Category: Covid-19

CNN

As the world approaches the second anniversary of the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization, on March 11, more nations are rolling out or are discussing the possibility of fourth doses of coronavirus vaccine for their most vulnerable. In the United States, leading public health officials say they are very carefully monitoring if or when fourth doses might be needed.

Israel was the first nation to roll out fourth doses, announcing in December that adults 60 and older, medical workers and people with suppressed immune systems were eligible to receive the extra shot if at least four months have passed since their third dose.

More recently, the Public Health Agency of Sweden announced last week that second booster doses are recommended for everyone 80 and older in the country. The United Kingdoms Department of Health and Social Care announced Monday that an extra booster dose of coronavirus vaccine will be offered in the spring to adults 75 and older, residents in care homes for older adults and immunosuppressed people 12 and older.

In the United States, health officials emphasized late last year that fourth doses were not yet needed and said it was too premature to be discussing a potential fourth dose of coronavirus vaccine for most people.

Now, the US Food and Drug Administration is indeed continually looking at the emerging data on the pandemic and variants in the United States and overseas in order to evaluate the potential utility and composition of booster doses, FDA spokesperson Alison Hunt wrote in an email to CNN on Friday.

She confirmed that although Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, has noted that there is still much uncertainty as to how the pandemic may further evolve, he also has said it is possible that a fourth dose might be recommended as we move into fall.

A fall timeline coincides with the administration of flu shots, which could be convenient for people and makes sense scientifically because respiratory viruses like the coronavirus and influenza tend to peak in the winter months that follow.

As more data become available about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, including the use of a booster dose, we will continue to evaluate the rapidly changing science and keep the public informed, Hunt wrote. Any determination that additional booster doses are needed will be based on data available to the agency.

If or when the FDA authorizes a fourth dose for the public, the next step would be for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the data before making a recommendation for use, as the agency has done for other coronavirus vaccine recommendations.

The United States has seen significant improvements recently in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. As of Friday, cases were down 44% from the prior week, hospitalizations dropped 26%, and deaths were 13% lower, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Vaccination and boosting will be critical in maintaining that downward trajectory, particularly when youre talking about the red curve of severe disease leading to hospitalization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a White House Covid-19 Task Force briefing Wednesday.

The potential future requirement for an additional boost or a fourth shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines or a third dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is being very carefully monitored in real time, Fauci said. And recommendations, if needed, will be updated according to the data as it evolves.

The CDC has no recommendation of fourth doses of coronavirus vaccine for the general public, but the agency updated its guidelines in October to note that certain people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised may receive a fourth dose of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.

For the immunocompetent people, a single booster shot continues to provide high levels of protection against severe disease caused by Omicron, Fauci said Wednesday. This should not be confused with the fact that for many immunocompromised people, already a second booster shot namely a fourth dose of an mRNA is recommended because of what we know about their poor response to the initial regimen.

Meanwhile, vaccine makers continue to study fourth doses in broader populations.

Pfizer announced in January that it has been studying the safety and efficacy of a fourth dose as part of its ongoing study of an Omicron-specific coronavirus vaccine among healthy adults ages 18 to 55.

For that study, participants have been separated into three cohorts. One includes 600 people who got three doses of the current Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine before enrolling in the study. As part of the research, they will receive either a fourth dose of the current vaccine or a dose of the Omicron-based vaccine.

While current research and real-world data show that boosters continue to provide a high level of protection against severe disease and hospitalization with Omicron, we recognize the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future, Kathrin Jansen, senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said in the companys announcement of the study.

A study published by the CDC last week showed that protection against Covid-19 hospitalization and emergency department or urgent care visits is much higher after a third vaccine dose than a second dose but that protection wanes with time.

With the Omicron variant dominant in the United States, vaccine effectiveness was 87% against Covid-19 emergency department or urgent care visits and 91% against hospitalizations in the two months after a third dose. Effectiveness fell to 66% and 78%, respectively, by the fourth month, the data showed.

Nonetheless, the level of 78 is still a good protective area, Fauci said Wednesday.

Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told CNN on Friday that he thinks having a fourth dose makes very little sense right now but possibly makes more sense this upcoming fall or winter.

Because Omicron is going away, he said, third dose immunity wanes, and so fourth dose will probably wane as well. So we would want to time a fourth-dose push for when either theres a new variant or for next winter. So I think right now, unless youre immunocompromised or youre older, unless you have some personal risk, it doesnt make a lot of sense.

