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Coronavirus Facts and Information thread:

Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
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Premium Member
3 major US airlines will not mandate shots for their unvaccinated workers

(CNN) — The CEOs of Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines say they are not requiring unvaccinated employees to receive the shot, breaking with United Airlines' mandate that workers get vaccinated by October 25 or face getting fired.

In an internal memo obtained by CNN, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said the airline will "continue to strongly encourage" that workers get vaccinated, but the airline's stance has not shifted.

"Obviously, I am very concerned about the latest Delta variant, and the effect on the health and Safety of our Employees and our operation, but nothing has changed," Kelly said.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told Good Day New York on Tuesday that 75% of its workforce has already been vaccinated even without a companywide mandate.

Situation for new hires

In May, Delta became the first major carrier to require that all new hires be vaccinated. United Airlines made a similar announcement in June.
"I think there's some additional steps and measures we can take to get the vaccine rates even higher, but what we're seeing is every day is those numbers continue to grow," Bastian said.

Both announcements follow a New York Times podcast interview with American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, who said the airline is giving workers who get vaccinated by the end of this month one extra day of vacation in 2022.
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Stevicus

Stevicus

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Staff member
Premium Member
Australia's New South Wales put into strict lockdown as COVID-19 cases spike - UPI.com

Aug. 14 (UPI) -- The Australian state of New South Wales was placed in a strict, weeklong lockdown Saturday after local health officials recorded the highest number of new COVID-19 cases seen in a single day.

The state's biggest city, Sydney, already had been under lockdown for two months, but those rules were extended to cover all of New South Wales until Aug. 22 under an order issued by Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
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"This means the whole state is in strict lockdown," she wrote in a tweet hours after announcing that a daily record of 466 daily cases had been recorded overnight.

"Today is the most concerning day of the pandemic that we've seen in New South Wales," Berejiklian told reporters during an update Saturday morning. "We had 130,000 tests overnight and very concerningly we've had 466 cases of community transmission.
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"This is the largest jump we have seen in a night, and it's fair to say that we are on a path of being extremely concerned about the situation that we're in in New South Wales," she said.

The lockdown extension affects more than 8 million people in Australia's most populous state. Under its rules, residents must stay at home unless they have a "reasonable excuse" to leave and cannot have visitors in their homes from outside of their households, including relatives.
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All hospitality venues such as bars and restaurants must be closed to the public except for take-out orders while only essential retail stores will be allowed to remain open.
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Even before the lockdown was extended to cover all of New South Wales, residents of Sydney were facing beefed-up fines and enforcement measures. Health officials on Saturday announced increased fines of up to $3,700 for COVID-19 breaches and a heightened police presence.

NSW Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said the NSW Police Force would have "an increased and more visible presence" across Sydney and its suburbs, backed up by 500 additional Australian Defense Force personnel.

"We've had to tighten the current public health orders because of the minority who exploited them," he said in an issued statement.
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In areas of high transmission rates, "it will no longer be acceptable to leave your home for outdoor recreation, meaning gathering at parks or outside takeaway shops or cafes is not on. Enough is enough. If you do it, you will get fined," Elliott warned.
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sun rise

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The difference between a county with a high level of vaccination along with masking compared to say, Florida, Texas and Mississippi is stark. Our hospitals/ICUs are more crowded than usual but far far far from being overwhelmed compared to other places.

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Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Millions of Americans Could Be Eligible for Covid Vaccine Booster (msn.com)

More than five million Americans could be eligible for booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine by late September under the Biden administration’s plan to combat the Delta variant by giving extra doses eight months after initial vaccinations.
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But the plan depends on several crucial steps taking place in the coming weeks. Most important, the Food and Drug Administration would need to decide that third shots are safe and effective for Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the two vaccines that were rolled out first and have been most used.
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Pfizer is further along in submitting data to the F.D.A. that it says supports the use of boosters. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are still studying whether a half-dose or a full dose would work better for a third shot, but they expect results soon. Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, has said the firm plans to submit its data to the F.D.A. next month.

