Category: Corona Virus

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 244 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.95 million. More than 6.88 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

Moderna has announced that its COVID-19 vaccine generated a strong immune response in children aged six to 11 years old. It plans to submit data to global regulators soon.

Confirmed COVID-19 infections in Spain have passed five million, according to health ministry data.

The Biden Administration has announced plans to invest $70 million to increase the availability and lower the cost of rapid, over-the-counter COVID-19 tests in the US.

The Dutch could introduce new COVID-19 restrictions to reduce the pressure on hospitals struggling to cope with a growing number of COVID-19 patients.

Public schools and universities have reopened in Venezuela. It sees more than 11 million students return to in-person learning.

US President Joe Biden has signed an order introducing new vaccine requirements for most foreign national air travellers and lifting severe travel restrictions on China, India and much of Europe from 8 November.

Regions across Russia are introducing new restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the pandemic. Russia reported its highest single-day rise in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic yesterday.

The European Union's Drugs Regulator has announced that Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine booster shot can be given the those aged 18 years and older, at least six months after the second dose.

The Philippines will start testing a combination of COVID-19 vaccines this week or early in November, a cabinet official said yesterday.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.

Image: Our World in Data

The African Union (AU) has announced a deal to buy up to 110 million Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses, officials told Reuters.

The arrangement was brokered in part by the White House and will see the delivery of some doses intended for the United States deferred in order to facilitate the deal.

The AU's doses will be delivered over the coming months, with 15 million arriving before the end of 2021, 35 million in the first quarter of next year and up to 60 million in the second quarter.

"This is important as it allows us to increase the number of vaccines available immediately," AU coronavirus envoy Strive Masiyiwa said in an email. "We urge other vaccine producing countries to follow the lead of the [US government] and give us similar access to buy this and other vaccines."

South Korea has unveiled a three-phase plan to return to normal, with all COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings and distancing gone by February. The announcement came after it achieved its goal of vaccinating 70% of the population.

In the first phase of the plan, all operating-hour curbs on restaurants, cafes and other businesses will be dropped, though nightclubs will still have to close by midnight.

Visitors to high-risk venues, such as indoor gyms, saunas and karaoke bars will have to be fully vaccinated, while private gatherings in the capital, Seoul, and surrounding areas can include up to 10 people regardless of vaccination status.

Currently, gatherings of up to eight people are allowed if a group includes four fully vaccinated people. Authorities will also focus on weekly hospitalization and mortality rates rather than on daily new COVID-19 cases and people with only mild symptoms will be allowed to treat themselves at home.

The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 85 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.

Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. In January of 2021, its members launched its 2021 Roadmap through which its members will roll out an ambitious set of 21 action projects in 10 areas of work. Including corporate access and policy change in support of a social economy.

For more information see the Alliance website or its impact story here.

Written by

Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: Top news stories about the coronavirus pandemic on 26 October - World Economic Forum

We're breaking down the trends and relaying information from across the state.

ATLANTA We're breaking down the trends and relaying information from across the state of Georgia as it comes in, bringing perspective to the data and context to the trends.

Visit the 11Alive coronavirus page for comprehensive coverage, find out what you need to know about Georgia specifically, learn more about the symptoms, and keep tabs on the cases around the world.

State and federal officials with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are continually monitoring the spread of the virus. They are also working hand-in-hand with the World Health Organization to track the spread around the world and to stop it.

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Gwinnett 111682 1359

Non-GA Resident/Unknown State 33678 724

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Coronavirus in Georgia | COVID case, death, and hospitalization data Oct. 27 - 11Alive.com WXIA

Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.

NIH Admits Funding Enhanced a Coronavirus

The NIH has acknowledged that it funded research in which a coronavirus was enhanced to become more infectious, Vanity Fair reported.

Last week, the agency sent a letter to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce stating that its grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, enhanced a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans. The letter described this as an "unexpected result" of the research, which was done in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In what NIH describes as a "limited experiment," lab mice infected with the enhanced virus became sicker than those infected with a naturally occurring one, Vanity Fair reported.