The research showing some waning immunity after a third dose has led to more discussion around if or when fourth doses could be needed.

Just like with everything else, the health departments look at this data thats coming out and wait for guidance from the CDC and from the drug manufacturers. The drug manufacturers have been monitoring vaccine effectiveness, Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Friday.

The timing for fourth doses not only depends on waning immunity but also depends on whether we see any more variants emerge and what we discover in terms of additional vaccine effectiveness for any emerging new infections, Freeman said.

If fourth doses are needed, health departments would go into the mode of preparing to administer the fourth dose in the way they have done previous doses, Freeman said. However, of greater concern among local public health officers is the slow and declining pace of people completing their third doses, she said.

About 65% of the US population is fully vaccinated with at least their initial series, and about 28% of the population has received a booster dose, according to the CDC, as of Friday. But the pace of booster doses being administered has dropped to one of the slowest rates yet.

As time goes on, if there is the necessity of a fourth dose, were already behind with people getting the third dose, Freeman said. So all of a sudden, we could have a fairly large segment of the population that is not up to date on vaccines because theyre behind by two doses, potentially, and more people could get sick.

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A fourth Covid-19 shot might be recommended this fall, as officials 'continually' look at emerging data - CNN

COVID-19 has sent nearly 900,000 Americans to the hospital in the past two years. A new study shows that the ZIP codes they came from had a lot to do with how sick they were when they got to the hospital, and how much care they needed once they were there.

But those differences disappeared by the time their stays were donewhether they left the hospital alive or dead.

The new findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show the importance of social and economic inequality in the way the pandemic is playing outincluding how early in their illness people seek or get access to care.

Even after the researchers took into account the underlying health of each person they studied, the social vulnerability index, or SVI, of their home ZIP code still made a difference. SVI combines multiple factors to create a score based on such things as a local areas average income, education level and household density to the percentage of households led by single parents or where English is not the primary language.

The findings could help policymakers target less-privileged areas with more services to prevent and respond to COVID-19 cases; SVI has already been used by the state of Michigan and other states to prioritize COVID vaccination outreach.

The study also shows the role of hospitals in equalizing outcomes for people from unequal backgrounds.

The research team behind the study, from the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado, used data from more than 2,300 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in 38 hospitals across Michigan from March to December 2020.

People who lived in the most underprivileged ZIP codes were more likely to have severe symptoms such as low blood oxygen levels when admitted, and to need support for failing lungs and other organs through technologies such as ventilators and dialysis once they were in a hospital bed.

But they were no more likely to die than those from more-privileged areas, and no less likely to go back to their own homes instead of a nursing home.

Outcomes at hospital discharge appear equitable for these patients, but the question is, What leads to the initial disparities in seriousness of illness that they arrive with?' said Renuka Tipirneni, lead author of the new study and an assistant professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine, U-Ms academic medical center.

Are people not getting access to testing or treatment early in their illness? Are there other individual patient-level social risks such as ongoing difficulties with transportation, housing or sick leave at work? Did they delay seeking care because of lack of access?

Tipirneni and colleagues, including Vineet Chopra, the Robert W. Schrier Chair of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, used data from a statewide database called Mi-COVID19 Initiative. Funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan through its Collaborative Quality Initiative effort, it pools anonymous data on people hospitalized with COVID-19.

The study follows up on work that Tipirneni and colleagues published just over a year ago, showing SVI at the county level had much to do with COVID-19 case rates and death rates. But the new analysis of individual patient data and ZIP code-level SVI is much more indicative of the hyper-local conditions that can shape a persons access to and use of care.

Once theyre getting that care, there are equal outcomes, which is encouraging, said Tipirneni. This analysis zooms in on individual patients, and zooms out on whats influencing their outcomes in their neighborhood.

She notes that more disadvantaged (higher SVI) areas are found across the state and nation, from very rural areas to the centers of cities. In fact, anyone can use this CDC tool to find the SVI of any ZIP codethe numbers range from 0 (lowest level of social vulnerability) to 1 (highest level).

In the new study, the researchers divided SVI into four quartiles, and looked at differences in percentages of patients who experienced each type of severe symptom, treatment option and outcome by quartile. Differences of several percentage points emerged for most measures, even after factoring out individual patients underlying health status.

