health
Is it tackling dengue or tackling Porimoni?
After a great deal of drama that began many weeks ago when Porimoni barged into the Boat Club at late hours and got involved in a famous escapade down to yesterday’s Live FB broadcast as RAB was at her door, she is full of drama and theatre. It’s all very exciting and interesting but at the end of the day she is in jail, accused of having liquor bottles, drugs consuming apparatus etc .
She was the latest in the line of ladies and gents being reined in who were broadly speaking, part of Dhaka’s sleaze society on such charges. These people live off the excesses of the upper class but wanted to take more advantage and got whacked. Fine, it’s an Inner Party Conflict even if this is not a political party but a socio-cultural one.
Read:Dhallywood actress Pori Moni detained from Banani residence
But it has nothing to do with us. By making it a national emergency when we are being ravaged by Covid and its variants and joined by dengue, we do mind the priority list. It’s our life and death. We don’t mix with them, don’t drink, dance, do drugs etc. We have no embarrassing footage to be blackmailed by so please try to stop convincing us that managing Porimonis matters more than managing the virus.
Dengue is hitting badly
Dengue has silently crept in and has started to take a huge toll. Every day, the death rates are climbing and there is little chance that it is going to go down. The health sector’s performance is dismal as far as corona goes and public confidence is low. The much ballyhooed public immunization week was reduced to a day showing that poor planning and performance is endemic and needs immediate fixing. This should be the priority and not arresting a few people linked with DJ parties thrown by the rich or attended by them.
I think the month of August is a month of great pain and suffering for all and shows how fragile life can be. It’s also a time to reflect on the way people's lives can be better. It’s not going to be done by arresting Porimoni or her crowd. It can only happen when we can get our priorities right.
Read:Dengue alert: CU survey team finds Aedes larvae at 15 spots in Chattogram
Today’s biggest crisis is the health one followed by the economic one and that needs attention. At this point nobody cares who is drinking or smoking what. They can all go to hell.
What we all are looking for is safety and the GOB can give us that by paying attention to some flying insects and the all-pervasive virus. Please get your priorities in line with the people.
Head of UN health agency seeks vaccine booster moratorium
The head of the World Health Organization called Wednesday for a moratorium on administering booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines as a way to help ensure that doses are available in countries where few people have received their first shots.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the appeal mostly to wealthier countries that have far outpaced the developing world in numbers of vaccinations. He said richer countries have administered about 100 doses of coronavirus vaccines for every 100 people on average, while low-income countries — hampered by short supplies — have provided only about 1.5 doses per 100 people.
WHO officials say the science is unproven about whether giving booster shots to people who have already received two vaccine doses is effective in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Read: WHO reports sharp increase in Covid fatalities
The U.N. health agency has repeatedly called for rich countries to do more to help improve access to vaccines in the developing world. It has argued that no one is safe until everyone is safe because the longer and more widely the coronavirus circulates, the greater the chance that new variants could emerge — and prolong a global crisis in fighting the pandemic.
The agency has no power to require countries to act, and many in the past have ignored its appeals on issues like donating vaccines, limiting cross-border travel and taking steps to boost production of vaccines in developing countries.
Tedros pointed to a WHO target he had announced in May seeking to ensure that 10% of the populations in all countries receive vaccines against the coronavirus.
“Accordingly, WHO is calling for a moratorium on boosters until at least the end of September to enable at least 10% of the population of every country to be vaccinated,” he told a news conference.
To help take the heat out of the pandemic, WHO has been focusing on getting vaccines to older adults, health care workers and other target populations in many countries before booster shot campaigns are carried out.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, a special adviser to Tedros, said the moratorium was about an appeal to countries considering booster doses to “put a hold” on such policies “until and unless we get the rest of the world caught up” in the fight against the pandemic.
Read: Countries have responsibility to help scientists find Covid origin: WHO
”As we’ve seen from the emergence of variant after variant, we cannot get out of it unless the whole world gets out of it together. And with the huge disparity in vaccination coverage, we’re simply not going to be able to achieve that,” Aylward said.
