Tag Archives: CDC

U.S. CDC recommends vaccinated Americans wear masks indoors in many cases

By David Shepardson and Julie Steenhuysen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19 should go back to wearing masks in indoor public places in regions where the coronavirus and especially the Delta variant are spreading rapidly, U.S. authorities said on Tuesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommended all students and teachers at kindergarten through 12th grade schools wear masks regardless of vaccination status. The CDC said children should return to full-time, in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies.

The changes mark a reversal of the CDC’s announcement in May that prompted millions of vaccinated Americans to shed their face coverings.

The United States leads the world in the daily average number of new infections, accounting for one in every nine cases reported worldwide each day. The seven-day average for new cases has been rising sharply and stands at 57,126, still about a quarter of the pandemic peak.

“In areas with substantial and high transmission, CDC recommends that fully vaccinated individuals wear a mask in public indoor settings to help prevent spread of Delta and protect others,” the agency said.

The CDC said that 63% of U.S. counties had high transmission rates that warranted mask wearing. The Delta variant is highly transmissible.

In May, the agency advised that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors and can avoid wearing them indoors in most places, guidance the agency said would allow life to begin to return to normal.

Dr. David Doudy, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, said the CDC guidance was motivated by a change in infection patterns. “We’re seeing this doubling in the number of cases every 10 days or so,” he said.

‘A NECESSARY PRECAUTION’

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten praised the new CDC mask guidance in a statement, saying it was needed “to deal with the changing realities of virus transmission.”

She called it “a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a COVID vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated.”

The new CDC recommendations are not binding and many Americans, especially in Republican-leaning states, may choose not to follow them. At least eight states bar schools from requiring masks.

Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, a medical epidemiologist and adjunct professor at Cornell University Public Health, said resistance was likely among some people. “I think we will get blowback because I think people might view it as backtracking,” he said.

On Monday, the Biden administration confirmed it will not lift any existing international travel restrictions, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases and the expectation that they will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.

Masks became a political issue in the United States under former President Donald Trump, who resisted mandating face coverings. President Joe Biden has embraced masks and mandated them for transit hubs days after taking office.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)

Exclusive-U.S. will not lift travel restrictions, citing Delta variant -official

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will not lift any existing travel restrictions “at this point” due to concerns over the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant and the rising number of U.S. coronavirus cases, a White House official told Reuters.

The decision, which comes after a senior level White House meeting late Friday, means the long-running travel restrictions that have barred much of the world’s population from the United States since 2020 will not be lifted in the short term.

“Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point,” the official told Reuters, citing the spread of the Delta variant in the United States and abroad.

“Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely to continue to increase in the weeks ahead.”

The announcement almost certainly dooms any bid by U.S. airlines and the U.S. tourism industry to salvage summer travel by Europeans and others covered by the restrictions. Airlines have heavily lobbied the White House for months to lift the restrictions.

The United States currently bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the last 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen nations in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.

The extraordinary U.S. travel restrictions were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19 and other countries have been added since then — most recently India in early May.

Last week, the U.S. Homeland Security Department said U.S. land borders with Canada and Mexico will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least Aug. 21 — even as Canada said it would begin allowing in fully vaccinated American tourists starting Aug. 9.

Asked on July 15 at a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about when the United States would lift European travel restrictions, Biden said he would “be able to answer that question to you within the next several days — what is likely to happen.”

Merkel said any decision to lift restrictions “has to be a sustainable decision. It is certainly not sensible to have to take it back after only a few days.”

Since that press conference, U.S. cases have jumped.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky said Thursday the seven-day average of new cases in the United States was up 53% over the previous week. The Delta variant, which was first found in India, now comprises more than 80% of new cases nationwide and has been detected in more than 90 countries.

The White House official also cited the fact that last week, the CDC urged Americans to avoid travel to the United Kingdom, given a jump in cases.

But the official added: “The administration understands the importance of international travel and is united in wanting to reopen international travel in a safe and sustainable manner.”

The restrictions have brought heavy criticism from people prevented from seeing loved ones.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Friday said international travel is “something we would all like to see — not just for tourism, but for families to be reunited.”

