Dec. 16 Coronavirus updates: Fauci predicts U.S. herd immunity by mid-2021
Public health officials are warning of scammers who promise early access to the vaccine for people who hand over their Social Security Number to callers.
“If you’re receiving unsolicited offers for a vaccine — not one, not two, but about 10 red flags should go up,” Nenette Day, assistant special agent in charge at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, told NBC News. “There is no way that you under any circumstance should deal with anybody except a known and reputable medical provider or pharmacy,” Day added.
If consumers receive a call they suspect is fraudulent, the first step is to hang up. If the call is from a legitimate health care provider, consumers should match the number listed on the back of their health insurance card to the caller ID.
For more information on coronavirus-related scams, or to report Covid-19 fraud, consumers can visit the HHS website, or call the HHS hotline at 800-477-8477.
Study: 69% of undocumented immigrant workers ‘essential’ to fighting virus
WASHINGTON — More than two-thirds of undocumented immigrant workers have frontline jobs considered “essential” to the U.S. fight against Covid-19, according to a new study released Wednesday by pro-immigration reform group FWD.US.
Sixty-nine percent of undocumented immigrant workers have jobs deemed essential by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the study, which is based on the 2019 American Community Survey by the Census Bureau. The study also estimated that nearly one in five essential workers is an immigrant.
By contrast, the Trump administration has argued that protecting American jobs against foreign workers is crucial to fixing the economic harm caused by Covid-19.
107-year-old Minnesota woman survives Covid-19
A Minnesota centenarian recovered from Covid-19 after contracting the virus in November.
Tillie Dybing, who turned 107 over the summer and lives in a nursing home in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, has survived not just one, but two viral pandemics. She was five years old when the 1918 flu pandemic hit her hometown in North Dakota, sickening her parents.
“My folks got sick and they were in bed, and I’d run into the bed and my dad said, ‘Can’t you find another place to run,’” Dybing told NBC News affiliate KARE.
Her family was worried when she contracted Covid-19 in the fall because her age put her at high risk for severe complications from the coronavirus.
“We were really concerned and though, ‘well, this is probably it,’” her daughter Susan Berke told KARE.
But after two weeks of fatigue and no severe symptoms, Dybing, who also survived uterine cancer at 95, was moved out of quarantine after fully recovering from the virus.
“I thought, well, if the time has come that I have to leave, then I will go, but I’m still here,” Dybing told KARE.
Arizona World War II veteran among first in state to get Covid vaccine
FDA authorizes at-home Covid-19 test with prescription
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization on Wednesday to an at-home Covid-19 test that people can use with a prescription.
The BinaxNOW Covid-19 Ag Card Home Test, developed by Abbott and eMed, is an antigen test, which is designed to detect fragments of viral proteins that trigger an immune response in the body.
For people who are 15 years or older, the test uses a self-collected nasal swab sample that is analyzed through a smartphone app under the supervision of an eMed telehealth provider. For patients younger than 15, the FDA recommends that an adult perform the nasal swab. Test results can be delivered in approximately 20 minutes, according to eMed.
The test correctly identified 91.7 percent of positive samples and 100 percent of negative samples in people with symptoms, but Abbott said results from four investigational sites are still being analyzed.
The tests will cost $25, and 30 million kits are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2021, with an additional 90 million tests available in the second quarter, according to Abbott.
On Tuesday, the FDA authorized a separate at-home Covid-19 test that does not need a prescription. That antigen test, developed by Ellume, will also be available in January.
Two tech groups say they’ll merge efforts on digital vaccine cards
Two groups of technologists said Wednesday they were combining their work to speed up the development of digital vaccine cards, so that people may eventually be able to use a smartphone app to prove they’ve gotten a Covid-19 vaccine.
Digital vaccine certificates, or passports, are expected to be in demand next year as a possible requirement for international air travel or in-person gatherings. They would be an electronic version of the paper-based “yellow cards” that have been around for decades, but they’re not a reality yet because of complications around privacy and interoperability.
One of the tech groups, the Linux Foundation Public Health, was involved in earlier efforts to roll out pandemic-related apps that alert users when they’ve been exposed to someone who’s tested positive for the coronavirus. The foundation said it would host the work of the other group, the Covid-19 Credentials Initiative, which sprung up this year specifically to work on digital vaccine cards.
The two groups plan to work with public health authorities on challenges including the ethics of digital vaccine cards, said Lucy Yang, co-lead of the Covid-19 Credentials Initiative.
Twitter to remove false vaccine conspiracy theory tweets
Twitter announced on Wednesday it would remove false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines. The move follows similar actions by YouTube in October and Facebook in December.
Twitter said it would remove tweets that advance “harmful or misleading narratives,” including false claims about the vaccines that have been “widely debunked about the adverse impacts of receiving vaccinations” and false claims that Covid-19 is “not real or not serious.”
The changes will begin until next week, and the company will also ban tweets about global conspiracy theories that suggest vaccines are “used to intentionally cause harm to or control populations.”
Conspiracy theories around Covid-19 vaccines have spread unabated on social media since the summer, according to a recent report from First Draft, a global nonprofit organization that researches online misinformation. Vaccine-related conspiracy content accounted for some 10 percent of total vaccine posts, according to the report.
Anti-vaccination groups have created organized campaigns since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, some claiming outlandish global conspiracies about secret societies and microchips. The conspiracy theories have gone wildly viral on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, including the repeatedly debunked viral video “Plandemic,” which took off due to coordinated cross-promotion by anti-vaccine groups that existed well before the pandemic.
‘Don’t be afraid’: In Puerto Rico, respiratory therapist gets first Covid vaccine
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico— A respiratory therapist who treated the first two COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Puerto Rico became the first person in the U.S. territory to be vaccinated against the virus on Tuesday.
Yahaira Alicea had treated an Italian couple who visited the island aboard a cruise ship in March. The woman later died. Alicea said it was a fearful moment for her that wore her down physically and emotionally as she urged everyone to get vaccinated.
“This is what we want, for this pandemic to end,” Alicea said. “Don’t be afraid.”
A health official approached Alicea with the needle as both smiled: “Let’s make history.”
California police department held superspreader event, community groups say
California police agency after dozens of its maskless officers gathered under one roof and stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna and other top department brass “knowingly and willfully” organized “a super spreader event,” the People of Long Beach and Long Beach Reform Coalition said in a complaint to the city’s Citizen Police Complaint Commission.
“Not only was the assembly a violation of Health Department mandates but also a direct contradiction and demonstration of impunity that countered Mayor Robert Garcia’s pleas” for “all persons, including city employees to practice social distancing and wear masks,” according to the groups’ complaint, filed on Monday.
Direct cash payments under consideration as lawmakers near Covid aid deal
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders and the White House are nearing agreement on a roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief deal that will likely include a new round of direct payments, three sources familiar with the negotiations said Wednesday.
The emerging package will include enhanced federal jobless benefits, small business funding and money to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. The dollar amount of the stimulus payments has not yet been determined — some aides said it could be $600-per-person while others said it may be higher.
Negotiators have not yet settled on an income cap for the direct payments, as was done for the previous round of payments approved in March.
The proposal, which is still being finalized and does not have leadership agreement, is not expected to include liability protections for employers or state or local funding, two sticking points in negotiations that prevented Congress from passing meaningful Covid-19 legislation for months.
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