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Until now, the slow pace of distribution caused most states’ demand for vaccines to exceed their supply as they raced to protect their first-priority populations, usually healthcare workers and older Americans.
Now New York, with about 75% of hospital workers vaccinated, may become the first state to offer access to the vaccine to people with the simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions, regardless of their age. The governor’s office listed cancer, chronic kidney disease, lung disease, and heart conditions as some of the underlying comorbidities and conditions that the state will use to determine eligibility for the Covid-19 vaccine.
Governor Andrew Cuomo also said Friday that the state is now vaccinating those in the prison system following the same guidelines as the general public.
And in Texas, the Houston Department of Health said Friday it will prioritize “vulnerable populations” and “underserved communities” as it receives additional vaccine allocations.
When it comes to reaching the underserved, such as the homeless, the uninsured, and migrant workers, local pharmacies and health centers are a better option than trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’ with mass vaccination sites, said Admiral Brett Giroir in a radio interview broadcast Friday.
“I think trying to set up a large federal site in the middle of Dallas that will immunize 10,000 a day is much less feasible,” the former secretary of Health and Human Services said on SiriusXM’s “Doctor Radio Reports.” “It’s not about meeting people where they are, and it’s much less efficient than having the distributed network that we’ve already established and been using for decades.”
Surge variations are possible but not inevitable
Health experts have warned that the spread of new variants, some of which appear to be more communicable, could lead to them dominating the pandemic in the future, and many fear that could spell another surge.
But the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said it is “a possibility, but not necessarily an inevitability.”
The virus can only mutate if it is able to replicate, Fauci explained.
“When you have a lot of infection in your country, when you have three to 400,000 new infections per day, the virus has an open playing field to replicate so much that it begins to mutate. That is when you have the dangerous mutations.”
To prevent the variants from replicating and mutating, Fauci asked the public to continue to follow evidence-based public health measures.
One of the best ways to prevent mutations, he said, was “to redouble public health measures to prevent the virus from passing from one person to another: masking, distancing, avoiding congregated settings.”
And, most importantly, Fauci urged the public to get vaccinated.
“As soon as the vaccine is available, go out there and get vaccinated, because the combination of vaccination and public health measures will lower the level of the virus so much that it will not give it a chance to mutate. That is what we need to do.”
Schools sail back to campus
Meanwhile, teachers and school staff have also received priority for vaccination, as many states seek to resume in-person instruction for the first time in nearly a year.
Vermont has even begun allowing sports competition to resume on February 12, as long as teams have no more than two games in a seven-day period, keep a minimum of three days between competitions and bar spectators.
However, after months of remote learning, officials from the Escondido Union School District in San Diego County brought the students to campus on Tuesday.
But two days later, more than 100 students and staff were ordered to self-quarantine due to reported Covid-19 infections across their various K-8th grade campuses.
Fear of such transmission between students and staff has tangled negotiations in Chicago’s public school system, the third largest in the country.
On Friday night, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPS Executive Director Janice Jackson said in a letter sent to teachers that pre-kindergarten and group program teachers and staff without accommodations who do not report for work on Monday they will be blocked from the school’s online systems.
The union, for its part, said city leaders had “once again moved away from the negotiating table.”
Officials Advocate Against Super Bowl Parties
As officials try to increase vaccines, many are pleading with citizens to avoid the Super Bowl parties on Sunday.
“Now is not the time for a Super Bowl party,” Alabama state health officer Dr. Scott Harris said in a briefing on Friday. “Now is not the time to lose the ball because you were careless spending time with a group of people who are not at home.”
Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack made a similar request earlier in the week, asking residents to stay home on Sunday.
“Host virtual Super Bowl parties. Enjoy the Super Bowl in the privacy of your home,” said Slack. “When people gather in nearby private residences, that is one of the most effective ways to spread this disease. We cannot allow the disease to spread now, with these mutations and these variants.”
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Kristina Sgueglia, Chuck Johnston, Chris Boyette, Lauren Mascarenhas, Christopher Rios, Anjali Huynh, Alexandra Meeks, Brad Parks, Hollie Silverman, Tina Burnside and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.
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