Israel, France, Germany and many Middle Eastern countries have already started administering boosters, and other nations, including the United States and Britain, are considering plans to do so in the wake of the emergence of the highly transmissible delta variant.
Dr. Katherine O’Brien, WHO’s vaccines chief, noted that a “very limited number” of countries were giving booster doses though a larger number were contemplating it.
“The evidence is evolving. It’s moving. We don’t have a full set of evidence around whether this is needed or not,” O’Brien said, adding that the main message was that “we need instead to focus on those people who are most vulnerable.”
Asked about the WHO position, White House press secretary Jen Psaki called it a “false choice” and suggested the United States could both donate vaccines abroad and provide boosters at home.
“We announced just yesterday that we hit an important milestone of over 110 million vaccines donated to the world. That is more than any other country has shared combined,” she said. “We also, in this country, have enough supply, to ensure that every American has access to a vaccine. We will have enough supply to ensure, if the FDA decides that boosters are recommended for a portion of the population, to provide those as well.”
WHO officials reiterated their call for global “solidarity” to help battle the coronavirus pandemic and appealed to wealthy countries and corporations to help.
Read:Vaccine inequity biggest barrier to ending pandemic: WHO chief
“We need everyone’s cooperation, especially the handful of countries and companies that control the global supply of vaccines,” Tedros said, appealing in particular to the influential Group of 20 large economies. “The G-20 has a vital leadership role to play as the countries that are the biggest producers, the biggest consumers and the biggest donors of COVID-19 vaccines.”
He urged the G-20, which currently is chaired by Italy, to make “concrete commitments to support global vaccination targets.”
“We call on everyone with influence — Olympic athletes, investors, business leaders, faith leaders and every individual in their own family and community — to support our call for a moratorium on booster shots until at least the end of September,” Tedros said.
US plans to require COVID-19 shots for foreign travelers
The Biden administration is taking the first steps toward requiring nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official said Wednesday.
The requirement would come as part of the administration’s phased approach to easing travel restrictions for foreign citizens to the country. No timeline has yet been determined, as interagency working groups study how and when to safely move toward resuming normal travel. Eventually all foreign citizens entering the country, with some limited exceptions, are expected to need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the U.S.
Read: Biden to launch vaccine push for millions of federal workers
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the policy under development.
The Biden administration has kept in place travel restrictions that have severely curtailed international trips to the U.S., citing the spread of the delta variant of the virus. Under the rules, non-U.S. residents who have been to China, the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa and India in the prior 14 days are prohibited from entering the U.S.
All travelers to the U.S., regardless of vaccination status, are required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of air travel to the country.
Read: Biden says getting vaccinated ‘gigantically important’
The Biden administration has faced pressure to lift some restrictions from affected allies, the air travel industry and families who have been kept separated from loved ones by the rules. Many have complained that the travel restrictions don’t reflect the current virus situation — particularly as caseloads in the U.S. are worse than in many of the prohibited nations.
Airlines for America, a trade group for major U.S. airlines, said it was pleased by reports that the administration plans to make it easier for more foreign travelers to enter the country if they have been vaccinated.
Analysis: Delta variant upends politicians’ COVID calculus
President Joe Biden’s administration drew up a strategy to contain one coronavirus strain, then another showed up that’s much more contagious.
This week — a month late — Biden met his goal of 70% of U.S. adults having received at least one COVID-19 shot. Originally conceived as an affirmation of American resiliency to coincide with Independence Day, the belated milestone offered little to celebrate. Driven by the delta variant, new cases are averaging more than 70,000 a day, above the peak last summer when no vaccines were available. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drawing criticism from experts in the medical and scientific community for its off-and-on masking recommendations.
But the delta variant makes no distinctions when it comes to politics. If Biden’s pandemic response is found wanting, Republican governors opposed to pandemic mandates also face an accounting. They, too, were counting on a backdrop of declining cases. Instead unvaccinated patients are crowding their hospitals.
The Biden administration’s process-driven approach succeeded in delivering more than enough vaccine to protect the country, sufficient to ship 110 million doses overseas. When the president first set his 70% vaccination target on May 4, the U.S. was dispensing around 965,000 first doses per day, a rate more than twice as fast as needed to reach the July 4 goal.
