The White House on Friday unveiled a $65.3 billion, 10-year pandemic preparedness plan that it likened to the Apollo mission to the moon. It called on Congress to immediately allocate at least $15 billion in the budget reconciliation bill for the effort — half the amount President Biden initially proposed.
The plan, drafted by Mr. Biden’s science adviser and his National Security Council, would establish a full-time “Mission Control” office that would coordinate the work of agencies across the government to spot emerging threats and ready the nation to fight them.
The plan, drafted by Mr. Biden’s science adviser and his National Security Council, would establish a full-time “Mission Control” office that would coordinate the work of agencies across the government to spot emerging threats and ready the nation to fight them.
“We have a tremendous amount to do for this pandemic, and we really have to think about creating capabilities that may take several years to develop, but they can be truly transformative for the next event that we will see surely in the coming decades,” said Dr. Eric Lander, one of two officials who previewed the plan for reporters.
The $15 billion would be a compromise. In March, the White House announced that its American Jobs Plan would include $30 billion for pandemic preparedness. But on Capitol Hill, where moderate Democrats are pushing to lower the price tag of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, a figure of $8 billion for pandemic preparedness has been under consideration.
Some Democrats have repeatedly called for the initial $30 billion to be included in the reconciliation package. Among them is Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.)and the chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Ms. Warren and six of her Democratic colleagues recently wrote to the House and Senate leaders of both parties, calling on them to include $30 billion in the budget package.
The advocacy group Guarding Against Pandemics is also calling on Congress to put $30 billion for pandemic preparedness in the budget bill. The group fears that while there was an enormous investment in fighting COVID-19, lawmakers will give short shrift to preventing future pandemics.
WASHINGTON POST
CDC says among adolescents unvaccinated hospitalized at higher rate
Unvaccinated adolescents were hospitalized with COVID-19 at 10 times the rate of fully vaccinated adolescents as the Delta variant surged across the country, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Friday.
The study drew on hospital data from 14 states, between June 20 and July 31, when Delta became the dominant variant in the United States.
The findings show “that vaccines were highly effective at preventing serious COVID-19 illness” in kids ages 12 to 17, the only pediatric age group for whom a vaccine is approved, the CDC said.
A separate study, also published by the CDC on Friday, found that coronavirus-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations among children and adolescents were highest in states with low vaccination rates.
In states with low vaccination rates, emergency room visits for kids in that age range were 3.4 times higher than in states with the most vaccine coverage, researchers said. Hospital admissions were 3.7 times higher. The study examined nationwide data from Aug. 14 to Aug. 27.
Delta has caused a sharp rise in pediatric hospitalizations — including a tenfold increase in hospitalizations for infants and children age 4 and under over the past seven weeks, according to the CDC.
But there is no indication that the highly infectious variant is causing more severe illness in children. Signs of severe disease were about the same this summer as they were earlier in the pandemic, the CDC said.
WASHINGTON POST
US closing in on 40 million total COVID cases
Over the past week, an average of roughly 164,300 coronavirus cases has been reported each day in the United States, an increase of 14 percent from two weeks ago and 63 percent of the country’s highest average of nearly 260,000, reached in early January.
Total cases are likely to surpass 40 million within days.
Oregon, Hawaii, South Carolina, Washington State, and the US territory of Guam have reported more coronavirus cases in the past week than in any other seven-day period. Kentucky is also near its worst point ever, having reached an all-time high in its daily case average on Monday.
More than 101,500 coronavirus patients are hospitalized nationwide, including more than 15,500 in Florida, which has a far higher hospitalization rate than any other state.
The nation’s daily reports of new deaths are up 67 percent from a week ago, to an average of 1,521 deaths per day. That is nearly half the country’s highest average of 3,352, reached on Jan. 12.
Weekly COVID deaths in Florida have been breaking state records since Aug. 19 and again hit a new high of 2,277 for the past week.
