The latest on Covid-19 vaccines in the US

There’s no evidence a new sublineage of the Delta variant is having any significant effect in the United States, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday. 

While the AY 4.2 coronavirus subvariant has been identified in the United States, it’s not growing in frequency or causing clusters, Walensky told a White House Covid-19 briefing. 

“At this time, there is no evidence that the sublineage AY 4.2 impacts the effectiveness of our current vaccines or therapeutics,” she said.

"CDC is continuing to track lineages and sublineages of Delta, and all other variants," Walensky said. "We particularly monitor for sublineages that could impact therapeutics, such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.”

White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients outlined the administration’s plans to deploy Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, contingent on approval by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including a number of operations geared specifically towards vaccinating children. 

The FDA has already scheduled a meeting of its independent advisers, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee or VRBPAC, for Oct. 26 to discuss the data. VRBPAC, which includes several pediatricians, will listen to what both Pfizer and the FDA have to say about what studies show and will also hear public input.

The FDA could act quickly after the VRBPAC meeting – in hours, even – and then vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is made up of different experts.

ACIP has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday and Wednesday Nov. 2-3 to discuss the question. The CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, will then decide whether kids should get the vaccine based on this input.

It could take five weeks after the first dose for kids' to have full immunity:

Just as with adults, Pfizer is testing and proposing a two-dose series for kids. So that would mean two doses of vaccine given three weeks apart. And as with adults, immunity isn't immediate, even after the second dose. People have been considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose and the same will go for kids.

So at the very earliest, children would be advised to continue taking precautions for five weeks after they get the first dose of vaccine. That means wearing masks, keeping a physical distance from others and avoiding crowded indoor spaces when possible.

As for boosters, it's far too soon to ask about them. It took several months of gathering real-world data before Pfizer asked FDA to authorize boosters in adults.

People who haven’t been vaccinated against Covid-19 are more than 18 times more likely to end up in the hospital with Covid-19 than vaccinated people, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday.

A new CDC data tool shows the value of vaccinating people against the virus, Walensky told a White House briefing. She showed some graphs generated by the new tool and said unvaccinated people were more than 11 times more likely to die.

“For the week ending August 28, 2021, the hospitalization rate in fully vaccinated people was 4.5 per 100,000, shown by the green line, while the hospitalization rate in unvaccinated people was 83.6 per 100,000, shown by the blue line — an 18.5 fold increase in hospitalizations for those who are unvaccinated," she said.

But Walensky said the number of cases and deaths was improving very slightly. “As of yesterday, the seven day daily average of cases was about 75,500 cases per day, which represents a decrease of about 16% over the prior week. The seven day average of hospital admissions was about 6,000 per day — also, a decrease of about 11% from the prior week. And the seven day average of daily deaths were about, 1,200 per day, a decrease of about 3% from the previous week.”

Getting most children vaccinated against Covid-19 will "play a major role" in slowing the spread of disease and pushing the nation closer to herd immunity, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday. 

About 28 million children ages 5 to 11 will soon become eligible to get vaccinated against Covid-19 if the US Food and Drug Administration authorizes shots for this age group and if the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends it.  

"If we can get the overwhelming majority of those 28 million children vaccinated, I think that would play a major role in diminishing the spread of infection in the community," said Fauci, who is chief medical adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

"That's one of the reasons why we want to do as best as we can to get those children from 5 to 11 vaccinated."

The White House plans to launch a nationwide public education campaign for parents of children ages 5 to 11 about the safety and effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines —including sending letters to parents and hosting forums, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Wednesday.  

"We're preparing a national public education campaign that will meet parents where they are with information about the vaccines," Murthy told a White House briefing.

The campaign is part of a larger program preparing for the anticipated authorization of a coronavirus vaccine for young children by the US Food and Drug Administration and sign off by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We will provide faith leaders with materials and toolkits that they can distribute to their congregations. We will create forums for parents to ask questions to health experts," Murthy said. "With all of this, we will make sure that we are reaching parents in their language and through the people they trust." 

Murthy mentioned that he is the parent of a 5-year-old. "One of the barriers and challenges we will face to getting vaccines to children is a similar barrier we face with adults, which is that there's a profound amount of misinformation that is circulating about vaccines. And that's why we're making sure that it's trusted messengers with scientific credibility who go out there and talk about these vaccines," Murthy said. 

White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients outlined the administration’s plans to deploy Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, contingent on approval by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including a number of operations geared specifically towards vaccinating children. 

“Together we're completing the operational planning to ensure vaccinations for kids ages 5 through 11 are available, easy, and convenient,” Zients said, boasting the administration has been working closely “with governors, pediatricians, pharmacies, community health centers, rural health centers and other vaccine providers to prepare for this moment.” 

On vaccine supply, Zients said the administration has already “secured vaccine supply to vaccinate every child ages 5 through 11, and as soon as the vaccine is authorized by the FDA, we will begin shipping millions of doses nationwide.” The administration has already partnered with vaccine manufacturer Pfizer to modify vaccine packaging “to modify the packaging of the pediatric doses to make it easier for pediatricians, family doctors, and other providers to provide vaccines to children.”

“These vaccine doses will be shipped with all the supplies needed to vaccinate kids, including smaller needles,” Zients added.

To actually get shots in arms, Zients has “already enrolled more than 25,000, pediatricians, and doctors and other primary care providers to administer vaccines, and we're working with states and localities to enroll more,” while setting up vaccination sites in school districts and children’s hospitals, “including on nights and weekends,” to ensure vaccinating kids “is even more convenient.” 

Ensemble forecasts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday project that new Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations will continue to decrease over the next four weeks for the fourth and sixth consecutive week, respectively. 

The latest forecast predicts that there will be a total of 748,000 to 769,000 Covid-19 deaths reported by Nov. 13.

The previous forecast, published Oct. 13, predicted up to 762,000 Covid-19 deaths reported by Nov. 6. 

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 728,313 Covid-19 deaths in the United States. 

The CDC forecast predicts that there will be 1,600 to 8,700 new confirmed Covid-19 hospital admissions likely reported on Nov. 12. 

As of Oct. 19, there were 57,424 people hospitalized with Covid-19, according to data from US Health and Human Services. 

The case forecasts did not predict an increase or decrease in cases.  

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said extending the city’s vaccine mandate to all municipal workers will help protect New Yorkers against Covid-19. 

“My job is to keep New Yorkers safe, and the vaccine is what does it,” de Blasio said during an interview on CNN.

All city workers will need to have at least one vaccine dose by 5 p.m. ET on Oct. 29. They will receive an extra $500 for getting vaccinated at a city-run site by that date. 

De Blasio said about 46,000 city employees are not yet vaccinated. 

If they choose not to get vaccinated, the workers will go on unpaid leave, the mayor said.

De Blasio added that 96% of both education and healthcare workers are vaccinated. Both sectors have been under vaccine mandates since late September. 

“The mandates work. … Every mayor in America, every governor, every CEO of a company should do the same thing so we can end the Covid era,” he said. 

Watch:

The White House Covid-19 response team and federal public health officials is holding a news briefing to provide updates on their coronavirus response effort.

Earlier Wednesday, the White House unveiled its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending US Food and Drug Administration authorization.

The Biden administration has secured enough vaccine supply to vaccinate the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 who would become eligible for vaccination if the vaccine is authorized for that age group and will help equip more than 25,000 pediatric and primary care offices, hundreds of community health centers and rural health clinics as well as tens of thousands of pharmacies to administer the shots, according to the White House.

Speakers attending the briefing include: