Coronavirus, COVID-19, coronavirus variants, and vaccine updates for 8-12-2021

This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for August 12th, 2021.   California will become the first state to require all teachers and school staff to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. That applies to public and private schools, and it will also apply to school volunteers. California’s two largest teachers’ unions announced their full support.   The FDA is expected to in the next day or so authorize vaccine booster shots for the immunocompromised. That’d be a third shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Even after authorization, the CDC would advise on whether to use a vaccine booster. A recent study by Johns Hopkins found vaccinated immunocompromised people are 485x more likely to end up in the hospital or die from COVID compared to the general vaccinated population.   Your friends who think the vaccines endanger current and future pregnancies aren’t going to like this. The CDC yesterday urged all pregnant women to get the vaccine. Hospitals in various hot spots are seeing disturbing numbers of unvaccinated mothers-to-be seriously ill with the virus. Expectant women run a higher risk of severe illness and pregnancy complications from the virus, but only about 23% have gotten at least one vaccine dose.   Research in several states by the Mayo Clinic appears to show Moderna’s vaccine is considerably more effective against the Delta variant than Pfizer’s. While Moderna’s effectiveness was down to 76%, Pfizer’s was down to 42%. The study also found across multiple states, those inoculated with Pfizer were twice as likely to have a breakthrough infection compared to Moderna. If you do wind up in the hospital, you’ll need people to take care of you. But in some hot spots, there’s now a shortage of nurses. Just one example, one person who suffered a heart attack in Louisiana was bounced around to six hospitals before finding an ER that could take him. Hospitals are losing nurses to staffing agencies, hospitals in other states at double or triple the salary, and burnout to the point some will never return to nursing. In the United States cases were up 86%, deaths are up 102%, and hospitalizations are up 85% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending up since July 5.    There are 6,414,400 active cases in the United States.   Keeping in mind several states stopped reporting daily case numbers, the five states with the most new cases: Florida 24,753. Texas 16,436. California 12,254. Georgia 6,958. And Louisiana 5,407.   The top 10 counties with the highest number of recent cases per capita according to The New York Times: Neshoba, MS. Dimmit, TX. Lafourche, LA. George, MS. Stone, MS. Terrebonne, LA. Iberia, LA. Tangipahoa, LA. Gulf, FL. And Columbia, FL.   There have been at least 618,434 deaths in U.S. recorded as Covid-related.   The top 3 vaccinating states by percentage of population that’s been fully vaccinated: Vermont unchanged at 68%, Massachusetts at 64.5%, and Maine at 64.3%. The bottom 3 vaccinating states are Alabama at 35%, Mississippi unchanged at 35.2%, and Wyoming at 37.1%. The percentage of the U.S. that’s been fully vaccinated is 50.3%.   The 5 countries with the largest recent 24-hour increase in the number of fully vaccinated people: Kyrgyzstan up 10%. Trinidad and Tobago 5%. And Japan, El Salvador, and Nepal 4%.   Globally, cases were up 15% and deaths were up 16% over 14 days, with the 7-day average trending up since June 21.   There are 16,699,848 active cases around the world.   The five countries with the most new cases: The United States 143,459. India 43,641. Iran 42,541. Brazil 35,788. And France 30,920.   There have now been at least 4,322,964 deaths reported as Covid-related worldwide.   For the latest updates, subscribe for free to... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.