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from The New York Times

Administration officials are to announce the strategy at a White House briefing on Wednesday. Nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers would probably be first in line. Other older people would be next, followed by the rest of the general population.

Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received, and using pharmacies as key distribution points.

Administration officials are discouraging people from seeking booster doses on their own, noting that the F.D.A. has yet to rule on their safety and efficacy. Nonetheless, the C.D.C. says that more than a million Americans have already obtained them, apparently by pretending they were unvaccinated. They hope to roll out extra shots in an orderly way so people get a booster shot when it is recommended, not simply based on their own fears.

Dr. Danny Avula, the vaccine coordinator for the state of Virginia, said that his state had thousands of vaccine providers already in place and could most likely manage boosters without much change. “What caused so much of the urgency and frenzy of January through April was the limitations in supply,” he said.

The government has more than 100 million doses stockpiled that could be used for boosters, along with tens of millions more doses that have already been delivered to pharmacies and other locations. Even more supply is scheduled for delivery this fall.

In interviews on Tuesday, hospital officials and doctors were supportive of the push for booster shots.

“I think we’re running out of second chances,” said Dr. Matthew Harris, the medical director of the coronavirus vaccination program at Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “What keeps me up at night is the inevitability of a variant that is not responsive to the vaccine, so if this is how we stay ahead of it, I fully support it.”

Federal officials envision offering additional shots to recipients of the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as well as those who got Moderna or Pfizer. But the government only began offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in March, and only 14 million people have gotten it. By comparison, 155 million people have been fully vaccinated with either Pfizer or Moderna.

Data from a Johnson & Johnson clinical trial in which participants were given two doses is likely to be submitted to the F.D.A. later this month and will guide the government’s recommendation on that vaccine.

At Wednesday’s briefing, administration officials plan to make the case that a booster strategy is essential even if it must be amended as more data comes in. They are expected to present data showing that vaccine efficacy is declining even though unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of those who become seriously ill or are hospitalized.
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Officials are discouraging people from getting booster shots on their own, noting that the FDA has not yet ruled on their safety and efficacy. However, the CDC has noted that more than a million Americans have already gotten the booster on their own by pretending that they weren't vaccinated.
 
sun rise

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
A couple of stories I saw today:

Lacking Beds, Hospitals Ship COVID-19 Patients to Other States

“Imagine being with your grandma in the ER who is having a heart attack in western Kansas and you are saying, ‘Why can’t we find a bed for her?’”

Delta Whiplash: How the New Surge Is Affecting Mental Health

the most recent data, which goes through Aug. 2, found 27% of Americans reporting symptoms of anxiety.
...
Department of Homeland Security issued a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin last week. It warns that extremists could use new COVID-driven public health restrictions as an excuse to commit domestic terrorism. Anger goes in the opposite direction, too, with people who’ve been following recommended procedures becoming increasingly fed up with those who flout them...
 
sun rise

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Another one. Meanwhile death-cult inhumane right wing lunatics who are governors in Texas, Florida and elsewhere choose death over life, political correctness over life, political power over life.

Inside Mississippi's 4th Covid wave: Younger patients, crying nurses and 7 ICU beds left

Three hours north at the Children’s Hospital of Mississippi in Jackson, Rosie Barlow has spent days worrying over whether her son Donovan, 11, will wake up, each time he drifts off to sleep. Instead of dancing around the house and playing video games with his older brother, he is hospitalized and receiving breathing treatments. Donovan is among 28 patients confirmed or suspected to have the virus at the state’s only children’s hospital.

His parents say Donovan was weeks away from being vaccinated when he contracted the virus. He would have become eligible as soon as he turned 12 on Sept. 22.

“It’s a lot for our 11-year-old to go through, laying in bed and just wondering if, ‘I’m going to make it the next hour,’” Barlow said, though his condition began to improve this week.

This is what the fourth wave of the pandemic in Mississippi looks like: As of Thursday, only seven ICU beds were available in the state, and 96 patients needed them, according to the state Department of Health.
 
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