Category: Covid-19 Vaccine

A COVID-19 vaccination clinic in downtown Medford is reopening at the Jackson County Expo. Associated Press file photo

The Oregon Health Authoritys mass vaccination clinic at the Merrick building in downtown Medford is moving out to the Jackson County Expo.

The Merrick walk-through vaccination site closed down Saturday. Free COVID-19 shots will resume Thursday at The Expo, 1 Peninger Road, Central Point. Enter through Gate 1.

The vaccination site at The Expo will operate as a drive-thru clinic.

Its hours of operation are noon to 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays. COVID-19 vaccinations are available for people age 5 and older, including booster shots.

The Expo has hosted vaccination sites in the past.

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COVID-19 vaccination site moving to The Expo Medford News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News - Mail Tribune

Syncope is the medical term for fainting. Its a potential side effect of any vaccine, including those used to prevent COVID-19. Fainting is when you pass out due to a lack of oxygen to your brain. Its most commonly a vaccine side effect among younger adults and teenagers, according to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, but it can affect anybody.

In most cases, the stress and anxiety of getting a vaccine cause fainting, not the vaccine itself. In very rare cases, a severe allergic reaction to one of the ingredients can cause a drop in blood pressure that leads to loss of consciousness.

Read on to learn more about why some people faint after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and what factors cause people to faint.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fainting is a reported side effect of almost every vaccine. Its most common after vaccines against:

In most cases, fainting is caused by the stress and anxiety of receiving a vaccine. These emotions can trigger a condition called vasovagal syncope. Vasovagal syncope is the most common cause of fainting in general.

Nerves send messages from your brain to your heart and blood vessels to control your heart rate and blood pressure. Vasovagal syncope occurs when these nerves dont send an appropriate signal, causing a drop in blood pressure and inadequate blood flow to your brain.

Strong emotions, like the fear of receiving a vaccine, and other factors like dehydration or pain can trigger vasovagal syncope.

In a May 2021 report published by the CDC, the reported frequency of fainting from Janssen COVID-19 vaccines and flu shots was 8.2 and 0.05 per 100,000 people, respectively, between 2019 and 2021.

Of the people who fainted, 62 percent were ages 11 to 18. And 25 percent were ages 19 to 49.

Nearly a quarter of people who experienced fainting or other anxiety-related side effects after receiving the Janssen vaccine reported a history of similar anxiety-related events from other vaccines.

In fewer than 1 in 1 million people, vaccination can trigger a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis can be fatal if not quickly treated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it usually develops 5 to 30 minutes after injections.

Symptoms of anaphylaxis can include:

Fear of medical procedures involving needles is called trypanophobia. Its an extremely common fear. In a 2018 review, researchers estimated the prevalence to be 20 to 50 percent in adolescents and 20 to 30 percent in young adults.

The development of phobias is complex and can be caused by a combination of social, psychological, and physiological causes.

According to the WHO, the development of a vaccine phobia may be explained by physiological factors, like:

Vaccine phobia is also influenced by psychological factors, including:

Social factors also play a role, such as:

In the same May 2021 report published by the CDC, the most reported anxiety-related symptoms were:

More than 98 percent of fainting episodes occur within 30 minutes of injection, according to a 2021 review. After your vaccine, the person who administered the shot will likely tell you to wait around for at least 15 minutes for monitoring.

If youre with a person who faints, lay the person down with their legs in a raised position until the person is feeling better.

If you develop anxiety-related symptoms after vaccination, you can try taking slow, deep breaths to calm your heart rate. Staying hydrated and having a snack available may also help you ease symptoms such as faintness or lightheadedness.

Many people find it helpful to distract themselves with something such as listening to music, playing a game, or talking.

In two 2018 studies, researchers found that short bouts of exercise before vaccination lowered the number of side effects.

The WHO recommends administering vaccines in a calm, planned, and private environment when possible.

If your child is nervous about vaccines, you may be able to lower their stress by:

Its common to experience mild side effects after getting a vaccine. If side effects appear, they usually go away after 1 or 2 days.

According to the CDC, the most common side effects are:

Rarely, some people may experience more serious reactions. These can include:

Many people find getting a vaccine stressful. This stress can lead to anxiety-related side effects such as fainting, dizziness, or nausea. In very rare cases, vaccines can cause a severe allergic reaction that causes fainting.

