Category: Covid-19 Vaccine

Biden has spent several days this summer crisscrossing the southern United States pleading with Americans to get their shots. It remains an open question if they're listening.

"We have to do everything we can do," Biden said.

In Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday -- a state with just 37% of its population fully vaccinated, Biden visited a vaccination clinic at a local high school as part of a push to get students their shots before the start of the school year. When she is there, there are only three people in the school's cafeteria, which has been turned into a makeshift clinic -- the draw of the first lady of the United States not enough to muster even double digits.

Two of them are teenage girls with their mother, one is a middle-aged man who tells the first lady that some of his family members have gotten the shot, but some have not.

"Should I call them?" asks Biden, who doesn't appear to be joking.

Later, in the school's gymnasium, Biden tells a crowd of about 200 or so locals that earlier that morning at an exercise class near Washington, DC, the first lady was approached by a woman who told her she had lost four family members to Covid-19.

"She started to cry, telling me this story," said Biden, who went on to say the woman told her that the deaths inspired her to go out and personally get more than 140 people vaccinated.

"I think that's what each of us has to do," she said.

"That's just not enough!" she said in her speech Thursday, when noting the low numbers of vaccinated Georgians.

She knows she is now dealing mostly with Americans who see little point in getting the vaccine, ones who have already made up their minds not to get a shot.

"They're the ones thinking, 'Well, I haven't gotten sick so far,' or, 'It's not so serious,'" she told CNN in an interview Thursday, describing the mindset of many of the people she's trying to sway.

"As long as the Covid team asks me to go," she said when asked how much longer she will keep up her intense travel schedule of at least one trip per week to a state where vaccination numbers linger below the 40% mark. "Joe can't go that much, or too much, so I can go in his place," she added. "And what choice to we have?"

Biden knows what she is up against. States with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new Covid-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University.

As of Sunday, states with lower rates of vaccination reported an average of 6 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins.

States with higher vaccination rates reported an average of 2.2 new cases per 100,000 residents each day over the past week.

Biden has now logged thousands of air miles in the last month, visiting states most challenged by low vaccination rates. Measuring the impact of her visits -- which typically include a tour of a vaccination site and remarks telling people how safe and effective the vaccination is against Covid -- is not an exact science.

"We do check to see if the numbers [of vaccinations] go up after I've been somewhere," she said during Thursday's interview, though the metrics are not always calculable. "The [White House] Covid team circles back and we try to see the impact."

In short, no one really knows precisely whether the first lady's visits are working or not.

"At the end of the day, we can't take our foot off the gas," said Biden's press secretary Michael LaRosa, adding her travel will continue, with or without notable benchmarks or telling effectiveness in the wake of her trips. "She's an effective messenger, and she's going to keep up the travel."

Asked what exactly she hopes people will understand from her, Biden again goes back to the woman from the exercise class that morning, whose grief at losing four family members was clearly still on the first lady's mind.

"It was so sad, and I keep thinking about how upset she was," Biden said. "I want to make the point that people don't think they'll be affected. They think it won't happen to them, and then it does -- and then it's too late. I don't want them to take their health for granted."

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Jill Biden travels the South to plead with hesitant Americans to get their Covid-19 vaccines - CNN

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will ask the government to approve a resolution to establish a team to consider the establishment of a coronavirus vaccine plant in Israel, the Prime Ministers Office announced on Friday.

"We are working around the clock in a variety of ways to protect the health of the citizens of Israel, Bennett said. The ability to self-produce vaccines in Israel could be dramatic, especially with a forward-looking view of future epidemics. Professional teams will examine this and make a decision soon.

The announcement was made in collaboration with Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz.

The team would be headed by the accountant general of the Finance Ministry and it would conduct an orderly procedure and consult with relevant professionals in order to formulate the best way to establish the plant, the announcement said.

If established, the plant would be required to produce a variety of medications, while prioritizing vaccines, with an eye toward regular commercial activities.

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At the same time, the plant would have the ability to adapt its activities to produce vaccines during emergencies, ideally using a variety of technologies.

Back in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Austrias Sebastian Kurz and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced during a visit to Israel an agreement between their countries to set up a research and development fund and manufacturing plants for coronavirus vaccines in Israel and Europe.

We will be, together, Vaccination Nations, Netanyahu said of the deal at that time. We agreed that if other nations want to join us, we will discuss this among ourselves and welcome others to come in as well.

