Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said he estimates that about 20 percent of the U.S. population that is eligible for a shot but has yet to get one — a group of about 90 million — may be nudged by the approval. “I believe that those people will now step forward and get vaccinated,” he told NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
The FDA authorization spurred the Pentagon on Monday to announce that U.S. service members would soon have “actionable guidance” about a vaccine requirement. About 65 percent of the 1.3 million members of the U.S. military have been fully vaccinated.
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Australian Prime Minister compares pandemic exit strategy to ‘Croods’ movie
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has compared the coronavirus pandemic and his nation’s lockdown exit strategy to the animated children’s movie “The Croods," saying people need to get out and live their lives despite ongoing risk.
The 2013 movie by DreamWorks depicts a humorous and hapless family of cave men and women as they navigate a harsh terrain to survive the stone age.
“Now, it’s like that movie in The Croods — people wanted to stay in the cave … and that young girl, she wanted to go out and live again and deal with the challenges of living in a different world,” Morrison told Australia’s Channel 9 on Tuesday.
Morrison made the analogy to convey that the country will need to start reducing restrictions as more people get vaccinated. “Covid is a new, different world, and we need to get out there and live in it. We can’t stay in the cave and we can get out of it safely.”
The popular family movie, which had a sequel out in 2020, stars the voices of actors Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds.
Morrison’s comparison sparked a flurry of responses on social media in Australia, with some lamenting that they hadn’t seen the film, while others commented on the declining rhetoric of statesmen.
Australia has fared relatively well during the pandemic, with about 45,700 cases and 984 deaths. But a third wave of infections from the delta variant has plunged Sydney and Melbourne, its largest cities, and capital Canberra into a weeks-long lockdown.
‘Groundhog day has to end’: Australia plots path beyond lockdowns and ‘covid zero’
SYDNEY — Australia's once-sluggish vaccination rollout has become a sprint as the nation tries to get ahead of its growing coronavirus outbreak. But the inoculation boom has also exposed a divide over when the country should abandon its pursuit of "covid zero" and lift lockdowns.
“Our goal [is] to live with this virus — not to live in fear of it,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday. He defended a plan to begin opening up once 70 percent of eligible Australians have been vaccinated, despite record cases in Sydney, and hinted that states that cling to lockdowns could face punishments.
“We have to break this cycle,” Morrison said of states going in and out of lockdown. “This groundhog day has to end.”
Navajo Nation requires vaccines for tribal employees
The Navajo Nation will require all of its employees to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by the end of September or be tested regularly, as the reservation seeks to hold off the threat of a surge in cases brought on by the delta variant.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a statement that he had issued an executive order requiring vaccinations because “we cannot afford to shut down the government again.”
In the pandemic’s earlier months, during the spring and early summer in 2020, the Navajo Nation at one point had the highest infection rate per capita in the country. The reservation was once again battered by the coronavirus during the winter surge, when new cases there were averaging upwards of 200 each day, sending the area into a lockdown.
Spikes in cases are particularly worrisome for the Navajo Nation, where factors such as a lack of running water in some homes and far distances to medical facilities can worsen outbreaks. The Navajo Nation has recorded 1,397 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic.
“The bottom line is that we do not want to have another large surge in new COVID-19 cases that would harm our health care system and lead to more lives lost,” Nez said.
The Navajo Nation recovered this year under a speedy vaccination effort, and it has fully vaccinated about 70 percent of its population, eclipsing the national rate of about 50 percent fully vaccinated.
Nez said that about 83 percent of Navajo Nation employees have been fully vaccinated, but that even that needs to be increased “due to the higher transmissibility of the variants.”
A group of moms on Facebook built an island of good-faith vaccine debate in a sea of misinformation
Anthony Buchanan considers himself a scientific, independent thinker. But for months, the Foreman, Ark.-based arborist couldn’t decide what to believe about vaccines. Google searches turned up conflicting information, and his Facebook feed was dominated by vaccine-skeptical posts and memes.
Then Buchanan came across a private Facebook group called Vaccine Talk that billed itself as “an evidence based discussion forum” for pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine folks alike. As he followed the discussions, occasionally chiming in with a question of his own, he noticed a pattern.
“On both sides, there’s people telling the truth, at least their truth,” said Buchanan, 32, who last month became infected with the coronavirus. “But on the pro-vaccine side, there was just more logic” — and more links to solid research. “On the anti-vaccine side, there was more conspiracy.”
Now he’s going to get vaccinated. As covid-19 cases surge in the United States, jeopardizing the reopening of schools and offices and rekindling debates about mask and vaccination mandates, the battle to win over the vaccine skeptical has taken on fresh urgency. Much of that struggle is happening on social media, where misinformation about the vaccines continues to flourish.
Vaccine mandates ordered in New York City, New Jersey schools as masking battle escalates in Florida
The 2021-22 school year started Monday for hundreds of thousands of students across the country as battles over mask mandates escalated and the federal government’s full approval of a coronavirus vaccine gave officials a new weapon to stop the spread of the delta variant on campuses.
Not long after the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval early Monday to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — seen as a boost to schools, businesses and government agencies that want to mandate vaccines — New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Monday that all education staff must be vaccinated.
The mayor set a deadline of Sept. 27 for more than 148,000 New York City education staff members — including teachers, contractor workers and central office workers — to have a first shot, and they will have to prove they have been vaccinated.
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