Category: Corona Virus

Connecticut will be using $11 million from the AmericanRescue Planto fund summer learning program opportunities.

Officials, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Sen. Chris Murphy and Gov. Ned Lamont, among others, held a news conference about the initiative Wednesday. They say the funding is intended to close the learning gap students have faced because of the virtual learning necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There's so much uncertainty for parents right now on what programs are going to be open and available and whether they're going to be able to afford to send their kids to good-quality summer programs," Murphy said. "With jobs returning, workers coming back into an office setting, this summer is a really important time to make sure parents have a safe place to send their kids."

Funding will be provided through a competitive grant process. The state is offering either expansion grants, which are smaller and targeted toward local community organizations that already work closely with students and their families, or innovation grants, which will go toward programs with regional or statewide impact. Expansion grants go up to $25,000 and innovation grants up to $250,000.

Chris Soto, director of innovation and partnerships for thestate Department of Education,said the department is going to act as the fiduciary in distributing grants.

The $11 million is part of the American Rescue Plan that was recently passed, Soto said, and is a portion of the federal funding allocated to thestate Department of Education.

Blumenthal said the money will be used in part to address racial disparities. "One of the great points about this program is that it will target those underserved communities of color because they have seen twice the death rates and half the vaccination rates," he said.

Soto said expansion grants could apply to Parks and Recreation and YMCA programs, among others, and could possibly expand the number of children they serve. Innovation grants are "looking at these bold initiatives that summer programs maybe couldn't do in the past because they didn't have enough money."

Lamont said he hoped some towns and cities would be able to match money provided by the state and increase the impact of the initiative.

Michele Rulnick, president and CEO of the Middlesex YMCA, and Michelle Doucette Cunningham, executive director of the Connecticut After School Network, said staffing for summer programs will be a challenge.

But, Soto said, the state is working with institutions of higher education to try and organize and deploy groups of college students for summer programs. Speakers at the news conference said there will be plenty of job opportunities for college and high school students as part of the $11 million.

The state Department of Education will release more information about the grant application process in coming days, according to the governor's office.

s.spinella@theday.com

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Connecticut to use coronavirus aid to expand, revamp summer programs - theday.com

Karen Strejnowski battled COVID-19 at the same time as both of her parents.

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio Currently, in Ohio, nearly 40% of adults have received their first coronavirus vaccine. However, while millions more Americans continue to get vaccinated against the coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are rising in many states. For Karen Strejnowski it is a grim reminder that we are still in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 568,000 Americans including Strejnowskis mom.

Strejnowski was faced with endless shock when the coronavirus came knocking on her familys door. It all started with her mother Pat who was infected by a home healthcare worker. Pat quickly wound up in the intensive care unit at University Hospitals Parma Medical Center. The coronavirus infection led to serious complications with Pats heart.

Strejnowski says she wanted nothing more than to be by her mothers side in the hospital and the separation was devastating.

"The thought of her fighting this virus alone in the hospital where we couldn't be with her is absolutely heartbreaking," Strejnowski said. "Every day, I'd go to my parents' house and my father and I would sit by the phone waiting for every latest update...it was torture."

After a few days in the hospital, Strejnowski received a devastating call - her mother Pat did not survive the virus.

It was the worst moment of my entire life to know that that call was going to be coming, to know there was nothing we could do, to know it was happening and we couldnt stop it, said Strejnowski.

Strejnowski says within 12 hours of her mom's passing, she too ended up in the ICU with COVID-19.

"Battling the deadly virus while simultaneously grieving the loss of my mom was unbearable, and just when I thought I couldn't handle anymore...I learned my dad was in the emergency room also being admitted with coronavirus," she remembered. "To say I was terrified and distraught is an understatement."

Strejnowski understood the feeling of loneliness that so many coronavirus patients experience in hospitals throughout the country.

When you lose someone close to you, you want to be around other people, you want someone to hug you and hold you and someone to tell you it's going to be okay, and to be in an isolation chamber where the only people that come into your room are wearing hazmat suits and gas masks, its so surreal, she said. To know that I just lost my mom and I might lose my dad in the same week, it was too much. It was too much to bear.

However, little angels, like nurse Lindsay Wells helped bear some of the burden. A simple smile with the eyes through Lindsays pink gas mask or a touch of the hand helped Karen in more ways than one.

I have very long hair and long hair gets very tangled when you are laying in a hospital bed and you are hooked up to all the machines and oxygen masks and tubes and all these different things. Then one day [nurse Lindsay] came into my room and she said, lets brush your hair, lets put it in a ponytail and she brought me a hair tie and she brushed my hair out, she said. That was like one of the first moments that I was like oh, she actually believes I am going to be okay because shes trying to preserve my hair right now.

Wells said she wanted to make Karen feel as comfortable as possible.

I wanted her to know that I was there for her, period. I sat down and talked to her for a while in the room, not about her mom, but that she needed to stay strong, said Wells.

Karen eventually made it out of the ICU and said, as they were wheeling me through the Covid floor they stopped in my dads room and I got to see him.

A few days later both Karen and her father were discharged from UH Parma Medical Center and today she carries her mom in her heart. She relives beautiful moments of her mom making the perfect smiley-faced pancakes, or the fact that she never missed a softball practice. She spends many days looking through pictures of her parents and the decades they spent together.

I wake up and I pray and I think god thats Im still here and thank god my dad is still here. I feel my mom is with me. I feel her presence; I feel her watching over us. I still feel her.

Editor's note: The video in the player below is from a story published on Feb. 17, 2021.

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Faces of COVID: 12 hours after losing mom to the coronavirus, Independence woman battles virus in the same ICU - WKYC.com

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After a careful review of the cases of blood clots combined with low platelets reported after vaccination with Johnsons Covid-19 vaccine, the PRAC has concluded that there is a possible link between the occurrence of these blood clots, combined with the low levels of blood platelets, thrombocytopenia, and the vaccination with the Covid-19 vaccine, Johnson. The product information will be updated to reflect this information, and will include a warning and an update of the side effects. The reported cases occurred mostly in women under 60 years, and within the first three weeks after the vaccination. A fatal outcome has been reported. The careful review of the cases, and other available evidence, have led the committee to the conclusion that these blood-clotting disorders are very rare side effects of the vaccine. However, our work does not stop here. We will analyze any new data and any new evidence as it becomes available, and provide updated guidance as needed. At this moment, its not possible to identify clear risk factors for the occurrence of these very rare events, such as gender or age.

BRUSSELS Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday that it would resume the rollout of its coronavirus vaccine in Europe after the European Unions drug regulator said that a warning should be added to the product indicating a possible link to rare blood clots, but that the shots benefits outweigh the risks.

The company decided to delay distribution in the blocs 27 member states last week, after regulators in the United States suspended use of the vaccine there amid concerns about the potential side effects.

The E.U. drug regulators endorsement even with the caveat not only clears a path for Johnson & Johnson in Europe, but could presage how the United States will handle the vaccine in the days to come.

On Friday, an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet for a second time to decide whether to recommend lifting a pause on the vaccines use in the United States, perhaps with a similar warning.

That would free up millions of doses for the fierce battle against the a virus that still spreading and mutating. Almost eight million Americans have already had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

But some health experts worry that the headline-grabbing pause, which began over a week ago, might discourage some people from getting vaccinated, even though the risks from Covid-19 are far greater than the risk from a clot.

Youve put a scarlet letter on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, said Dr. Paul A. Offit, a vaccine expert at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.

After clotting concerns associated with another vaccine, produced by AstraZeneca, were reported in Europe, Dr. Offit noted, some grew leery of it, overestimating the threat. For the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the clot risk has been put at an estimated one in a million.

If you take a theoretical million people who are infected with Covid, five thousand will die, Dr. Offit said. Therefore, the benefits of this vaccine clearly outweigh its risks.

A loss of confidence in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may carry a particular cost.

The vaccine has been greeted warmly by many health workers because it requires just a single shot, unlike the ones from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, and is easier to store than some other vaccines. It is especially useful for hard-to-reach or transient populations.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are groups for whom this vaccine is of benefit, Dr. Offit said, meaning that theyre more likely to get this vaccine than the other vaccines, whether its because of where they live, or because theyre homebound, or its hard to get a second dose.

If that changes, he said, then you have probably elevated a rare risk above a much more common risk, and youve done harm.

In clearing the way for the vaccines use, the E.U.s drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, said the blood clots, which have been reported in a very small group of people, are very similar to those associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The E.M.A.s recommendation is not binding, but it is the first indication of what might happen next with the European rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The agency said that authorities in individual E.U. member states should decide how to proceed, taking into account their particular case load and vaccine availability. Poland is the only E.U. country that defied the companys guidance and went ahead and administered some Johnson & Johnson doses over the past week.

All the rare cases of blood clots reviewed by the European regulator were reported in the United States, but the agency proceeded with its recommendations Tuesday before U.S. regulators acted.

On Tuesday, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that a total of 28 million doses were shipping this week to states, jurisdictions and federal programs, as the U.S. vaccination campaign continued with the other two authorized vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

The United States has come a long way since Covid-19 vaccines first arrived at hospitals and long-term care facilities in December. More than 209 million doses have been administered.

But the next phase of the rollout will bring new challenges, and some scientists and health officials worry that some of the most vulnerable people including those 65 and older may have trouble competing for a shot now that all adults are eligible for inoculation.

Cindy A. Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida, said that adding more younger people into the mix could spur the opening of more mass vaccination sites, but that those sites might be intimidating or uncomfortable for older people or for anyone who is particularly vulnerable to the virus.

I think there are some folks who want to get the vaccine, but theyre still very worried about getting exposed to other people, Dr. Prins said. Its a little bit of a strange situation where were like, Stay away from everyone, but please come here to our massive vaccine clinic.

As it stands, older adults are the most vaccinated age group in the country. Yet about a fifth of those 65 and older, a group that is particularly vulnerable to serious complications and death from the virus, have not received even one shot. Among them are some residents of long-term care facilities, which have represented more than a third of overall coronavirus deaths in the United States.

There are many reasons that eligible people may not be vaccinated, including lingering issues of short supply, limited access to vaccination sites and confusing procedures for booking appointments. Some older people may also be hesitant or unwilling to get a shot.

Dr. Prins added that some older adults could be waiting until their regular doctors or other health care providers can give them the vaccine.

There may be people who are not necessarily homebound, but maybe they dont drive, Dr. Prins said. Maybe its not easy and convenient for them to get somewhere to get vaccinated.

Dr. Lisa Cooper, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, suggested that health officials might encourage young people to help them vaccinate the older people in their lives.

She said: We need to start asking the younger folks, Wheres your mom? Your grandmother? Have they all gotten their vaccines yet? If not, weve got several slots, and we want your whole family here.

A congressional panel has opened an investigation into Emergent BioSolutions, the company whose Baltimore factory ruined millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, focusing on whether it was improperly awarded a $628 million federal contract to manufacture vaccines.

The inquiry will look into whether a Trump administration official steered the work to the company despite questions about its qualifications, according to a statement released late Monday. The investigation was announced by Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat who heads the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and James E. Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina who heads a subcommittee on the pandemic response.

Mr. Clyburn requested that Emergents two top executives testify at a May 19 hearing and provide a wide array of records.

Specifically, we are investigating reports that Emergent received multimillion-dollar contracts to manufacture coronavirus vaccines despite a long, documented history of inadequately trained staff and quality control issues, the statement said. It also said the company had a track record of raising prices and failing to meet contract requirements.

The committees said they were also looking into Emergents actions to unduly influence anthrax vaccine assets in the Strategic National Stockpile, the subject of a New York Times article last month.

The congressional inquiry is the latest in a series of problems for Emergent, a longtime federal contractor that has a reputation for aggressive lobbying tactics. This month, the Food and Drug Administration began an audit of its factory in southeastern Baltimore after workers contaminated a batch of Johnson & Johnsons vaccine with an ingredient for AstraZenecas vaccine, another product manufactured at the plant.

Emergent said on Monday that it had suspended operations at the plant and acknowledged that it needed to make improvements to restore confidence in its work. It also said it was quarantining the vaccine substance already produced at the plant until after the inspection ends and the company has had a chance to fix any problems highlighted in the review.

Biden administration officials have said that AstraZenecas vaccine will no longer be manufactured at the plant, and Johnson & Johnson has vowed to exert stronger control over Emergent, its subcontractor. The F.D.A. has not certified the facility to distribute any vaccine to the public; all Johnson & Johnson doses that have been administered were manufactured overseas. AstraZenecas vaccine is not yet authorized in the United States.

The New York Times reported this month that confidential audits and internal documents showed that Emergent had failed to follow some basic industry standards and identified repeated shortcomings in efforts to prevent contamination. Those records were among the documents that congressional investigators are now seeking.

The inspections flagged a persistent problem with mold in areas required to be kept clean, poor disinfection of some plant equipment, repeated use of raw materials that were not fully tested and inadequate training of employees. In one month, they indicate, workers making AstraZenecas vaccine deviated from manufacturing standards an average of over three times a day.

The Emergent Baltimore facility is one of two federally designated Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing, created during the Obama administration, that were supposed to be at the ready in case of a pandemic. The company secured a $628 million contract to manufacture the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines in June.

The congressional lawmakers said that Dr. Robert Kadlec, who served as assistant health secretary for preparedness and response under President Donald J. Trump and previously worked as a consultant for Emergent, appears to have pushed for this award despite indications that Emergent did not have the ability to reliably fulfill the contract.

In an interview Tuesday, Dr. Kadlec said that his consulting work for Emergent in 2013 and 2014 involved educating leaders in South Korea and Saudi Arabia about the risks of bioterrorism, and that he did not promote the companys products. He said that when he awarded the company the contract in June, he was exercising an option on an earlier contract awarded in 2012 by his predecessor.

Dr. Kadlec said that he knew Emergent was a risky choice, but that federal officials had turned to Emergent because few companies based in the United States were able to make the type of vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, and because the government already had a contract with the company. He said he also sought to involve Merck, a more experienced manufacturer, but those negotiations did not work out.