For the vast majority of people, vaccines cause no or mild side effects. If you have a history of vaccine-related anxiety, talk with your doctor about ways to manage your anxiety before a vaccine to lower your chances of side effects.

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COVID-19 Vaccine and Fainting: Does One Cause the Other? - Healthline

To examine the effect hunters and jostlers may have on vaccinations, we conducted two pre-registered and monetary incentivized survey experimentsa main study and a follow-up study.

Data for the main study were collected on the Prolific platform at a time (March 2224 of 2021) when COVID-19 vaccines were still unavailable to large groups of the adult U.S. population. We recruited a sample of Americans, representative of the population on age, gender and race/ethnicity. The survey experiment was pre-registered in the AEA registry for RCTs as AEARCTR-0007285. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, the experiment was conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations, and the experimental protocol was approved by the George Mason IRB (#1724890).

Participants were paid $1 for completion, plus any incentives earned as part of the survey. While a total of 1,503 participants answered the survey, we here focus on those (N=1,117) who were randomized into the following treatments: i) a control treatment (participants received information about the existence of COVID-19 vaccines); ii) a hunters treatment (participants were additionally provided brief information that described how vaccine hunters went through great lengths to secure left-over vaccine doses); and iii) a jostlers treatment (providing corresponding information about how some privileged people jumped the vaccine line). The remaining 386 of participants of the total sample (N=1,503) were randomized into a safe treatment. The safe treatment emphasized the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and was included to provide a benchmark for the size of any treatment effects in the hunters and the jostlers treatment. The safe treatment did, however, not impact the enthusiasm about the vaccines (most likely because our sample already have very high trust in the safety of the vaccinesmore than 85% of participants believed vaccines were safe). Details on the safe treatment, its (null-)results, as well as on our participants trust in the vaccines, are provided in the Supplementary Information.

Specifically, participants in the control group were shown information about the existence of COVID-19 vaccines, among other things saying that [t]he COVID-19 vaccines will decrease your risk of getting COVID-19 and of becoming seriously ill or dying []. As the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the coronavirus from spreading and replicating, they will also help in preventing additional mutations of the virus.

In addition to the information given in the control group, participants in the hunters and jostlers treatments saw information that described the respective phenomenon. We took care to ensure that the information contained language similar to that used in news media reporting, e.g., how vaccine supply shortages in the early spring of 2021 fueled the behavior of hunters and jostlers. Participants randomized into the hunters treatment read: Even though the vaccines have been approved, the supply is still too low to meet the demand. This has led to the global rise of so called vaccine hunters []. The vaccine hunters wait for entire days outside for example grocery store pharmacies in hopes of securing left over vaccine doses (that would otherwise be discarded) at the end of the day. Those randomized into the jostlers treatment read: Even though the vaccines have been approved, the supply is still too low to meet the demand. This has led to a situation where, globally, the wealthy are trying to jump the line to get a COVID-19 vaccine []. One example of this is the Canadian billionaire Rod Baker who, together with his wife, chartered a private plane and traveled to a remote region in Yukon to pose as a motel worker in order to feign being eligible for the vaccine. Immediately after the treatment information, participants answered a short question about the main message of the paragraph. This was done to identify participants who might not be paying adequate attention, or misunderstanding the text. Such limited attention/misunderstandings were, however, uncommon: only 2.95% of participants provided an incorrect answer and our results are robust to excluding these.

Four outcome measures were assessed immediately after the treatment. First, we asked participants to state their (1) willingness to get vaccinated immediately [VAXTODAY], and (2) in two months [VAX2MONTHS] on a 110 scale (from definitely not being willing to definitely being willing). If participants had already received at least their first vaccine dose, these measures assessed their willingness to recommend vaccination to friends and family, using the same scale. Thereafter participants were asked whether they (3) wanted (yes/no) to get a link to general vaccine eligibility and sign-up information (for the use to self, or to friends and family) in the post survey confirmation email [VAXINFO].

The last outcome variable, which was only asked of participants who had not yet received at least a first COVID-19 vaccine dose, measured their (4) monetary valuation of a vaccine sign-up service that facilitated access to a COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, the service provided individualized help with identifying, and signing up for, a COVID-19 vaccine appointment in the participants geographical vicinity once the participant became eligible (at the point of data collection, in March 2021, most adults in the U.S. were still not eligible, and many people were eager to get their vaccines as soon as they became eligible). Additional information about the vaccine sign-up service, and how it was made available to participants, is available in the Supplementary Information.