The NIH letter also noted that EcoHealth Alliance violated terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it was supposed to report to the agency if its work boosted viral growth by 10-fold.

An EcoHealth Alliance progress report that was supposed to be submitted at the end of the grant period in 2019 didn't arrive at the NIH until August 2021, Vanity Fair reported. However, EcoHealth Alliance told Vanity Fair in a statement that it had reported the relevant information "as soon as we were made aware, in our four year report in April 2018."

The Vanity Fair report also details a leaked EcoHealth Alliance grant proposal submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 2018.

"One distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2's genetic code is a furin cleavage site that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells," Vanity Fair reported. "That is just the feature that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology had proposed to engineer in the 2018 grant proposal."

"If I applied for funding to paint Central Park purple and was denied, but then a year later we woke up to find Central Park painted purple, I'd be a prime suspect," Jamie Metzl, a member of the WHO's advisory committee on human genome editing, told Vanity Fair.

In its letter to Congress, the NIH emphasized that the virus EcoHealth Alliance was studying could not have sparked the pandemic, as the genetic differences between it and SARS-CoV-2 were too vast. NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, also issued a statement on the concerns raised by the letter, noting that such claims were "demonstrably false."

"The scientific evidence to date indicates that the virus is likely the result of viral evolution in nature, potentially jumping directly to humans or through an unidentified intermediary animal host," Collins said in the statement.

The agency said it was giving EcoHealth Alliance 5 days to submit any additional unpublished data from the experiments it funded.

Bogus Fibromyalgia Test?

A blood test for fibromyalgia is based on shaky science, but still marketed directly to patients, luring them with the promise of a high-profile clinical trial that isn't even enrolling, a STAT investigation found.

The FM/a Test, made by EpicGenetics, is purported to be the "first and only blood test to accurately and definitively diagnose" fibromyalgia, as described by company representatives. It's been marketed directly to patients via radio and TV ads.

People who test positive are given the promise of enrolling in a clinical trial being led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston.

The problem is, the trial never got off the ground. Its sponsor, EpicGenetics CEO Bruce Gillis, MD, MPH, hasn't provided MGH with any more of the $8.7 million he'd pledged beyond an initial down payment, STAT found.

Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, the MGH researcher who was supposed to lead the trial, was surprised to learn that the company had still been advertising the FDA-approved trial in 2020, and that it was still responding to patient inquiries with an email that mentioned the trial this year.

"The program's on hold, he knows it's on hold, so that's a little bizarre," Faustman told STAT.

Only one study was completed before the test went to market in 2012. One additional study was completed in 2015 -- and it raised questions about how specific it was for detecting fibromyalgia, as it wasn't as good at distinguishing it from lupus and rheumatoid arthritis compared with controls.

In recent years, the diagnosis of fibromyalgia has "crept toward legitimacy," and even though progress has been made -- it's no longer seen as primarily psychological, for instance -- it's still not fully understood. It often takes a long time to diagnose, and there are some physicians who still don't believe it exists at all.

But experts interviewed by STAT said there's certainly no definitive diagnostic test that's ready for prime time.

"It's one of those tests that unfortunately, it made the commercial area before really good solid studies had been done to validate the efficacy," Andy Abril, MD, chair of rheumatology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, told STAT.

Dan Clauw, MD, director of the University of Michigan's Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center in Ann Arbor, said he gives "tons of talks. If someone asks me the question, I'll say, 'There is no diagnostic test for fibromyalgia.'"

Gillis argued that skepticism about the test is merely part of skepticism about the condition in general, and he insists he's doing what's best for the fibromyalgia community.

Unlikely Vax Heroes

The two men who brought COVID-19 vaccines not just to the U.S. but to the world were two industry "outsiders" whose companies long struggled to survive.

That's according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal adapted from a new book by reporter Gary Zuckerman, titled "A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine."

Ugur Sahin, MD, of BioNTech, and Stphane Bancel, of Moderna, worked hard to keep their fledgling biotechs afloat. In 2019, BioNTech raised just $150 million during its initial public offering, "just over half of what it had hoped for," WSJ reported. That was after a forced discount on its share prices -- and shares still managed to fall more than 5% on their debut.