That was the path of fastest action, but we recognized that there were going to be inherent risks with that approach, he said of working with Emergent, and we would try to mitigate those risks throughout.

All but eight of the detainees at Guantnamo Bay have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the U.S. Southern Command said on Tuesday.

Biden administration officials said that the Department of Defense had expanded vaccine availability to all 40 detainees starting on Monday, the day that all people 16 years and older became eligible for vaccination in the United States.

The Southern Command, which oversees the detention center, first sought permission from the Trump administration to vaccinate the detainees in a Dec. 23 memo that described the prison population at Guantnamo as a high-risk community, and invoked both the Geneva Convention and Department of Defense guidance.

Thirty-two of the detainees have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, the command said in a statement. Military officials declined to say whether the other eight detainees were offered the first shot of the two-shot Moderna Covid-19 vaccine but refused.

The vaccines are not mandatory for the military or civilian Defense Department employees and were offered to the detainees on a voluntary basis. Many of them are approaching their second decade in U.S. detention and have chronic illnesses. The oldest is 73 and has a heart condition, diabetes and other geriatric illnesses.

The Biden administration froze initial plans to offer them the vaccine on Feb. 1, because elected officials and families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks accused the Defense Department of putting terrorism suspects ahead of the American people, who were only just beginning to get access to the vaccines in substantial numbers at that point.

Vaccination rates have risen substantially since then across the country, which was nearing President Bidens goal of administering 200 million doses by his 100th day in office.

Defense officials also went forward with vaccinating the detainees this week in part because of what appears to be a significant rate of refusal to take the vaccines by adults at the base of about 5,500 residents, including at the detention center, which has a staff of 1,500 guards and civilians. As of April 1, according to health officials at the base, 47 percent of those eligible had not had a dose.

For more than a year, Cambodia managed to escape the brunt of the coronavirus. Then, the government says, came the quarantine evaders.

In late February, four Chinese nationals who were undergoing mandatory quarantine at a luxury hotel in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, bribed a security guard to let them leave before the end of their two-week stay, according to Prime Minister Hun Sen. Two of the four later tested positive for the coronavirus.

The cluster, tied to the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant that was first detected in Britain, quickly spread to about 30 more Chinese nationals in Cambodia and then radiated out into the community. On Monday, the Cambodian health authorities reported a record 624 new confirmed infections, with almost 6,500 people infected since the outbreak began on Feb. 20. The death toll stood at 45, all recorded this year.

The World Health Organization representative in Cambodia has said that the outbreak could spiral into a national tragedy, given the countrys poor health care services.

In an effort to contain it, Phnom Penh began a two-week lockdown on Thursday that bars people from leaving their homes except for work, grocery shopping and medical treatment. The lockdown began during Khmer New Year, Cambodias biggest holiday.

But even as the security guard who allowed the Chinese to break out of quarantine was quickly arrested, the quarantine dodgers were not punished, because there was no law to prosecute them at the time, Mr. Hun Sen said.

That changed last month with the adoption of a new law that makes violations of pandemic measures punishable by up to $5,000 in fines or 20 years in prison. At least a dozen people have been arrested under the new law. Though the government says it is necessary to protect against the virus, human rights groups have criticized the penalties as disproportionate.

They also say that provisions of the law such as a ban on gatherings could easily be abused by Mr. Hun Sen, who has become increasingly authoritarian during his 35 years in power. A state of emergency law that he enacted last April in response to the pandemic gave him extensive powers to restrict civil liberties and target political opponents.

With the nation in lockdown and two of the countrys biggest industries, garment manufacturing and tourism, devastated by the pandemic, Cambodias citizens are bracing for more pain. Mao Vet, a security guard in Phnom Penh who makes $200 a month, worries about how long he will be able to keep his job.

I am very concerned that infection is out of control, he said.

France is introducing one of Europes first Covid-19 vaccine passport initiatives, the authorities said this week, as countries across the continent seek to facilitate travel by the summer.

The initiative will at first be for use on domestic flights to Corsica and then on longer ones to Frances overseas territories, the government said in a statement on Monday. The ultimate goal is to make the digital certificates applicable to travel to other countries.

Starting this week, people in France can get a digitally certified record of coronavirus test results, either by downloading and printing a certificate or by adding it to a smartphone app that the authorities have used for contact tracing. It will be expanded to include proof of vaccination starting on April 29.

The information such as the type of test or vaccine, along with the date it was administered and by whom will be digitally recorded with a kind of QR code that France uses to certify official documents and that the police, customs officers, airlines and others will be able to quickly scan.

This method therefore avoids possible fraud related to the presentation of fake test results, the government said in the statement.

The digital certificates are part of the European Unions push for a Digital Green Certificate to enable travelers to move freely around the bloc if they carry proof of a negative test, vaccination or recovery from the virus.

Amid questions over the effectiveness of Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines, researchers in China are testing the safety and efficacy of mixing two different Covid-19 shots.

The trial, which includes 120 healthy participants over age 18, involves administering one dose of a vaccine developed by CanSinoBIO followed weeks later by a shot of a vaccine made by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical, according to a clinical trial registration this month. These are two of the five vaccines in use in China.

With more and more vaccines being authorized around the world, researchers have begun testing the efficacy of mixing shots from different vaccine makers. Some shots are being mixed in clinical trials, while others are being tested on animals.

A senior Chinese official said this month that it might be necessary to administer Chinas vaccines in greater doses or to use them together with other vaccines because of their lower effectiveness. The official, Gao Fu, later said his comments had been misunderstood.

Brazilian officials have said that the efficacy rate of CoronaVac, made by the Chinese company Sinovac, was 50 percent, barely meeting the World Health Organization threshold for widespread use. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been found to be 90 percent effective, according to researchers.

The distributors in the United Arab Emirates for the Chinese vaccine manufacturer Sinopharm said last month that they were offering some people a third shot after finding that some recipients of two doses had insufficient antibody levels.

The details of the trial were filed to ClinicalTrials.gov, a website under the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and were earlier reported by Reuters.

Global Roundup

The Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has paused outbound travel from its main island after a body that washed ashore tested positive for the coronavirus.

The body, identified as a Filipino man, was found last week after a tanker ship leaving the capital, Port Vila, reported one of its crew members missing. Officials in the Philippines said that the body was that of the missing seaman and that they had contacted his family.

On Sunday, after tests showed that the body was infected with the virus, the government banned air and sea travel out of the island of Efate until Wednesday as authorities carry out contact tracing. Twenty-four people have been placed into quarantine, according to the Daily Post, a newspaper in Vanuatu. Health officials say that the risk of community transmission is low, but the island nations prime minister, Bob Loughman, said the case was a reminder that the fight against coronavirus is not over yet.

Vanuatu, a collection of volcanic islands roughly 1,100 miles northeast of Australia that is home to about 300,000 people, has largely managed to avoid the pandemic, recording just three infections before this one. The first was reported in November in someone who had flown home from the United States.

Like other South Pacific island nations with limited health infrastructure, Vanuatu closed its borders early to keep the virus off its shores. The closures have mostly succeeded: The Solomon Islands has recorded just 20 coronavirus cases, Samoa only three.

