President-elect Joe Biden is expected to get the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in public next week, a move that he hopes will encourage people who are apprehensive about receiving the shots.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take,” Biden told reporters Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden had already pledged that he would get the vaccine on camera. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will get the first round of shots “as soon as we possibly can.”
“For security reasons, I really feel strongly that we should get them vaccinated as soon as we possibly can,” said Fauci. “You want him fully protected as he enters into the presidency in January. So, that would be my strong recommendation.”
Vice President Mike Pence also plans to get the first of two coronavirus shots on camera Friday morning to boost “vaccine confidence,” Axios reported. Pence will be joined by second lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams.
Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is likely to receive an endorsement from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine panel on Thursday, followed by an emergency use authorization on Friday. The FDA reported Tuesday that the vaccine was both safe and effective, putting it on track to gain approval on the same timeline as the Pfizer vaccine.
The United States reported one coronavirus-related death every 30 seconds over the past 24 hours, with total deaths surpassing 306,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The country’s rolling average of daily deaths related to COVID-19 has more than doubled from a month ago, and there were only five days in November during which there were fewer than 1,000 deaths reported across the country. The U.S. is also bracing for a surge related to Thanksgiving gatherings and Christmas celebrations.
To date, more than 16.9 million cases due to COVID-19 have been confirmed in the U.S. Current case totals are undercounts, given that many infections go undetected and undiagnosed.
Operation Warp Speed’s vaccine rollout is off to a bumpy start, with the governors of Illinois and Florida both saying that they were not getting as many doses of the vaccine as the federal government had initially projected.
“Previously, federal authorities had notified us that they planned to ship out nearly 8 million Pfizer vaccine doses to states, large cities, and territories across the country next week,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said Wednesday. “However, as of this morning, I’m disappointed to learn that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed us … that estimate was tightened significantly, down to 4.3 million doses shipped nationally next week.”
A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner that governors are given vaccine allocation numbers on a weekly basis and hadn’t been given allocation numbers until this week, adding that governors “wouldn’t know how many doses they’d get until those numbers are released.”
California may include “historical injustice” as a factor in determining the distribution of coronavirus vaccines, a sign of social-justice considerations entering the public health effort. The idea was first introduced to California’s Community Vaccine Advisory Committee on Nov. 25 by Virginia Hedrick, executive director of the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health. A member of the Yurok Tribe, she pointed out that Native Americans are 4 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from it than white people.
But Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said that using historical injustice could be construed as affirmative action. With the Supreme Court putting tougher restrictions on how affirmative action can be used in higher education, he said that federal courts could be hostile to its use in public health.
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it would keep its target for short-term interest rates near zero and that it would maintain its monthly purchases of government-backed bonds “until substantial further progress.”
“Recent news on vaccines has been very positive,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference. “However, significant challenges and uncertainties remain with regard to the timing, production, and distribution of vaccines, as well as their efficacy across different groups.”
The social isolation and lack of opportunities to compete are taking a mental toll on student-athletes across the country, with 1 in 4 teenagers telling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that they had thought about suicide in the past 30 days.
“We already knew going into this that we had increasing levels of depression and anxiety among young people. … But now, we have kids that don’t have school, they don’t have sports,” said Dr. Michael Koester, who leads the National Federation of State High School Associations’s Medicine Advisory Committee.
The World Health Organization’s program to distribute coronavirus vaccines to poor countries faces a very “high risk” of failure, according to a report from Reuters. The WHO is planning to deliver 2 billion doses of the vaccine to poor countries in 2021. But internal documents show that the program is hampered by a lack of funds and supply risks. One of the documents suggests that failure could leave poor countries without any vaccines until 2024.
The WHO is urging Europe to wear masks during family gatherings at Christmas, the BBC reported. The WHO’s European regional office said family gatherings should be held outside if possible. If not, people should wear masks at all times indoors.
“It may feel awkward to wear masks and practise physical distancing when around friends and family, but doing so contributes significantly to ensuring that everyone remains safe and healthy,” the WHO said.
New Mexico has begun distributing one-time payments of $1,200 each to roughly 130,000 residents who qualify for unemployment benefits or whose benefits have expired. Most of the money to fund the economic relief came from the funding allocated to the state through the federal CARES Act, the economic package passed in March totaling roughly $2.2 trillion. The state Legislature held a special session in November where members voiced their support for the check program as part of a $330 million relief package.
Fauci told the Washington Post that he will not be seeing his three adult daughters this year for Christmas, and he recommended that other people similarly isolate. Fauci acknowledged that doing so can be painful, but it’s “just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented, challenging time.”
Dodge City, Kansas, Mayor Joyce Warshaw resigned Tuesday after receiving violent messages from people in response to a city mandate passed last month that requires people in town to wear masks indoors, the Washington Post reported. Some messages were that Warshaw was restricting civil liberties and that she should go to jail. Others said she should be killed for passing the rule.
“They were loud, and they were aggressive, and they frightened me and my family,” said Warshaw, who had been serving her second stint as mayor. “There’s a strong part of me that wants to say they are only words. But people are angry right now, and I don’t know that for sure.”