Willingness to pay for the vaccine sign-up service was elicited using a multiple-price-list, MPL28participants were presented with a list of eight choice pairs. In each choice pair, participants had to decide between either getting access to the vaccine sign-up service, or instead receiving a monetary prize ($2, $5, $10, $25, $50, $75, $100 and $200 in the eight choice pairs, respectively). Participants were informed that 15 survey participants would be randomly selected and that their preferred alternative in a randomly chosen choice pair out of the eight would be implemented (i.e. they would either receive the monetary prize, or access to the vaccine sign-up service, depending on their chosen alternative in a randomly selected choice pair). Choice pairs were ordered from lowest to highest monetary amount, such that we can use the number of times a participant selected the vaccine sign-up service before switching to the monetary prize as a measure of the willingness to pay for the service [VAXHELP]. The last part of the survey assessed participants demographic information.

Of the 15 people randomly selected to receive their preferred alternative in the MPL, 3 participants preferred the vaccine sign-up service in the randomly selected choice pair, and 12 participants were paid a monetary price (which averaged $62).

While the sample is, by design, quota representative of the U.S. population on gender, age and race/ethnicity, it is not necessarily representative in other respects. Notably, close to 60 percent (59.4 percent, SE=1.3) of our sample have completed at least a four year college degree, which is a higher proportion than in the general U.S. population. As education correlates positively with beliefs about vaccines in general being safe1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, this might (at least partly) explain the large share of our participants believing that COVID-19 vaccines are safe.

The willingness to get vaccinated is generally high in our sample. In the control treatment, 82.6, SE=1.9, (84.6, SE=1.8) percent were more willing than unwilling to receive/recommend the vaccine immediately (in two months). This is at least weakly higher than corresponding shares observed in most studies who estimate willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the U.S.1,2,3. Of participants in the control treatment, 42 percent (SE=2.49) stated that they wanted to receive information about eligibility and sign-up for COVID-19 vaccines. The willingness to pay for the vaccine sign-up service is low, however: the average participant in the control group only choose the vaccine service over the monetary prize in 0.85 (SE=0.11) of the 8 questions, which indicates a mean WTP of less than $2.

We examined the balance of demographic and attitude variables across treatment groups by conducting 36 pairwise t-tests (two-sided) of equality of means. One test was statistically significant (p<0.05): we find that the share of female participants is higher in the hunters than in the control treatment group. While this is not surprising with 36 pairwise tests, we therefore include the variable female as a control variable in our main regression specifications reported in Fig.1 and Table 1 (excluding this control variable does, however, not impact the results reported, or conclusions drawn).

Effect of the hunters and jostlers treatments on the willingness to get vaccinated as soon as the vaccine becomes available [VAXTODAY]. The upper two bars of the hunters and jostlers treatments on all participants (Column (1) in Table 1, panel A) the lower two bars show the effect of the treatments on unvaccinated participants only (Column (1) in Table 1, panel B). Error bars denote robust standard errors.

To better understand the effect on willingness to vaccinate from the hunters and jostlers treatments that we observed in the main study, we next conducted a follow-up study. Data collection took place on May 19, 2021, on Prolific, and participants were 800 Americans, distinct from those who responded to the first survey. They were paid $1 for completion, plus any incentives earned as part of the study. The experimental survey used in the follow-up study elicited participants emotional response to the control and treatment information in the main study, as well as their incentivized predictions about the treatment informations effect on the willingness to get vaccinated. This study was pre-registered in the AEA registry for RCTS as AEARCTR-0007656. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, the experiment was conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations, and the experimental protocol was approved by the George Mason IRB (#1756922-1).

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Vaccine hunters and jostlers may have hurt the COVID-19 vaccination effort | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

For months, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been caught between a rock and a hard place as thousands of Chicago Police officers refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in defiance of her order, which was upheld by court rulings and a final decision by an arbitrator.

Lightfoot refused to roll back the mandate, even as conservative members of the Chicago City Council ratcheted up the pressure on the mayor by warning she would have blood on her hands if the requirement took cops off Chicagos streets as murders and carjackings soared to record levels.

After the final deadline for members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 passed on Wednesday, data released by the mayors office disclosed that Lightfoot while ramping up her re-election bid agreed to exempt at least 1,439 officers from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The decision to exempt at least 11.5% of the Chicago Police Department from her vaccine mandate will mean Lightfoot will not have to ask Chicagoans for a second term in office while moving to fire thousands of Chicago Police officers at a time when polls repeatedly show public safety is voters biggest concern.