Netanyahu long discussed establishing a vaccine production plant in Israel, potentially with Pfizer or Moderna, or an independent facility that would make the Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) COVID-19 vaccine a vaccine that is still stalled on its Phase II trial.

In May, Pfizer confirmed for The Jerusalem Post that the company had no plans to open such a plant nor a research and development facility that Netanyahu described in Israel.

Ive checked internally and confirmed that we do not have plans for this, a senior manager for corporate communications said. It sounds like the talk around it has been coming from local politicians.

However, Yeruham Mayor Tal Ohana said that even before coronavirus there was hope to establish a vaccine plant like the one described by Bennett in her town.

In August 2020, when IIBR launched its Phase I trial for its coronavirus vaccine, Netanyahu asked the institute to start setting up a production plant at the same time. To date, there has been little or no progress on such a plant, although according to Ohana the Defense Ministry and other commercial partners potentially involved in such a plant had been to the city multiple times.

Today, Israel is completely dependent on external intellectual property and external manufacturing capacity, BiondVax CEO Amir Reichman told the Post in a previous interview.

BiondVax is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and ultimately commercializing products for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and related illnesses, its website described. The company is traded on Nasdaq.

With this pandemic, we were lucky because early in the pandemic we contracted and secured vaccine deliveries, Reichman said, though he noted that in a future pandemic, Israel might not be so lucky. It is important for Israel to have both the IP (intellectual property) and the capacity to manufacture vaccines.

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Israel to weigh opening of COVID-19 vaccine production plant - The Jerusalem Post

Last fall, a tiny company no one had ever heard of was keeping Josh Corman up at night. It was one of the only groups in the world that made an ingredient that pharmaceutical companies like Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech needed to make the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. And it didnt employ a single cybersecurity expert.

Corman is a senior adviser to the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and for the past year, hes been working on a task force within the agency focused on protecting the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain from cyber threats. Healthcare organizations have been some of the biggest victims of growing waves of cyberattacks over the past few years, and during the pandemic, they were an even bigger target.

What worried Corman werent places like Pfizer and Moderna. Those big, name brand companies all employ in-house cybersecurity experts. He was worried about companies like the one making an mRNA ingredient: small, anonymous groups that made bits and pieces pivotal for vaccines, but that might not have ever thought theyd need to protect against a hacking campaign.

You could sneeze on that one company, and they would be disrupted. And if they were disrupted, wed be living in a very different world right now because they were so critical to those mRNA candidates, Corman says.

Over the past year, the task force tracked down hundreds of similar companies critical to the development, production, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the US. It offered to help them check for any gaps in their digital networks, give them resources to boost their preparedness, and help them respond to any incidents. A cyberattack on any of them could have slowed down the vaccine efforts, keeping shots out of reach for longer at great cost to the health of the country, Corman says. We wanted to make sure we had no delays because of cybersecurity.

The US approach to COVID-19 vaccine development ran through Operation Warp Speed a $10 billion project that involved partnerships between biomedical companies and various agencies within the federal government, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services. It funded the development of vaccine candidates at companies like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson and was in close contact with others involved in manufacturing and distribution.

Operation Warp Speed is generally described as being around the 30 biggest companies related to vaccines research, delivery, and all the way to shipping out to states, says Beau Woods, a senior adviser at CISA working on the COVID-19 task force.

CISA was one of the other federal agencies pulled into Operation Warp Speed. Its part of the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for assisting both the government and the private sector on cybersecurity issues. Along with the COVID-19 response, it spent 2020 working on security for the presidential election.

During Operation Warp Speed, CISA was asked to help with security for the main 30 players. CISA has the ability to deliver protective, preventative, and response services to designated critical infrastructure. Anyone on that list was obviously prioritized, Corman says.

But there were more companies involved with the vaccine development, production, and distribution process than just the ones on that list. Each of those 30 or so companies have their own supply chains, Woods says. The groups that made up those supply chains would need protection as well.

When Corman started working on COVID-19 response efforts as part of the task force within CISA, those companies hadnt been identified yet. No one knew who they were. I asked, what are those smaller, less obvious players that, if theyre disrupted, means theres no vaccine? And no one had an answer, Corman says.

Corman worked with colleagues like Michelle Holko, a presidential innovation fellow who worked with the task force, and Reuven Pasternak, another CISA senior adviser whos also a physician, to develop a rubric that would help them identify those players. They looked for companies making products that were in short supply or couldnt be easily replaced and companies making products that the groups making vaccines were highly dependent on. The group asked international partners to send them the names of any groups that could be important to the vaccine development process as well.