Read: Biden to launch vaccine push for millions of federal workers
Then things started to happen.
While the White House was aware of public surveys showing swaths of the population unwilling or unmotivated to get a shot, officials didn’t anticipate that nearly 90 million Americans would continue to spurn lifesaving vaccines that offer a pathway back to normalcy. The spread of misinformation about the vaccines enabled a festering fog of doubt that has clung close to the ground in many communities, particularly in Republican-led states.
Yet on May 13, when the CDC largely lifted its mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated adults indoors, topline indicators were still flashing green. The agency said unvaccinated people should keep wearing masks — and get their shots soon. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated by doffing their masks and strolling in the Rose Garden of the White House. Around the country, an everyday celebration spread to coffee shops, supermarkets, beer gardens and restaurants. People planned weddings and music festivals.
Drowned out in the applause were expert warnings that there was no way to tell who was and who wasn’t vaccinated, and a country restless for an end to the pandemic was essentially being placed on the honor system.
“The single biggest mistake of the Biden presidency when it comes to COVID 19 was the CDC’s precipitous and chaotic change in masking guidance back in May,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and commentator. “It had the direct result of giving people the impression the pandemic was over. It allowed unvaccinated people to have free rein and behave as if they were vaccinated, and therefore we have the surge of the delta variant.”
“I think they were naive,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said of the CDC. “They saw it as a carrot, as a gift.”
Meanwhile, the delta variant had arrived, and in a matter of weeks would become the dominant strain in circulation.
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CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently confirmed just how much more contagious delta is. “If you get sick with the alpha variant, you could infect about two other unvaccinated people,” she said. “If you get sick with the delta variant, we estimate that you could infect about five other unvaccinated people — more than twice as many as the original strain.”
Last week, the CDC reversed course on masks, recommending that even vaccinated people again mask up indoors in areas where the virus is on the march, now most of the country.
The immediate reason was a report by disease detectives of a recent outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The delta variant was to blame and a majority of those infected had been vaccinated. Although very few vaccinated people got sick enough to be hospitalized, the initial findings showed vaccinated people with breakthrough infections were carrying about as much virus as unvaccinated people.
The report fed vaccine doubts in some quarters. Wen, the former health commissioner, said the CDC should have put the Provincetown report in a fuller context that showed vaccines do keep protecting. CDC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Back on July 4 Biden proclaimed that the nation was declaring its independence from the virus. In recent weeks, he seemed to have moved on from the pandemic. The president was focused on securing a bipartisan deal on infrastructure and on selling the separate Democrats-only legislation to carry out his ambitious domestic agenda. The number of White House COVID-19 briefings dwindled.
“We celebrated prematurely,” said Ali Mokdad, an infectious disease expert with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. Biden’s 70% goal was a solid step, said Mokdad, but about half the population is not yet fully vaccinated.
Read: Biden says getting vaccinated ‘gigantically important’
Now vaccinations are again edging upward, but the data don’t show a dramatic increase.
Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Republicans dismissive of mask requirements, are staring at surges in their states. Together, Florida and Texas accounted for about one-third of new cases nationally in the past week. DeSantis doubled down on defiance Tuesday, blaming “media hysteria” and people spending more time indoors in the sweltering summer.
“Even among a lot of positive tests, you are seeing much less mortality that you did year-over-year,” he said at a Miami-area news conference. “Would I rather have 5,000 cases among 20-year-olds or 500 cases among seniors? I would rather have the younger.”
Offit, the Philadelphia vaccines expert, says “it’s hard to watch” DeSantis say he won’t abide mask mandates. “Why not?” asked Offit. “That is why his state leads the league in cases.”
Dating changed during the pandemic; apps are following suit
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, Jennifer Sherlock went out with a few men she met through dating apps. The dates were “weird,” she said, and not just because they were masked, socially distanced and outdoors.
One one occasion, a date remained masked while they were out for a stroll, but soon after invited her back to his place, a move Sherlock saw as reckless. “It was so off putting, and awkward,” she said. “So we wouldn’t be safe outside without mask(s), but we would be safe back at his place maskless?”