Bancel's Moderna had limited cash, had never run a late-stage trial, and hadn't done any work on vaccines. If their mRNA vaccine candidate failed, "investors would never forgive it," WSJ reported. The company almost ran out of money in the spring of 2020 after Bancel failed to raise needed cash.

The book is an inside look at the pressure facing these unlikely heroes, and how they ultimately brought effective COVID-19 vaccines to the world. The book is based on interviews with Sahin, Bancel, and hundreds of scientists, executives, investors, and other company insiders.

Kristina Fiore leads MedPages enterprise & investigative reporting team. Shes been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com. Follow

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NIH Admits Funding Enhanced a Coronavirus; Bogus Fibro Test? Unlikely Vax Heroes - MedPage Today

It took 11 months to get from the first genetic sequence of the pandemic-causing coronavirus to vaccines that could stop infections. Some of those vaccines used traditional approaches, such as fragments of the virus that could stimulate an immune response. Others, called mRNA vaccines, used new technology to get the bodys own cells to make those virus fragments. The shots have now gone into hundreds of millions of arms and have shown remarkable effectiveness.

But those 11 months were frantic, and involved acomplex and often fraught combination of low-profile scientists, big drug companies, regulatory agencies, andin the U.S.a White House desperate to show progress against COVID. In a book published today, The First Shots (Mariner Books), journalist Brendan Borrell goes behind the scenes to show how these different and often competing forces came together to make vaccines in record time. He spoke to 150 people involved in the effort, and learned about the initial scientific breakthroughs, arguments about the best ways to test the new vaccines, and how the U.S. government got behind the big vaccine push. Borrell talked withScientific Americanabout thesechallenges.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Companies such as Pfizer and Moderna are getting lots of credit for vaccines. But didnt you find that a lot of the groundbreaking work started in university and government labs?

Yes. Several years ago, Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, was working on respiratory syncytial virus, which affects infants and the elderly, and it was his real passion. Jason McLellan, a structural biologist, was working with him on the viral proteins. These viruses have proteins on their surfaces, spike proteins or something similar, that allow them to attach to cells. These proteins change shape, which is a problem for your immune system. McClellan and Graham came up with a strategy to produce spikes that would be stuck in one position, kind of like a mannequin, that that your body can learn to attack them.

Jason went off to work at University of Texas, and then when this new coronavirus broke out Barney called and kind of said Hey, lets get the band together again. As soon as the viruss sequence was published online on January 10, McLellans lab started examining the spike protein with electron cryomicroscopy, and got an image when it was stuck in that one vulnerable position. And that gave them a sense their vaccine strategy was going to work. And Moderna, which had been partnering with NIH, used the design and built an mRNA vaccine around it. Moderna has since said they independently came up with a similar design.

And this was before anyone had much data indicating the strategy was going to work, right?

Yes, and thats where Kizzy Corbett, an immunologist who was in Grahams lab, became a hugely important scientist. Everyone was racing to develop these spike proteins, and Moderna was racing to make them into vaccines, and they needed animal data to show they worked and what a good dose was. So, they get maybe a shipment of 400 mice, and they have to go down and vaccinate all of them, until their fingers were sore, and churn out this torrent of papers.

But her public profile went beyond what she was doing in the lab. Shes a Black woman who grow up in a small town in North Carolina. She has this Twitter personality, and she started spreading the word about vaccine safety and reducing hesitancy in the Black community, where there were medical travesties in the past. As they were going into later trials, Corbett was getting out and giving talks, trying to spread the word that, hey, this was made by Black scientists and we did this right.

How did this effort turn into Operation Warp Speed? The Trump administration was generally against government aid to big businesses. Yet here they offered billions of dollars and other help.

There is a great irony there. There was a crisis around the April 2020 time period [as the virus was spreading]. Moderna was making some investments, but other drugmakers were saying that to do this in a profitable way we cant just throw all of our money into this vaccine. So, things were moving slowly. And if you rewind to that time period, even scientists such as Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx on the White House coronavirus task force are saying, hey, if we keep up social distancing measures, maybe were not going to have another peak of the virus, maybe itll come back in the winter. Yet elements of the Trump administration started to reject the closing of the country and wanted to reopen. So, these public health measures were no longer going to work. And a vaccine was kind of the only option that we had left.