We identified people who were never nominated at all, but bubbled up right to the top. Those were some of the most critically important weak links in the chain, Corman says.

The list was dynamic at the start of the process, it focused on groups involved in vaccine research and development. Then it shifted to companies working with the manufacturing and distribution of the shots. Overall, the group identified hundreds of companies involved in the process that could have been risks.

A lot of them are smaller. In some cases, theyd have fewer than 100 people, and may not have traditionally looked at cybersecurity threats, Woods says. Because they were involved in the vaccine process, they were targets for hackers, but they didnt have the know-how to protect against threats. Thats where we focused, he says.

After making that list of companies that could be potential targets for cyberattacks, the task force started reaching out to each one to offer its services. A big part of those early conversations involved making sure companies understood that the group wasnt a regulatory body but was just coming in to offer a service, says Steve Luczynski, the lead of the CISA COVID-19 task force. Everybodys concerned when the governments calling, he says.

But after they heard what the group was offering help understanding any vulnerabilities, alerts about possible threats, and other guidance many companies were eager to use their resources, Woods says. In a few cases, weve had the organizations come back and say, Hey we saw something, we think we got to it in time but wed love for you guys to just double check, he says.

Health IT and electronic health records company Cerner was one of the groups that worked with the CISA and the task force. Cerner assisted with scheduling, inventory, and dose tracking for organizations administering vaccines, and its electronic health records had data on people receiving the shots. Kevin Hutchison, Cerners cybersecurity operations manager, had initially signed the company up for security alerts with CISA. The CISA task force then got in touch about participating in their other programs. Given the footprint of Cerner, they were really excited to have us on board, Hutchison told The Verge.

The CISA team took a look at Cerners existing security protocols, which were already strong. It was a good pat on the back that we were doing things that we should be, Hutchison says.

Cerner also regularly meets with around a dozen of the largest hospital systems that use its services to talk about security, and a handful of those groups were also using CISAs services. Many hospitals dont have the funding for a dedicated security team. They had mentioned how valuable it had been for them, Hutchison says.

The task force was able to offer services like scanning company systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities and custom cyberintelligence tools, Woods says. But one of the most important parts of outreach was just creating a relationship with the company so that CISA was able to quickly relay any important information. Part of it is just working out that trust, so that when they pick up the phone, they know who you are, he says.

Through those relationships, the task force and CISA helped companies respond to cyber threats over the course of the past year. Threats included a phishing campaign aimed at the cold chain vaccine transport system and the SolarWinds hack, which targeted US government agencies. None had major impacts on the vaccine development and distribution process. We had these good connections. We knew that this is the person to call, and heres the email to send to, when these events happen, Luczynski says.

Those connections could carry through into the future and help healthcare organizations manage cybersecurity threats. I am happy to see greater engagement between CISA and healthcare, and I definitely hope that continues, Woods says.

The work the task force did on the vaccine supply chain could also be a model for other projects in the future, he says. A lot of times when the government works with the private sector, theyre most engaged with larger organizations because they dont have connections with the smaller ones, Woods says. This work showed that, many times, the riskiest areas are actually those smaller organizations.

So far, the COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution process hasnt been delayed by any cyberattacks. Luczynski says the task force cant take all the credit its hard to say definitively if its work was the reason there werent major issues. But he thinks it made a difference. I am confident we contributed to making things better.

Correction: We incorrectly spelled Kevin Hutchisons last name in our original version of this article, which has one n, not two. We regret the error.

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The COVID-19 vaccines werent hacked this task force is one reason why - The Verge

The best way to curb the spread of the virus and return to in person living and learning is to get the vaccine. Those able should be required to have it on campus.

Grace Smith

Student, Kyleigh Harm, receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Iowa Memorial Union at the University of Iowa on Wednesday, April 21, 2021.

As the pandemic continues on with the spread of the new Delta variant, Iowas regent universities should require the vaccine. Of course, there should be exceptions in cases where it is a danger, or there are religious exemptions. However, the majority of students returning to campus who are able to receive one should have the vaccine.

The state has been limited in ways to mitigate the spread of the virus. Early this year, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation banning COVID-19 vaccine passports in Iowa.