But the latest case in Vanuatu shows how the virus can still spread. According to ABC News of Australia, the Filipino seafarer had been working aboard a gas tanker, the British-flagged Inge Kosan, which had docked in Australia and Papua New Guinea before arriving in Port Vila on April 7. Three days later, the tanker set off for the Solomon Islands, but then stopped after the captain discovered that the crew member was missing.

In other news around the world:

India reported its highest single-day death toll of the pandemic, 1,761 fatalities, as health officials prepared to make everyone over age 18 in the country eligible for a vaccine starting on May 1. Questions persist over whether Indian vaccine manufacturers can meet the demand or whether the government can procure significant quantities of foreign-made doses to rapidly expand its inoculation effort. Indian officials have said that mass vaccinations may be the only way to slow what is now the worlds most severe outbreak, with an average of nearly 200,000 new infections recorded daily for the past week.

President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador of Mexico publicly received AstraZenecas Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, touting its safety after several countries limited its use after rare cases of blood clots, Reuters reported. Mexico issued emergency use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in January. As of Tuesday, about 9 percent of Mexicans have received at least one dose and about 3 percent are fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands announced Tuesday that his country would ease monthslong lockdown measures though it continues to grapple with high numbers of cases, according to Reuters. Starting April 28, a nationwide curfew will be lifted and bars and restaurants will be allowed to serve small groups outdoors from between noon and 6 p.m. About 7,800 cases have been recorded daily in the Netherlands for the past week.

In Greece, a Coast Guard spokesman said on Monday that a Greek cargo ship traveling to Colombia from Egypt had been quarantined off Crete after a 55-year-old Filipino sailor was found dead in his cabin and others tested positive for the coronavirus.

New data shows that the pandemic appears to have prompted an unusually large flow of residents out of New York and San Francisco, two regions with a high share of jobs that can be done remotely.

But about 30 million change-of-address requests to the U.S. Postal Service in 2020 show that for the most part, migration patterns during the pandemic have looked a lot like migration patterns before it.

Some smaller regional metro areas and vacation hubs benefited, but areas that were already attracting new residents kept attracting them.

Those that were losing migrants lost more, and there are few examples at least so far of previously down-and-out regions drawing people in.

The past year has crushed independent restaurants across the United States and underscored how many were unprepared for a digital world.

Its no longer enough to maintain basic websites or Instagram accounts with well-lit food photos. Chefs and owners have had to add to-go ordering, delivery scheduling, gift card sales and other e-commerce options.

Its therefore a prime moment for restaurant tech. Dozens of companies determined to help independent restaurants and grocers survive have started or scaled up sharply as they found their services in urgent demand.

Thousands of people have been left stranded in the streets of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, each night since Saturday, as the authorities strictly enforced curfew restrictions that have been criticized by human rights groups.

Police officers have set up roadblocks on several of Nairobis major highways at night, and told drivers on the roads after the 8 p.m. curfew that they would have to camp there until the curfew ended at 4 a.m.

The roadblocks caused extensive traffic snarls in the city. Videos posted on social media showed parents stranded in traffic while trying to rush children to the hospital and high school students who were unable to get home.

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Covid-19: Johnson & Johnson to Resume Its Vaccine Rollout in Europe - The New York Times

According to the California Department of Public Health, as of Sunday, April 18, 10.1 million vaccine doses have been administered in the state and 25.1% of residents have been fully vaccinated.

According to end-of-day totals from California public health websites for Sunday, there were 1,143 new cases of the coronavirus reported in across the state, bringing the total number of cases there have been to 3,691,833.

There were 18 new deaths reported statewide Sunday, for a total 60,660 people who have died from the virus.

Hospitals saw a decrease of 41 patients on Sunday, lowering the total number of people hospitalized with coronavirus-related illness to 2,099.

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins University, the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, The Associated Press, reporting counties and news sources

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Coronavirus tracker: More than 25% of Californians were fully vaccinated as of April 18 - OCRegister

All adults in Philly region can now get a COVID-19 vaccine; local experts rank the risk of activities once you  The Philadelphia Inquirer

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All adults in Philly region can now get a COVID-19 vaccine; local experts rank the risk of activities once you - The Philadelphia Inquirer

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Newly reported coronavirus cases are down over the last week across Ohio, while hospitalizations are up.

This could be a positive change to what had been a spring uptick in cases across Ohio.

More will be known in the coming days and weeks, but health officials say hospital trends often lag the cases by a several days to a week because it generally takes time for patients to get sick enough to need the more extensive treatment.

The latest increases in hospitalizations could be the result of earlier case increases. If newly reported cases do continue to decline, the hospitalization trends would be expected to eventually follow.

The seven-day average for newly reported cases dipped to 1,917 a day on Monday, the lowest this average has been since April 7. It was as high recently as 2,154 on Wednesday.

To date, Ohio has reported 18,991 deaths, 55,016 hospitalizations and 1,054,807 cases. This means that 1-in-11 Ohioans is known to have contracted the coronavirus at some point.

Heres a closer look at the latest trends.

The average number of newly reported coronavirus cases declined some in the last week.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

A total of 1,323 coronavirus patients were reported in Ohio hospitals on Monday, the highest patient count reported by the Ohio Hospital Association since Feb. 24. The daily census had dropped as low as 823 on March 7 and didnt climb back over 1,000 until Thursday, April 1.

There were 1,234 patients a week ago, on April 12.

However, even the increased numbers remain well below where they were months ago, including a record 5,308 patients on Dec. 15.

Among Mondays patients were 378 in intensive care units, up from 315 a week ago. The high was 1,318 on Dec. 15.

Ohio's coronavirus hospital patient count has been trending up.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

The state reported starting vaccines for 268,328 people in the last week, a drop for the the third consecutive week. The latest number is in comparison to 400,851, 445,174, 454,155, and 431,824 the previous weeks.

The 4,390,744 vaccinations started through reporting on Monday means about 47% of Ohios population age 16 and up has received at least one shot. Younger people are not approved to receive vaccines.

These are estimates in part because the Ohio data for vaccines includes some people from other states such as those who work in Ohio or traveled here for shots - at least 125,515 so far - yet some Ohioans received vaccinations in other states.

About 38% of Ohioans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. About 43% of those older enough to be vaccinated have not yet received a shot.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

Ohio reported an average of 1,917 cases a day in the last week.

This compares with averages of 2,066 1,973, 1,704, 1,551, 1,516 and 1,550 the last several weeks, and down from close to 6,700 a day at the end of December.

Cases are trending younger. About 59% of the new cases over the first half of April involved people under the age of 40, in comparison to 44% for this age group during the first half of December - ahead of the vaccination effort.

The number of coronavirus cases reported daily by the state of Ohio over the last three weeks. There was no report on Easter.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

The state has reported 18,991 deaths caused by the coronavirus, though this is an undercount.

The Ohio Department of Health announced on March 2 that it was dropping efforts to track deaths in a timely manner. It said the change would delay death reporting by up to six months in some cases. The health department is now awaiting details from the federal Centers for Disease Control for all deaths.