Lightfoots office declined to respond to questions about WTTWs analysis on Thursday, citing staff absences because of the upcoming Passover and Easter holidays.

Despite the massive number of vaccine exemptions granted to members of the Chicago Police Department by Lightfoot, 681 members of the department who have not been vaccinated and have not received an exemption are at risk of being disciplined and ultimately terminated, according to data released by the mayors office. That amounts to more than 5.5% of the department.

However, officials are still weighing 571 exemption requests from Chicago Police officers. If those exemptions are granted, nearly 16% of the Chicago Police Department would not be vaccinated against COVID-19.Exemptions can only be granted for religious or medical reasons under state law.

Officials granted nearly double the number of exemptions to members of the Chicago Police Department than to members of any other city department, according to data provided by the mayors office.

By comparison, officials granted vaccine exemptions to 6.6% of the Chicago Fire Departments employees, to 5.6% of the members of the Department of Streets and Sanitation and 5% of the Department of Water Management.

In all, 21% of the Chicago Police Department has not been vaccinated against COVID-19, eight months after Lightfoot issued the mandate. When an arbitrator ruled in February that members of the Chicago Police Department must get the vaccine, 24% of members had not been vaccinated.

Lightfoot said at the time of that ruling she believed the decision would prompt officers to get vaccinated in large numbers, heading off a confrontation. That hope was in vain, according to the data released by her office.

An additional 3,250 vaccine exemption requests submitted by members of the Chicago Police Department were rejected by city officials, according to data provided by city officials.

In all, more than 5,900 of the citys 30,200 employees requested an exemption from Lightfoots vaccine. Nearly 79% of those requests came from Chicago Police Department members, according to data released by the mayor's office.

Nearly 2,300 vaccine exemptions were granted by city officials more than 63% to members of the Chicago Police Department, according to data released by the mayors office.

Officials declined to tell WTTW News how many exemptions were granted for medical reasons and how many were granted for religious reasons. Cardinal Blase Cupich has instructed pastors in the Archdiocese of Chicago not to grant religious exemptions to the vaccine, saying that is not supported by church teachings or law.

Just 15 members are not being paid because they are defying the vaccine mandate. Lightfoot has been criticized by Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara for slow walking the implementation of the vaccine mandate.

Lightfoot has said each employee will be disciplined individually, and said mass firings will not take place.

Chicago Police officers can only be terminated on the recommendation of Chicago Police Supt. David Brown and a vote of the Chicago Police Board.

Contact Heather Cherone:@HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 |[emailprotected]

Excerpt from:

As Final COVID-19 Vaccine Deadline Passes, At Least 1500 Chicago Police Officers Won't Have to Get Vaccinated: Lightfoot - WTTW News

Since their introduction in late 2020, COVID-19 vaccines have bolstered the fight against the pandemic, substantially reducing the likelihood of infection and especially severe cases (Amit et al. 2021, Dagan et al. 2021, Polack et al. 2020, Voysey et al. 2021). Given their proven effectiveness as well as the continued social costs of infection and public health measures like lockdowns, the persistent resistance to vaccination poses an urgent policy problem. Correspondingly, understanding the factors shaping decisions to get vaccinated or not constitutes an urgent scientific question.

Scholars have offered some initial findings. For example, exposure to online misinformation is associated with a decline in willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 (Loomba et al. 2021, Roozenbeek et al. 2020), and individuals who are opposed to COVID-19 vaccines are less likely to obtain information about the pandemic from traditional and authoritative sources (Murphy et al. 2021). Conservative media consumption is associated with less social distancing (Ash et al. 2020, Gollwitzer et al. 2020, Simonov et al. 2020) and worse COVID-19 health outcomes (Bursztyn et al. 2020).

At the early stages of the vaccination roll-out, news providers varied in their scepticism toward COVID-19 vaccines. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that differential exposure to their programmes might have influenced vaccine hesitancy and, consequentially, vaccine uptake. For example, Fox News primetime show Tucker Carlson, one of the most popular shows on the network, took a strong stance against vaccines, misleadingly representing deaths after vaccination as being caused by the vaccination (Barr 2021, Stelter 2021). In addition, the network has generally doubted scientific research and experts (Feldman et al. 2012, Huertas and Kriegsman 2014, Hmielowski et al. 2014).

