This story was originally published by Carolina Public Press.
In an effort to encourage North Carolinians to get the Covid-19 vaccine, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $25 gift card incentive for recipients and drivers at designated sites in four counties: Guilford, Mecklenburg, Rockingham and Rowan.
People 18 and older who receive any of the Covid-19 vaccines at participating sites between May 26 and June 8 will receive a $25 Summer Cash Card.
Recipients may schedule an appointment, but thethree sites in Guilford and four sites in Mecklenburgalso accept walk-in clients. The site locations for Rowan and Rockingham are not yet listed on the departments website.
Anyone 18 and older who drives a recipient to a designated vaccine site is also eligible for a gift card under the new program. The incentive is limited to one card per visit, but there is no limit on how many times a driver may bring recipients to sites and receive a card for each visit.
We have a strong supply of Covid-19 vaccines, and we want to make it as easy as possible for people to get their free Covid-19 vaccine, DHHS Secretary Dr.Mandy Cohensaid. We also want to support those who have made the effort to help family members, friends and neighbors get vaccinated.
The giveaway is part of the departments statewide Bring Summer Back vaccination campaign designed to encourage vaccination to slow the spread of Covid-19. Vaccines are free at all sites. The cards are provided by State Employees Credit Union, which waived the card production fees.
Other states have offered incentives to encourage vaccination. In Ohio, vaccine recipients areeligible for entryinto a lottery for five $1 million cash awards. Kentuckyalso offered lottery ticketsto motivate residents to get the shot.
Some companies also provided incentives for vaccination. Krispy Kremegives away a free daily doughnutto anyone showing proof of vaccination.
North Carolina ranks 37th in percentage of people receiving at least one dose of the vaccine, according to theMayo Clinic vaccine tracker.
Participating sitesare listed on the DHHS website,and appointments may be scheduled online. A full list of all Covid-19 vaccine sites in the state is available atYour Spot, Your Shotor by calling the Vaccine Help Center at 866-675-4567.
The European Union, which has been lagging in getting its 450 million citizens vaccinated against COVID-19, expects to take delivery of 1 billion vaccine doses by the end of September, propelling it past its goal of inoculating at least 70% of its population by late summer.
The document did not include either Germanys CureVac CVAC, +0.96% or Frances Sanofi SNY, +0.07% SAN, -0.27%, which are also developing vaccines and pushing to get them authorized. The EU has signed contracts with those companies, too, meaning that if they succeed in gaining emergency authorization the 27 member states would have even more supply.
The news came as EU leaders at a summit agreed to introduce a digital COVID-19 certificate proving vaccination on July 1, a move they hope will allow tourism to restart in force this summer.
The EU has said it would open its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from other regions. The certificate, which will include a scannable QR code that will link to digital signatures on EU servers, will show whether an individual has been fully vaccinated or has immunity from COVID after contracting the virus, AFP reported.
EU leaders also committed to sharing vaccines with other countries, a pledge first made at a G-20 summit in Rome last week. The EU has ordered up to 4.4 billion vaccine doses over the next two years and has said it would share up to 100 million doses by year-end.
That comes a day after the World Health Organization kicked off its annual meeting with a stinging critique of wealthier countries for allowing a scandalous inequity in COVID-19 vaccines. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesussaid a small group of countries that make and buy the bulk of available vaccines control the fate of the rest of the world.
Tedros continued with that theme on Tuesday on social media.
U.S. health officials and the State Department on Monday warned Americans against travel to Japan because of a surge in coronavirus cases in the country, which is preparing to host the Olympics in just two months, the Associated Press reported.
The twin alerts dont ban U.S. citizens from visiting the country, but they could have an impact on insurance rates for travelers and may factor into decisions by Olympic athletes and spectators as to whether to compete in or attend the delayed 2020 Summer Games, which are due to start in July.
Travelers should avoid all travel to Japan, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new COVID-19 update. Because of the current situation in Japan even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants and should avoid all travel to Japan.
Japanese surveys have consistently shown that many people are worried about their countrys hosting the event during a pandemic, but Prime Minister Yoshide Suga has pledged to forge ahead.
The U.S. vaccination drive continues with the CDC vaccine tracker showing that 130.6 million people are now fully vaccinated, equal to 39.3% of the population. Almost 164 million Americans have had at least one dose. Among adults aged 18 and older, roughly 50% are now fully vaccinated.
Among Americans 65 and older, 40.5 million people are fully vaccinated, equal to 74% of that group. Almost 47 million people in that age bracket have received a first jab, covering 85.4% of that population.