Read:Dutch data protection authority fines TikTok over privacy
She decided she needed a way to filter people, so she began arranging video chats before agreeing to meet anybody in person. Sherlock, 42, a PR consultant who lives in New Jersey, said it’s a practice she’ll continue post-pandemic.
Sherlock isn’t alone in changing the way she used dating apps during the pandemic, prompting many to roll out new features. Despite the social distancing of the past 18 months, the use of dating apps in general has surged as people sought connections amid their isolation.
Tinder reported that 2020 was its busiest year yet; this year, its users have already set two records for usage between January and March. Hinge tripled its revenue from 2019 to 2020, and the company expects it to double from that this year.
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In response to changing demands, Tinder announced new tools last month that will allow users to get to know people better online. People will now be able to add videos to their profile and can chat with others even before matching with them.
“Historically consumers were reluctant to connect via video because they didn’t see the need for it,” said Jess Carbino, an online dating expert and sociologist who has worked for Tinder and Bumble. Post-COVID, however, many people expect a higher degree of screening, she said. “Online dating apps like Tinder are leaning into that.”
The dating apps say their research shows video chats are here to stay, even as life starts to return to normal in some parts of the world.
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Almost half of Tinder users had a video chat with a match during the pandemic, with 40% of them intending to continue them post-pandemic. Tinder says this is largely driven by Gen Z users in their late teens and early 20s, who now make up more than half of the app’s users. And a majority of Hinge UK users, 69%, also say they’ll continue with virtual dates after the pandemic.
Tinder, alongside other popular apps including Hinge, OkCupid and Bumble, has in Britain and the U.S. partnered with the government to add a badge to profiles indicating that users have been vaccinated. (There’s no verification process, though, so matches could be lying).
Read:Likee bans 42,751 accounts in 5 months for violating rules
Dating app users are also increasingly looking for deeper connections rather than casual encounters, Carbino said.
That’s what happened to Maria del Mar, 29, an aerospace engineer, who wasn’t expecting to end up in a relationship after she matched with someone on Tinder early in the pandemic last year.
She started chatting with her now-boyfriend through the app in April 2020 during a complete lockdown in Spain, where she lives. Having moved back to her parent’s tiny town of León from Barcelona, del Mar was bored when she joined the app, but was surprised to find many things in common with her current partner.
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After weeks of chatting, they finally met for a first date — a socially-distanced hike — after restrictions eased slightly in May 2020. Now the two have moved in together. “If it wasn’t for the app, probably our paths wouldn’t have crossed,” she said.
Fernando Rosales, 32, was a frequent user of Grindr, an app popular with gay men looking for more casual encounters, in pre-pandemic times. He turned to Tinder for social connections when coronavirus restrictions prevented people from meeting others in London, where he lives.
“Grindr is like, ’I like you, you like me, you’re within 100 meters of me, I’m going to come over,’” said Rosales, who works at the popular British coffee chain Pret.
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“Tinder is something more social,” he added,. Sometimes he uses the app just to meet others to play online video games or video chat.
Ocean, 26, a drag artist and photographer in Berlin, turned to the live video feature of a LGBTQ+ app called Taimi to make friends across the world during the pandemic. Having two-to-five minute video chats with strangers from places like the Philippines or parts of the U.S. was “amazing,” she said. Ocean’s given name is Kai Sistemich; she identifies as a woman when in drag.
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She said she’ll continue using the feature post-pandemic, especially while she’s doing solo activities like cooking, or getting ready before going out to party.
Sherlock also expects some of her pandemic dating behaviors to carry into the post-pandemic world. She recently asked two men she was texting for Facetime chats before meeting in person, something she would not have done pre-pandemic.
“It’s a crazy dating world out there, so saving time is necessary,” she said.
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Rapid virus spread through Indonesia taxes health workers
Irman Pahlepi is back at work in Jakarta’s Dr. Suyoto public hospital, immediately resuming his duties treating COVID-19 patients after recovering from an infection himself — for the second time.
With numbers of infections in Indonesia skyrocketing and deaths steadily climbing, health care workers are being depleted as the virus spares nobody, Pahlepi, 30, felt he had no option but to jump right back in.