This bill stated that COVID-19 vaccine status cannot be put on state-issued or political ID cards. Businesses and government entities are also not allowed to require COVID-19 vaccines upon entry. However, it is up to employers discretion whether to require vaccines for employees. Healthcare facilities are also exempt from these guidelines.

Across the country, hundreds of schools have required the COVID-19 vaccine to return on campus, with health and religious exemptions in place. However, the only school in Iowa requiring the vaccine is Grinnell College.

Although there is nothing concrete barring Iowas regent universities from requiring vaccines, Iowas public universities have decided not to require vaccines for those returning to campus.

The safest way for us to return to in-person learning is for people able to receive the vaccine to have it.

Even with more people getting vaccinated, we are still seeing the spread of the virus. It is the best way for us to protect against the spread, especially with the new Delta variant. The Delta variant is between 40 and 60 percent more contractable than the Alpha variant found in Britain. The Alpha variant is already 30 to 50 percent more easily contractible than the original strain of the virus.

Although there is not a lot of research regarding the vaccines effectiveness against the Delta variant, a study in England found the Pfizer vaccines effectiveness did not reduce very much when the person only received one dose. The same results are expected for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

Clearly, the best protection against the coronavirus is receiving full doses of one of the vaccines.

Even with schooling being mostly online last year, Iowa City saw concerning spikes in COVID-19 cases. Now that we are to return to in-person learning, it is a public health concern not to require vaccines for those who can take them. With the return of a normal semester, things like football games could end up being hot spots for contracting and spreading the virus.

Additionally, Iowa still has a long way to go with vaccinating Iowans. As of July 1, only 48 percent of Iowans have been fully vaccinated. Out of not even half of Iowans vaccinated, 56 percent of those vaccinated are ages 18 to 64.

We have seen how the virus has disproportionately ravaged minority communities across the country, as well. At one point, 17.3 percent of COVID-19 cases came from Hispanic or Latino populations, despite making up only 6 percent of Iowas population. Similarly, at this time, Black Iowans who make up only 4 percent of the states population accounted for 9.2 percent of positive cases.

Requiring the COVID-19 vaccine is essential in protecting minority and at-risk populations not just on campus, but within the Iowa City community, as well. We have experienced a lot of loss because of the pandemic. There is no reason high risk areas such as universities should not be mandating the vaccine for those who can take it.

Vaccine requirements are also nothing new to Iowas regent universities.

Iowas two state universities require proof of two Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccinations. If this is allowed, they should also require COVID-19 vaccines for those able, as well.

It is a privilege to be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine for many people. Vulnerable people deserve to feel safe on campus, and vaccine requirements are the best way to limit the spread.

Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.

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Opinion | Iowa's universities should require the COVID-19 vaccine - UI The Daily Iowan

Its been almost 7 months since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the first emergency authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine: Pfizer-BioNTechs mRNA vaccine.

In the following months, two other COVID-19 vaccines, Modernas mRNA vaccine and Johnson & Johnsons adenovirus vector vaccine, were given emergency use authorization.

Since that first authorization, more than 182.7 million U.S. people 55 percent of the total population have received at least one dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

During the vaccination campaign, most people have received an mRNA vaccine either because it was more available or they preferred an mRNA vaccine.

In addition, a number of peer-reviewed studies have been published supporting the safety and effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines seen in the initial clinical trials.

Yet, so far the FDA has shown no indication of when it will grant full approval.

Lack of full approval, though, hasnt limited the availability of the vaccines.

Right now, any person 12 years of age or older can get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States. The country also has plenty of doses to go around.

For one, full approval might help convince people in the wait-and-see group that the vaccines are safe and effective.

Full approval may provide greater assurance that the vaccine safety and efficacy have been more fully studied, and may reduce some of the vaccine hesitancy that currently exists, said Melissa Tice, PhD, assistant professor of clinical research and leadership at George Washington University.

It could also lead to more employers and schools requiring COVID-19 vaccination for their employees and students.

Both of these might help restart the countrys stalled vaccination program.

Which could prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, something thats still happening in parts of the country more than a year into the pandemic.

Dr. Eric J. Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute, wrote in a recent New York Times opinion article that given the months of data now available, the FDA should move quickly to grant full approval of the mRNA vaccines.

Few if any biologics (vaccines, antibodies, molecules) have had their safety and efficacy scrutinized to this degree, he wrote.

In other words, the mRNA vaccines have overwhelmingly been proved safe and effective by clinical trials, independent research and the experience of millions of people around the world who received them, he added.