A Word from the Experts:Rick Bright wants to wipe out this virus but its going to take better COVID-19 vaccines, distributed to 70% of the worlds population
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed legislation banning private business and public entities, including schools, from requiring proof of COVID vaccination to provide services, according to local media. Alabamas COVID-19 caseload, like the rest of the countrys, has eased in the last few months. According to BamaTracker, which collects data on the outbreak in the state, the seven-day daily average of cases was 200, the lowest number reported since April 8, 2020, near the dawn of the pandemic.
Modernas COVID-19 vaccine was effective in children aged 12 to 17 in a new study, a finding that could clear the way for a second vaccine for use in adolescents, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The Moderna vaccine induced immune responses among children that were comparable to those seen in a study of adults last year. There were no cases of symptomatic COVID-19 among vaccine recipients, suggesting 100% vaccine efficacy in adolescents, though overall very few among the 3,700 children in the study got sick. Based on the results, Moderna plans in early June to request that regulators in the U.S. and other countries authorize the use of its vaccine in children aged 12 to 17 years.
A breath test that aims to detect COVID-19 in under one minute has received provisional authorization from Singapores health authorities, the National University of Singapore, or NUS, said in a statement, MarketWatchs Lina Saigol reported. Breathonix, the NUS spinoff that developed the rapid test, said it is now working with the Singapore Ministry of Health to run a deployment trial of the technology at one of the city-states border points with Malaysia. The breath analysis will be carried out alongside the current, compulsory COVID-19 antigen rapid test.
Read:Value of COVID-19 testing shrinks as vaccines beat back virus
Oxygen shortages are causing havoc in dozens of countries struggling with surging COVID-19 cases and threatening the total collapse of healthcare systems, the Guardian reported. The paper cited a Bureau of Investigative Journalism analysis that found 19 countries, including India, Argentina, Iran, Nepal, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador andSouth Africa, are most at risk after seeing a huge spike in demand since March. Those countries have vaccinated less than 20% of their populations.
Australias second largest city, Melbourne, reinstated COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday as authorities scrambled to find the missing link in a fresh outbreak, prompting New Zealand to pause a travel bubble with the state of Victoria, Reuters reported. Amid worries that the cluster, which has grown to nine cases in two days, could spark a major outbreak, Victoria imposed social restrictions and made face masks mandatory in hotels, restaurants and other indoor venues. The outbreak comes after a roughly three-month spell with zero cases.
See:COVID-19 pandemic was a preventable disaster, made worse by a lack of global coordination and dithering, independent panel finds
Read now:Will corporate greed prolong the COVID-19 pandemic?
The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness climbed above 167.4 million on Tuesday,according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while the death toll rose above 3.47 million.
The U.S. continues to lead the world in total cases with 33.1 million and deaths with 590,698, although cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all falling as more Americans become vaccinated.
India is second worldwide with 26.9 million cases, and third with 307,321 deaths, but those numbers are understood to be greatly undercounted, given a shortage of tests.
Brazil is third in cases with 16.1 million and second in deaths with 449,858.
Mexico is fourth by fatalities with 221,695 and 2.4 million cases.
The U.K. has 4.5 million cases and 128,001 deaths, the fifth-highest in the world and most of any country in Europe.
China,where the virus was first discovered late in 2019,has had 102,892 confirmed cases and 4,846 deaths, according to its official numbers, which are widely held to be massively underreported.
Home-price gains continue to accelerate, reflecting the significant imbalance between the supply and demand for housing across the U.S., MarketWatchs Jacob Passy reported.
The index of home prices across 20 large cities increased at yearly pace of 13.3% in March, according to theS&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index. On a monthly basis, home prices were up 1.6%.
The markets strength is broadly based: all 20 cities rose, and all 20 gained more in the 12 months ended in March than they had gained in the 12 months ended in February, Craig J. Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P DJI, said in the report.
The separate national index, which measures home prices across the country, displayed a similar 13.2% gain over the past year, which equates to the highest annual gain since December 2005.
House-price growth over the prior year clocked in at more than twice the rate of growth observed in the first quarter of 2020, just before the effects of the pandemic were felt in housing markets, Lynn Fisher, deputy director of FHFAs division of research and statistics, said in the report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.24% and S&P 500 SPX, -0.21% were flat Tuesday after shedding early gains.