But Psaki added “we rely on public health and medical advice on when we’re going to determine changes to be made.”

The Biden administration has refused to offer any metrics that would trigger when it will unwind restrictions and has not disclosed if it will remove restrictions on individual countries or focus on enhancing individual traveler scrutiny.

Reuters reported last week the White House was discussing the potential of mandating COVID-19 vaccines for international visitors, but no decisions have been made, the sources said.

The Biden administration has also been talking to U.S. airlines in recent weeks about establishing international contact tracing for passengers before lifting travel restrictions.

The White House in early June launched interagency working groups with the European Union, Britain, Canada and Mexico to look at how eventually to lift travel and border restrictions.

In January, the CDC imposed mandatory COVID-19 testing requirements for nearly all international air travelers.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

U.S. life expectancy falls to lowest level in almost 20 years due to COVID-19 – CDC

By Dania Nadeem

(Reuters) – Life expectancy in the United States fell by a year and a half in 2020 to 77.3 years, the lowest level since 2003, primarily due to the deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a U.S. health agency said on Wednesday.

It is the biggest one-year decline since World War Two, when life expectancy fell 2.9 years between 1942 and 1943, and is six months shorter than its February 2021 estimate, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

“Life expectancy has been increasing gradually every year for the past several decades,” Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report, told Reuters. “The decline between 2019 and 2020 was so large that it took us back to the levels we were in 2003. Sort of like we lost a decade.”

Deaths from COVID-19 contributed to nearly three-fourths, or 74%, of the decline and drug overdoses were also a major contributor, the CDC said.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) last week released interim data showing that U.S. drug overdose deaths rose nearly 30% in 2020.

The latest CDC report is based on provisional mortality data for January through December of 2020.

Racial, gender and ethnic disparities worsened during the period, the report said. Life expectancy for Black people fell by 2.9 years to 71.8 in 2020, the lowest level since 2000. Life expectancy for Hispanic males dropped 3.7 years to 75.3, the largest decline of any group.

Disparity in life expectancy between men and women also widened in 2020, with women now expected to live 80.2 years, or 5.7 years longer than men – six months more than foreseen in 2019.

The data represents early estimates based on death certificates received, processed, and coded but not finalized by the NCHS.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem; Additional reporting by Trisha Roy in Bengaluru; editing by Caroline Humer and Steve Orlofsky)

CDC recommends masking indoors for unvaccinated students, teachers in U.S. schools

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday updated its guidance to help reopen schools in the fall, including recommending masking indoors for everyone who is not fully vaccinated and three feet of distance within classrooms.

The CDC in its latest guidance said all kindergarten through grade 12 schools in the United States should continue to mandate wearing masks indoors by all individuals who are not fully vaccinated.

The agency said that if localities decide to remove prevention strategies in schools based on local conditions, they should remove them one at a time. Schools should monitor closely for increases in COVID-19 cases before removing the next prevention strategy.

“Because of the importance of in-person learning, schools where not everyone is fully vaccinated should implement physical distancing to the extent possible within their structures, but should not exclude students from in-person learning to keep a minimum distance requirement,” the new guidance said.

A study by the CDC also released on Friday showed that half of unvaccinated adolescents and parents of unvaccinated adolescents reported being uncertain about getting a COVID-19 vaccine, or did not intend to get one at all.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Delta variant already dominant in U.S., CDC estimates show

By Mrinalika Roy

(Reuters) – The Delta variant is already the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States, according to data modeling done by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the health agency’s estimates the Delta variant became dominant in the country over the two weeks ended July 3, with 51.7% cases linked to the variant that was first identified in India.

The proportion of cases linked to the Alpha variant which was first identified in Britain and had been dominant in the United States so far, fell to 28.7%.

The data, which shows the estimated biweekly proportions of the most common SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating in the United States, is based on sequences collected through CDC’s national genomic surveillance since Dec. 20, 2020.

The Delta variant, which is becoming dominant in many countries, is more easily transmitted than earlier versions of the coronavirus and may cause more severe disease, especially among younger people. It has now been found in every U.S. state, health officials have said.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden encouraged Americans who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots to protect themselves from the widely spreading, highly contagious variant.