The FDA has not indicated when full approval of the mRNA vaccines might happen.

However, Pfizer and BioNTech as well as Moderna have already submitted applications for full approval of their vaccines officially known as a Biologic License Application (BLA) to the FDA on May 7, 2021, and June 1, 2021, respectively.

These submissions started the clock on the FDAs regulatory review.

In the first 60 days, the agency checks the application to make sure its complete and decides which type of review will happen.

Tice said given the urgent need for the COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA will likely grant the applications priority review.

The agencys goal for this type of review is to make a decision within 6 months of submission.

That means the FDA would decide on full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by January 2022 and February 2022 for the Moderna vaccine.

This is the maximum review time frame. A decision could come sooner thanks to the work done for the EUAs.

The FDA has already reviewed the initial clinical trials data from both companies and the manufacturing aspects to grant the EUAs, said Tice, so full approval of these vaccines might happen in less than 6 months.

The FDAs emergency approval is a less rigorous review process reserved for public health emergencies of which a pandemic clearly qualifies.

There still was robust data showing the vaccines were safe since were based on clinical data involving tens of thousands of study participants, which is the same size trial as would be expected for a drug or vaccine to get full approval.

The EUAs for COVID-19 vaccines were granted based on an average of 2 months of safety follow-up data.

Tice said full review requires companies to submit longer-term data on the vaccines safety, along with additional data on how well the vaccine protects against infection and severe disease.

This will give a better picture of the benefits and risks of the vaccine.

According to a survey last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), about a third of unvaccinated adults said they would be more likely to get vaccinated if one of the COVID-19 vaccines received full approval from the FDA.

About half of the unvaccinated wait-and-see group said the same. This group which made up about 10 percent of adults surveyed includes a large number of Black and Hispanic adults and younger adults.

Many incentives have been offered to encourage this on-the-fence group to get vaccinated, including million-dollar lotteries, free doughnuts, and free beer, with mixed success.

The KFF survey also found that around 6 percent of adults say they will only get vaccinated if required, such as by an employer or school, or to travel.

For them, the nudge toward vaccination might have to come from mandates.

Even without full FDA approval of the COVID-19 vaccines, some employers have already started requiring vaccination for employees.

For example, Morgan Stanley is barring workers who are not fully vaccinated from most of its New York offices.

Also, health system Houston Methodist in Texas imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its employees. More than 150 workers resigned or were terminated as a result of this new policy, although that was a small fraction of the more than 20,000 workers who complied.

A group of employees challenged the mandate in court, but a judge dismissed their lawsuit.

This court decision, and federal law, supports the right of employers to require employees to be vaccinated.

However, some employers may be waiting for the FDA to grant full approval before setting up their own vaccine mandate.

This includes the U.S. military, which has encouraged, but not required, its active-duty members to get vaccinated.

Partial vaccination rates in the military range from 58 percent for the Marine Corps to 77 percent for the Navy.

However, the military has suggested that once the vaccine is fully approved, it may make vaccination a medical readiness requirement for service members.

Even if federal employment law allows for vaccine mandates, businesses in certain states may have a harder time requiring their employees to be vaccinated.

Many states have introduced or passed laws restricting the use of employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates or proof of vaccination.

Hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States have already set up policies requiring students or employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Full FDA approval may lead to additional schools setting requirements, with a broader scope of who has to be vaccinated.

More uncertain is whether K-12 schools will have COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Each state decides which immunizations are required for students to attend a public or private school, as well as whether religious or other exemptions are allowed.

However, the COVID-19 vaccines are currently only approved in the United States for people 12 years and older. Younger children may not have access to the vaccines until early fall.

Some experts think mandates wont happen, if at all, until after the FDA fully approves the vaccines for children and teenagers.

Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, director of the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, and colleagues wrote in JAMA that longer-term safety and strong support from healthcare professionals and the public would be needed before school mandates are put in place.

In the meantime, they think incentives might work better at encouraging parents to vaccinate their children.

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When Will the FDA Give Full Approval for COVID-19 Vaccines? - Healthline

Variants, Misinformation, and 'Brain Drain' The COVID-19 Vaccine Experience in Brazil, India, and Africa  The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

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Variants, Misinformation, and 'Brain Drain' The COVID-19 Vaccine Experience in Brazil, India, and Africa - The National Academies of Sciences,...