“We have so many extra patients to treat compared to last year,” he said. “The number of COVID-19 patients is four times higher now than during the previous highest spike in January.”
Read:China logs 75 more Covid cases as Delta cluster expands
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, had its deadliest day with 2,069 deaths from COVID-19 last Tuesday and fatalities remain high. As of Sunday, total official cases stood at more than 3.4 million with 97,291 deaths, though with poor testing and many people dying at home, the real figures are thought to be considerably higher.
As the region grapples with a new coronavirus wave fueled by the delta variant, Indonesia’s death rate hit a 7-day rolling average of 6.5 per million on Aug. 1, second only to Myanmar and far higher than India’s peak rate of 3.04 that it hit in May during the worst of its outbreak.
Among the dead in Indonesia are more than 1,200 health care workers, including 598 doctors, according to the Risk Mitigation Team of the Indonesian Medical Association. The doctors included at least 24 who were fully vaccinated.
Many others are exhausted from the workload, said Mahesa Paranadipa, who co-leads the mitigation team, making them more likely to fall ill, like Pahlepi.
“We are worried about overburdened workloads lasting for a long time, causing potential burnout conditions,” Paranadipa said. “This fatigue causes the immunity of health care workers to decrease.”
Acknowledging the risks faced by health care workers, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said Monday that a top priority is giving them a third booster vaccine dose. Most who have been vaccinated have received Sinovac, which appears to be less effective against the delta variant, and Indonesia has already begun administering booster shots.
“The boosters, from Moderna, are for health care workers ... so they will be ready for the patients at the hospitals,” Sadikin said.
On top of the lack of medical personnel, Indonesia is also suffering from inadequate supplies.
Pahlepi said his hospital experiences oxygen shortages and is filled far beyond its patient capacity, making it even more difficult to treat people properly.
Over the last two months, it has become common to see dozens of people with severe symptoms waiting in line for a bed in the hospital’s emergency unit, and more lines of people waiting for a space in the isolation ward following treatment, he said.
Some patients have brought their own oxygen tanks with them, and as the hospital’s own supplies have waned, doctors and nurses have had to ask them to share with others.
Read:Myanmar leaders use pandemic as political weapon
Last year, most of the severely ill patients Pahlepi saw were senior citizens. Now, as the delta variant spreads through the country, most of the patients arriving at the emergency room with medium and severe symptoms are children and young adults, he said.
Between his own coronavirus infections, Pahlepi and his wife had their first child — a daughter who is now 5 months old — and he said it’s been particularly hard as a new father to see so many children admitted for treatment with relatively severe symptoms.
“It is difficult to help the infants put on an oxygen hose because they feel uncomfortable when an unfamiliar object is on their face. They need their parents to be with them when we put on the hose,” Pahlepi said.
“Those infants remind me of my baby daughter at home. It makes me sad.”
Pahlepi has been involved in treating coronavirus patients since the beginning of the pandemic, starting as a COVID-19 intake doctor at Gatot Soebroto Army Central Hospital, which was designated by the government as a referral hospital for the disease.
In November, he tested positive himself despite taking precautions. Fortunately, his case was mild and he was able to return to work after recovering in isolation for two weeks.
He tested positive again on July 14 while working extra shifts to help cope with the influx of patients in the recent surge — just one week before he was to receive his first vaccination.
While he was asymptomatic during his first infection, he had severe headaches and his bones ached during the second.
Like many of his patients, he decided to isolate at home. But unlike most, with his training he was able to keep a careful eye on his health, ensuring that his blood oxygen level was adequate and that he didn’t need more advanced treatment.
“There are so many people with heavier symptoms who deserve beds in the hospital more than me,” Pahlepi said in a video interview as he was in isolation.
As soon as he was better, Pahlepi went right back to help his overworked colleagues.
Read:Officials in Tokyo alarmed as virus cases hit record highs
“The emergency unit was full, and we were overwhelmed handling COVID-19 patients,” he said. “The number of patients is beyond our capabilities. We have to use 200% to 300% of our energy every shift.”
