COVID vaccines for kids 5 to 11 closer to full approval
A federal advisory committee will meet Tuesday to resolve whether or not to suggest COVID-19 vaccines to youngsters ages 5 to 11.
If the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decides the advantages of vaccination outweigh dangers on this age group, the director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention would weigh in. If Dr. Rochelle Walensky indicators off, vaccines would grow to be obtainable as quickly as Wednesday at pharmacies and pediatricians’ workplaces.
The vaccine, which shall be free, can be delivered at one-third the dose given to adolescents and adults, in two pictures not less than three weeks aside. Solely the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can be obtainable on this age group. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are nonetheless being examined in adolescents and youngsters.
In a number of small trials, Pfizer-BioNTech noticed no critical unwanted effects linked with the pictures. However some unwanted effects are more likely to seem later as thousands and thousands of kids obtain the vaccine. Typical unwanted effects, which go away inside a day or two, embrace complications, fatigue, muscle ache, ache on the injection web site and vomiting, nausea or diarrhea.
In a examine of about 2,500 youngsters, the vaccine was discovered to be greater than 90% efficient at stopping COVID-19. Though youngsters are far much less more likely to endure extreme COVID-19 infections than adolescents or adults, they nonetheless can grow to be severely ailing and even die and might have signs that linger for months.
Presidential advisor Jeffrey Zients stated Monday that the Biden administration had ordered sufficient to vaccinate all 28 million American youngsters on this 5-11 age group if they’re licensed. The administration’s distribution program shall be “working at full power” the week of Nov. 8, he stated.
— Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY
Additionally within the information:
►The primary-dose vaccination price of U.S. adults has reached 80%, and 70% of adults are absolutely vaccinated, the White Home stated Monday.
►Pennsylvania is offering five days of paid leave – along with the paid time without work to get vaccinated – to state workers who get their COVID pictures by the top of the yr. The state treasurer stated the motivation may price the state greater than $100 million.
►All adults who’re recurrently in faculties and little one care facilities within the District of Columbia should be vaccinated as of Monday. Additionally, college students 12 and older should be absolutely vaccinated to take part in school-based extracurricular athletics. Non secular and medical exemptions can be found. Mayor Muriel Bowser beforehand had required metropolis workers to be vaccinated.
►South Dakota has joined Missouri, Nebraska, Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wyoming in a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
📈 Right now’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded 46 million confirmed COVID-19 instances and greater than 747,000 deaths, in accordance to Johns Hopkins University data. World totals: Greater than 247 million instances and 5 million deaths. Greater than 192.5million Individuals – 58% of the inhabitants – are absolutely vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re studying: Coronavirus instances in youngsters grew by 129% nationwide within the six weeks after faculties opened in contrast with the identical interval earlier than courses began, in keeping with a USA TODAY evaluation of knowledge from the CDC.
Maintain refreshing this web page for the most recent information. Need extra? Sign up for USA TODAY’s Coronavirus Watch newsletter to obtain updates on to your inbox and join our Facebook group.
9K NYC workers on unpaid go away
Greater than 90% of New York Metropolis’s workers have been vaccinated and about 9,000 have been placed on unpaid leave Monday for failing to satisfy the necessary vaccination deadline, in keeping with Mayor Invoice de Blasio.
The mandate required that any of the town’s 300,000 employees who have not had their first dose be positioned on unpaid go away. Greater than 12,000 have utilized for medical or non secular exemption, and people requests are nonetheless being processed, de Blasio stated.
“Vaccine mandates work. 91% of our Metropolis workforce has gotten vaccinated in opposition to #COVID19 and that quantity remains to be rising,” de Blasio tweeted Monday.
The police division, which employs about 36,000 officers and 19,000 civilian workers, had an 84% vaccination price as of Monday, de Blasio stated. The fireplace division was at 77% of firefighters and 88% of EMTs. Sanitation’s price was 83%.
The fireplace division has stated it was ready to shut as much as 20% of fireside corporations and have 20% fewer ambulances in service. Greater than 2,000 of the town’s 11,000 firefighters have taken sick days up to now week, however Hearth Commissioner Daniel Nigro stated no firehouses have closed regardless of “irresponsible bogus sick go away by a few of our members (that) is making a hazard for New Yorkers and their fellow firefighters.”
Decide suspends deadline for Chicago cops to get vaccinated
A decide on Monday suspended a Dec. 31 deadline for Chicago law enforcement officials to be vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 however didn’t intervene with a requirement that they’re recurrently examined.
Disputes over vaccinations needs to be dealt with as a labor grievance with an arbitrator, Prepare dinner County Decide Raymond Mitchell stated.
“The impact of this order is to ship these events again to the bargaining desk and to advertise labor peace by permitting them to pursue” treatments underneath Illinois regulation, Mitchell stated.
The grievance course of may final months, the town stated final week.
Officers who haven’t been vaccinated nonetheless should be examined twice every week underneath metropolis coverage. Officers can also lose work and pay in the event that they don’t disclose their vaccine standing.
Necessary vaccination for corporations with 100+ workers inches nearer
The controversial Biden administration plan to require corporations with greater than 100 workers to mandate vaccination for his or her employees or require weekly testing cleared one other hurdle Monday when the Workplace of Administration and Finances accomplished its regulatory evaluation.
The plan additionally requires employers to supply paid time to employees to get vaccinated and paid sick go away to get well from any unwanted effects. The Federal Register will publish the emergency non permanent commonplace “within the coming days,” the Labor Division stated in an announcement. It is not clear when the mandate would grow to be efficient.
Biden introduced the plan in September, and attorneys normal in two dozen states rapidly despatched the White Home a letter threatening to problem the mandate in court docket.
Oft-delayed Novavax vaccine will get first authorization, from Indonesia
The Maryland-based Novavax biotech firm, which has run into repeated delays in its try to provide a COVID-19 vaccine, stated Monday it has received its first emergency use authorization, from Indonesia.
In partnership with the Serum Institute of India, Novavax plans to distribute the protein-based vaccine in Indonesia underneath the identify COVOVAX. The corporate stated in an announcement that it is also in search of authorization within the Philippines, India, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Novavax, which obtained not less than $1.6 billion for vaccine growth from former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Velocity, added within the assertion that it “expects to submit its full bundle to the U.S. FDA by the top of the yr.”