One of the things that policymakers, public health authorities and health systems might want to focus on as a result of the new study is how they make information available to people about when and how they should seek care for worsening COVID-19 symptoms, and when to prioritize seeking that care over anything else, the researchers say.

Making information available in multiple languages, and ensuring that outpatient treatment and transportation to appointments are available during the times people need it no matter what their schedule, are two specific things that could make a difference, they say.

High, or worse, SVI has also been shown to correlate with low COVID-19 vaccination rates, so once data from 2021 are available through Mi-COVID19, the team will look at how care and outcomes for people with severe COVID-19 changed once vaccines were available.

The team is also using the Social Determinants of Health Database created by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to explore how other factors not included in the standard SVI measure interact with COVID-19 risks and outcomes.

In addition to Tipirneni and Chopra, the studys authors are Monita Karmakar, Megan OMalley and Hallie Prescott. Tipirneni and Prescott are current members of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, to which Chopra also belonged while at U-M before becoming chair of medicine at the University of Colorado.

Several CQIs were involved in data collection and analysis, including the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Collaborative, Michigan Value Collaborative, Michigan Arthroplasty Registry Collaborative Quality Initiative and Michigan Social Health Interventions to Eliminate Disparities

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ZIP codes matter when it comes to severe COVID-19 - University of Michigan News

While we're seeing far fewer people in the hospitals, there are still too many unknowns.

CLEVELAND Right now, Cleveland Clinic has 132 patients hospitalized for COVID.

It's a far cry from the packed ICUs and ER overflow of December and part of January. They're still busy, just in a different way.

"All of those elective surgery patients that need to come in and have patiently waited for weeks to come in as they were delayed through the month of December and most of January," explained Chief Safety, Quality and Experience Officer Dr. Leslie Jurecko.

Infectious Disease Chair Dr. Steven Gordon agrees that the virus is trending in the right direction and says at this point, the amount of precautions people take will most likely be related to their personal comfort level as mandates expire. But he says it's too soon to know exactly what COVID will look like in our daily lives for the long-term.

"What we don't know, or at least what I don't know, is whether this is going to settle as a seasonal respiratory virus like the other coronaviruses. You know we're just going to have to wait and see," Gordon said.

California is the first state that will be treating COVID as "endemic," meaning it will likely be part of our long-term reality. More of a big picture approach he anticipates the CDC will also begin to take.

"In pivoting to preparedness for the next surge, or next respiratory pandemic as opposed to predicting the modeling," Dr. Gordon said.

So is COVID going away? No, but now the focus is on how to handle it moving forward.

And as those cases continue to trend down, the Clinic urges us to remember that health care workers haven't slowed down.

So, they're asking people who visit to agree to a form outlining appropriate behavior in the hospital, including being kind to employees.

"So, it feels better, but we still have stressed teams and we understand that our community is under a lot of stress, not only from the virus, but from everything else going on," Jurecko said.

Cleveland Clinic anticipates guests will be required to mask up for the foreseeable future, but they have expanded the number of visitors permitted for a patient to two now that the omicron surge is over in Northeast Ohio.

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Too soon to call COVID-19 an endemic, according to Cleveland Clinic - WKYC.com

Related Practices & Jurisdictions

Monday, February 21, 2022

On April 4, 2022, a merits panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on a petition seeking to force OSHA to issue a permanent standard for healthcare occupational exposure to COVID-19 and to reinstate the Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard on Occupational Exposure (Healthcare ETS) to COVID-19 pending the permanent standard. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals referral of this matter to a merits panel was initiated by the Courts own motion.

On December 27, 2021, OSHAannouncedthe withdrawal of the Healthcare ETS and confirmed its intent to issue a permanent infectious disease standard. Less than two weeks later, on January 5, 2022, National Nurses United and several other labor unions filed an Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus and Request for Expedited Briefing and Disposition with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.In re: National Nurses United, et al., No. 22-1002 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 5, 2022).

The unions argue that OSHA has failed to adequately protect nurses and other healthcare workers from COVID-19. OSHA filed its opposition to the petition on January 21, 2022, arguing, among other things, that OSHA was unable to finalize a permanent healthcare standard because it focused the agencys resources on its COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (which was alsowithdrawn). OSHA indicated it expects to complete rulemaking for a permanent healthcare standard within six-to-nine months.