Novavax(NASDAQ:NVAX) was one of the top stocks in the entire stock market in 2020, running up from $4 a share on Jan. 2 all the way to $119 a share by Dec. 31. It had this magnificent run as Wall Street became more and more convinced that the company's COVID-19 vaccine would make a lot of money. And while Novavax's vaccine still hasn't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many investors remain bullish that it will be soon.
The stock market, however, is a forward-looking mechanism. So what's in the pipeline? Novavax also has a flu vaccine with great phase 3 data. Investors are expecting that drug to also win FDA approval. But what's tantalizing for long-term shareholders are the company's plans for vaccination over the next decade. In this video fromMotleyFool Live, recorded on May 14, Corinne Cardina, healthcare and cannabis bureau chief at Fool.com, and Motley Fool writer Taylor Carmichael discuss the prospects for a COVID-19/Flu combo shot.
Corinne Cardina: Let's talk a little bit more about Novavax. So you mentioned this is one of the companies that is supplying the third world. They're sending doses to COVAX. What is the latest with Novavax? They had said that they might be able to combine the flu and the COVID vaccine. What is the timeline and probability that something like that actually comes to fruition?
Taylor Carmichael: That's very exciting. I think for all investors really. They just released their animal data. They've already found their molecule. They've already combined their flu vaccine with their COVID-19 vaccine, which both those vaccines are highly successful. They've combined them and now they have to test it all over again. So it's not just a matter of putting two vaccines together in one shot, you have to test it again but what they are happy to see is they've gotten the same response in ferrets and hamsters that they had before. They had a huge number of antibodies created. They saw no signs -- they introduced COVID-19 into these animals -- they saw no signs of it reproducing. They saw no signs of pneumonia in the lungs. It was a really good release of data and they're going to start human trials later this year. It probably will not be as fast as the COVID-19 vaccines, I don't think the FDA is going to do that super accelerated pathway. I would not expect that drug to hit the market in a year. I wouldn't expect that at all, but possibly in 2022, but more likely 2023. I think it's highly likely that you can start seeing combo vaccines in the market. You will see Novavax's and Moderna's also pursuing this, and that's, I think, where the future is going to be. The future is going to be people going to get their flu vaccine and they're going to get COVID vaccine, and they're going to get the same shot.
This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.
India reported 4,454 new Covid-19 fatalities on Monday, bringing the country's death toll to 303,720, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.
India is the third country to report more than 300,000 deaths from the virus, after Brazil and the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The health ministry also reported 222,315 new coronavirus infections, marking the fourth consecutive day that the number of cases reported in the country have declined.
However, Monday's death count is the highest daily death toll reported since May 19.
India has reported a total of 26,752,447 cases of coronavirus, according to the Indian Ministry of Health on Monday. At least 196,051,962 doses of Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered since January 16.
In the capital region of Delhi, supplies of the Covaxin vaccine may have already run out, Atishi Marlena, a senior member of the local government tweeted Sunday.
According to the Delhi governments vaccination bulletin on Sunday evening, 1,530 doses of Covaxin vaccines were available in the territory.
The Delhi government on Sunday halted vaccinations for those between the ages of 18 and 44 due to a shortage of vaccines.
The Ministry of Health said states will be provided 40,650 vaccine doses over the next three days.
A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a "Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine" sticker and a medical syringe in front of displayed Novavax logo in this illustration taken, October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Novavax Inc (NVAX.O) said on Saturday it has signed an agreement with South Korea's SK Bioscience Co Ltd (302440.KS) and the government to expand its production of vaccines, including the U.S. drug developer's protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
The latest agreement is in addition to an existing manufacturing and licensing deal, intended to provide wider access to NVX-CoV2373 in South Korea and globally, Novavax said in a press release .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
A district of northern Thailand has launched a raffle campaign for its vaccinated residents to win a live cow per week for the rest of the year, in a bid to boost the local Covid-19 vaccination drive.
From next month, one lucky vaccinated villager in the Mae Chaem district of Chiang Mai province will be randomly chosen every week to win a young cow worth about 10,000 baht ($318.78).
The campaign, set to run for 24 weeks, has been met with enthusiasm in the town of 43,000 since it was announced earlier this week.
Our vaccine registration numbers have gone from hundreds to thousands in a couple of days, district chief Boonlue Thamtharanurak told Reuters.
The villagers love cows. Cows can be sold for cash.
More than 4,000 people in priority groups, including those over 60 years old and those with pre-existing conditions, have already registered for their shots, Boonlue said.
The town will start vaccinations on June 7, in line with the governments national rollout.