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) We still have a long way to go until most Nevadans are fully vaccinated. But that may be tough, as some are adamant about not getting vaccinated or decided not to continue with the second dose.

More than 150,00 in Clark County have not completed the second dose.

Its an issue across the country and here in Nevada.

As health officials continue to encourage people to get vaccinated, some residents are skipping out on their second dose because they feel like the first one is enough, or the side effects scared them.

Its a topic that is causing a lot of division.

But for those like Kevin Zimmerman, who tried to get the vaccine, they say they are done after just one.

I had the heat on in the apartment, the blanket over me, sweatshirt on and I am still shivering for four days. And I was like, I cant do it for four more days, Zimmerman said.

I just didnt get the second dose. I guess I am half vaccinated, he said.

Zimmerman said the side effects from the first dose in March were too severe for him to go through it again.But, he is disabled and falls under a vulnerable group that could be susceptible to the virus and the new Delta variant.

He now has regrets.

I should have just done it and gotten it over with, Zimmerman said. If I got sick, I got sick.

Summerlin resident Valerie Matlock is concerned about a second dose for her daughter due to her bad reaction.

She got Moderna and it immediately took her out. She came home and was shaking, Matlock said.

Matlock understands the risks of not being fully protected, and is relying on the first dose.

I am not willing to risk her getting the second dose and she not waking up, Matlock said.

Health officials say you are protected against the Delta variant only if you are fully vaccinated. And the two doses of Pfizer or Moderna are vital.

Dr. Marc J. Khan of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine explains how it works.

So the first dose of the vaccine primes the immune system or gets it ready for the infection, Khan said. The second dose is a booster. Magnifies the immunes response to provide much more protection against the viral infection.

If you are behind on your second vaccine, health officials say you can still get your second dose. There is not a cut-off but the sooner the better.

And a reminder to those of you who have been vaccinated: The first winner in the Vax Nevada Days campaign will be announced on Thursday.

Remember, the raffle is a vaccine incentive program to reward those whove received or will receive at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. Eligible adult Nevadans can qualify for cash prizes, while minors can win college savings plans, state parks passes and more.

Winners will be randomly selected each week for eight weeks. The grand prize winner will be announced in late August.

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Valley residents explain reasons for avoiding COVID-19 vaccine, along with some regret - KLAS - 8 News Now

Dr. Kevin Izard has heard it all when it comes to theories about why Blacks are hesitant to getvaccinated against COVID-19.

The one that makes him chuckle is the vaccine contains microchips to track people. He said it would easier for Dr. Evilto hack the banking system than to make a chip small enough to be injected into someones bloodstream.

And why would somebody go through all the trouble to track you anyway when they can track you on your cellphone so much easier? asked Izard, chairof family medicine at St. Josephs Hospital and former president of the Cream City Medical Society

Jokes aside,Izard said vaccine hesitancy is understandable, anditcuts across racial and political lines. The main indicator of whether people get the shot is political party and where one lives, he noted.

But in some cases, vaccine hesitancy stems from a distrust in the government. That is true for the Black community, given this country's history with medical research, Izard said.Blacks, he added, already doubt thatgovernment institutionshave their best intentions at heart, a notion amplified by the BlackLives Matter movement.

Whether its the education system, the medical system, the political system, or the legal system or the courts, Black people dont feel that these institutions havebeen set up to be fair to them, Izard said.

But vaccine hesitancyimpedes the push to reach herd immunity a point at which enough of the population is immune to the coronavirus, either fromhaving been vaccinated or recoveredfrom the disease,thatthe viruscan no longer spread. Most experts pegged this number at 80%.

We are trying to get to that point because the number of delta variant cases are increasing, Izard said. The variantsare becoming the dominant strains and tend to be more contagious and more infectious than the previous versions. We're trying torace here to get as many people vaccinated as we can.

More: State health officials track fast-spreading Delta variant of COVID-19 in Wisconsin

More: Delta is the 'most serious' COVID-19 variant, scientists say. How will it affect the US?

Currently, 47.2%ofWisconsinresidents are fully vaccinated.

In Wisconsin,the percentage of Blacks who are fully vaccinated isbehind other racial groups. Only 27% of Blacks are fully vaccinated, compared with32% of Hispanics, 51% of Asians, 43% of American Indians and 46% of Whites, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of Wisconsin Department of Health Services data.

Nationally,only 8.8% of Black Americans are fully vaccinated.