In order to assess the effects of media misinformation on vaccination rates, we pair data on county-level vaccination rates with data on viewership of the main cable news providers: Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN. The results from the analysis show that, starting May 2021, counties with higher Fox News viewership report lower vaccination rates: watching one additional hour of Fox News per week for the average household reduces the number of vaccinations by 0.35 to 0.76 per 100 people.

In the early months of the vaccination campaign, we do not observe a relationship between cable channel viewership and vaccinations. However, starting in May 2021, Fox News viewership starts reducing vaccine uptake. The relationships for the other cable news networks, MSNBC and CNN, remain without any statistically significant effect.

Figure 1 Effect of network viewership on weekly vaccination rates (2SLS)

Notes: Regressional coefficient plots with 95% CIs of the effect of one standard deviation changes in viewership on weekly vaccinations per 100 people. Our viewership measure is instrumented using the channel line-up positions.

We observe that results are driven by people aged 18 to 65 years, with no significant effect on the group older than 65 years. To strengthen our analysis, we control for the main networks relative channel position and viewership, as well as for geographical confounders including socio-demographic characteristics and political preferences of the counties.

We can show that there is a causal relationship between exposure to Fox News Channel and lower vaccination uptake. Our statistical analysis exploits the fact that networks are exogenously assigned a channel position in the television line-up, with casual viewers being more likely to watch channels with a lower channel number. We therefore use the geographical variation of the networks channel position as an instrument for the networks viewership. This empirical approach has been widely used in economics and political science to study the effects of biased media coverage (Ananyev et al. 2020, Ash et al. 2021, Galletta and Ash 2019, Martin and Yurukoglu 2017, Simonov et al. 2020). The causal estimates are also coherent with the correlational results of the Ordinary Least Squares regressions of viewership on vaccination rates.

Overall, our results support the interpretation that Fox News Channel promulgated a uniquely sceptical narrative about vaccines and that this narrative caught on and reduced uptake among the marginal vaccine recipient. We back this interpretation with the following observations.

First, in areas with higher exposure to Fox News Channel, respondents to a national survey reported higher COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. This agrees with a behavioural mechanism where Fox News Channels sceptical vaccine narrative affects vaccination rates by changing attitudes and intentions regarding the vaccine, discouraging in particular the population with low health-related risks.

Second, we consider whether the effects that we see might be driven by local healthcare capacity. If the difference in vaccination rates were due to healthcare capacity, we should see similar effects throughout all stages of the vaccination campaign. Yet we find there was no effect on vaccine uptake in the early months, when the vaccines were only available to older/at-risk individuals. Thus, we infer that the effect of cable news is most pronounced for relatively low-risk individuals, such as the younger population, helping to rule out an effect due to local healthcare capacity.

It could also be that the healthcare systems in areas with higher Fox News viewership systematically differ in their capability to handle a COVID-19 outbreak, for example, due to effects on local government funding (Galletta and Ash 2019). Or it could be that these counties suffered more cases and deaths in 2020 or in the period before the vaccinations. We find that Fox News Channel has no effect on measurements of local healthcare capacity, including the number of ICU beds, number of hospitals, and Centers for Disease Control and Preventionestimated risk indexes. We also rule out that the difference in uptake is due to differences in infections or deaths.

Third, as Fox News viewership has been shown to be correlated with voting Republican (Ash et al. 2021, DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007, Martin and Yurukoglu 2017), we check if partisan affiliation or political ideology are driving the Fox News effect. Republicans or conservatives could overall be more sceptical of the COVID-19 vaccine, indicating that the observed effect was driven by Fox News Channel increasing the number of Republicans or conservatives. Our results show that this is unlikely to be the case, as the effect of Fox News Channel on vaccine uptake holds in several tests that control for partisan affiliation and political ideology.

Finally, we consider whether Fox has affected general attitudes towards vaccines, for example through anti-science rhetoric. To check this, we look at the effects on seasonal flu vaccination rates (20172019) and conclude that the network does not contribute to a generic anti-vaccination sentiment and that the effect on COVID-19 vaccines is due to a COVID-specific narrative.

This column provides evidence that the main cable news television providers are affecting vaccination decisions, suggesting that Foxs COVID-19 coverage is at least partially responsible for reducing vaccination rates. Fox News slanted media rhetoric is linked to vaccination hesitancy, producing significant behavioural effects in the under-65 population with low health risks. Future efforts by government agencies and health organisations to encourage vaccine uptake should account for how media narratives may strengthen or weaken those efforts.