Illustrating how far the paperwork now lags, the state has reported just 56 deaths occurring in April, with none since April 13 and only four on April 11 or later.

The state has reported 473 deaths occurring in March, 1,330 in February, 3,638 in January and 5,470 in December.

Though Cuyahoga County has the most deaths (2,069) of any county in the state, its death rate of 1.68 per 1,000 residents is just slightly above the statewide rate of 1.62 per 1,000. The counties with the highest rates are Monroe (3 per 1,000), Putnam (2.92) and Tuscarawas (2.61).

Ohio coronavirus deaths by month.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

Among the dead are at least 7,198 patients of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to the last weekly update on Wednesday, April 14. This is up from 7,167 reported a week earlier.

However, the actual number is unclear. Before the state changed its death reporting methods, it had reported 7,462 nursing home deaths in early March.

The health department said Wednesday there were 291 current cases involving nursing home patients, and 319 involving nursing home staff. This was down from 476 and 329 the previous week.

In mid-December, there were 5,155 patient cases and 3,271 staff cases. Case details by nursing home can be found at this link.

The number of Ohio nursing home patients with the coronavirus has shrunk below 300, according to the Ohio Department of Health.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

The state updates school data each Thursday. It reported 1,171 new student cases last week, and 146 new staff cases across Ohio. These totals reported on April 15 cover new cases discovered from from April 5 to April 11.

The student case total was up sharply from 635 the previous week, when there also were 119 staff cases.

School-by-school details can be found at this link.

Three-in-four of the deaths have been to people age 70 and older, breaking down this way: under age 20 (7), in their 20s (24), in their 30s (101, in their 40s (266), in their 50s (961), in their 60s (2,741), in their 70s (5,095) and at least 80 years old (9,796).

Those age 80 and up have accounted for 52% of the known coronavirus deaths, in comparison to 44% of all known Ohio deaths for all causes in 2018.

Those in their 70s have accounted for 27% of the coronavirus deaths, in comparison to 21% of all Ohio deaths in 2018 ahead of the virus.

But for hospitalizations, the cases are more spread out age-wise: under age 20 (1,347), in their 20s (2,207), in their 30s (2,927), in their 40s (4,390), in their 50s (7,982), in their 60s (11,846), in their 70s (12,806) and at least 80 years old (11,511).

Hospitalizations have decreased sharply among older age groups since the start of vaccines. Older people were the first focus of vaccine efforts.

For the deaths in which race was reported, 86% of the people are white, and 13% are Black. For total cases, 75% are white and 13% Black.

Ohios overall population is 82% white and 13% Black. But among Ohioans at least 70 years old - the age group accounting for three-quarters of the deaths - Ohio is 89% white and 9% Black.

The first three cases were confirmed on March 9, 2020. The total topped 100,000 on Aug. 9, 250,000 on Nov. 8, 500,000 on Dec. 8, and 1 million on March 22.

Among the cases reported to date are 165,913 listed as probable, those cases included by a wider variety of tests or identified through non-testing evidence. This total is up from 157,804 last week.

The state reported 11,582,295 tests to date, including 218,694 in the last week, in comparison to 237,471 and 187,537 the previous weeks. During parts of January, more than 340,000 tests were conducted during seven-day periods.

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.

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Coronavirus cases trend down in Ohio after weeks of increases; hospitalizations still up - latest trends and - cleveland.com

CONNECTICUT Gov. Ned Lamont announced coronavirus business restrictions will be fully lifted May 19 in Connecticut.

There will be two more reopening phases. On May 1, business curfews will be moved back to midnight. Outdoor restrictions will also be lifted, so alcohol can be served without food and there will be no table size limit. Outdoor mask mandates will be lifted so long as social distancing can be maintained.

On May 19, all business restrictions will be lifted. Indoor mask mandates will remain in effect, but there may be exceptions for fully vaccinated people, Lamont said. The state Department of Public Health will also issue guidance on large indoor and outdoor events.

"I think these are all the ways that we've earned the right to get back to our new normal and I think you see on May 1 it's going to be a little more outside fun which I appreciate as long as we're careful," Lamont said during a news conference.

Individual businesses will still be able to mandate more restrictive rules than what the state mandates, Lamont said.

School mask use rules will stay in effect until at least the end of the school year, Lamont said.

The Connecticut Restaurant Association hailed Lamont's decision.

"More than a year after this pandemic began, local restaurant owners and employees can finally see light at the end of the tunnel," said Scott Dolch, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association. "Today's news gives restaurants a plan and a timeline for recovery. It's possible because of the incredible job Connecticut has done fighting COVID, from the tireless work of local business owners and employees to put safety first, to the nation-leading efforts by Gov. Lamont and his team to get our population vaccinated."

Lamont said he will have to talk with the state Legislature post-May 20 when his emergency powers expire. Things like mask mandates will have to be taken up by the Legislature.

More here:

CT Coronavirus Business Restrictions Being Fully Lifted In May - Patch.com

Binghamton University has received a $1.25 million New York State Education Department (NYSED) contract that will expand the work of the Central/Western Community Schools Technical Assistance Center (CSTAC), which facilitates the development and sustainability of community schools in the region.

Total awards have been made in the amount of $2.5 million in administrative funds from CARES Act funding to both Binghamton University and Fordham University to launch the New York State Cares for Communities (NYSCFC) initiative, designed to leverage support in identified communities most adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. NYSCFC will build upon existing resources and the experience of community-based and faith-based partners supporting regional capacity to address the needs of families related to the pandemic.

The coronavirus has had a major impact on those who are economically disadvantaged within our communities, and this contract will help us continue to support families and students within our schools, said Laura Bronstein, dean of Binghamton Universitys College of Community and Public Affairs (CCPA). Bronstein is the principal investigator for the contract and oversees Binghamton University Community Schools.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply impacted New Yorks students, who have suffered from protracted social isolation, struggled with remote learning, experienced personal and community loss of connection, witnessed ongoing civil unrest, been impacted by economic hardship and for many, lost loved ones. Through partnerships with community-based and faith-based agencies, NYSCFC will support the distribution of CARES Act funds so that services and support for students and families can be put in place without further undue suffering and lost instruction.

NYSCFC will partner with and convene community and faith-based organizations as well as school districts to leverage the resources and experience of community-based partners to build capacity for parent and family support, support school districts and build local capacity, and meet the social-emotional and mental health needs of students, families and staff members, with particular focus placed on addressing the needs of special populations and demographic groups most adversely impacted by the coronavirus. In addition to the distribution of CARES Act funds within communities, NYSCFC will work closely with the CSTACs to provide social-emotional and mental health professional development and training to school staff and community providers to further enhance this effort. Resources will be available through a NYSCFC portal on the CSTACs website.

This grant also provides support to the entire state, including the Southern Tier according to NYS Cares for Communities Director at Binghamton University Luann Kida. With a primary focus on supporting students and their families around academic enrichment, social-emotional learning, mental health, digital literacy and family engagement, workshops and tools related to the needs students and families are facing during this pandemic will be available free of charge and readily accessible, Kida said.

