Category: Covid-19

City offices closed for holiday

City of Waco offices are closed on Monday in observance of Independence Day.

The landfill will be open during normal business hours. Mondays trash collection will be serviced Wednesday.

The Waco-McLennan County Library system will close all branches Sunday and Monday.

Waco Transit buses and Medicaid trips will run as scheduled Monday, as will the La Salle-Circle Shuttle.

The Cameron Park Zoo, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, the Waco Mammoth National Monument and Cottonwood Creek Golf Course will remain open Sunday and Monday.

City reminder: Dont leave dogs in cars

The city of Waco is reminding residents it is against the law to leave dogs in cars unattended. Animals in yards must have access to water and shelter.

Violations can be reported to 254-750-1765.

Buffalo Cornhole Tournament RSVP

The Buffalo Cornhole Tournament will be Friday and Saturday at the Leon County Expo Center. Online registration is open through Monday and will be available at the door Friday.

Public admission is $10. Following Fridays competition, there will be a dance for competitors and spectators from 9 p.m. to midnight, featuring live music by Fly By Nighters band.

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Waco-area news briefs: Texas National Guard COVID-19 Mobile Vaccination Team to visit Troy - Waco Tribune-Herald

An advertisement truck, operated by Tokyo Metropolitan Government office, displaying messages that warns against the spread of the N501Y mutant COVID-19 strain, drives on the street in Tokyo, Japan May 14, 2021. REUTERS/Naoki Ogura/File Photo

TOKYO, July 3 (Reuters) - Tokyo reported 716 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, its highest in more than five weeks, as the nation considers extending pandemic restrictions in the capital just weeks before it is to host the Olympics.

Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures are among areas under a "quasi" state of emergency set to run through July 11, but Japan may extend the measures by two weeks or more due to a recent uptick in infections. read more

The coronavirus surge comes as Olympic organisers struggle to decide whether to allow spectators at the Games, which start on July 23.

Having decided to ban overseas spectators, the organisers have capped the number of domestic spectators at 10,000 per venue for the Games, or 50% of capacity, despite medical experts saying no spectators would be the "least risky" option. read more

Saturday's COVID-19 number is the highest since May 26, when Tokyo had 743 new infections.

Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tokyo's new COVID-19 infections hit highest in 5 weeks - Reuters

The World Bank is organizing the symposium on Learning during and post-COVID-19 in Nepal as a side event to the Global Education summit in collaboration with Nepals Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO); UNICEF and USAID.

Like other countries in South Asia, widespread school closures and other disruptions to education due to COVID 19 are likely to have long-term impacts on the well-being and learning and earning potential of children in Nepal.

These effects are anticipated to hit disadvantaged children the hardest, as they fall even further behind their peers.

In response to this challenge, the Government of Nepal (GON) has rolled out multimodal learning programs during school closures and other periods of disruption, including provision of online, offline and printed learning materials to students and promotion of flexible learning approaches to help teachers cover core curriculum content in a shorter time.

At the same time, the GON recognizes that high-technology approaches are likely to deepen educational inequities in a country where many households do not have access to radio, TV, and internet.

A range of development partners have supported the GONs efforts to stabilize education across the country, through alternative, catch-up learning approaches that utilize low- or no-tech solutions for some of the most educationally disadvantaged children.

The objective of this symposium is to bring together key stakeholders to combine efforts and strategies towards mitigating learning losses due to prolonged school closures and inequitable access to technology-based learning.

The timing for this symposium is opportune because it aligns with the GONs efforts to finalize and begin implementing the next Education Sector Plan (2021-2030) in a context of ongoing ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Likewise, the symposium aims to inform Nepals contributions and commitments as part of the upcoming Global Education Summit, in which Global Partnership for Education recipient countries and donor nations will affirm shared priorities for supporting equitable, quality education.

Excerpt from:

Symposium on Learning during and post-COVID-19 in Nepal - World Bank Group

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of July 2, 2021, there have been 3,016,020 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 164,149 total cases and 2,899 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of an 83-year old male from Mercer County and an 83-year old male from Wyoming County. Vaccines are safe and effective, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. If you are eligible, I am asking you to do your part to end further deaths from the pandemic by scheduling a COVID vaccine.

CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,515), Berkeley (12,847), Boone (2,179), Braxton (1,018), Brooke (2,247), Cabell (8,888), Calhoun (392), Clay (543), Doddridge (644), Fayette (3,557), Gilmer (885), Grant (1,317), Greenbrier (2,900), Hampshire (1,927), Hancock (2,844), Hardy (1,583), Harrison (6,198), Jackson (2,260), Jefferson (4,800), Kanawha (15,496), Lewis (1,290), Lincoln (1,607), Logan (3,300), Marion (4,655), Marshall (3,538), Mason (2,064), McDowell (1,615), Mercer (5,193), Mineral (2,985), Mingo (2,764), Monongalia (9,399), Monroe (1,223), Morgan (1,227), Nicholas (1,905), Ohio (4,314), Pendleton (725), Pleasants (959), Pocahontas (681), Preston (2,959), Putnam (5,331), Raleigh (7,096), Randolph (2,858), Ritchie (761), Roane (665), Summers (864), Taylor (1,282), Tucker (547), Tyler (748), Upshur (1,970), Wayne (3,182), Webster (546), Wetzel (1,392), Wirt (457), Wood (7,948), Wyoming (2,059).

Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Barbour, Berkeley, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Marshall, Mineral, Monongalia, Morgan, and Wayne counties.

Barbour County

9:00 AM 11:00 AM, Barbour County Health Department, 109 Wabash Avenue, Philippi, WV

1:00 PM 5:00 PM, Junior Volunteer Fire Department, 331 Row Avenue, Junior, WV

Berkeley County

10:00 AM 5:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV

Grant County

Jefferson County

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV

12:00 PM 5:00 PM, Shepherd University Wellness Center Parking Lot, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV

Lincoln County

Logan County

Marshall County

Mineral County

Monongalia County

9:00 AM 12:00 PM, WVU Recreation Center, Lower Level, 2001 Rec Center Drive, Morgantown, WV

Morgan County

11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Valley Health War Memorial Hospital, 1 Health Way, Berkeley Springs, WV

Wayne County

10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Wayne Community Center, 11580 Rt. 152, Wayne, WV

Follow this link:

COVID-19 Daily Update 7-2-2021 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

News Release

Friday, July 2, 2021

The National Institutes of Health is funding five additional projects to identify ways of safely returning students and staff to in-person school in areas with vulnerable and underserved populations. The awards are the second installment of the Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative, launched earlier this year as part of the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program. The new awards will provide up to $15 million over two years for five projects in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nebraska and Florida. The 8 initial awards, totaling $33 million over two years, were made in April 2021.

The new awards reaffirm NIHs commitment to use evidence-based research to inform policy makers of the safest ways to return to schools in vulnerable and underserved communities, said Eliseo J. Prez-Stable, M.D., director of NIHs National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and co-chair of the RADx-UP program.

The program addresses the needs of children with unequal access to COVID testing as well as those facing barriers to attending school remotely, including children who lack access to computers and internet connectivity, or who may not have family members available to help with virtual learning. Without in-person schooling, many children will miss out on school-based meals, speech or occupational therapy and after school programs. Loss of such services disproportionately affects minorities, socially and economically disadvantaged children, children with disabilities and those with medical complexities, such as those with medication-related problems, mental health issues, severe neurologic conditions or other serious health conditions and those who are dependent on medical technology for daily living. Award recipients also will explore strategies for including preschoolers in return to school efforts.

The new projects will focus on implementing COVID-19 testing regimens for students younger than age 12, who are ineligible for vaccination, exploring the influence of vaccination for eligible staff and students, addressing vaccine hesitancy and seeking information on circulating variants and breakthrough infections. One of the new projects will focus on native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders, groups not addressed in the previous awards. Researchers will work closely with state, tribal and local officials in planning their investigations.

The in-person school environment and the wide range of services offered there are critical to the development of our nations young people. By learning the best practices and methods through research, we can get children back in the classroom safely and equitably, said Diana W. Bianchi, M.D., director of NIHs Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which is managing the initiative.

RADx-UPSMis a registered service mark of the Department of Health and Human Services.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

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NIH COVID-19 testing initiative funds additional research projects to safely return children to in-person school - National Institutes of Health

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Oregon Health Authority reports three new deaths related to COVID-19, 209 new cases - KPTV.com

Health workers carrying AstraZeneca vaccines against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19 arrive for the mass vaccination part of the "Paqueta Vacinada" (Paqueta vaccinated) project, that aims to vaccinate the whole population over 18 years old on Paqueta Island in Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil June 20, 2021. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares

BRASILIA, July 2 (Reuters) - Municipalities across Brazil on Friday denied a newspaper report that said health ministry data showed cities administered at least 26,000 expired AstraZeneca (AZN.L) COVID-19 vaccine shots.

The southern city of Maring, cited in the Folha de S.Paulo story as being the municipality to have used the most expired shots (over 3,500), denied the allegation, saying the doses only appeared to have expired on public databases due to a delay in the registration of new data in the Health Ministry system.

"There were no expired vaccine doses in Maring, but there was an error in the system of (public health network) SUS," said the city's Health Secretary Marcelo Puzzi in a statement. Other cities blamed the confusion on the same data issue.

Local governments for the cities of So Paulo, Juiz de Fora and Belo Horizonte, which were also mentioned in the Folha story, issued statements denying having given out-of-date shots.

Brazil's vaccine rollout has faced widespread criticism. The government was slow to buy vaccines, and is now dealing with an alleged corruption scandal surrounding its procurement efforts. read more

Expired vaccine doses can be less effective. In Africa, a number of countries have found themselves with batches that have passed their shelf life sparking a debate over extending expiry dates. In May, Malawi destroyed nearly 20,000 doses that had expired.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has so far declined to take a vaccine and has sowed doubts about inoculations, pushed unproven miracle cures and underplayed the severity of a pandemic that has killed over a half a million Brazilians.