There will be some who will not get the vaccine no matter what, while others are hesitant out of caution, Izard said.

Then there aresome who are choosing not to getvaccinated based on erroneous orunsubstantiated information circulating on the web.

Getting the shot is a personal decision, but it has far-reaching implications and can affect those around you, Izard said. But whatever the decision, he added, it must be based on correct information.

Here are five common misconceptions and concerns about the vaccine, and what Izard says people should know about them.

Track COVID and the vaccine in Wisconsin: Track the latest data on cases, deaths and our pace on vaccines

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It's true that the vaccineswere given emergency-use authorization, Izard said.

When Trump announced Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, the aim was to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. Normally, it takes two or three years, or more, for vaccines or any medicines to go through FDA approvalto ensure safety and effectiveness before comingto market. But the government wanted to do this in a matter of months, sosome things were abridged and combined, he said.

The medications were approved based on the initial studies, Izard said. And the initial studies as reviewed by the CDC and the FDA appeared to [show] the medications were safe and appeared to be very effective. So, it was approved in an emergency fashion.

The groundwork for the COVID-19 vaccine goes back almost two decades when a similar virus emerged in 2003, Izard said. COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 resembles another virus with a similar name SARS-CoV-1. That virus was also a novel virus, meaning humans may not have been exposed to it before.

Concerns that the SARS-CoV-1 could cause a pandemic prompted work to begin on a vaccine in 2003, Izard said. Fortunately, that pandemicdidn't happen, but efforts at a vaccine laid the groundwork for SARS-CoV-2, the current novel coronavirus.

They didnt start from ground zero, Izard said.They actually have been working on this for 18 years or more.

Things did move a lot faster under Operation Warp Speed. Normally, Izard said, time is needed to recruit participants in studies and trials, then to do a study to ensure the vaccine is safe, and then do another study on its effectiveness.

What they did is they combined a bunch of these things, Izard said. They did both the safety and efficacy studies togetherso that it didnt take a whole lot of time to figure out if it was safe and effective.

More: After getting placebo in vaccine trial, medical reporter opts for the real thing -- and wrestles with his decision

In the past, some vaccines used fetal stem cells, but Izard said that is not the case anymore.Because of the advances in DNA technology, living cells are no longer needed

The Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine were developed from a new technology using mRNA, a code which teaches human cells how to make aspecific protein in this case, the"spike protein"found on the coronavirus. That triggers an immune response inside the human body.

With mRNA, basically what they are doing is mixing the ingredients in a test tube," Izard said. "Once they know the genetic code, they dont need to have any kind of living organism attached to it. There are no stem cells or anything involved in [the COVID-19 vaccine].

Side effects are to be expected with any medications or vaccines, Izard said. That's the case with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has seen rare cases of blood clots.

To help track any side effects, Izard said people who get the shots are urged to report any complications they may have. But ofall the people who are fully vaccinated 153million people so far with either the Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer or Moderna shots,major side effects are too rare to dissuade people from getting the shot.

Ill put it in these terms: You are more likely to be struck by lightning twice than to get that rare blood clot people got from the Johnson vaccine. Its less than 1 in a million, Izard said.

Also, there haven'tbeen any major side effects with the Moderna and Pfizervaccines that use mRNA technology, Izard said. So far, side effects have been mostly associated with Johnson & Johnson'sand AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, he noted.AstraZeneca is not being used in U.S.

People should weigh the risk of getting COVID-19 versus getting the shot, he said.

"If your risk from complications from COVID-19 infection outweighs your risk for complications from the vaccine, than you should get the vaccine,especially if you are African American or Hispanic, Izard said.

The long-term side effects from COVIDincludeloss of smell or taste and in young people, heart and lung problems.

Conversely, common side effects from the shotare pain, redness and swelling at the injection site. Others could include fatigue, chills, and fever throughout the body, but these tend to go away, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These are well-documented things that happened at a relatively high rate compared to the extremely rare rate of the side effects of the vaccine," Izard said.

More: That second shot of COVID-19 vaccine can cause a headache and then some, but it works

More: COVID-19 vaccine side effects are more likely to happen after the second shot. Here's what I experienced when I got mine.

More: A Wisconsin mom gave birth in a COVID-19 coma before slipping to the brink of death

Peopleoften conflatedthe flu, influenza and COVID, but they couldn't be more different, Izard noted.

"COVID is more contagious and more deadlythan theflu.Soyoucantreally treat themexactly thesame," he said.

