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By Madeline Holcombe, CNN
As much of the United States sees a drop in hospitalizations for the Covid-19It is also evident that the fight against the pandemic is far from over, as eight states report a limited number of available intensive care beds.
Texas, Idaho, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arkansas and North Carolina have 15% or less of their critical care capacity available to patients, according to data from the Department of Health and Social Services.
The decrease in capacity due to Covid-19 has led many hospitals to run out of resources and staff, often leaving them unable to provide the level of care they would like, according to healthcare professionals.
On average over the last week, hospitalizations linked to Covid-19 have decreased by more than 1,400 per day, according to the data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Whether the change is temporary or the beginning of the end is still unclear, health experts say, and now is not the time to be complacent.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the vast majority of the United States will need to be vaccinated to control the spread, but according to CDC data only 56% of the population is fully vaccinated.
“I’m afraid we still have some tough days ahead,” said Dr Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “Even though we do pretty well with vaccines, we have to do a lot better because the Delta variant is very good at finding unvaccinated people and infecting them.”
And with children under the age of 12 still not eligible to be vaccinated, many experts are concerned about how children will fare.
An average of 225 children have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19 each day for the past seven days, according to CDC data. The number is down from an average of 263 the week before.
While pediatric infections have declined, they remain high. Children under 18 make up 22% of the U.S. population but account for 27% of all cases nationwide, according to data released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
And although these cases are less likely to be serious or result in death, children may end up with long-term symptoms.
Child deaths are an “embarrassment”
Childhood deaths from a preventable disease like Covid-19 are the motivation for authorizing a vaccine in children, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s senior vaccine official said on Tuesday.
“In this latest wave of Covid-19, especially in the south, thousands of children have been hospitalized. And, frankly, it’s an embarrassment in a developed country to have even 100 children, as we have had, die from an infectious disease that is preventable, ”said Dr Peter Marks, director of the Center. evaluation of biologics and research at a town hall organized by the Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.
“We didn’t have a vaccine to give them, but I would hate to deprive children of their lives because we don’t decide to vaccinate them, even against the relatively low risk,” Marks said.
According to the CDC, 645 children have died from Covid-19 in the United States.
“No parent should have to lose their child to a vaccine-preventable disease if we have a vaccine that can be deployed, that is safe and effective. And we will only allow authorization of something that we find safe and effective, ”Marks said.
Marks said he was unsure whether clearance for a vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 would come following a meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee scheduled for Oct. 14-15, but he said the FDA would work quickly to go through the necessary data when it becomes available.
“Many of us who work at the FDA have young children or grandchildren. And this is clearly one of the most important issues to be addressed, so we are not going to waste time, ”he said.
Johnson & Johnson requests authorization of booster dose
As officials prepare to review vaccines for young children, they are also considering allowing a booster dose to increase protection for people who have received the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine.
J&J said on Tuesday it asked the FDA to allow booster shots for its vaccine. According to the CDC, approximately 15 million people in the United States have received an injection of J&J.
The company said it made the request, but left it up to the FDA and CDC to decide who should get the boosters and when.
The FDA Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biologics is scheduled to meet on October 14 and 15 to consider Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s requests to add booster doses for their Covid-19 vaccines.
Last month, the company released data from three different studies that showed boosting its vaccine at two or six months increased immune protection.
“We announced that the six-month data is a very strong, very strong boost, like a surprisingly strong boost,” said Dr Mathai Mammen, global head of research and development for the vaccines arm of J&J, Janssen. “And those two months is a good boost, and the good two-month boost has been associated with a vaccine efficacy of 94%, at all ages, at all ages. “
The Pfizer vaccine has already been cleared by the FDA for use as a booster for people 65 years of age and older, people at high risk for serious illness, and people whose work puts them at risk of infection.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Virginia Langmaid, Maggie Fox, Jen Christensen, Holly Yan, Susannah Cullinane, Ben Tinker, Jacqueline Howard, Mallory Simon and Theresa Waldrop contributed to this report.
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