Differing adult uptakes, healthcare systems and cultures of medicine have played role in approaches
The UK and US may have many things in common, but when it comes to vaccinating children against Covid, the approach has been markedly different.
In May, the US Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorisation of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab was expanded from people aged 16 and older to those aged 12 to 15, with two doses recommended for all those eligible.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections amid rising cases and stagnating vaccination rates. He also warned that the newly discovered Omicron variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility.
As Fauci toured the US political talkshows, countries around the world including the US scrambled to guard against Omicron, which has stoked fears of vaccine resistance.
Continue reading...Joe Biden rallied House Democrats behind a proposed $1.75tn framework deal that he said could win the support of every Democrat in the Senate and prove to the world that American democracy can deliver.
“I am back here to tell you that we have a framework that will get 50 votes in the United States Senate,” he told House Democrats during a morning caucus meeting, according to a source familiar.
Continue reading...A vocal minority tout their supplements as alternatives, donate large sums of money to anti-vaccine organizations and sell anti-vaccine ads on Facebook and Instagram, the AP discovered
The flashy postcard, covered with images of syringes, beckoned people to attend Vax-Con ’21 to learn “the uncensored truth” about Covid-19 vaccines.
Participants traveled from around the country to a Wisconsin Dells resort for a sold-out convention that was, in fact, a sea of misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines and the pandemic.
Continue reading...The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, is considering using the national guard and out-of-state medical workers to fill hospital staffing shortages, as tens of thousands of workers are unlikely to meet a Monday deadline for mandated Covid-19 vaccination.
Related: Uncontrolled Spread review: Trump’s first FDA chief on the Covid disaster
Continue reading...In a letter to Democrats on Saturday the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, set her sights high, saying Joe Biden’s $3.5tn spending package, a bipartisan infrastructure deal worth $1tn and a measure to expand government funding “must pass” next week.
Related: ‘We couldn’t be more inconsistent’: discordant Democrats imperil Biden’s agenda
Continue reading...Many workers feel stonewalled by elected officials and scapegoated for the high US Covid death toll
Alexandra was working in the public health emergencies unit in a major north-eastern American city when the first wave of the pandemic hit. Although her job was in public health policy research, and not treating Coovid-19 patients on the frontlines of the healthcare system, she recalls the spring of 2020 as a blur of 24-hour shifts.
Related: ‘We’re trying to survive’: workers face cuts as US public sector lags in recovery
Continue reading...The president is about to embark on a legislative push with almost no room for error
In what could be the most consequential stretch of his presidency, Joe Biden faces an autumn sprint to advance a once-in-a-generation expansion of the social safety net.
Related: House Democrats are scared to tax billionaires – that’s a costly mistake | Robert Reich
Continue reading...Exhausted healthcare workers admit they feel demoralized as the fourth surge spreads across the US
Last February, Dr Bryce Meck, 30, would lock herself in the bathroom to cry for five minutes when her patients, whom she had watched over for weeks in the medical intensive care unit, were dying from Covid-19. They begged her to tell people in their community to get vaccinated. Of the 20 patients with Covid-19 in her care, only three survived.
Each week, Meck’s frustration grew when she saw patients in a Columbia, Missouri, primary care clinic. They expressed vaccine hesitancy, shared misinformation or told her that their friends were pressuring them to remain unvaccinated. “If only the patients in the clinic could just meet the people who are suffering in the hospital,” said Meck, who continues to experience long-term effects of the virus herself.
Continue reading...Joe Biden condemned the US supreme court on Thursday, saying it had delivered “an unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional right” in a rebuke of its decision not to consider a Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Related: Biden launches ‘whole-of-government’ effort to protect Texas abortion rights after ruling – live
Continue reading...President Biden urged Americans to come forward to receive the Pfizer vaccine after it received FDA approval. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to finish its licensing process for the drug as soon as Monday.
The president spoke directly to Americans who have said they would wait to get vaccinated until one of the vaccines received full FDA approval. 'It has now happened,' Biden said. 'The moment you’ve been waiting for is here. It’s time for you to go get your vaccination – and get it today'
Full federal approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine will empower businesses and universities to require vaccinations and tip hesitant Americans toward getting the jab, the surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said on Sunday.
Related: Breakthrough infections and booster shots: what you need to know
Continue reading...A conservative radio host in Tennessee who urged listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has changed track and called on listeners to get the shot, after contracting the virus and ending up in hospital in “very serious condition”.
Related: Fox News backs Covid vaccination – a pity no one told Tucker Carlson
Continue reading...As the variant tears its way through the US and vaccination rates plateau in the state, hospitals are experiencing a new wave of cases
Nurse Matt Robinson braced himself before pushing the heavy doors to the recently reopened Covid-19 ward at Methodist University hospital in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.
This hadn’t been in the script. After over a year of continuous work with Covid-19 patients throughout the pandemic, the burnout brought on by constant exposure to death and trauma, Robinson had hoped his job might return to normal.
Continue reading...People with ME/CFS face debilitating symptoms but often feel dismissed by doctors. The focus on long Covid could help change that
In the fall of 2016, Ashanti Daniel, a nurse in Beverly Hills, California, went to an infectious disease physician looking for answers about a weird illness she couldn’t shake. After falling sick with a virus four months earlier, she still felt too tired to stand up in the shower.
The appointment lasted five minutes, she said. The doctor didn’t do a physical exam or check her vitals. His assessment: her illness was psychogenic, resulting from something psychological.
Continue reading...Health experts emphasize need for even those who have had disease to get inoculated
New cases of Covid-19 are declining across most of the US, even in some states with vaccine-hesitant populations.
But almost all states where cases are rising have lower-than-average vaccination rates and experts warned on Sunday that relief from the coronavirus pandemic could be fleeting in regions where few people get inoculated.
Continue reading...A US public health expert has warned that though cases of Covid-19 are at their lowest rates for months and much of the country is returning to normal life, young Americans are still “a vulnerable host” for the coronavirus.
Related: Post-lockdown summer: Americans out for fun and with money to spend
Continue reading...A series of federal cases over the pharmaceutical industry’s push to sell narcotic painkillers which created the worst drug epidemic in US history
The trial of the three biggest US drug distributors for illegally flooding West Virginia with hundreds of millions of prescription opioid pills, and driving the highest overdose rate in the country, is due to open on Monday.
Related: Empire of Pain review: the Sacklers, opioids and the sickening of America
Continue reading...Analysis: rare side-effects mean that confidence in both the Johnson & Johnson and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines is now shaken
The call in the US for a pause in the use of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine is another blow to hopes of vaccinating the whole world as fast as possible.
Health agencies recommended that US states pause use of the jab while investigations take place into six cases of women who have experienced rare blood clotting events combined with low platelets in the days following vaccination.
Continue reading...The parents and children of doctors and nurses who died from Covid tell of how grief has affected them
Dr Reza Chowdhury was a beloved internist with a private practice in the Bronx and a trusted voice in New York’s Bengali community. His daughter, Nikita Rahman, said despite underlying health issues that put him at higher risk of developing Covid complications, he saw patients through mid-March when he developed symptoms. He died on 9 April.
Nikita Rahman My therapist says grief is the final act of love. Every time I miss him, I think about how that is my love for him, showing up again. I like that framing of it. I think I only recently realized just how much I loved him.
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