What pushed vaccine development into a higher gear?

The administration wanted a quick fix, so the pressure was building. Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, wanted to put more money into vaccines, and they saw this opening. So did the health secretary, Alex Azar, who had basically been forced out of the coronavirus task force. But now he had the chance to bring Operation Warp Speed to the administration and sell it to them. It was a confluence of factors.

But not everyone agreed on how to test those vaccines on people, right?

As things were coming together in the spring of 2020, there was quite a tug of war. One of the first issues was that Peter Marks had wanted to run whats called a master protocol. The idea was that all the vaccine candidates would be compared head-to-head against a single placebo group. Then youd be able to say this vaccine is the best ever in the whole country, we should spend all of our money on this one. But some of the folks at NIH felt that that if you did one big trial but a safety problem emerged with one vaccine, then the whole trial would come to halt. So, they wanted to have semi-independent trials. If one vaccine had an issue it wouldn't hold the whole thing up. They called these harmonized trials. The tests would have approximately the same rules, the same protocol, and be on different yet comparable groups of people. That became the compromise.

Was it hard to get a diversity of people into those trials?

That became another hard issue. When Moderna first started their clinical trials, the representation of Black people and Hispanic people was perhaps half what it is in the overall U.S. population. Yet one of the cases that NIH made was that COVID had not struck the nation equally. It affected Black communities more severely. So, they wanted the trials to be more inclusive. (Pfizer did not have as much of a diversity shortfall in their trial because it was larger and had a big international footprint, so they got different types of people.)

But Moderna, and officials in Operation Warp Speed, wanted to recruit people quickly because this was a crisis. They were using commercial clinical trial sites that were good at recruiting people fast. [But these operations did not emphasize diversity.] NIH, though, had a history of involving local communities through more academic sites. Those sites were slower, however. But NIHs point was that it would be a better, more representative trial if those sites were involved. They embarked on a pressure campaign, with some bigwigs basically shaming the company on this point. Eventually they won that battle.

Young children, however, were not in the initial trials. Why not? Today the FDA is considering authorizing the Pfizer vaccine for children aged five through 11.

For Operation Warp Speed, getting kids into the trials was not an initial concern. They were more worried about the elderly who were getting really ill. And the thing about children is that they are not small adults. Their immune systems are different. So you have to be very careful as you move down the age range. You run all the basic dosing experiments again. The FDA decided to slow down the approval of the childhood vaccines because they wanted six months of safety data instead of two months. This is definitely a day lots of parents have been waiting for.

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Surprising Conflicts and Collaborations Built the Coronavirus Vaccines - Scientific American

Ulster and Dutchess counties on Wednesday reported a drop in active coronavirus cases, according to government online dashboards.

Here are the local COVID statistics as of Wednesday.

Ulster County: 253, down 12 from the 265 reported Tuesday. (Peak was 2,622 on Jan. 30.)

Dutchess County: 461, down 38 from the 499 reported Tuesday (Peak was 2,576 on Jan. 16.)

Ulster County: 3.9%.

Dutchess County: 2.44%.

Ulster County: 19,185 confirmed cases, 18,645 recoveries. Deaths are at 287, with no new fatalities reported Wednesday.

Dutchess County: 35,834 confirmed cases. Deaths are at 500. No new fatalities reported Wednesday.

As of Tuesday, data according to New York states online vaccine tracker.

Ulster County: 66.3% of the population fully vaccinated, 72.9% with at least one dose of a two-dose regimen, 83.2% of those 18 and older with at least one dose.

Dutchess County: 61.2% fully vaccinated, 68.1% with at least one dose of a two-dose regimen, 78.5% of the 18+ population with at least one dose.

Appointments: vaccinateulster.com, bit.ly/dut-vax, bit.ly/ny-vaxme.

Here are the latest reports of COVID cases in area school districts.