The Healthcare ETS applied in settings where COVID-19 patients are treated, and it required healthcare employers with more than 10 employees to develop and implement written COVID-19 plans that included the following elements:

Assigning a designated safety coordinator;

Patient screening and management;

Policies and procedures to comply with CDC guidelines;

Facemask and PPE requirements;

Protections while using aerosol-generating procedures on persons with suspected or confirmed COVID-19;

Physical distancing;

Solid barriers at employee work stations;

Cleaning and disinfection protocols;

HVAC system requirements;

Health screening and medical management requirements;

Paid leave for vaccinations, vaccination recovery, and medical removal from work due to COVID-19 infection or certain COVID-19 exposures;

Employee training;

Anti-retaliation protections;

Employee COVID-19 logs; and

Reporting work-related COVID-19 fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations.

OSHA has indicated its forthcoming permanent infectious disease standard will cover all industries and address airborne, droplet, and non-bloodborne contact diseases.

While OSHA has indicated it may use the now-withdrawn Healthcare ETS to support citations against healthcare employers under the General Duty Clause of the OSH Act, only the COVID-19 log and reporting provisions formally remain in effect.

Reinstatement of the Healthcare ETS would have a significant impact on covered employers, particularly as COVID-19 cases appear to be dropping throughout the country and more jurisdictions are loosening restrictions.

Jackson Lewis P.C. 2022National Law Review, Volume XII, Number 52

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Impending Argument for Reinstating COVID-19 Healthcare ETS - The National Law Review

As confirmed cases of COVID-19 track downward at Rowan, in New Jersey and across the nation, we are implementing some University-wide changes in our approach to testing and contact tracing.

TestingAs of Monday, Feb. 21, Hollybush Mansion will no longer be a site for symptomatic COVID-19 testing. Any student exhibiting symptoms of the virus should contact the Wellness Center at 856-256-4333 to arrange testing.

Through May 5, asymptomatic testing will continue every Wednesday and Thursday for any student or employee who is unvaccinated or any student or employee wishing to undergo testing. Testing will be from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. each Wednesday and Thursday in the Owls Nest in the Chamberlain Student Center.

Contact tracingRather than conducting contact tracing investigations on each positive case among our University community, the Wellness Center will instead rely upon any Rowan student or employee who tests positive to personally notify their contacts. The Wellness Center will provide those individuals who test positive with information about informing their circle of contacts. The Universitys contact tracing group will no longer conduct active contract tracing investigations.

Remaining in effectAs we continue to evaluate a number of factors and monitor our cases, the Universitys masking protocols and daily screening will remain in place at this time.

Finally, anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 will still need to report their positive test to the University. Both students and employees must report here. Reporting is necessary as Rowan continues to update our website and submit weekly state reports.

Staying healthyAs always, the best way to protect yourself against serious illness is to get the COVID-19 vaccine and the booster shot. Click here for vaccination information.

Moving forwardRowans wellness team meets several times each week to review the Universitys positive case numbers, evaluate statewide and national trends, and consider changes to our pandemic protocols. As we continue throughout the semester, we will communicate any future changes to the University community.

A healthy Rowan is a thriving Rowan. Please continue to take every precaution to keep yourselves and our community healthy and safe this spring.

Contact Information:Scott WoodsideDirector of the Wellness Center856-256-4333woodside@rowan.edu

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Changes in COVID-19 testing and contact tracing | Rowan Today | Rowan University - Rowan Today

Fear-based messaging is often persuasive, but it has not been an effective way to promote COVID-19 vaccines or social distancing, Fast Company reported Feb. 20.

Fear appeals must first describe danger and then explain how to mitigate it. Both parts need to be effective for the appeal to work, according to the report.

If people don't believe the danger poses a significant threat, they often see no need to pay attention to potential solutions. The ideas that COVID-19 is a hoax or only as serious as a common cold circulated widely during the early phase of the pandemic and are still proliferating on social media, which undermines Americans' ability to respond to fear-based messaging.

Additionally, people must believe potential solutions are attainable and effective. Online misinformation has influenced many Americans to the point they believe social distancing and vaccines are not proven ways to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Fear appeals have further been thwarted by the frequency of changes in the CDC's guidance, as people are more likely to act when problems and solutions are straightforwardly laid out. Fear appeals have also been hampered by rampant online misinformation claiming the government has nefarious intentions for promoting vaccines, according to the report.