During the 2019-2020 flu season, there were 36,175 cases of the flu in Wisconsin and 183 deaths, including three children, according to the Wisconsin department of health services.

To date, there havebeen 7,315 COVID-19 deaths in the stateand nearly 613,000 cases.

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No, Dr. Evil did not put microchips in the COVID-19 vaccine. Here are the facts behind 5 other fears. - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gov. Spencer Cox answers questions during the governor's COVID-19 briefing at the Utah Capitol on Thursday, July 1, 2021.

| July 6, 2021, 10:42 p.m.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox declared a statistical victory in the war against the COVID-19 pandemic by saying Tuesday that 70% of Utahs adult population had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by the Fourth of July.

Getting there, though, required some explanation and isnt entirely reflected on the Utah Department of Healths public data website.

Cox, in a tweet thread posted Tuesday morning, wrote that UDOH had reported 65.2% of Utahns 18 or older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine a total of 1,482,091 who had received at least one dose.

However, Cox wrote, that doesnt include doses administered by federal agencies specifically, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, federal corrections facilities or Indian Health Services. Those agencies account for another 114,908 doses to adults in Utah, he wrote.

Add the federal tally to the states data, Cox said, and you get 1,596,999 adults in Utah who have received at least one dose of a vaccine. Divide that by the number of Utah adults 2,274,774, according to Coxs tweet and you come to a total vaccination rate of 70.2%.

This is truly a milestone worth celebrating! Cox wrote in one of the 20 tweets in his Tuesday thread.

However, Cox added, were not out of the woods yet. Unfortunately, the pandemic is not over.

Cox said he is still very concerned about the recent rise in cases and hospitalizations. He also noted that some parts of Utah, including many of our rural areas and communities of color, are still below the 70% mark.

The percentage of Utahns who are eligible to be vaccinated who have received a dose, according to UDOH, is 61.4% as of Tuesday. That factors in children ages 12-17, who are eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine. That group has one of the lowest rates of getting the vaccine; according to UDOH, only 36.5% of Utahns between 12 and 18 have received at least one dose.

Not quite half of Utahs entire population 49.6% has received at least one dose of a vaccine, UDOHs data showed as of Tuesday. That includes children 11 and under, who are not eligible to be vaccinated yet. And Utah, it is often noted, has a larger population of children, 29% according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, than the national average of 22.3%.

Utahs goal of a 70% vaccination rate by Independence Day mirrored the pledge made in May by President Joe Biden to hit the same rate nationwide. On Sunday, July 4, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said only 67% of adults nationwide had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Theres nothing magical about that 70% threshold, Cox said Thursday at his COVID-19 media briefing, where he first mentioned adding the federal data to the states numbers. We would rather have 99%, 100% of adults in Utah vaccinated, because thats how were going to reduce deaths and reduce hospitalizations.

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Cox declares 70% of Utah adults received a COVID-19 vaccine dose by July 4 once you do the math - Salt Lake Tribune

Attendees of Glencoes popular Thursday farmers market will have the chance to receive more than just fresh produce and artisan goods.

The Illinois Department of Public Health will host two COVID-19 vaccine clinics at the market, according to information from the village of Glencoe.

Officials will be administering first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday, July 15, and on Thursday, Aug. 5, respectively.

IDPH officials are expecting that the pop-up clinics will serve 50 individuals.

The Glencoe Farmers Market runs from 3-6 p.m. and is held on Greeley Avenue and 11th Street in the downtown area.

Glencoe is pacing well above county, state and national levels in vaccination rate.

As of publication time, 70.4 percent of Glencoe residents have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Cook County data. That percentage equates to 6,143 residents with at least one dose.

County data shows that 5,185 Glencoe residents, or 59.4 percent, are fully vaccinated.

In Cook County, 2.67 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to data from the state. That total represents 52.8 percent of the population. Just over 1.3 million Cook County residents are fully vaccinated.

Illinois has administered 12.7 million vaccine doses, its data shows. Just below 50 percent of Illinois residents are fully vaccinated, as 48.8 percent have received both doses.

The United States has administered 331 million vaccination doses. One hundred and fifty-seven million U.S. residents, or 47.9 percent, are fully vaccinated.

For more information on the pop-up clinic, and to register, visit IDPHs online portal.

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COVID-19 vaccine will be available at Glencoe farmers market on July 15 | The Record - The Record North Shore