Kingston: Two high school students.

Saugerties: One student each at Morse Elementary School and Riccardi Elementary School; two students at Mount Marion Elementary School; and nine students at Saugerties High School.

Wallkill: One student at Plattekill Elementary School.

Marlboro: One student at Marlboro Middle School.

Red Hook One student at Linden Avenue Middle School and one staff at Mill Road Intermediate School.

For online local coverage related to the coronavirus, go to dailyfreeman.com/tag/coronavirus.

Editors note: This story was amended on Oct. 27, 2021, at 6:28 p.m. to correct the change in active cases in Ulster County.

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Active coronavirus cases drop in Ulster and Dutchess - The Daily Freeman

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) -- While October started warm, the second half of the month has cooled, but some areas are still waiting to see the October cold.

Clouds and rain stayed for much of eastern KELOLAND today, and along with it temperatures remained steady with numbers near 50 degrees. The clouds have helped many in KELOLAND stay relatively warm during the overnights as many finally fell to the 20s for lows last weekend. But, we do have others that are still waiting for their first 20-degree morning of the season.

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New documents reveal COVID-19 infections, deaths at meatpacking plants were higher than reported - KELOLAND.com

DENVER (KDVR) TheCOVID-19 positivity and incidence rateshave risen over the last week in Colorado.

As of Monday, the states 7-day positivity rate is 8.46%, which is up from 6.86%. The highest positivity rate in the state over the past seven days is Custer County with 22.7% positivity.

From Oct. 18 to Oct. 25,39 counties saw an increase in COVID-19 positivity, 22 saw a decrease in COVID-19 positivity, two counties administered fewer than 10 tests in the past week, and one county had a 0% positivity after administering fewer than 10 tests last week.

Hospitalizations are climbing sharply in Colorado, hitting thehighest levels since the end of 2020.

According to the New York Times COVID-19 map, Colorado is a COVID-19 hotspot right now.

According to theColorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the incidence rates are on the rise over the last seven days.

Heres a look atpositivity rates for every county over the last seven days:

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COVID-19 surges in Colorado; state becomes a hotspot in the U.S. - FOX 31 Denver

Sevenmore Mainers have died while health officials on Wednesday reported another 620coronavirus cases across the state.

Wednesdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 102,469,according to the Maine CDC. Thats up from 101,849 on Tuesday.

Of those, 73,132have been confirmed positive, while 29,337were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Four men and three women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,154.

Two were 80 or older, two were in their 70s and 60s and three were in their 50s. They were from Cumberland County (1), Kennebec County (1), Penobscot County (3) and Somerset County (2).

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 6,636. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 6,909 on Tuesday.

The new case rate statewide Wednesday was 4.63 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 765.61.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 460.1, down from 464 the day before, down from 489.6 a week ago and down from 469 a month ago. That average peaked on Jan. 14 at 625.3.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.

So far, 2,759 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 209 are currently hospitalized, with 74 in critical care and 34 on a ventilator. Overall, 46 out of 361 critical care beds and 209 out of 305 ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Wednesday was 20.61 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (10,779), Aroostook (3,940), Cumberland (21,890), Franklin (2,311), Hancock (2,797), Kennebec (9,763), Knox (1,984), Lincoln (1,804), Oxford (5,129), Penobscot (12,161), Piscataquis (1,321), Sagadahoc (1,986), Somerset (4,371), Waldo (2,454), Washington (1,854) and York (17,923) counties. Information about where an additional two cases have been reported wasnt immediately available.

An additional 3,853 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Wednesday, 915,285 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 77.3 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Wednesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 45,619,660 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 738,949 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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7 more Mainers have died and another 620 coronavirus cases reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

DENVER Coloradans wishing to attend sporting events or music shows at Ball Arena or the Paramount Theatre will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or show proof of a negative test starting Nov. 10.

The announcement made Wednesday afternoon by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment doesnt just apply to fans. Employees and team personnel 12 years and older will also have to abide by the new policy, company officials said in a news release.

Those showing up with a negative COVID-19 test will need to make sure theyve taken a test within 72 hours prior to the event theyre attending, the release states.