Though there is no end in sight for the current wave in Indonesia, Pahlepi’s thoughts are regularly of the day when life returns to normal for his young family and the rest of the country.
“I feel tired — exhausted — but we have to keep our spirits up to make Indonesia successfully free from COVID-19,” he said.
US hits 70% vaccination rate -- a month late, amid a surge
The U.S. on Monday finally reached President Joe Biden’s goal of getting at least one COVID-19 shot into 70% of American adults -- a month late and amid a fierce surge by the delta variant that is swamping hospitals and leading to new mask rules and mandatory vaccinations around the country.
In a major retreat in the Deep South, Louisiana ordered nearly everyone, vaccinated or not, to wear masks again in all indoor public settings, including schools and colleges. And other cities and states likewise moved to reinstate precautions to counter a crisis blamed on the fast-spreading variant and stubborn resistance to getting the vaccine.
“As quickly as we can discharge them they’re coming in and they’re coming in very sick. We started seeing entire families come down,” lamented Dr. Sergio Segarra, chief medical officer of Baptist Hospital Miami. The Florida medical-center chain reported an increase of over 140% in the past two weeks in the number of people now hospitalized with the virus.
Read:Delta variant: Fauci warns of more 'pain and suffering' ahead
Biden had set a vaccination goal of 70% by the Fourth of July. That figure was the low end of initial government estimates for what would be necessary to achieve herd immunity in the U.S. But that has been rendered insufficient by the highly contagious delta variant, which has enabled the virus to come storming back.
There was was no celebration at the White House on Monday, nor a setting of a new target, as the administration instead struggles to overcome skepticism and outright hostility to the vaccine, especially in the South and other rural and conservative areas.
The U.S. still has not hit the administration’s other goal of fully vaccinating 165 million American adults by July 4. It is about 8.5 million short.
New cases per day in the U.S. have increased sixfold over the past month to an average of nearly 80,000, a level not seen since mid-February. And deaths per day have climbed over the past two weeks from an average of 259 to 360.
Those are still well below the 3,400 deaths and a quarter-million cases per day seen during the worst of the outbreak, in January. But some places around the country are watching caseloads reach their highest levels since the pandemic began. And nearly all deaths and serious illnesses now are in unvaccinated people.
The surge has led states and cities across the U.S. to beat a retreat, just weeks after it looked as if the country was going to see a close-to-normal summer.
Health officials in San Francisco and six other Bay Area counties announced Monday they are reinstating a requirement that everyone — vaccinated or not — wear masks in public indoor spaces.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York City airport and transit workers will have to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. He stopped short of mandating either masks or inoculations for the general public, saying he lacks legal authority to do so.
Read:Florida breaks record with more than 21,000 new COVID cases
Denver’s mayor said the city will require police officers, firefighters and certain other municipal employees to get vaccinated, along with workers at schools, nursing homes, hospitals and jails.
Minnesota’s public colleges and universities will require masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status. New Jersey said workers at state-run nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals and other such institutions must get the shot or face regular testing.
North Carolina’s governor ordered state employees in the agencies under his control to cover up indoors if they are not fully vaccinated.
And McDonald’s said it will require employees and customers to resume wearing masks inside some U.S. restaurants regardless of vaccination status in areas with high or substantial coronavirus transmission. The company didn’t say how many restaurants would be affected by the new mask mandate.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said a nationwide vaccination requirement “is not on the table,” but noted that employers have the right to take such a step.
The U.S. Senate saw its first disclosed breakthrough case of the virus, with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying he has mild symptoms.
In Florida, it took two months last summer for the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 to jump from 2,000 to 10,000. It took only 27 days this summer for Florida hospitals to see that same increase, said Florida Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew.
She noted also that this time, 96% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated and they are far younger, many of them in their 20s and 30s.
Amid the surge, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down on his anti-mask, anti-lockdown stance, warning in a fundraising email over the weekend: “They’re coming for your freedom again.”
Read:Biden lands win, but virus surge threatens to derail agenda
While setting a national vaccination goal may have been useful for trying to drum up enthusiasm for the shots, 70% of Americans getting one shot was never going to be enough to prevent surges among unvaccinated groups. And when he announced the goal, Biden acknowledged it was just a first step.