Regions eligible for NYSCFC support were identified based on economic disadvantage and the adverse impacts of the coronavirus. NYSCFC at Binghamton University will serve the following counties: Erie, Monroe, Niagara, Orleans, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Schenectady, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester.

NYSCFC will expand the variety of services already provided through the NYSED CSTACs. With the goal of increasing statewide capacity to support effective Community School strategies, the CSTACs continue to serve all of NYS through consultation, training and support to school districts and community providers in three regions: the Central-Western CSTAC led by Binghamton University; the Eastern CSTAC led by Rockland 21C; and the New York City CSTAC led by Fordham University. For more information about this grant and the free services available through the NYSED CSTACs, visit nyscommunityschools.org.

For more information, contact Luann Kida, director of NYSCFC at Binghamton University, at 607-777-9282 or lkida@binghamton.edu; or Bronstein at 607-777-5572 or lbronst@binghamton.edu.

See the rest here:

$2.5 million contract to support communities adversely affected by coronavirus pandemic | Binghamton News - Binghamton University

From left: Associate Professor Susan Zoll, Assistant Professor Beth Pinheiro, Assistant Professor Natasha Feinberg and Associate Professor Leslie Sevey

At Rhode Island College, online learning is not just the last resort to a global pandemic, it is fast becoming the wave of RIC's future.

"When COVID-19 shut down the college, it was a formidable challenge for educators to suddenly adapt their pedagogical practice to virtual instruction seemingly overnight," says Associate Professor Susan Zoll, who teaches in the Department of Elementary Education.

Yet she and her colleagues took on the challenge as a learning opportunity. Assistant Professor of Elementary Education Natasha Feinberg, Assistant Professor of Special Education Beth Pinheiro and Associate Professor of Elementary Education Leslie Sevey, along with Zoll, decided to meet weekly to share their online teaching experiences and to review their students' feedback regarding their online learning experiences.

They held discussions over a 15-week period to evaluate and modify their teaching approaches in a fully virtual environment. Eventually, the educators co-wrote a paper on adapting to virtual instruction.

Their paper uses the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) model as a framework for analysis. This model focuses on appreciating the best of what a system has to offer.

AI was developed by David Cooperrider. Cooperrider says that when he evaluated the efficacy of a system, he "...literally set aside all the deficiencies and looked only at the things that were giving life to the system when it was most alive. Then [he] took the best of the best to then speculate and leap to ideal-type possibilities for the future to build a theory of possibility: not a theory of yesterday's world but of tomorrow's possibilities" (Greiten, et al., 2018).

The point is not to go back to the way things were always done, say these professors, but to re-envision the future where new teaching approaches are used in a fully virtual environment.

Similar to survey results of faculty and students across the country (Fox et al., 2020, Means & Neisler, 2020), the greatest challenge to online learning they found was keeping students engaged and motivated to learn in a remote environment. Students reported that they missed receiving feedback from instructors, they missed collaborating with their fellow students and they lacked equal access to reliable technology. The pandemic revealed new forms of inequity in education as some students reported using mobile phones to complete assignments because they lacked a home computer or adequate Internet capacity.

Based on these challenges Feinberg, Pinheiro, Sevey and Zoll made significant changes to their online courses.

To address the social/emotional needs of our students, "we intentionally created greater flexibility in our schedules to meet with students and address individual needs, often meeting during the evening or on weekends," says Zoll. "Advising sessions were also scheduled outside the usual meeting times to better meet students' availability." Feinberg and Pinheiro shared, "weekly cafes virtual meeting spaces were created for students to connect informally with each other."

"Changes to our online courses have included improved organization of course materials; flexibility in course delivery; mini lectures to introduce or review content, followed by breakout rooms for small group discussion; and additional check-ins and reminders regarding upcoming assignments," said Sevey.

"Feedback has been positive," Zoll says.

Overall, navigating the online terrain was like being Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, say these faculty members. You realize you're not in Kansas anymore. However, by working together, they have come to feel at home in the virtual world. They appropriately titled their paper, "Found in Oz: The Ruby Slippers to Embracing Digital Classrooms through Appreciative Inquiry." This work is published in "The Planning and Changing Journal," by the Illinois State University's College of Education.

Original post:

News | On the Other Side of the Coronavirus: Virtual Instruction as a Wave of the Future - Rhode Island College News

Heres what you need to know:Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations leading infectious disease expert, said he expected a panel to recommend some sort of either warning or restriction on the use of Johnson & Johnsons Covid-19 vaccine.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

A decision about whether to resume administering the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine should come this Friday, when an expert panel that is advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet, according to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations leading infectious disease expert.

I think by that time were going to have a decision, Dr. Fauci said on Sunday on the CNN program State of the Union.

I dont want to get ahead of the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. and the advisory committee, he added, but said he expected experts to recommend some sort of either warning or restriction on the use of the vaccine.

Federal health agencies recommended putting injections of the vaccine on pause on Tuesday while they investigated whether it was linked to a rare blood-clotting disorder. All 50 states,Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have stopped administering the vaccine.

The unusual disorder includes blood clots in the brain combined with low levels of platelets, blood cells that typically promote clotting. The combination, which can cause clotting and bleeding at the same time, was initially documented in six women between the ages of 18 and 48 who had received the vaccine one to three weeks prior. One of the women died, and another was hospitalized in critical condition.

This pattern has prompted questions about whether vaccinations could resume in men or in older people. But because women fill more of the health care jobs for which vaccinations have been prioritized, it is not clear how much the problem might affect men, too. On Wednesday, two more cases of the clotting disorder were identified, including one in a man who had received the vaccine in a clinical trial.

About 131.2 million people in the United States have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, or roughly half of all American adults, according to the C.D.C. More than seven million of those people have received Johnson & Johnsons shot. If there is a link between the vaccine and the clotting disorder, the risk remains extremely low, experts say.

Its an extraordinarily rare event, Dr. Fauci said on the ABC program This Week. The pause was intended to give experts time to gather more information and to warn physicians about the clotting disorder so that they can make more informed treatment decisions, said Dr. Fauci, who appeared on four TV news programs on Sunday morning.

European regulators have been investigating similar cases of the unusual clotting disorder in people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Some European countries have since stopped administering that vaccine altogether, while others have restricted its use in younger people.

Dr. Fauci also expressed frustration that a disturbingly large proportion of Republicans, who have been critical of many coronavirus restrictions, have expressed a reluctance to be vaccinated. Its almost paradoxical, he said. On the one hand they want to be relieved of the restrictions, but on the other hand, they dont want to get vaccinated. It just almost doesnt make any sense.

The New York Times examined survey and vaccine administration data for nearly every U.S. county and found that both willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020.

Dr. Fauci said that he expected all high school students to become eligible for vaccination before school begins in the fall, with younger children eligible no later than the first quarter of 2022.

Michigan may finally be starting to turn a corner, after enduring more than a month of explosive coronavirus spread, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said on Sunday.

We are starting to see the beginning of what could be a slowdown, Ms. Whitmer said on the NBC program Meet the Press.