Kids under the age of 12 a group who is not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine will not be required to show proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 within 72 hours of an event, but must wear a face mask at all times, company officials said.

Everyone inside Ball Arena of the Paramount Theatre will be required to wear a face mask at all times, regardless of their vaccination status, the company said. The policy will remain in place until further notice.

After consultation with local, state and federal government and health authorities along with the guidance of the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), National Lacrosse League (NLL) and in consultation with national concert promoters and entertainment providers, the decision to institute these protocols for all events reinforces KSEs continued commitment to ensure that the health, safety and wellness of our fans, frontline workers, staff, performers and athletes is our top priority, said Matt Hutchings, EVP and Chief Operating Officer.

Hutchings said staff would be verifying vaccine cards or negative tests outside the entrances at each facility, and encouraged fans to arrive early and come prepared with their COVID-19 vaccine cards, proof of a negative COVID-19 test and their face masks before heading out.

The new policy makes no mention of medical or religious exemptions, and differs from mandates imposed in countries like France, where people are allowed to show proof that theyre recovering from a prior COVID-19 infection for a period of up to six months in order to eat out, go to museums or enter a movie theater.

Information about events taking place at Ball Arena or the Paramount Theatre on Nov. 10 and after at both venues can be found here and here. Information for events taking place now through Nov. 9 can be found here and here.

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment is the latest company in town to require proof of vaccination against COVID-19.

All resident companies of downtown Denvers Performing Arts Complex the Colorado Ballet, the Colorado Symphony, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and Opera Colorado announced in late August they would require COVID-19 vaccines and face masks for indoor, public performances starting Oct. 1.

Earlier that month, AEG Presents, one of the largest concert operators in the country, also announced it would require people to show proof of vaccination at its clubs, theatres and festivals by Oct. 1. Venues under the umbrella of the concert operator include Denvers Bluebird Theater, Mission Ballroom and Ogden Theatre, Englewoods Gothic Theatre, Broomfield's 1stBank Center, and Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre in Greenwood Village.

Concert venues that work with Z2 Entertainment must also show proof of vaccine or a negative test result within 72 hours of a show. Those venues include the Boulder Theater, Fox Theatre and Aggie Theatre.

See more here:

Ball Arena, Paramount Theatre to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend events beginning Nov. 10 - The Denver Channel

Nick Ehli| Kaiser Health News

VIRGINIA CITY Emilie Saylers roots run deep in southwestern Montana. She serves on a nearby town council and the board of the local Little League. She went to college in a neighboring county and regularly volunteers in the schools of her three kids.

Just a few months into her new job as public health director for Madison County, she had hoped that those local connections might make a difference, that the fewer than 10,000 residents spread out across this agricultural region would see her familiar face and support her efforts to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic raging here.

That largely hasnt happened. School boards have rebuffed even minor measures to prevent outbreaks, vaccination rates languish and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) categorizes infection levels in the rural county as high. Parents, Sayler said, are sending sick kids to school.

On top of that, a resident phoned her office and told a member of her staff, I wish that you would get COVID-19 and die.

People have used the term free-for-all, and I really hate to admit that thats what it kind of feels like, Sayler said.

Nationally, KHN and The Associated Press have documented that more than 300 public health leaders, weary of abuse and of their expertise being questioned, have resigned or retired as the country struggles to recover from the worst pandemic in a century. They have been replaced by people like Sayler, often inexperienced yet tasked with repairing the trust of a polarized and fatigued public.

Constant negativity:Blaine County health officer latest to resign over pushback

At least26 stateshave passed laws or regulations limiting the powers of public health officers this year, meaning these replacements have fewer tools and less authority than their predecessors to enforce their orders and recommendations.

Montana passed laws considered some of the most restrictive. This year, the state Legislaturecurbed the powers of health officers to, among other things, quarantine infected citizens or isolate those in close contactwith them. Lawmakers also prevented public and private employers from requiring workers to be vaccinated and gave local elected officials the ability to overturn public health orders.