It’s the level of vaccinations in a community — not a broad national average — that can slow an outbreak or allow it to flourish.
Vaccination rates in some Southern states are far lower than they are New England. Vermont has fully inoculated nearly 78% of its adult population. Alabama has just cracked 43%.
At an extraordinary Olympics, acts of kindness abound
A surfer jumping in to translate for the rival who’d just beaten him. High-jumping friends agreeing to share a gold medal rather than move to a tiebreaker. Two runners falling in a tangle of legs, then helping each other to the finish line.
In an extraordinary Olympic Games where mental health has been front and center, acts of kindness are everywhere. The world’s most competitive athletes have been captured showing gentleness and warmth to one another — celebrating, pep-talking, wiping away one another’s tears of disappointment.
Kanoa Igarashi of Japan was disappointed when he lost to Brazilian Italo Ferreira in their sport’s Olympic debut.
Not only did he blow his shot at gold on the beach he grew up surfing, he was also being taunted online by racist Brazilian trolls.
Read: A pandemic Olympics, without all the crowds: What gets lost?
The Japanese-American surfer could have stewed in silence, but he instead deployed his knowledge of Portuguese, helping to translate a press conference question for Ferreira on the world stage.
The crowd giggled hearing the cross-rival translation and an official thanked the silver medalist for the assist.
“Yes, thank you, Kanoa,” said a beaming Ferreira, who is learning English.
Days later, at the Olympic Stadium, Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar found themselves in a situation they’d talked about but never experienced — they were tied.
Both high jumpers were perfect until the bar was set to the Olympic-record height of 2.39 meters (7 feet, 10 inches). Each missed three times.
They could have gone to a jump-off, but instead decided to share the gold.
“I know for a fact that for the performance I did, I deserve that gold. He did the same thing, so I know he deserved that gold,” Barshim said. “This is beyond sport. This is the message we deliver to the young generation.”
After they decided, Tamberi slapped Barshim’s hand and jumped into his arms.
“Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful,” Tamberi said. “It was just magical.”
Earlier, on the same track, runners Isaiah Jewett of the U.S. and Nijel Amos of Botswana got tangled and fell during the 800-meter semifinals. Rather than get angry, they helped each other to their feet, put their arms around each other and finished together.
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Many top athletes come to know each other personally from their time on the road, which can feel long, concentrated, and intense — marked by career moments that may be the best or worst of their lives.
Those feelings have often been amplified at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games, where there is an unmistakable yearning for normalcy and, perhaps, a newfound appreciation for seeing familiar faces.
Restrictions designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have meant Olympians can’t mingle the way they normally do.
After a hard-fought, three-set victory in the beach volleyball round-robin final on Saturday at Shiokaze Park, Brazilian Rebecca Cavalcanti playfully poured a bottle of water on American Kelly Claes’ back as she did postgame interviews.
The U.S. team had just defeated Brazil but the winners laughed it off, explaining that they’re friends.
“I’m excited when quarantine’s done so we can sit at the same table and go to dinner with them. But it’s kind of hard in a bubble because we have to be away,” said Sarah Sponcil, Claes’ teammate.
For fellow American Carissa Moore, the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions brought her closer with the other surfers.
The reigning world champion said she typically travels to surfing competitions with her husband and father. But all fans were banned this year, and Moore admitted she struggled without their reassuring presence in the initial days of the Games.
Moore had flown to Japan with the U.S. team 10 days before the first heat, and soon adjusted to living in a home with the other surfers, including Caroline Marks, whom Moore considered the woman to beat.
Moore said she didn’t know Marks well before the Tokyo Games but on the night she was crowned the winner and Marks came in fourth, her rival was the first to greet her.
Read: ‘OK not to be OK’: Mental health takes top role at Olympics
“Having the USA Surf team with me, it’s been such a beautiful experience to bond with them,” Moore said. “I feel like I have a whole another family after the last two weeks.”
After the punishing women’s triathlon last week in Tokyo, Norwegian Lotte Miller, who placed 24th, took a moment to give a pep talk to Belgium’s Claire Michel, who was inconsolable and slumped on the ground, sobbing.
