Beijing started relaxing pandemic regulations at midnight Monday. It is now possible to dine inside a restaurant. Masks are still required as are daily temperature checks. Certain activities including riding the subway or going to work require a negative PCR test. There were six confirmed cases in Beijing on Sunday, so they're not out of the woods just yet. Shanghai had three local community cases followed by an official warning that people must remain vigilant. Those nine cases were out of a nationwide total of 86 confirmed cases.
The latest US wave is lessening in the Northeast. While there were over 29,000 patients in hospitals, up 16 percent over the past two weeks, 3,000 of whom were in ICUs, hospitalizations are declining in the Northeast. Experts say that things will worsen come fall and winter, and summer will depend on vaccinations, demographics, and the availability of health care. While cases decline in the Northeast, California is moving closer to reinstating mask mandates. One in six Californians now lives in counties with a high community level as determined by the CDC. The areas of biggest concern are in Northern California. Alameda County, home to Oakland, already reinstated a mask mandate on Friday. The mandate does not apply to public schools since they are about to close for the summer. It also does not apply to the community of Berkeley which has its own health department. The Special Olympics dropped a vaccine requirement for the games to be held in Orlando after Florida's governor threatened $27.5 million in fines.
The Novavax vaccine not yet authorized by the FDA appears to carry the risk of myocarditis, though one of the myocarditis cases reported during the clinical trials was in a person who received a placebo rather than the vaccine. Data show that the vaccine does reduce the risk of mild to severe disease. The vaccine has been anticipated by people who are allergic to some element of the mRNA vaccines. It's not clear how the reported myocarditis risk will affect the FDA authorization process.
Finally, the CDC reports that two distinct monkeypox viruses have been detected in the US, raising the possibility that it has been circulating here for longer than thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment