Anniversary celebration for one of the coolest moments in baseball history: 27 years ago today, Cal Ripken Jr. broken Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games record.
In health news, the White House plans to make COVID-19 boosters an annual event, like flu shots.
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White House: Ordinary People Need Yearly Boosters
Top White House health officials said Tuesday that the public is likely to need annual COVID-19 booster shots, with this year’s updated boosters akin to annual flu shots. .
“In the absence of dramatically different variants looking forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, the yearly updated COVID-19 injections were consistent with the strain currently circulating in the majority of the population.” said Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease doctor, at a briefing.
sales point: The message from the White House is an attempt to sell the public the benefits of the variant-specific booster doses approved last week.
Ashish Jha, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said that, with the exception of the “variant curveball,” the new boosters would provide “better protection against infection, better protection against contagion, and continued and better protection against serious illness.” We expect to provide
mixed signal? Administration officials say a new vaccine will be key to controlling a potential fall surge, but they will have to convince an increasingly checking-out public to vaccinate. weakened with each subsequent booster campaign.
The White House is urging people to vaccinate while predicting that COVID-19 is now part of everyday life.
Please check this out for details.
Federal Reserve Highlights Need for New COVID Funding
Boosters are free, but no more money.
- White House officials Tuesday reiterated calls for new COVID-19 response funding to be approved by Congress as the fall vaccination campaign begins.
- White House officials, including COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, have warned of the consequences if Congress fails to allocate more funding.
“Congress recognizes that if we don’t continue to fund the response, things… could easily go backwards,” Jha said.
But Becerra remained vague about whether there would be enough doses of the updated vaccine available to those in need when asked about the lack of new funding. It warned that if not approved, additional boosters and variant-specific vaccines would not be available to everyone.
The well will dry up: The White House cut funding from other areas of the COVID-19 response earlier this year to continue funding treatments and vaccines.
Becerra said the prospect of entering the fall and winter without vaccines for Americans was “unacceptable.”
“If another Omicron-like event were to occur, we would not be doing any testing on the Strategic National Stockpile,” Becerra said. “We promised the American people that we wouldn’t get caught up in it, but Congress needed to step up. Congress hasn’t stepped up.”
Please check this out for details.
JUUL settles youth e-cigarette survey with $438 million
E-cigarette company Juul on Tuesday will pay $438.5 million to settle investigations by 34 states and territories into its marketing and sales practices that allegedly fueled the youth e-cigarette crisis. tentatively agreed.
Investigations revealed that the company deliberately ran advertising campaigns that appealed to young people, including launch parties, ads with young and trendy models, social media posts, and free samples.
The settlement will significantly restrict Juul’s marketing and sales practices. This prohibits Juul from marketing to youth or funding educational programs in schools.
The company’s marketing materials never depict anyone under the age of 35 and it is prohibited to misrepresent the level of nicotine in its products.
Please check this out for details.
How long COVID is impacting national labor shortages
Persistent COVID-19 symptoms may keep millions of Americans out of the workforce.
Economists and policy makers are struggling to figure out why the share of working-age adults in the workforce is far below what it was before the pandemic.
The number of Americans employed or looking for work surpassed pre-pandemic levels in August, according to Labor Department data released on Friday. However, the labor force participation rate remains one percentage point below its level in February 2020, a gap of roughly 1.6 million workers.
- Julia Rachman, assistant professor of public health at Boston University, said:
- “But we know it’s happening to some people, and we know that every infection seems to increase the chances of it happening,” she continued.
A June survey conducted by the Census Bureau said about 16 million working-age Americans have had COVID for a long time, but it’s unclear how many of them are still too sick to work.
Please check this out for details.
Biden Officials Award $20M Monkeypox Deal
On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would award approximately $20 million in contracts to AmerisourceBergen to expand the distribution of drugs and vaccines to treat the ongoing monkeypox outbreak. did.
- Up to
2,500 shipments of frozen Jynneos vaccine vials and 2,500 weekly “ambient” shipments of TPOXX antiviral treatment. - This will also increase the number of places you can pick up your parcel. HHS noted that prior to this agreement, the US Strategic National Stockpile had shipped product to approximately five locations per jurisdiction.
During monkeypox outbreaks, state and local governments have repeatedly said they struggled to obtain vaccine in sufficient quantities to vaccinate at-risk populations. Shortly after the first dose was administered across the country, some cities delayed the second dose to meet pressing demand, hoping that more vaccines would be available soon. rice field.
Numeric response: To date, approximately 800,000 vials of Jynneos and 37,000 courses of TPOXX have been distributed nationwide, according to HHS. As of last week, more than 352,000 doses of the vaccine to treat monkeypox have been administered.
So far, there have been no confirmed direct deaths from monkeypox, but one man who was “severely immunocompromised” in Texas recently died after being diagnosed with monkeypox. .
Please check this out for details.
what we are reading
- Pfizer not sharing Covid vaccine with researchers for next-gen research (Stat)
- Democrats seize changing abortion landscape in November sprint (Washington Post)
- To mask or not to mask: Theaters and concert halls face a dilemma (New York Times)
by state
- when does life begin Science, politics and religion collide as state law defines (Kaiser Health News)
- New data shows thousands of transgender Medicaid recipients sought care in Florida (Politico)
- Rape, Incest Exception from South Carolina Abortion Bill (Associated Press)
That’s all for today, thanks for reading. For the latest news and coverage, visit The Hill’s Health Care page. see you tomorrow.
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