U.S. experts to pitch boosters for all, sources say
U.S. experts are expected to recommend covid-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, eight months after they received their second dose of the shot, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the delta variant spreads across the country.
That’s according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
An announcement was expected as soon as this week, with doses beginning to be administered widely once the Food and Drug Administration formally approves vaccines. That action is expected for the Pfizer shot in the coming weeks.
U.S. health officials recommended boosters last week for some with weakened immune systems.
The actual administration of the boosters would not occur until mid- or late September, after Pfizer’s application for additional shots for the general public is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, four individuals familiar with the decision confirmed to The Washington Post.
The White House declined to comment Monday night.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said Sunday that the U.S. could decide in the next couple of weeks whether to offer coronavirus booster shots to Americans this fall.
Among the first to receive them could be health care workers, nursing home residents and other older Americans, who were some of the first Americans to be vaccinated.
The timing of the announcement remains in flux. It had been tentatively planned for Wednesday, but it was not clear whether the schedule would change. The individuals said the statement was likely to provide additional details on exactly who would get the extra shots and when.
The booster shot announcement comes as the country is averaging more than 130,000 new infections a day and as the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 has soared to levels last seen in mid-February. The death toll has risen to nearly 700 a day.
Hospitals in several virus hot spots say they are seeing an increase in infections and hospitalizations in children, bringing anxiety to families starting school. A handful of Republican-led states ban schools from requiring masks, but some districts have defied the laws and are fighting them in the courts.
Tensions over masks in schools were on full display in Texas, where some counties and school districts kept in place mask mandates and others rescinded them as schools reopened after Sunday’s court ruling.
The order by the state’s highest court — entirely composed of elected Republican justices — halts mask requirements that county leaders in Dallas and San Antonio, which are run by Democrats, put in place as new infections soared.
Dallas school officials said Monday that masks were still required on district property and that visitors weren’t allowed in schools. The Austin school district and Harris County, which includes Houston, also said their mask mandates for schools remained in place.
The top elected official in Dallas County said in a tweet that the state Supreme Court ruling did not strike down his mask order and that it remained in effect.
“We’re at war on behalf of moms and dads and kids against a deadly virus. I sure wish the Governor would join our side in the battle,” said County Judge Clay Jenkins.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott opposes public school mask mandates, and students and parents gathered outside the Governor’s Mansion in Austin to urge him to drop that opposition.
SCHOOL MANDATES
In Arizona, at least 11 districts accounting for 140,000 students and more than 200 schools have defied a mask-mandate ban by imposing their own requirements for face coverings.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner on Monday allowed the Phoenix Union High School District to keep its mask mandate despite the new state law, which he said does not take effect until Sept. 29. Warner said state law grants school boards the authority to protect their students.
In Los Angeles, like the rest of California, students and teachers are required to wear masks in indoor settings, and teachers must show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly covid-19 testing.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves about 600,000 K-12 students, is requiring students and staffers to get tested weekly for covid-19, regardless of vaccination status, and is conducting daily health checks.
San Francisco schools reopened Monday to more than 50,000 students — many for the first time in 17 months. San Francisco Unified is recommending that students and staffers get tested if they have symptoms, but it is not requiring tests.
In South Carolina, one district has already moved to all-virtual classes after a series of cases led to hundreds of students being quarantined within the first two weeks of the fall semester. That decision has led to protests among parents in Pickens County.
In other South Carolina counties, officials considered joining Columbia, the capital, in requiring masks in schools despite a state budget requirement that bans districts from doing so without risking funding.
The Palmetto State Teachers Association, representing the state’s public school teachers, urged Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday to suspend the requirement. The Republican governor has repeatedly insisted that mask-wearing should be left for parents to decide.
In Eagle County, Colo., sheriff’s deputies were posted at elementary and middle schools on the first day of class Monday after parents objected to a decision Friday by the county school district to require universal masking. No problems were immediately reported.