Other provinces in Thailand have also come up with creative incentives to boost registration, such as gold necklace giveaways, store discount coupons, or cash handouts.
At least 1.64 million of Thailands 66 million population have already received their first doses and more than 7 million have registered so far.
The Southeast Asian country has been hit by its biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, with the majority of its 119,585 cases and 703 deaths recorded in the past two months.
3 nursing managers at Holmes Regional Medical Center share painful tales of caring for vulnerable COVID-19 patients. Their message? Get vaccinated. Florida Today
Another 411 Brevard County residents have been vaccinated against theCOVID-19 virus, Florida Department of Health data showed Sunday.One additional death due to COVID was also reported.
Nurse Kaitlyn Shew inoculates a Carnival Liberty cruise ship worker with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at Cruise Terminal 6.(Photo: MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY)
As of Sunday,268,852residents, or about 44%,have received at least one dose of a vaccine.Of that sum, 221,256 residents, or 36%,have completed all recommended doses oftheir versions of the vaccine. According to the DOH, Brevard's population is 611,202 people.
More: Holmes nurses: Younger COVID-19 patients 'feeling a lot of regret' for not getting vaccine
More: 'COVID-19 learning gap' sets some students back, but efforts underway to catch kids up
The county added 19 new COVID-19 cases Sunday and one new death to its cumulative totalssince the pandemic began in March 2020.
A total of 42,661cases have now been confirmed in the county. Of those, 41,919 wereFlorida residents and 742 werenot. The death toll was listed at 890 on Sunday.
Atotal of 2,424residents in Brevard havebeen hospitalizedsince the pandemic began.
On Sunday, Brevard had 43patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in its seven major hospitals, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration,
Of a total capacity of 1,291staffed hospital beds, 24% (396) were available in those hospitals Sunday.Of the 184 total adult ICU bed capacity, 18% (39) were available.
At least 417Brevarddeaths were residents or staff of long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes.
The DOHadded 2,054new cases to Florida's statewide total Sunday, pushing the number of cumulative cases to 2,310,335 since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those, 2,367,144 were Florida residents and 43,191 were not.
By Saturday, Florida hadvaccinated 10,005, 987 people, administeringall recommended doses of a vaccine to 7,965,477 of them.
Of the Florida residents tested Sunday, 50,442 tested negative, for adaily positivityrate of 3.91%, the states Sunday reports show. Health experts say a sustained rate of 5% or below is needed to declare the virus under control.
Imagine that it is 2023 or 2025, and protection from our COVID-19 vaccines is starting to wane or mutant virus strains are evading the vaccines. Can we realistically expect the entire populace to line up again in stadiums and parking lots to get a shot?
The rapid development of effective vaccines has been worthy of celebration. But were now facing a major practical question: How long will the vaccines work and can the immunity provided so far defend against new viral variants? The answer will depend on the quality of immune memory that the vaccines can produce.
Immune memory, our remembrance of germs past, is how we are protected after vaccines or natural infection. Humans develop immune memory in two primary ways: through antibodies and T-cells. Either can play the key role in protection, depending on the infectious agent, and their relative importance is still debated by immunologists. Antibodies in the bloodstream are a first line of defense against viruses and are easy to measure, so these have typically been the focus of vaccine development. But memory T-cells provide our most multifaceted and durable protection against intracellular infections like viruses.
Once a virus gets into our cells, its too late for antibodies to help. T-cells are then required to destroy the virus-infected cells and prevent serious disease or spread of the virus. Memory T-cells remember an encounter with a particular pathogen and produce a rapid response to fight the infection upon re-exposure to that pathogen.
T-cells play many other roles. They are also intimately involved in generating successful long-term antibody memory. Indeed, our most effective long-term vaccines, such as smallpox or yellow fever vaccines, have potent long-term T-cell memory in addition to persistent antibodies. Smallpox-specific T-cells are still present 75 years after vaccination!
Research on previous coronavirus outbreaks found that T-cells reactive to the virus lasted much longer and were probably more important than antibodies. After the SARS outbreak in 2002-03, no survivors had antibodies after six years whereas everybody tested had memory T-cells after 17 years. For COVID-19, antibodies also seem to wane relatively quickly.
In COVID-19, the early presence of memory T-cells that detect the coronavirus is associated with early control of infection while a robust antibody response is correlated with more severe disease. T-cell response is also more sensitive than antibody response. People who are exposed to the virus but do not develop symptoms often have reactive T-cells with no detectable antibodies.
