "Two reasons make getting vaccinated against the flu the wise choice," said Dr. William Schaffner, the medical director of the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases. "First, it's been proven year after year that you're in better shape to fight off the flu if you get the vaccine. Second, by getting vaccinated against the flu, you help protect the people around you." With flu season beginning in October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans to get their flu shots by the end of October.
As variants spread across the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stressed that there’s an important step that adults can take to protect children who are too young to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The way you protect children who, because of their age, cannot get vaccinated yet is to surround the children — be it friends, family, school teachers, personnel in the school — surround the children with vaccinated people,” Fauci told CNN on Sunday. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more children have needed ER visits and hospitalizations in states with lower vaccination rates. Fauci also warned that if the U.S. wanted to continue in-person learning, people would have to wear masks.
The University of Georgia's football program is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases, all of which so far have been among fully vaccinated players, the Athens Banner-Herald reported. Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart has said the vaccination rate for his team is over 90%. “I’ll be honest with you guys, I’m as concerned as I’ve ever been because we have three or four guys out,” said Smart, whose team next plays this Saturday. “We have a couple of staff members that have been out with COVID here recently. For us, we’re at our highest spike.” While none of Georgia’s starters were out in their game against Clemson last Saturday, Georgia’s director of sports medicine, Ron Courson, tested positive and was forced to miss the game. “It’s killing [Ron], I think to not be here. His health seems good. Hopefully, he’ll be back.”
New York’s Spring/Summer 2022 Fashion Week has returned to having in-person runway shows after the last two fashion weeks were forced online by the coronavirus pandemic, the AFP reported. However, the effects of COVID-19 are still seen at the event. Many international participants will not be able to travel to the United States, which many countries have prohibited travel to as a result of surge of infections. Additionally, all guests and participants must be vaccinated, audience sizes are limited, some digital presentations will continue and many events will be outdoors. "This is an important moment for New York, and we're proud to support the city and the industry," said fashion designer Michael Kors.
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