Michigan is still averaging more than 7,600 new cases a day, according to a New York Times database more than at almost any time during the holiday surge. But that figure hasnt increased by more than a few hundred for more than a week, suggesting that the current wave may be cresting. Hospitalizations and deaths, which usually lag behind new cases by several weeks, are still rising.

Governor Whitmer cited the states continuing mask mandates, capacity restrictions and her call for a voluntary two-week pause in indoor dining, youth sports and in-person schooling as factors that may have helped combat the surge. She defended her decision to not try to go further, with the kinds of closure and stay-at-home orders imposed early in the pandemic.

Fifteen months ago, we didnt know the virus could be contained by the simple act of wearing a mask, she said on Sunday. We didnt have the testing or the vaccines. Were now in a much different position.

The governor suggested that she probably could not have locked the state down again, in any case. In the waning months, I have been sued by my Legislature, I have lost in a Republican-controlled Supreme Court, and I dont have all of the exact same tools, she said.

Despite those things, we still have some of the strongest mitigation measures in the country, she added. Were still doing what we can.

Ms. Whitmer lauded the Biden administration for helping the state get more therapeutics and boots on the ground to help staff vaccination sites and hospitals. She said she had asked the federal government for even more help.

She said her states initial success in limiting the viruss spread had, paradoxically, made it more vulnerable to a later surge.

What we know is that our success at keeping Covid spread down for such a long period of time has left us with vast reservoirs of people who dont have antibodies, she said. That was a good thing until the variants came on stage.

She said that seasonal travel patterns, notably spring-break vacations and the return of snowbirds who spent the winter in warm states like Florida, had also played a role in seeding outbreaks in Michigan.

Health officials in Colorado are warning about another wave of infections as new coronavirus cases in the state jump to levels not seen since January and as counties start to loosen virus restrictions.

The state is reporting an average of 1,661 new cases a day, up by 18 percent in the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations have climbed by 19 percent in the same time period. Deaths from the virus, which tend to lag behind infections for several weeks, have slightly increased.

We are seeing what appears to be the beginning of a fourth wave of Covid-19 in Colorado, Scott Bookman, the states Covid-19 incident commander, said at a news briefing on Thursday. He urged people to remain vigilant about getting tested as more of the states population becomes vaccinated.

As in many parts of the country seeing caseloads rise, health officials say the increase has been fueled in part by the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, particularly the B.1.1.7 variant first found in Britain. That variant is estimated to be about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original version. B.1.1.7 is now the most common source of new coronavirus cases in the United States, and tracking by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that variants of concern, including B.1.1.7 and a variant that emerged in California, CAL.20C, now make up more than half of all new coronavirus cases in Colorado.

Even as cases mount, the state on Friday ended its dial system that required counties to place capacity limits on restaurants, offices and gyms, depending on case counts, positive test percentages and hospitalizations in those areas. That change shifted control of pandemic regulations to local counties, prompting concerns from some public health experts that the move could result in cases and hospitalizations continuing to rise. Several counties experiencing an increase in cases and hospitalizations, like El Paso and Douglas Counties, have said they do not plan to impose restrictions beyond those mandated by the state.

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The state still requires counties to comply with its mask mandate which will stay in place through May 2 and with limits on indoor mass gatherings.

I am concerned that without policies and behaviors to slow transmission, said Elizabeth Carlton, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, we will continue to see increases in Covid-19 hospitalizations among those who are not yet vaccinated.

It worries me, Dr. Bill Burman, director of Denver Public Health, said about counties that were choosing to be more lax with restrictions. Denver eased some regulations on Friday but kept in place certain restrictions, like capacity limits on bars, offices and retail stores.

An analysis published this month and led by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health found that delaying policy changes, at the state or local level, until mid-May would prevent large numbers of deaths and hospitalizations. According to the report, mobility in the state is also reaching its highest levels since the start of the pandemic.

State officials defended the change last week, pointing to the relatively low number of hospitalizations and deaths compared with the peaks seen in December. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said at a news briefing on Tuesday that he was confident that counties could take on greater responsibility, but he urged people to remain cautious.

I think that the number of cases and hospitalizations will sadly continue to go up before it goes down, Mr. Polis said, adding that he hoped it would be a short peak as more people get vaccinated.

About 41 percent of the states population has received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 25 percent have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

State officials said they would continue to monitor hospitalization levels. Under the governors public health order, the state could require counties to put in place additional restrictions if their resident hospitalizations threatened to exceed 85 percent of hospital capacity.

To some, Alaskas announcement that it would try to entice travelers by offering Covid-19 vaccinations at its airports might signal the states plucky resolve and determination to revive a tourism industry that has been devastated by the pandemic.

To others, its a sign of everything that is wrong with the way that the United States is distributing its vaccines, as calls for more doses in surge-stricken Michigan are rebuffed.

Its hard for me to believe that weve so maldistributed a vaccine as to make this necessary, said Dr. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was part of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. You dont want to exchange a bad carbon footprint for a vaccination.

Starting on June 1, any tourist traveling to Alaska will be able to receive a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine at the Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau or Ketchikan airports. Its part of a larger multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, funded by federal stimulus money, to attract tourists back to the state, Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, a Republican, announced.

We believe theres a real opportunity to get folks to come to Alaska again, Mr. Dunleavy said at a news conference on Friday.

Alaska is the latest state to announce plans to extend vaccine eligibility to nonresidents as production and distribution have increased around the country. Twenty-one other states do not have residency requirements for vaccination, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Some U.S. experts have worried for months about the growth in vaccine tourism Americans crossing state lines to get a vaccine where there are excess doses. Virologists like Dr. Brilliant say that rather than incentivizing people to fly to Alaska to get a shot from the states abundant vaccine supply, doses should be redistributed to states most in need and no longer be allocated strictly by population.

Alaska is not lacking vaccines, said Heidi Hedberg, the states director of public health. Health administrators will begin the airport vaccine program for tourists at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, with a five-day trial at the end of April to gauge interest. Some visitors may have to get their second dose of mRNA vaccines in their home states, depending on how long they remain in Alaska.

Almost 40 percent of Alaskans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to a New York Times database. Thirty-two percent of the states population is fully vaccinated. The state has used 68 percent of its doses.

Alaska was the first state to open up vaccine eligibility to anyone 16 or older living or working in the state, on March 9. At the time of the announcement, Alaska had the highest vaccination rate in the country.

The United States has continued to speed up vaccination efforts, and is now averaging 3.2 million doses a day, up from roughly two million a day in early March. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday that about 129.5 million people had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr. Brilliant said states like Michigan, the center of the countrys worst surge, should be receiving larger allocations of doses.

The Biden administration and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat, have been at odds over her calls for an increase in her states vaccine supply. But the Biden administration held fast to distributing vaccines by state population, not by triage.

The vaccine should go where it will do the most good, Dr. Brilliant said. Given the scarcity of vaccine in the world, every dose should be given in a way that is most effective at stopping this pandemic.

But the issue could be moot by the time that Alaskas tourist vaccination program begins in earnest on June 1: most Americans who want to be vaccinated might already have received at least one dose by then, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Were going to reach a point where people dont need to fly to Alaska to get vaccinated, he said. I think its going to be more of the case that, heres an opportunity to visit Alaska and its convenient to get vaccinated.