So far, preliminary data has shown that vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna are largely protective against Delta, with the concentration of virus-neutralizing antibodies being somewhat reduced.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Heart inflammation after COVID-19 shots higher-than-expected in study of U.S. military

By Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – Members of the U.S. military who were vaccinated against COVID-19 showed higher-than-expected rates of heart inflammation, although the condition was still extremely rare, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The study found that 23 previously healthy males with an average age of 25 complained of chest pain within four days of receiving a COVID-19 shot. The incident rate was higher than some previous estimates would have anticipated, it said.

All the patients, who at the time of the study’s publication had recovered or were recovering from myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – had received shots made by either Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE or Moderna Inc.

U.S. health regulators last week added a warning to the literature that accompanies those mRNA vaccines to flag the rare risk of heart inflammation seen primarily in young males. But they said the benefit of the shots in preventing COVID-19 clearly continues to outweigh the risk.

The study, which was published in the JAMA Cardiology medical journal, said 19 of the patients were current military members who had received their second vaccine dose. The others had either received one dose or were retired from the military.

General population estimates would have predicted eight or fewer cases of myocarditis from the 436,000 male military members who received two COVID-19 shots, the study said.

An outside panel of experts advising the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that reports of myocarditis were higher in males and in the week after the second vaccine dose than would be anticipated in the general population. A presentation at that meeting found the heart condition turned up at a rate of about 12.6 cases per million people vaccinated.

Eight of the military patients in the study were given diagnostic scans and showed signs of heart inflammation that could not be explained by other causes, the study said. The patients in the study ranged from ages 20 to 51.

The CDC began investigating the potential link between the mRNA vaccines and myocarditis in April after Israel flagged that it was studying such cases in people who received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine there, and after a report that the U.S. military had also found cases.

Health regulators in several countries are conducting their own investigations.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Biden administration extends residential eviction ban until end of July

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Thursday said it was extending the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID-19 residential eviction moratorium until July 31.

Reuters first reported the expected extension on Tuesday. The national ban on residential evictions was first implemented last September and was extended in March until June 30. A CDC statement Thursday extending it to July 31 said “this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium”.

The CDC said the “the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a historic threat to the nation’s public health. Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregate settings — like homeless shelters — by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

On Tuesday, a group of 44 U.S. lawmakers had called for the extension, citing an estimate that about “6 million renter households are behind on their rent and at risk of eviction”.

The Supreme Court has yet to act on a petition by landlord groups which argued the CDC exceeded its authority when it halted evictions to help renters during the pandemic. The CDC imposed the ban to combat the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness during the pandemic.

Lawyers for the landlord groups cited the Reuters story Wednesday reporting the expected extension in asking the Supreme Court to take immediate action to halt the ban.

The landlords said earlier that property owners “have been losing over $13 billion every month under the moratorium”. One group estimated that 40 million Americans were behind on rent in January, with $70 billion of missed payments by the end of 2020.

The moratorium covers renters who expected to earn less than $99,000 a year, or $198,000 for joint filers, or who reported no income, or received stimulus checks.

Renters also had to swear they were doing their best to make partial rent payments, and that evictions would likely leave them homeless or force them into “shared” living quarters.

Congress has approved $47 billion in relief for renters but much of that money has not yet been distributed.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Philippa Fletcher)

‘Likely link’ between rare heart inflammation and Pfizer, Moderna vaccines -CDC advisers

By Michael Erman and Manojna Maddipatla

(Reuters) -Rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults is likely linked to vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 shots, a group of doctors advising the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a presentation released on Wednesday.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group said in their report that the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis following vaccination with the mRNA-based shots in adolescents and young adults is notably higher after the second dose and in males.

The CDC said in another report that the patients with heart inflammation following vaccination generally recover from the symptoms and do well.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is meeting on Wednesday to assess the possibility of a link between the heart condition and the mRNA vaccines. VaST is a sub-group of ACIP.