The pace of vaccinations continues to increase as more workplaces require employees to get the shots. Around 900,000 doses are being administered each day, up from a low of 506,771 on July 11. However, the current average is 73 percent lower than the peak average of 3.38 million reached in mid-April.
About 62 percent of the eligible American population (age 12 and over) are fully vaccinated and another 11 percent have received the first dose of a two-dose vaccine.
Ten states have fully vaccinated more than 70 percent of their adult populations, with the highest level of 78 percent reached by Vermont. The others are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maine, Washington, Maryland, and New York. Two US territories, Puerto Rico and Guam, have also passed 70 percent.
Four states have not yet fully vaccinated 50 percent of their adult populations: Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, and West Virginia.
NEW YORK TIMES
EU, AstraZeneca reach vaccine distribution agreement
The European Union reached an agreement with AstraZeneca in a legal battle over delays in the company’s delivery of hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses, ending a longstanding dispute.
The settlement, which obliges AstraZeneca to deliver a total of 300 million doses by the end of March 2022, will end all pending legal proceedings, the European Commission, the bloc’s administrative arm, said in a statement. So far, the company has delivered 140 million doses to the bloc’s member nations.
AstraZeneca will provide EU countries with regular delivery schedules. If there are delays in the delivery of the doses, the countries will get rebates.
The vaccine developed by the Anglo-Swedish company and Oxford University was the initial pillar of the EU vaccination strategy. The conflict began when AstraZeneca substantially cut its expected deliveries for the first quarter of 2021, as coronavirus cases were picking up across the continent. This was a major blow to the bloc’s vaccine rollout, contributing to its sluggish start. EU officials accused AstraZeneca of giving the promised doses to Britain, which had just left the bloc at the time.
NEW YORK TIMES
Tyson Foods offers workers paid sick leave in COVID deal
NEW YORK — Tyson Foods is offering its front-line workers paid sick leave for the first time, part of an agreement that secured union support for its mandate that all US employees get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
The meatpacking giant said 90,000 — or 75 percent — of its 120,000 US workers have now been vaccinated, up from 50 percent when it announced the mandate on Aug. 3. Workers have until Nov. 1 to get vaccinated, but the agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers provides for medical and religious exemptions.
Tyson Foods, which owns the Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm brands, is among the few companies with a large front-line workforce to impose a vaccine mandate so far.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
University of Florida to start college football season with full stadium
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Come Saturday night, college football fans will converge on the stadium here known as the “Swamp” in numbers not seen since 2019.
For the first time since the pandemic began, the University of Florida will let up to 88,000 people into the stands to watch their beloved Gators take on Florida Atlantic in the season opener.
They won’t have to be vaccinated and won’t have to wear masks, in a state with one of the highest rates of new COVID cases in the country
They will be outdoors but packed close together. This spectacle and others like it around the country are stirring passions for the resumption of a fall pastime with major cultural influence — and with it fears about what could happen next on campuses.
Skeptics wonder if the full return of college football — the pregame tailgates, the mingling of home and visiting fans, the postgame partying and barhopping — will spread the coronavirus and jeopardize the reopening of colleges amid another dangerous wave of infections.
WASHINGTON POST
UN weather agency says air pollution emissions dropped during lockdowns
GENEVA — The UN weather agency says the world — and especially urban areas — experienced a brief, sharp drop in emissions of air pollutants last year amid lockdown measures and related travel restrictions put in place over the coronavirus pandemic.
The World Meteorological Organization, releasing its first ever Air Quality and Climate Bulletin on Friday, cautioned that the reductions in pollution were patchy — and many parts of the world showed levels that outpaced air quality guidelines. Some types of pollutants continued to emerge at regular or even higher levels.
The WMO study analyzed changes in air quality around the main pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and ozone. The Geneva-based agency noted an “unprecedented decrease” in pollutant emissions as many governments restricted gatherings, closed schools, and imposed lockdowns.