French authorities will tightly restrict who can travel to France from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and South Africa, and will impose a 10-day quarantine on those who do, in the hope of staving off worrisome coronavirus variants circulating in those countries, the government announced on Saturday.

The announcement adds to a shifting patchwork of international restrictions that have complicated travel around the world.

Prime Minister Jean Castex announced late on Saturday that, starting April 24, travelers arriving from any of the four countries will have to quarantine for 10 days. Police officers will check on them to ensure that they comply.

Entry from the four countries will be limited almost exclusively to French citizens and their families, citizens of other European Union countries, and foreigners with permanent homes in France. Travelers must have tested negative for the virus within a shorter time before takeoff, and will be given antigenic tests on arrival.

These are the countries that are most dangerous, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Frances foreign minister, told France 3 television on Sunday.

Nearly all flights between France and Brazil will remain suspended at least until the new rules take effect and possibly longer, the government said.

The tightened restrictions were necessary because of the uncontrolled spread of the virus in certain countries, including widespread transmission of virus variants like those first identified in Brazil and South Africa that appear to be more resistant to some current Covid-19 vaccines, Mr. Castex said in his statement.

Frances decision adds to a complex tangle of rules and policies about international travel that can vary widely from country to country and month to month.

Germany loosened some of its travel restrictions last week, removing Britain, Ireland, Finland and Barbados from its list of at-risk areas, meaning that travelers from those countries no longer need to quarantine upon arrival.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia said that his country was in no hurry to reopen its borders, which have largely been closed to anyone other than returning Australian citizens.

I will not be putting at risk the way we are living in this country, which is so different to the rest of the world today, Mr. Morrison told reporters on Sunday.

Unlike the many European countries that have kept restaurants closed, travel restricted and face masks mandatory to combat a new wave of infections, Australia has its coronavirus epidemic largely under control and residents are mostly free to travel domestically and dine out.

More people are flying every day, as Covid restrictions ease and vaccinations accelerate. But dangerous variants have led to new outbreaks, raising fears of a deadly prolonging of the pandemic.

To understand how safe it is to fly now, The Times enlisted researchers to simulate how air particles flow within the cabin of an airplane, and how potential viral elements may pose a risk.

For instance, when a passenger sneezes, air blown from the sides pushes particles toward the aisle, where they combine with air from the opposite row. Not all particles are the same size, and most dont contain infectious viral matter. But if passengers nearby werent wearing masks, even briefly to eat a snack, the sneezed air could increase their chances of inhaling viral particles.

How air flows in planes is not the only part of the safety equation, according to infectious-disease experts. The potential for exposure may be just as high, if not higher, when people are in the terminal, sitting in airport restaurants and bars or going through the security line.

The challenge isnt just on a plane, said Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist specializing in infection prevention. Consider the airport and the whole journey.

The National Institutes of Health is investing $33 million in research projects run by institutions around the United States that could help officials safely reopen schools serving vulnerable students and under-resourced rural, urban and Native American communities.

The projects focus on expanding coronavirus testing for children of color, children from low-income families and children with developmental disabilities or complex medical conditions. The projects are part of an N.I.H. program called Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Underserved Populations, or RADx-UP, and include initiatives among Native American communities.

Establishing frequent Covid-19 testing protocols for schools in vulnerable and underserved communities is essential to the safe-return-to-school effort, and these projects will inform decision makers on the best strategies to accomplish this, Dr. Eliseo J. Prez-Stable, director of N.I.H.s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and co-chair of the RADx-UP program, said in the announcement on Thursday.

Although remote schooling has been a challenge for many families, certain vulnerable populations have faced additional obstacles. Low-income families, for instance, may not have access to computers or high-speed internet connections, while children with developmental disabilities may miss out on speech therapy, occupational therapy and other services that are typically tied to in-person schooling.

The new research projects encompass a wide variety of schools, ranging in size from 50 to 3,500 students.

One study, led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, will survey parents of children with disabilities to identify the best communication strategies for promoting in-person learning and examine ways to increase participation in a weekly coronavirus testing program. Another will assess the feasibility of at-home and school-based coronavirus testing programs for children with complex medical needs.

A project based at Duke University will explore whether rapid coronavirus tests can reduce the spread of the virus in schools and help build trust with Black and Latino families, encouraging them to send their children back into the classroom.

The RADx-UP program plans to distribute more funding, and expand its efforts to more locations, in the months ahead, the N.I.H. said.

JERUSALEM Buoyed by its recent success in combating the coronavirus, Israel lifted its outdoor mask mandate on Sunday, while schools fully reopened for the first time since September.

The country has been taking rapid steps back to normalcy in the wake of its world-leading vaccination campaign and plummeting infection rates. About 56 percent of the Israeli population has been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database.

Finally, I can breathe again! Eli Bliach, 35, an entrepreneur, said while walking mask-free in downtown Jerusalem on Sunday morning.

With the sun out and temperatures rising, some people joked about avoiding mask tan lines.

But other Israelis were hesitant to remove the layer of protection that had felt so alien at first, but that many have since gotten used to.

I am not confident that the pandemic is over, said Ilana Danino, 59, a cosmetician and caregiver who was still wearing a mask while walking down an almost empty street in the city center. It is still out there all over the world.

Besides, she said, I feel good with this on, gesturing to the air around her and explaining that springtime could still bring allergies and the spread of other viruses.

Israels health minister, Yuli Edelstein, urged people to continue carrying masks with them for entry into indoor public spaces, where they are still required.

Daily new coronavirus infections in Israel have fallen from a peak of 10,000 in January to around 100 on some recent days. Prof. Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science said on Twitter last week that with 85 percent of people 16 and older in Israel either vaccinated or recovered from the virus, Life is close to pre-Covid.

As part of the transition, Israel has introduced a green pass system allowing people who are vaccinated or recovered to dine indoors in restaurants, stay in hotels and attend large cultural, sports and religious gatherings.

But there is some new concern after several cases of a virus variant with a double mutation first detected in India, B.1.617, were identified in Israel last week. Prof. Nachman Ash, Israels coronavirus czar, told the Hebrew news site Ynet on Sunday that the variant might have some characteristics that could make those who have been vaccinated vulnerable to infection.

Israel is working to prevent any further entry of the variant, he said, while trying to learn more about it and how it is behaving in other parts of the world.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced on Saturday that New Yorkers who are 50 or older could now walk in and receive the coronavirus vaccine at more than 30 city-operated sites.

No appointment necessary, the mayor said on Twitter. One person accompanying the over-50 walk-in candidate can also receive the shot. Mr. de Blasios aim is to fully vaccinate five million of the citys eight million residents by June.

Before Saturday, the city allowed walk-in vaccinations only for people 75 and over.

The city listed 31 locations across the five boroughs where walk-ins would be accepted, including three that usually operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bathgate Contract Postal Station in the Bronx and Citi Field in Queens. That list of locations will be updated weekly.

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Covid-19: Fauci Expects Decision on Johnson & Johnson Vaccine This Week - The New York Times