There is another potential problem with relying on antibodies to defend against coronavirus infections, besides their short duration. Antibodies from todays vaccines selectively target a surface protein on the coronavirus, called the spike protein. But the spike is subject to mutation, which may allow it to evade antibodies. In both the first SARS and in COVID-19, the spike protein has developed many mutations and some reduce the effectiveness of natural antibodies at neutralizing the virus.
Although the prevalent current variants have not yet evaded vaccine-induced antibodies, they could. This is a prime cause for concern. Memory T-cells, in contrast, broadly attack many components of viral proteins, providing a stronger defense against disease, at least after natural infections.
Vaccines that lead to long-lived immune memory will almost certainly need to induce T-cells. Do mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna) or adenovirus-vectored vaccines (Johnson & Johnson) turn on T-cells as effectively as the classic weakened live-virus vaccines like yellow fever or smallpox vaccines? We dont know. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, does generate virus-reactive T-cells but their duration and breadth against the virus are not yet known.
The journey to long-term antibody memory is also complicated. The cells that make antibodies (B-cells) undergo rapid mutations in the body in order to produce antibodies that are better able to bind to viruses or other pathogens. This happens over and over the only example of genetic evolution in our individual bodies until the final surviving memory B-cells produce very potent antibodies.
This evolutionary process requires that some viral proteins linger in the body. Recent research shows that viral proteins are visible in our intestinal cells six to nine months after natural COVID-19 infection, which allows evolution of more potent antibodies over time. But will an mRNA vaccine leave viral proteins in the body for many months? This is not known, but seems unlikely. Different vaccine technologies may result in different persistence and potency of memory for T-cells, memory B-cells and antibodies. Accordingly, the effect of current vaccines on B-cell and antibody memory is also still uncertain.
Our challenges today are clear. We need vaccines that are long-lived and employ all the protective capabilities of our immune system to overcome viral variants. T-cells are important because they play a different, additive role to antibodies in immune protection. Technologies now exist to predict early on whether protective immunity from T-cells after a vaccine will be durable, broad and high quality. These tools should be used to compare vaccines.
Many questions about immune memory and the coronavirus need to be answered by more research. Do different vaccine technologies or routes of administration (intramuscular or aerosolized, for example) affect persistence and potency of memory T-cells and antibodies? Can we tweak immune memory by adding materials (called adjuvants) that stimulate the bodys response or by targeting more than one part of the spike protein, to reduce the likelihood that variants will evade an immune response? Does measuring memory T-cells better reflect immune protection than antibodies in the blood? And is immune memory different in high-risk groups including people with diabetes, heart disease or older age?
This is only the end of the beginning for COVID-19. Harnessing the full repertoire of the bodys capacity to remember viral invaders through a vaccine that is long-lasting and effective against inevitable new variants is our best hope to defeat this disease. This has to be the goal of the next phase of vaccine development.
Marc Hellerstein is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology at UC Berkeley and in the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco.
Health officials have pointed out, however, that such successes are largely contingent on getting the United States fully vaccinated as quickly as possible. And right now, the rate of vaccination is slowing.
The average daily pace of coronavirus vaccinations is down almost 50% from its April peak, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data published Thursday.
Over the past week, about 1.8 million vaccine doses have been administered each day, a 46% drop from the peak rate of nearly 3.4 million per day in mid-April.
One expert told CNN that the health community is worried about what lies ahead. Clusters of unvaccinated people may become infected with Covid-19 as they move indoors to beat the summer heat, particularly in the South, noting that a similar situation happened last year.
"If we have large numbers of unvaccinated people in those states, we may very well see a surge in those states, so I think a lot of us are worried about that," Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday.
Yet the rate of inoculations nationwide is uneven, with some states far outpacing others.
The eight states with the fewest vaccine doses administered per capita are Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Wyoming, Idaho, Georgia and Tennessee, according to the CDC.
The states with the most administered per capita are Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, New Mexico and New Jersey. Washington, DC has a rate of vaccination that would qualify in the top eight if it were a state, according to the CDC.
Good news continues to emerge from places ahead of the national vaccination average. For the first time since March 2020, there are no Covid-19 patients at San Francisco General Hospital, the largest primary care facility in the city, hospital spokesperson Cristina Padilla told CNN.
San Francisco celebrated its one millionth dose of the vaccine this week. As of May 19, 76% of the eligible San Francisco population has been vaccinated, according to the city's department of public health.
"There is no doubt we still have a long road of recovery ahead, and we will tackle each phase with the same dedication and care that we always do," Padilla said.