According to the report, the expired vaccines came from batches imported from India by the public Fiocruz biomedical institute, or acquired through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Neither the Health Ministry, nor PAHO immediately responded to requests for comment. The Serum Institute of India, which made the shots, also did not immediately reply. Fiocruz said it did not produce any expired shots.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is one of the two dominant COVID-19 shots in Brazil, alongside China's CoronaVac.

Reporting by Ricardo Brito; additional reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; writing by Pedro Fonseca and Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Aurora Ellis and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Brazilian cities deny media reports that they used expired COVID-19 shots - Reuters

Paramedics attend to a patient during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak as the country faces tighter restrictions at the MASA (Muslim Association of South Africa) Medpark, in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 1, 2021. REUTERS/ Sumaya Hisham

JOHANNESBURG, July 2 (Reuters) - South Africa registered more than 24,000 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, its highest tally of new infections since the pandemic began, as a third wave of the virus spread through a population in which just 5% have been vaccinated.

The surge in cases in Africa's most industrialised nation has overwhelmed hospitals, especially in the main city of Johannesburg, and left overworked healthcare personnel struggling to find enough beds for critically ill patients.

Bureaucratic failures have worsened the health crisis. The South African Medical Association threatened on Thursday to take the government to court because more than 200 new junior doctors cannot find placements despite desperate staff shortages. NL2N2OD2E3

South Africa has recorded just over 2 million cases and more than 60,000 deaths during the pandemic, according to government data, while 3.3 million people have been vaccinated out of a population of just under 60 million.

President Cyril Ramaphosa last Sunday announced a raft of measures, including suspension of alcohol sales and a halt of indoor dining in restaurants, for two weeks to minimise the impact of the new wave, which scientists say is driven by the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant first found in India and now circulating widely around the world.

The country's low vaccination rate is due to a combination factors including bad luck - the government had to destroy 2 million contaminated Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) vaccines - lumbering South African bureaucracy, and rich countries with plentiful vaccine supplies inoculating their own citizens first while much of the developing world waits for doses.

Ramaphosa has been highly critical of what he called global "vaccine apartheid."

He has called on drugmakers and allied Western governments to waive their patent protections to allow emergency local manufacturing of vaccine doses, so far to no avail.

(Removes extraneous word 'of', paragraph six)

Reporting by Tim CocksEditing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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South Africa hits record 24000 new COVID-19 cases in third wave - Reuters

As Professor Stuart Turville, a virologist from the Kirby Institute, told the ABC, the Delta variant is both more contagious and not nearly as deadly.

Looking at the 28-day follow-up after infection, the death rate for the original variants was 1.9 percent mortality, he said. So far, the Delta variant is showing 0.3 percent mortality.

Over time, there is more room for confidence. Peter Collignon, a physician and microbiology professor at the Australian National University, whom I often talk to about the pandemic, reminded me this week that Australia is better off now than it was a year ago because even though the vaccine rollout has been slow, more than 7 million jabs have already been given.

And the people with the highest rates of vaccination, he noted, are the most vulnerable people Australians older than 70.

In the next three months, if more vaccine supplies reach Australia as scheduled, the likelihood of death and hospitalization will continue to go down because more people will be protected by vaccines. And then, as the prime minister announced today, everyone will have been offered a vaccine, and life will start to return to some semblance of normal. Well probably still have to get a Covid test before traveling internationally, but hey, at least well be traveling.

Is it all too slow? Yes. Is that rage-inducing? Absolutely, and even more so if youve been paying attention. People like Mr. Collignon and Mr. Holden, for example, warned months ago that this winter would be bad if the vaccine rollout wasnt up to speed. And they were right.

But at the same time, finally, there is an endpoint in sight a horizon, as government officials have called it. And so that anger might as well be leavened with longing and hope.

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Will Australia's Path Out of Covid-19 Pandemic Make You Scream With Anger or Joy? - The New York Times

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Several area health officials say they have been seeing more sick children than normal for this time of year, and they believe a big part is because many of them are too young for the COVID-19 vaccine.

You dont want to worry if you child is one of the ones who has a severe reaction to getting COVID, said Sedgwick County Health Director, Adrienne Byrne. Thats another reason why its important for people to get vaccinated, is because some people dont have a choice.

With the July 4th weekend here, Sedgwick County health officer Dr. Garold Minns and others are worried about the spread of the new COVID-19 Delta Variant, It appears to be more likely to be transmitted between people and it appears to cause more severe disease. It has gradually emerged as becoming one of the more dominant strains were seeing.

Dr. Amy Seery with Ascension Via Christi says the hospital is seeing other contagious viruses among children, but its hard to tell what it is if parents dont have their kids tested.

Dr. Seery explained, Unfortunately without testing, we cant tell the difference between if its COVID-19, regular old school Coronavirus, Rhinovirus, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus, also known as RSV. Were seeing a very offseason spike of [RSV].

This rise in cases of RSV, plus the Delta Variant of COVID-19 is causing problems for busy hospitals, In terms of an outpatient setting, were seeing lots and lots of kids with viral UI-type symptoms, added Dr. Seery.

Originally posted here:

What could the COVID-19 Delta Variant mean for your July 4th weekend - KSN-TV