Amit, S, G Regev-Yochay, A Afek, Y Kreis and E Leshem (2021), Early rate reductions of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 in BNT162b2 vaccine recipients, The Lancet397(10277): 8757.

Ananyev, M, M Poyker and Y Tian (2020), Exposure to Fox News hindered social distancing in the US, VoxEU.org, 20 October.

Ash, E, S Galletta, D Hangartner, Y Margalit and M Pinna (2020), The effect of Fox News on health behavior during COVID-19, SSRN 3636762.

Ash, E, S Galletta, M Pinna and C Warshaw (2021), The effect of Fox News Channel on US elections: 20002020, SSRN 3837457.

Barr, J (2021), Fox News viewers are getting mixed messages about whether to take the coronavirus vaccine, Washington Post, 14 March.

Bursztyn, L, A Rao, C Roth and D Yanagizawa-Drott (2020), Misinformation during a pandemic, University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper 2020-44.

Dagan, N, N Barda, E Kepten et al.(2021), BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine in a nationwide mass vaccination setting, New England Journal of Medicine 384(15): 141223.

DellaVigna, S, and E Kaplan (2007), The Fox News effect: Media bias and voting, Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(3): 1187234.

Feldman, L, E W Maibach, C Roser-Renouf and A Leiserowitz (2012), Climate on cable: The nature and impact of global warming coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, International Journal of Press/Politics 17(1): 331.

Galletta, S, and E Ash (2019), How cable news reshaped local government, SSRN 3370908.

Gollwitzer, A, C Martel, W Brady, P Prnamets, I Freedman, E Knowles and J Van Bavel (2020), Partisan differences in physical distancing are linked to health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nature Human Behaviour 4: 112.

Hmielowski, J D, L Feldman, T A Myers, A Leiserowitz and E Maibach (2014), An attack on science? Media use, trust in scientists, and perceptions of global warming, Public Understanding of Science 23(7): 86683.

Huertas, A, and R Kriegsman (2014), Science or spin? Washington, DC: Union of Concerned Scientists.

Loomba, S, A de Figueiredo, S J Piatek, K de Graaf and H J Larson (2021), Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA, Nature Human Behaviour 5(3): 337348.

Martin, G J, and A Yurukoglu (2017), Bias in cable news: Persuasion and polarization, American Economic Review 107(9): 256599.

Murphy, J, F Vallires, R P Bentall et al.(2021), Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the UK, Nature Communications 12(1): 29.

Polack, F P, S J Thomas, N Kitchin et al.(2020), Safety and efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, New England Journal of Medicine 383(27): 260315, PMID: 33301246.

Roozenbeek, J, C R Schneider, S Dryhurst et al.(2020), Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world, Royal Society Open Science 7(10): 201199.

Simonov, A, S K Sacher, J-P Dub and S Biswas (2020), News media and distrust in scientific experts, VoxEU.org, 6 July.

Stelter, B (2021), Tucker Carlsons Fox News colleagues call out his dangerous anti-vaccination rhetoric, CNN Business, 6 May.

Voysey, M, S A Costa Clemens, S A Madhiet al. (2021), Single-dose administration and the influence of the timing of the booster dose on immunogenicity and efficacy of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) vaccine: A pooled analysis of four randomised trials, Lancet 397(10277): 88191.

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The impact of Fox News on the US COVID-19 vaccination campaign | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

COVID-19 vaccination, though highly effective against severe or fatal disease, does not offer full protection against infection. There are currently 3 vaccines available in the US: Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2), Moderna (mRNA-1273), and Johnson & Johnsons-Janssen (JNJ-78436735). One study, presented this week at theSociety for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Conference 2022(SHEA), explored the demographic characteristics and disease outcomes of COVID-19 breakthrough infections by type of vaccine received.

The investigators included a total of 85 fully vaccinated patients with a documented COVID-19 breakthrough infection from February-September 2021. Breakthrough infection was defined as SARS-CoV-2 detection 14 days after receiving all initial doses of an authorized COVID-19 vaccine. The investigators collected patient demographics and hospitalization information, such as length of stay and oxygen needs.