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The problem with fear-based COVID-19 messaging - Becker's Hospital Review

Peoples relationship with their job is complicated.

COVID-19 has likely permanently changed attitudes toward their jobs, with people seeking out a change of hours, career and benefits. Some individuals may have become accustomed to a greater degree of work flexibility, including working from home, while others may now prefer a greater degree of work-life balance, a new paper concludes.

The pandemic was a catalyst, according to the paper, distributed Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Cambridge, Mass. nonprofit research organization. The paper was written by economist R. Jason Faberman at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Ayegl ahin and Andreas I. Mueller, both from the Department of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Workers with high social proximity the degree of interpersonal contact and ability to work from home show a willingness to work fewer hours.

Workers with high social proximity show a willingness to work fewer hours, echoing previous research and highlighting the gap between people who are able to work from home without exposure to COVID-19. Social proximity, for these purposes, is defined by the degree of interpersonal contact and the ability to work from home for a persons current or most recent job.

The occupations with the highest effective social proximity include healthcare professionals, food-preparation workers, people working in production, construction, transportation, and personal-care services, they said. The jobs with the lowest effective social proximity include managers, technical professionals, and legal professionals.

A recent report by management consulting company McKinsey on the future of work also found that the pandemic most severely disturbed arenas with the highest overall physical proximity scores: medical care, personal care, on-site customer service, and leisure and travel. Looking ahead, those areas are also likely to be more unsettled, as workplaces continue to adapt to this new normal, it added.

Considering only remote work that can be done without a loss of productivity, we find that about 20% to 25% of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week, McKinsey said. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work.

But remote work is always good for companies. We found that some work that technically can be done remotely is best done in person, McKinsey added. Negotiations, critical business decisions, brainstorming sessions, providing sensitive feedback, and onboarding new employees are examples of activities that may lose some effectiveness when done remotely.

The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.2% in January, and the employment-population ratio was little changed at 59.7%, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both of those measures were up over the past year, but remain below their February 2020 levels (63.4% and 61.2%, respectively, it said.

Pressures have intensified in recent months for people to work more hours and/or for better wages with inflation, especially with inflation reaching a 40-year high.

But pressures have intensified in recent months for people to work more hours and/or for better wages with inflation now at a 40-year high, the winding down of pandemic-related stimulus programs, credit-card debt and interest rates on the increase, and the toll that two years of an uncertain and unsteady work environment has taken on peoples savings.

Still, the COVID-19 pandemic had had a significant effect on the number of hours that people wished to work, Faberman, ahin and Mueller wrote. The labor market is tighter than suggested by the unemployment rate and the adverse labor supply effect of the pandemic is more pronounced than implied by the labor force participation rate, they said.

Child-care needs play only one part. Our evidence does not support the notion that the contraction in labor supply is driven mostly by women responding to child-care demands, the researchers added. Instead, the drop in desired hours is pervasive across most demographic groups, with somewhat larger declines among those with less than a college degree.

The decline is also concentrated among what we refer to as the intensive margin of labor force participation. This margin represents individuals who prefer to work infrequently, and when they do, they generally prefer part-time work hours, they said, adding, This decline contributed to the rapid tightening of the labor market following the onset of the pandemic.

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Why have so many people soured on work? COVID-19 unleashed a hidden well of employee dissatisfaction - MarketWatch

UVA Health has joined a nationwide study evaluating two repurposed medications in the search for effective, safe treatments for mild to moderate COVID-19. Repurposed medications are already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of other diseases or conditions.

ACTIV-6, The Randomized Trial to Evaluate Efficacy of Repurposed Medications, is a nationwide, double-blind study expected to enroll nearly 15,000 participants from across the U.S. A double-blind study meansthat both study participants and researchers do not know which medication participants are receiving as part of the trial.

Residents from throughout Virginia and across the U.S. can get more information on how to participate in the trial by visitingactiv6study.orgor calling833-385-1880.Volunteers in the trial can participate from home.

Thestudy is now testing these repurposed medications:

While we have some great new drugs for COVID-19 in outpatients, like Paxlovid and sotrovimab, supplies are limited and its still important to find potential new treatments, said Dr. Patrick E.H. Jackson, principal investigator for the clinical trial at UVA Health. Because thedrugs were studyingare cheap and widely available, they could have a huge global impact if we find theyre effective for COVID treatment.