How some states are fighting vaccine hesitancy
The importance of getting vaccinated was demonstrated in additional CDC data, which showed less than 1,400 hospitalized or fatal Covid-19 cases in fully vaccinated people as of May 10, a minuscule percentage given 115 million people at that time had completed their vaccinations. Only 223 of the severe breakthrough cases were fatal, the CDC said.
With the successes seen in high-vaccinated areas as well as the efficacy of the vaccines, states are pulling out all the stops to get more people on board.
The Washington State Department of Health announced that two of its four Covid-19 mass vaccination sites will close on May 28 and that the focus will be on mobile vaccine clinics for greater outreach.
"This transition isn't closing a door to vaccine opportunity but opening several new ones that will allow for more equitable vaccine access in the future," Washington Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said in a statement.
New Yorkers who get vaccinated next week from Monday to Friday will be given a lottery ticket with a chance to win as much as $5 million, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who described declining vaccination rates as "troubling news."
Starting on Tuesday, the Maryland Lottery will randomly select a vaccinated Marylander for a $40,000 prize every single day, Gov. Larry Hogan announced.
Those states are following Ohio's example. Gov. Mike DeWine last week was the first state leader to announce lottery drawings in a bid to get more people inoculated, and vaccination rates have since picked up, the Ohio Department of Health said on Thursday.
Ohio will hold five drawings with a prize of $1 million each for people 18 and older, and will hold five drawings for full college scholarships for people under the age of 18 who are vaccinated.
A give-and-take with masks at school
The relaxations of restrictions continued this week, yet the reaction has varied regarding rules for schools.
Rhode Island, with one of the highest rates of vaccinations per capita, announced many reopening measures effective Friday.
"The number of Rhode Islanders fully vaccinated and those with at least one dose -- more than 400,000 Rhode Islanders -- puts the Ocean State in a strong position to reopen safely on May 21, a week earlier than originally planned," Gov. Dan McKee said. Mask requirements at schools and youth sports, however, remained intact and subject to change at a later date.
"Kids thankfully don't get as sick as adults, but kids do get sick. We've seen a lot of hospitalizations and unfortunately even a few deaths in kids from this disease," Jha said.
"We are in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century. We actually have a ticket out," he said. The answer was getting people vaccinated and wearing a mask indoors if you're not vaccinated, he said.
"Let's move on with our lives. And the fact that we're fighting these things is incredibly frustrating, because we're fighting ourselves, not just the virus anymore," Jha said.
Differing expectations for booster timeline
Meanwhile, to combat the threat of variants as well as the general decrease in one's immunity over time, booster shots may be required in the future. But experts are split on if and when that will happen.
People should prepare to have a booster shot within a year, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Thursday.
"We have to see how long the protection lasts. We know it lasts at least six months," Murthy told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, adding that the most important thing right now is for people to get vaccinated and help those around them do the same.
"I really believe that this is our time to rise again, and we're going to do that by getting vaccinated, protecting ourselves and stepping up to protect one another," Murthy said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the timeline for needing a booster shot is currently unclear.
"We're preparing for the eventuality that we might need boosters, but I think we've got to be careful not to let the people know that inevitably, X number of months from now, everyone's going to need a booster. That's just not the case," Fauci said to The Washington Post at a live event. "We may not need it for quite a while."
California to lift restrictions
Meanwhile, states are continuing to do away with Covid-19 restrictions, including California, which -- after more than a year of lockdowns -- announced Friday it would drop all business capacity limits and social distancing requirements when the state fully opens on June 15.
However, while California will mostly return to a state of pre-pandemic normalcy, it will keep mask mandates in place for those who remain unvaccinated and require vaccine verification for some very large gatherings.
Over 35 million vaccine doses have been administered to date in California and the state continues to push availability, bringing efforts deeper into communities and incentivizing the shots. In one such effort, the Los Angeles Lakers are offering a chance to win a pair of season tickets to adults who get their first shot this weekend.
"Californians who want a vaccine should have a fairly easy time getting on at this point," said state Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly.
Vermont is also trying to incentivize its residents so more will get vaccinated. According to a news release from Gov. Phil Scott's office, nearly 75% of eligible Vermonters have received at least one dose of a vaccine.
Now, he's promising to lift any restrictions if the state hits 80%.
"Let's keep our momentum going. Let's finish strong. Let's continue to show the nation, and the world, what this brave little state is capable of," the governor said.