Participants were recruited from 2 hospitals in Southeast Michigan, and classified by non-severe, severe, or critical disease. Patients were classified as severe if their oxygen saturation level was 94% on room air or if they required supplemental oxygen, and critical if they developed respiratory failure, including mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

A total of 85 breakthrough infections were identified in the study cohort. The average age of the patients was 69.9 years, and 51.8% were female. At 85.9% (n=73), severe disease was the most common type of breakthrough infection, followed by non-severe disease (n=7; 8.24%). A total of 9 (10.6%) deaths occurred in the cohort.

Most patients received the Pfizer-BioNTech (n=38; 44.7%) or Moderna (n=35; 41.2%) vaccine. Severe illness was more common among participants who received a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination regimen (n=33/73; 45.2%), and patients with critical disease were more likely to have received the Moderna vaccine (n=4/5; 80.0%).

Moderna vaccine recipients had the longest time in between COVID-19 infection and vaccination (181.9 43.1 days) and Janssen vaccine recipients had the shortest time between testing positive and receiving the vaccine (91.0 61.1 days). The investigators concluded that COVID-19 breakthrough infections were uncommon among fully vaccinated persons, but increased with time after vaccination.

The study, SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infections among Hospitalized Patients in Southeast Michigan, was presented on April 12 during theSociety for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Conference 2022(SHEA).

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Examining COVID-19 Breakthrough Infections by Type of Vaccine Received - Contagionlive.com

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The St. Joseph County Department of Health announced that the office hours for its COVID-19 vaccine clinic in downtown South Bend will change on Monday.

New hours will allow visitors to get COVID-19 vaccinations on the ninth floor of the County-City Building on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments for a vaccination can be made by visiting here.

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St. Joseph County Department of Health alters its time slots for COVID-19 vaccine appointments - ABC 57 News

WASHINGTON The U.S. Army announced updated COVID-19 vaccination rates and exemption requests as of Apr. 13, 2022.

As of April 13, 2022, the Army has separated 255 Soldiers for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

To date, Army commanders have relieved a total of six Regular Army leaders, including two battalion commanders, and issued 3,330 general officer written reprimands to Regular Army Soldiers for refusing the vaccination order.

As the Army accesses and discharges Soldiers and continues to refine data tracking processes, the vaccination percentages will vary slightly.

For details on Army National Guard vaccination rates, please contact the National Guard Bureau, NGBMediaDesk@mail.mil.

The Army is not releasing further details on U.S. Army Reserve and U.S. Army National Guard refusals and exemptions prior to the June 30, 2022 completion goal for each component.

For additional information on Army vaccination rates, contact the U.S. Army Media Relations Division at usarmy.pentagon.hqda-ocpa.mbx.mrd-press-desk@army.mil.

The rest is here:

Department of the Army announces updated COVID-19 vaccination statistics - United States Army

Beacon Health System has received $4.8 million in grants to provide education and other services to encourage vaccinations among Hispanic, Black, and Amish residents in St. Joseph, Elkhart, Marshall, and LaPorte counties.

The grant money, provided by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, will be used to operate mobile vaccine clinics, hire additional non-clinical, bilingual community health workers, and create outreach efforts to educate residents about the vaccine.

The outreach is a collaboration with the Saint Joseph Health System and other community partners, such as public health departments and universities.

While COVID-19 numbers are trending in a direction that we are all excited to see, we want to be certain that everyone has the opportunity to make educated and informed decisions about vaccination, said Kimberly Green Reeves, Director of Community Outreach, Beacon Health System. We all must continue to do our part to remain healthy in our communities. It is important that we remain vigilant, especially now.

Residents interested in learning more about COVID-19 vaccines or where to find a vaccine clinic can visit CovidSmart.org for educational materials, video stories from local residents, and a calendar of clinics.

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Beacon Health receives $4.8 million in grants for COVID-19 vaccine outreach - ABC 57 News

The risk of developing inflammatory heart conditions after Covid-19 vaccination is relatively low, two large studies found, especially when compared with the heart-related risks from Covid-19 disease itself and from vaccines against other diseases.

One study, an analysis of 22 previous studies, found that the risk of the conditions including myocarditis in people who received a Covid-19 vaccine wasnt significantly different from that for non-Covid-19 vaccines such as those against flu, polio and measles. And the heart risk associated with Covid-19 shots was lower than the risk after smallpox vaccination. The results of the analysis, which included data on the effects of more than 400 million doses of various vaccines, were published online Monday by The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

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Covid-19 Vaccines Carry Low Risk of Heart Conditions, Studies Find - The Wall Street Journal