The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expanded its COVID-19 vaccine requirements today, and now employees, volunteers, and contractors have 8 weeks to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs, not just Title 38 employees.
"We're now including most [Veterans Health Administration] employees and volunteers and contractors in the vaccine mandate because it remains the best way to keep veterans safe, especially as the Delta (B1617.2) variant spreads across the country," said Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, according to the Navy Times.
This includes psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistants, engineers, and housekeepers at the VA.
Today White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said the Department of Health and Human Services will also begin requiring employees to be vaccinated, which includes members of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and staff at the Indian Health Service and National Institutes of Health.
"That's what it's going to take to end the pandemic, more vaccination," Zients said during a press briefing today.
While case counts and hospitalizations are continuing to increase, he said vaccinations are also up across the country, with the number of 12- to 17-year-olds vaccinated each day doubling in the last month. Southern, Sun Belt hot spots states are also seeing a jump in vaccinations, with Arkansas tripling its vaccination rate and Louisiana and Mississippi quadrupling their rates.
"For the first time since June, we are vaccinating half a million Americans per day," Zients said.
Florida, Texas account for 30% of hospitalizations
During the briefing today, Zients said some states are still struggling to contain the surge caused by the Delta variant (B1617.2), and those states have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
In the past week, Florida has had more COVID-19 cases than all of the 30 states with the lowest infection rates combined. And now patients in Florida and Texas make up 30% of the country’s hospitalizations, Zients said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced yesterday that more than 2,500 medical personnel will be deployed to hospitals around the state to help with the surge in COVID-19 patients, CNN reports. There are 10,463 COVID-19 patients in state hospitals, according to state health data.
Elsewhere the COVID-19 response leader at the University of Mississippi Medical Center told the Mississippi Clarion Ledger that the state's hospital system could fail within the next 5 to 7 days if the rate of test positivity and hospitalizations continue on their current trajectory.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, said the new 7-day average of cases was 113,000, a 34% increase from last week. Average hospitalizations were up to more than 9,000, an increase of 31%.
The United States reported 135,177 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 342 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.
CDC will likely OK third doses for some
Walensky said that the CDC is poised to approve the use of a third dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as soon as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives approval. She said the decision was based on recent data showing a third dose significantly raised antibodies in the immunocompromised.
The FDA is expected to authorize a third shot of COVID-19 vaccine for people with weakened immune systems as soon as today, the New York Times reports, and Walensky said the authorization will be discussed tomorrow at the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
In other vaccine news, Anthony Fauci, MD, presented new data from the South African Sisonke Study, which provided real-world evidence of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s ability to protect against the Delta variant.
Fauci said the data, which were based on vaccinated health care workers, showed the vaccine was 96% effective in preventing death and 71% effective in preventing hospitalization. Durability of the vaccine lasted up to at least 8 months, and among breakthrough infections, 96% were mild.