CNN's Jamie Gumbrecht, Alexandra Meeks, Deidre McPhillips, Andy Rose, Theresa Waldrop, Rebekah Riess, Melissa Alonso, Lauren del Valle, Maggie Fox, Lauren Mascarenhas, Yon Pomrenze, Jen Christensen, Virginia Langmaid and Michael Nedelman contributed to this report.
(Update: Adding governor's, state Treasury news releases with more details)
Scholarships, smaller prizes in each county also part of the 'Take Your Shot, Oregon' campaign
SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) Oregon, closing in on its COVID-19 vaccination goal, on Friday joined a wave of states across the country by offering a chance at a big prize in this case, a $1 million lottery jackpot to encourage those too busy or hesitant to get the shot that they said will help the state end its recent surge and get back to more normal lives.
Gov. Kate Brown said Oregon has made real progress tamping down the latest virus surge, with 285 hospitalized patients, the lowest since last month, and a half-dozen counties that have cleared the 65 percent 16-and-over residents with at least one vaccine dose. The state goal is 70 percent of adults by the end of June.
Every single day, we are getting closer to ending this chapter of the pandemic, she said. With summer around the corner, and life starting to return to normal, I think were all excited. but were not there just yet.
At present, 63 percent of adults have received at least one vaccine dose and to get to the goal of 70 percent by the end of June, the governor said we will need to pull on every lever we have. So if youve been waiting, or just havent gotten around to it yet, were going to give you an extra incentive: How about a chance to win $1 million?
Along with the top prize in the Take Your Shot, Oregon" campaign, there will be $10,000 lottery winners in each of Oregons 36 counties. Oregon Lottery rules dont allow anyone under 18 to participate in the cash drawings, but a special drawing for five $100,000 Oregon College Savings Plan scholarships will be held for vaccinated children ages 12 to 17.
Oregon Lottery Director Barry Pack said everyone who's gotten or gets a vaccine dose by June 27 will be entered into the drawings.
There will be a random drawing, and winners will be notified to either claim their prize or opt out. The drawing will be June 28, with winners announced the following week. The money being given away, totaling $1.86 million, comes from federal coronavirus relief funds.
To protect privacy, lottery officials will only get ID numbers for each vaccinated resident. The lottery will draw from those numbers, then notify the OHA of the winners. The names of those who accept the money will be made public. Those who have medical or other reasons for not receiving the vaccine won't take part in the drawings.
Right now, getting vaccinated is easier than its ever been, the governor said, noting that local public health departments and community organizations are partnering with health care providers to improve access, so 250,000 more Oregonians can get vaccinated in the next few weeks.
We can do this, Brown said, urging Oregonians to Take Your Shot. It can save your life, and just maybe make you a millionaire.
Dr. Ashby Monk, executive director of the Stanford Global Projects Center, said he jumped out of his chair when Oregon officials came to him last month to help develop the game as an effective incentive.
Weve learned that messaging based on fear, negative consequences, or even rational arguments about science of education, these can struggle to get through to individuals who are feeling anxiety and stress, Monk said. "Its tough to cut through.
Monk said researchers have found that "one tool is surprisingly powerful: games and variable reward incentives, such as raffles, other games of chance," which he said are at the cutting edge of the science of motivation. Games have been shown, in vaccines, to enhance knowledge and improve uptake. Incentives that can change your life with big rewards do inspire people to take positive action.
Its not about convincing those opposed to the vaccines, but those on the fence or who havent made doing so a priority, officials said.
And asked about vaccine foes' labeling of such prizes as "bribery," Monk said, "It's not meant to be a bribe. It's an incentive."
About the blowback over the recent guidelines update that involves requiring a proof of vaccination to drop mask requirements, Brown rejected the term passport and said businesses do have a choice, to continue requirement masks. She also said shes heard plenty from businesses and frontline workers about the incredibly challenging guidelines, and that therell be more conversations over the next couple weeks.
The reality is, this is an interim measure until we can fully lift our safety protocol, she said.
Brown later said even after the 70 percent vaccine benchmark is reached and many restrictions are lifted, the state will continue to align with CDC masking guidance -- "which can change" -- on issues such as continuing to require masks in health care settings when around those are medically vulnerable.
News release from Gov. Kate Brown's office:
All vaccinated Oregonians 12 and older eligible for cash prizes or scholarships
One $1 million prize, 36 $10,000 county winners, and five $100,000 scholarship winners
(Salem, OR) Governor Kate Brown announced today the launch of the Take Your Shot Oregon Campaign for all vaccinated Oregonians. Oregonians 18 and older will have the chance to win $1 million or one of 36 $10,000 prizeswith one winner in each county in Oregon. Oregonians age 12 to 17 will have a chance to win one of five $100,000 Oregon College Savings Plan scholarships. All Oregonians who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by the draw date will be entered to win.
