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Elinor Aspegren
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COVID-19: How Herd Immunity Works, Why You Should Always Wear a Mask
Without masks and vaccine, we could achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, but deaths would skyrocket. We’re breaking the science down.
Just the FAQ, USA TODAY
COVID-19 has killed nearly 420,000 Americans in one year, and infections have continued to rise despite the introduction of a pair of vaccines at the end of 2020. USA TODAY follows the news. Keep refreshing this page for the latest updates. Subscribe to our Coronavirus Watch newsletter for updates to your inbox, join our facebook group or scroll through our detailed answers to reader questions.
California health officials lifted regional stay-at-home orders statewide on Monday, citing a drop in the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and ICU patients.
The stay-at-home order had included most of the state’s counties, including the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California. The change will allow restaurants to resume outdoor dining in many areas, although local authorities may choose to maintain stricter rules. The state is also lifting a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.
The restrictions had fueled an angry outcry from many small business owners. California will now revert to its four-tier, color-coded system of county-by-county restrictions, state health officials have said.
“Together, we changed our business knowing that our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains,” said Dr. Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health and head of public health.
– Amanda Ulrich and Julie Makinen, Palm Springs Desert Sun
In the headlines:
►Merck has abandoned the race for the COVID-19 vaccine, citing “inferior” immune responses. It’s proof that security systems work, experts say.
►Moderna said on Monday that its vaccine was effective against the COVID variants emerging from Britain and South Africa. The company also said it was developing a new add-on vaccine that could improve efficacy against new variants.
►All residents and caregivers of a nursing home in America who wish to be vaccinated against COVID-19 should have received at least their first vaccine by Monday evening. Walgreens and CVS, which the Trump administration hired to deliver the shots, say they’re on track to meet the deadline.
►A bipartisan group of lawmakers virtually met with officials in the Biden administration on Sunday to push forward vaccine distribution plans and another massive stimulus.
► Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he had tested positive for coronavirus but the symptoms were mild.
► President Joe Biden will announce a ban on travel to the United States from South Africa for most non-American citizens on Monday. Biden will also reinstate restrictions for Brazil, the UK, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe, a White House source confirmed to USA TODAY on Sunday.
📈 Today’s numbers: The United States has more than 25.1 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 419,200 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Global totals: over 99.2 million cases and 2.1 million deaths.
📘 What we read: President Joe Biden seeks to reset the country’s inconsistent coronavirus testing efforts with a $ 50 billion plan and increased federal oversight. Learn more here.
Google said it will open up some facilities to use as vaccination sites and strengthen search results to provide better information on where to find a COVID-19 vaccine.
In a blog post Monday, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, said the company will partner with a medical vendor and public health authorities to open sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Kirkland, Washington, near Seattle. The company plans to expand the initiative nationwide.
“Providing vaccines to billions of people will not be easy, but it is one of the most important problems that we will solve in our lives,” Pichai said in her article. “Google will continue to assist in any way it can.”
Japan’s vaccination effort fails and could jeopardize the Tokyo Olympics, at least one expert warns.
Japan is unlikely to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 with massive inoculations until months after the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to begin on July 23, Rasmus Bech Hansen, the founder of the company, told Reuters British Airfinity Research Center.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to have enough vaccines for the population by the middle of 2021. Hansen, however, said Japan will not achieve a 75% vaccination rate, a benchmark for collective immunity, before October.
“Japan seem to be quite late in the game,” said Hansen. “They depend on importing many (vaccines) from the United States and at the moment it doesn’t seem very likely that they will receive very large quantities.”
The pandemic has not bypassed rural America and it will not go away.
In the town of Beaver, Pennsylvania, 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, vaccines are almost impossible to obtain. Heritage Valley Beaver nurses had to open a second COVID-19 unit to treat all critically ill patients. The community health system recently treated 115 patients simultaneously with COVID-19.
“The struggle to just breathe. It feels like a little thing, you keep breathing, it’s not a little thing,” said Rebecca Register, 40, of Beaver, a seven-year-old veteran nurse who works on the COVID-19 unit. “Watching someone struggle with this, and they take as much oxygen as I can give them at any time and it breaks your heart.” Learn more here.
– Daveen Rae Kurutz, Beaver County Times
Struggling to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients, hundreds of intensive care units across the country are running out of space and supplies and are scrambling to hire temporary mobile nurses at a breakneck pace. Many facilities are grouped to the south and west.
An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data shows that since November, the share of US hospitals near breaking point has doubled. More than 40% of Americans now live in areas with limited critical care space, and only 15% of beds are still available.
The intensive care units are the ultimate defense for the sickest patients, patients in the process of suffocation or facing organ failure. Nurses who work in the most stressed ICUs, changing IV bags and monitoring patients on breathing machines, are exhausted.
Contribute: The Associated Press
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