Eligibility and Trial Participation

To be eligible, participants must be 30 years old or older, have had a positive COVID-19 test within the past 10 days, and have at least two symptoms of the illness for seven days or less. Symptoms include fatigue, difficulty breathing, fever, cough, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches, chills, headache, sore throat, nasal symptoms, and/or new loss of sense of taste or smell.

Participation involves taking the medication and keeping track of symptoms over 90 days through online surveys. Medications are shipped at no cost to participants.

The studyis part of the National Institutes of Health-funded Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines effort led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

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UVA Health Joins National Trial Testing Medications for Mild to Moderate COVID-19 - University of Virginia

WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. Helix Diagnostics will be offering COVID-19 testing at a new site in Waterford Township.

The new site will be located at 3625 Highland Road and is replacing the testing site formerly located at 6620 Highland Road.

Starting Feb. 23, 2022, the public will have access to COVID-19 PCR testing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m.

Those interested in testing can make appointments at http://www.solvhealth.com, walk-ins are welcomed as well. Medical insurance will be accepted for those who have been exposed to COVID-19 or are exhibiting symptoms. Patients in need of testing for travel purposes will need to pay $100 via cash or credit card.

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New COVID-19 testing site coming to Waterford Township - Fox17

City, provincial and federal law enforcement officers begananunprecedented operation Friday morning to remove demonstrators, their trucks and cars, that have been blockading the streets. On Friday, more than 100 people were arrested and 21 vehicles were towed.

Another 38 vehicles have been towed since Friday, police say.

Wellington Street in front of Parliament has been cleared. Police say they will continue restoring the streets to normal order over the coming days.

"One protester launched a gas canister and was arrested," Ottawa police said in a tweet.

Police said their response would have public and officer safety in mind.

"We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses. Based on your behavior, we are responding by including helmets and batons for our safety," police said.

Earlier Saturday morning, police warned protesters to leave. More than 100 checkpoints remain to keep more protesters from entering the city.

Parliament was under a "hold and secure" order similar to a lockdown.

Demonstrators have been blockading Ottawa streets since January 29; despite threats of legal consequences, many showed no signs of backing down. Law enforcement officers began an unprecedented operation Friday morning to remove protesters and their vehicles.

On Saturday, Legislators resumed emergency debate on the Emergencies Act, which had been interrupted Friday, House Speaker Anthony Rota said in a statement.

The points of contention have become more delicate in recent days as some protesters placed young children between them and police. CNN has observed those children on the protest site in the last several days.

DC prepares for potential similar protests

And Trudeau has pointed out that some people in the US, as well as elsewhere, are funneling funding to the protesters.

"We see that roughly half of the funding that is flowing to the barricaders here is coming from the United States. The goal of all measures, including financial measures in the Emergencies Act, is to deal with the current threat only, and to get the situation fully under control."

Meanwhile, officials in US are concerned that similar unrest may arise in Washington, DC, as President Joe Biden prepares for the State of the Union address on March 1.

Organizers face charges

Several people arrested earlier this week have been charged in the protests, which have evolved from opposition to a trucker vaccine mandate to encompassing a disdain for all Covid-19 safety measures.

Patrick James King, 44, of Red Deer, Alberta, was arrested Friday, according to Ottawa Police.

King is charged by the Criminal Investigations Section with mischief, counseling to commit the offense of mischief, counseling to commit the offense of disobeying court order, and counseling to commit the offense of obstructing police.

He was set to appear in court Saturday.

On Friday, Ottawa police confirmed the arrests of organizers Tamara Lich, 49, and Christopher John Barber, 46.

Lich was charged with counseling to commit the offense of mischief and Barber has been charged with counseling to commit the offense of mischief, counseling to commit the offense of disobeying a court order, and counseling to commit the offense of obstructing police.

Barber had a contested bail hearing Friday, attorney Diane Magas said in an email to CNN. He was released on the condition that he leave Ottawa and a bond, she added. Lich is scheduled to appear in court Saturday morning for her arraignment.

CNN's Paula Newton reported from Ottawa. This story was written by Aya Elamroussi and Jay Croft in Atlanta. Paradise Afshar, Travis Caldwell, Raja Razek, Chris Boyette, Amir Vera, Chuck Johnston and Jenn Selva contributed to this report.

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Police arrest 47 of the remaining Covid-19 protesters in Ottawa - CNN