Michel had come in last, 15 minutes behind winner Flora Duffy of Bermuda — but at least she finished. Fifty-four athletes started the race but 20 were either lapped or dropped out.
“You’re a (expletive) fighter,” Miller told Michel. “This is Olympic spirit, and you’ve got it 100%.”
Japan to widen virus emergency after record spike amid Games
Japan is set to expand the coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo to neighboring areas and the western city of Osaka on Friday in the wake of a record surge in infections while the capital hosts the Olympics.
A government panel approved the plan putting Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba, as well as Osaka, under the state of emergency from Monday until Aug. 31. The measures already in place in Tokyo and the southern island of Okinawa will be extended until the end of August.
Read: Tropical storm to bring rain, wind, waves to northeast Japan
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is scheduled to officially announce the measures later Friday. Five other areas, including Hokkaido, Kyoto, Hyogo and Fukuoka, will be placed under less-stringent emergency restrictions.
Tokyo has reported a record rise in cases for three days in a row, including 3,865 on Thursday. The cases have doubled since last week, and officials have warned they may hit 4,500 a day within two weeks.
Officials said 2,995 were hospitalized, about half the current capacity of 6,000 beds, with some hospitals already full. More than 10,000 others were isolating at home or designated hotels, with nearly 5,600 waiting at home while health centers decide where they will be treated. Tokyo is also setting up a facility for those requiring oxygen while waiting for hospital beds.
At Friday’s meeting of government experts, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said the spike in Tokyo despite being under the state of emergency for two weeks is an “alarming development that is different from anything we have seen before.”
Read: Japan girds for a surreal Olympics, and questions are plenty
Nationwide, Japan reported 10,687 confirmed cases Thursday, exceeding 10,000 for the first time. It has recorded 15,166 fatalities from COVID-19, including 2,288 in Tokyo, since the pandemic began.
Japan has kept its cases and deaths lower than many other countries, but its seven-day rolling average is growing and now stands at 28 per 100,000 people nationwide and 88 per 100,000 in Tokyo, according to the Health Ministry. This compares to 18.5 in the United States, 48 in Britain and 2.8 in India, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The emergency measures focus on an alcohol ban at eateries and karaoke bars and their shortened hours, but they have become less effective because people are only requested to stay and work from home. Many were defying the measures as they have become tired of restrictive life and less cooperative even at a time when the more infectious delta strain is spreading.
“We need to come up with measures that are effective,” Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike told a regular news conference Friday, without elaborating.
Read:Japan's Olympic security balancing act leaves few satisfied
Noting that adults in their 30s or younger dominate recent cases, Koike reminded them of following basic anti-virus measures including mask-wearing and avoiding having parties, urging them to “share the sense of crisis.”
As of Thursday, 27% of the Japanese population has been fully vaccinated. The percentage of the elderly who are fully vaccinated is 71.5%.
Do I need to get tested for COVID-19 if I’m vaccinated?
Do I need to get tested for COVID-19 if I’m vaccinated?
Yes, if you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19.
Read: Should vaccinated people mask up with COVID-19 cases rising?
The latest guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people who are fully vaccinated should get tested three to five days after a potential exposure, even if they don’t have symptoms.
That change comes two months after the agency eased its initial testing guidance. In May, the CDC said vaccinated people face very little risk of serious illness and don’t need to be tested in most cases, even if exposed to someone who was sick. The thinking was that vaccinated people also weren’t likely to spread it to others.
But the agency says it’s reversing that guidance because of the more contagious delta variant, which now accounts for most COVID-19 infections.
The COVID-19 vaccines are still very good at protecting people from getting seriously ill, but the CDC says new data shows vaccinated people infected with the delta variant could spread it to others.
Read:Bhutan fully vaccinates 90% of eligible adults within a week
Doctors, nurses and other health care workers should consult with their employers, some of whom may require routine testing for their staff. People working in prisons and homeless shelters are also generally subject to stepped-up testing requirements.
U.S. citizens returning from abroad still have to present a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights home, regardless of their vaccination status. Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 should still isolate for 10 days, the CDC says.