The CDC has been investigating cases of heart inflammation mainly in young men for several months. The Israeli health ministry earlier this month said it saw a possible link between such cases and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The CDC earlier this month said it was still evaluating the risk from the condition and did not confirm a causal relationship between the vaccines and the heart issue.

The agency, however, said a higher-than-expected number of young men have experienced heart inflammation after their second dose of the mRNA COVID-19 shots, with more than half the cases reported in people between the ages of 12 and 24.

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said in a presentation that data from one of the agency’s safety monitoring systems – Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) – suggests a rate of 12.6 cases per million in the three weeks after the second shot in 12- to 39-year-olds.

ACIP will discuss the benefits of the mRNA vaccines versus the potential risk to adolescents and young adults from the heart condition, according to the agency’s agenda.

Although health officials in Israel have determined that there is likely a link between vaccination and the heart inflammation, concerns about the more infectious Delta coronavirus variant have prompted the country to urge 12-to 15-year old’s get vaccinated.

Pfizer, whose vaccine has been authorized for use in Americans as young as 12, previously said it had not observed a higher rate of heart inflammation than would normally be expected in the general population.

Moderna had said it could not identify a causal association with the heart inflammation cases and its vaccine.

Over 138 million Americans have so far been fully vaccinated with one of the two mRNA vaccines, according to CDC data as of Monday.

(Reporting by Michael Erman in New Jersey and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

CDC says U.S. young adults less likely to take COVID-19 vaccine

(Reuters) – Younger adults are seeking out COVID-19 vaccines at a slower rate than older adults, and if that pace of vaccination continues through August, vaccine coverage among younger adults will not reach levels achieved with older adults, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Monday.

The agency said more work is needed to increase vaccination rates among younger adults to reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

Of the 57% American adults who received at least one vaccine dose by May 22, coverage was highest among people 65 or older and lowest among people aged 18 to 29, according to an analysis of vaccine rates published on Monday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The observations are based on vaccination data reported to the agency from Dec. 14, 2020 to May 22, 2021.

Younger Americans also are more likely to be reluctant to get vaccinated because of concerns over vaccine safety and effectiveness, the agency reported separately on Monday, citing data from household surveys conducted from March to May, 2021.

The lowest rates of vaccination were among lower income, non-Hispanic Black adults aged 18–39 with lower levels of education who lacked health insurance and live outside of major cities, according to the report.

It found that nearly one in four adults aged 18-39 said they would probably or definitely not get vaccinated during the survey period.

Vaccination of Americans began in December last year and early efforts were focused on specific high-risk groups, such as healthcare workers and older adults. This was later expanded to all American adults aged 18 and older, beginning April 19.

Offering workplace vaccination programs, paid leave for vaccination and mobile, walk-in clinics with flexible hours could help improve vaccination rates among younger adults, the CDC reported.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Aurora Ellis)

Five U.S. states had coronavirus infections even before first reported cases

By Mrinalika Roy

(Reuters) -At least seven people in five U.S. states were infected with the novel coronavirus weeks before those states reported their first cases, a large new government study showed, pointing to the presence of the virus in the country as early as December 2019.

Participants who reported antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were likely exposed to the virus at least several weeks before their sample was taken, as the antibodies do not appear until about two weeks after a person has been infected, the researchers said.

The positive samples came from Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and were part of a study of more than 24,000 blood samples taken for a National Institutes of Health research program between Jan. 2 and March 18, 2020.

Of the seven samples, three were from Illinois, where the first confirmed coronavirus case was reported on Jan. 24, while the remaining four states had one case each. Samples from participants in Illinois were collected on Jan. 7 and Massachusetts on Jan. 8.

The data suggests that the coronavirus was circulating in U.S. states far from the initial hotspots and areas that were considered the virus’ points of entry into the country, the study noted.

The data also backs a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that suggested the virus may have been circulating in the United States well before the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed on Jan. 19, 2020.

“This study allows us to uncover more information about the beginning of the U.S. epidemic,” said Josh Denny, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The United States has so far reported 33.6 million cases, according to a Reuters tally.

The infections were confirmed using two antibody tests, which were granted emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)