Vaccines are the best tool we have to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19, and our fastest way to end this pandemic, said Governor Kate Brown. The Take Your Shot Oregon Campaign is a way to thank Oregonians for stepping up and keeping our communities safe. Its never been easier to get a vaccine, so dont miss your shot to enter!
The campaign is a collaboration between the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Lottery, and the Oregon State Treasury, and is funded with $1.86 million in federal Coronavirus Relief Act dollars. With the help of the Oregon Lottery, the Oregon Health Authority will draw names for winners in each category. No personal identifying information will be shared with the Oregon Lottery, and winners will be given the option to opt out in order to preserve patient privacy. Current employees and family members of the Oregon Lottery, the Governors Office, the Treasurers Office, and the Oregon Health Authority will be ineligible to win.
We are excited that Treasurys College Savings Plan can help with the effort to increase vaccination rates in Oregon, said State Treasurer Tobias Read. This is a win-win: get vaccinated now to protect yourself and others, and get the chance to fund your future through a scholarship that can be used for higher education and job training.
The drawing will take place on June 28, with names announced the following week. The cut off for names being added to the vaccine database is midnight on June 27.
Governor Brown made the announcement today in a press conference with Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, Oregon Lottery Director Barry Pack, and Dr. Ashby Monk, Executive Director for the Global Projects Center at Stanford University.
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News release from the Oregon State Treasury:
Vaccinated Oregonians Qualify for $100,000 College Scholarships Through "Take Your Shot" Campaign Partnership
Getting vaccinated: good for your health, your pocket book, and your educational prospects
Salem, Ore.May 21, 2021 Oregonians, if youve been vaccinated for COVID-19 or are planning to, you have a chance to win one of five $100,000 college scholarships. The Oregon Treasury and the Oregon College Savings Plantodayannounced their partnership with Governor Browns Take your shot campaign, encouraging Oregonians age 12 and older to get vaccinated with the added incentive of a chance to win a scholarship award. The state is also giving away a $1 million prize and a number of other cash prizes.
If Oregonians have received at least a first dose of the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, they are automatically entered to win through the states vaccine database. With the help of the Oregon Lottery, the Oregon Health Authority will draw names of winners for both cash and scholarship prizes onJune 28, with names being announced onJuly 6.
We are excited that Treasurys College Savings Plan can help with the effort to increase vaccination rates in Oregon, said State Treasurer Tobias Read. This is a win-win: get vaccinated now to protect yourself and others, and get the chance to fund your future through a scholarship that can be used for higher education and job training.
Scholarship prize dollars will be placed in Oregon College Savings Plan accounts with the Oregon Treasury serving as the account owner, and the individual prizewinner designated as the beneficiary. Oregon College Savings Plan accounts are simple to manage and flexible. Funds can be used at most U.S. higher education institutions and many abroad, including trade school, community college, and apprenticeships.
Managing these scholarships fits perfectly with the mission of the Oregon College Savings Plan, said Michael Parker, Executive Director for the Oregon Treasury Savings Network. We are committed to making higher education more accessible and affordable to communities statewide by offering year-round incentives to make it easier for Oregonians with dreams for the future to save and to save early.
Popular Oregon College Savings Plan incentives include theirBaby GradandKinder Gradprograms, which provide a $25 match to accounts opened for a child prior to their first birthday and for Kindergartners aged 5 or 6 years old. Oregon also offers a refundabletax credit(worth up to $300) for higher education savings, allowing more families to benefit from saving for college.
For more information about the campaign and available cash prizes, please visitGovernor Browns State of Oregon homepage.
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The Oregon College Savings Planis a state-sponsored savings program that comes with special tax advantages and can be opened by just about anyoneparents, family, friends, even future students. The money saved in the Oregon College Savings Plan grows tax-free and can be used for qualified expenses at any accredited, post-secondary institution or trade school. To learn more and to open an account, please visitwww.oregoncollegesavings.comor call 866-772-8464.
The Oregon Treasury Savings Network,part of the Oregon State Treasury, was launched inJanuary 2001to administer the Oregon College Savings Plan. It has since expanded to administer the Oregon ABLE Savings Plan and national ABLE for ALL Savings Plan, and the first state-run retirement program, OregonSaves.
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