Now Montana is at or near the bottom of many national statistics charting the COVID-19 surge rates of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths that is happening in counties big and small.

Lori Christenson is the new health officer for Gallatin County, Madison Countys neighbor to the east and home of the city of Bozeman and Montana State University. In June, she replaced Matt Kelley, who before resigning had become a political punching bag as the county mandated masks in public places and restricted business hours and the size of crowds. Protesters on social media demanded his ouster; a few picketed outside his home. Christenson had served in the health department for seven years before her promotion and worked closely with Kelley.

In Great Falls: GFPS sees decline in COVID-19 cases by 45% since peak in Sept.

While her office still hears daily from frustrated citizens on both sides, she said the vitriol is not quite as malicious as in the past. Thats in large part, she believes, because the new laws that gutted her departments power shifted criticism to other entities like local school boards that still have the authority to mandate measures such as wearing masks.

Sometimes it can be pretty frustrating not having the ability to make some immediate changes that previously helped to slow transmission, Christenson said. We just dont have the tools at our disposal in the same way that we did before.

That reality, she said, has been morally challenging.

I have a duty to protect the community. You want to do what is right, but you also want to do what is lawful. In this situation, it didnt mesh.

Joe Russell does not envy health officers new to their positions. He retired as head of the Flathead City-County Health Department in 2017 but returned in December after the interim director resigned over what she called a toxic environment inflamed by the ideological biases of local politicians.

Think about going into a brand-new profession, in a leadership role that youve never held, in a crisis like COVID-19, Russell said. It would be miserable.

He said his experience 30 years in the Flathead health department, including 20 as its leader has eased navigating through the pandemic in one of the states most populous and conservative counties, although the rate of cases there remains high and its vaccination rate low.

His tenure, he said, has given him the credibility to confront officials who question the seriousness of COVID-19 or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

When someone spouts this nonsense, who better to stand up and give them the science-based evidence and tell them that they are full of crap? Russell said. I love it when that happens at a public meeting.

Although Montana laws essentially prevent public health officials from following many CDC guidelines, Christenson said they still have useful tools available to combat the virus: testing, contact tracing, vaccination, communicating with the public.

That is what I focus on, she said. That is what we can do.

Christenson believes she has the communitys support. She noted that while a few people protested outside of Kelleys home, crowds countered that criticism by lining Bozemans Main Street, offering cheers of support on his drive home.

Not to say that every day is rosy, she said. That would be nave. But you can feel the staff here continue to try to move forward, and that to me is a success.

Related: Montana worst in US for most COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents

In Madison County, Sayler said she is taking an olive branch approach to turning things around, advancing recommendations rather than orders, as her staff works to nudge vaccination rates up from the current 48%. Shes doubtful that will quickly reduce COVID.

In September, the county saw approximately 200 new cases roughly 20% of all its infections since the pandemic began and had more residents hospitalized with the virus than ever before.

While the pandemic has filled Saylers first months on the job, she said she looks forward to focusing on other ways the health department can restore the publics faith and help Madison County, such as offering car seats for babies or nutrition advice for expectant mothers.

There is a lot of rebuilding to do here because this whole office has been consumed by COVID-19 for so long, she said. I can still see long-term goals for us and what we can do for this community. Thats not just a goal. Thats a need.

Her office has on occasion persuaded those sick with COVID-19, even those who insisted the virus is not serious, to seek medical help.

Tell your story, Sayler said she advises those COVID-19 survivors. Make sure everybody knows how sick you were.

But then there are more difficult encounters, such as when a mother cursed her out over the phone about the recommendation that her child be quarantined. A week later, she saw the woman at her daughters volleyball game.

She was sitting there and looked directly at me and then looked away, Sayler said. That made me feel better. You truly dont feel that way. You were just expressing frustration in that moment.

That experience left her with cautious optimism about the difficult task she has ahead with the pandemic set to enter its second winter.

It is reassuring that there is potential here. We can still work with these people, she said. We just really dont want to be a punching bag, either.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Fresh faces, fewer tools: Meet the new bosses fighting coronavirus as pushback drives many out - Great Falls Tribune