In Los Angeles, a man was released from a hospital Sunday after being stabbed when an anti-vaccination protest turned violent Saturday. Protesters also showed up over the weekend outside the home of Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, an emergency room doctor who has warned that increasing hospitalizations, particularly among the unvaccinated, could lead to another lockdown.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order Monday allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates after a few districts issued requirements for students. He has resisted implementing a statewide mask mandate for schools, instead choosing to leave the decision to school officials. The Republican governor’s order lets parents opt out if either a school board or a health department enacts a mask requirement over a school district.
The Tennessee Senate’s Republican leader, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, said Monday that the executive order is an “appropriate compromise that strikes a proper balance between freedom and public health.”
WEIGHING RESTRICTIONS
As school boards, governors, parents and lawyers spar over whether to require masks in schools, many governments and public health officials have treaded lightly when considering whether to reimpose restrictions in communities.
Most of the country remains fully open, and aside from Hawaii, where the governor recently imposed restrictions on social gatherings and restaurants, most officials have so far steered away from restricting or shuttering businesses, leaning instead on mask rules, vaccination requirements or nothing at all.
In Jackson, Miss., Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba kept a mask mandate in place even after the CDC announced in May that fully vaccinated people could go most places without masks, guidance it later reversed. In recent days, with cases in Mississippi reaching record levels and hospitalizations rising, he announced that municipal workers will soon have to submit proof of vaccination or be tested regularly.
Lumumba said restrictions, including limits on businesses, were under consideration but have yet to be put in place.
But other officials have been hostile to new restrictions, or have worried that rules could backfire and further politicize the pandemic. The CDC has recommended that some vaccinated Americans wear masks in public again, but it has not suggested shutting down businesses.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, said that he worried this could turn into the deadliest phase of the pandemic, but he was not considering a return to lockdowns. About 1,400 coronavirus patients are hospitalized in the state, up from around 300 a month ago, and case levels continue to rise. Roughly 47% of Kentuckians are fully vaccinated.
“The fact that in this surge we have vaccines means that there shouldn’t ever be a need for another shutdown, and we shouldn’t have to look at capacity restrictions,” said Beshear, who recently announced that masks would be required in Kentucky schools and who raised the possibility of a broader mask mandate.
“Between people getting vaccinated and wearing a mask when we need to during the surge, then we ought to be able to fight this one off.”
However, the delta variant’s surge and rising covid-19 hospitalizations prompted new restrictions in several states as hospitals become overwhelmed again.
New Orleans on Monday started requiring that people entering restaurants, bars, gyms and other indoor facilities be vaccinated or have a recent negative test for the coronavirus. In Rhode Island, Providence announced a mask mandate inside municipal buildings starting today and will require most city employees to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 1. Those unvaccinated by then will undergo weekly testing.
New York City prepared to require proof of vaccinations starting today for anyone dining indoors at restaurants, working out at gyms or attending indoor performances. Enforcement of the requirement begins Sept. 13.
Elsewhere, the University of Mississippi Medical Center was setting up a second emergency field hospital in a parking garage to handle some of the sickest covid-19 patients. Mississippi’s coronavirus numbers have doubled in the past two weeks, and hospitalizations are the highest since the pandemic began.
Louisiana’s Health Department announced that the state set another record for hospitalizations, with 2,956 people with covid-19 filling up beds. Ninety percent of the covid-19 patients in hospitals aren’t fully vaccinated, according to state Health Department data, and Louisiana continues to have the nation’s highest per capita number of new covid-19 cases over the past week.
“I pray we’re close to the peak, I really do. I haven’t seen any evidence in our data that suggests we’re close,” Dr. Joe Kanter, the state’s chief public health officer, told lawmakers Monday. Information for this article was contributed by James Anderson, Adam Causey, Juan Lozano, Jacques Billeaud, Jocelyn Gecker, Michelle Liu, Melinda Deslatte, Leah Willingham, Adrian Sanz, Bobby Caina Calvan, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Mattise of The Associated Press; by Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith of The New York Times; and by Laurie McGinley and Tyler Pager of The Washington Post.
“We’re at war on behalf of moms and dads and kids against a deadly virus. I sure wish the Governor would join our side in the battle.” County Judge Clay Jenkins.