Coronavirus vaccine and COVID variant updates for 12-20-2021

This is Vaccine 411, the latest coronavirus vaccine information for December 21st, 2021.

Moderna said a booster of its vaccine looks like it protects against Omicron in lab testing and this current version of the shot can still be a "first line of defense against Omicron." With Omicron spreading as fast as it is, the company didn’t see where there would be time to develop an Omicron-specific vaccine.

A win for Novavax. The EU gave the go ahead to its vaccine for use in the 27-nation bloc, making it the fifth approved COVID vaccine. It’s two-doses and right now it’s only for people 18 and older. If you don’t like new things, this is a protein vaccine that uses older technology that’s been around for years. Novavax is currently testing how its vaccine holds up against Omicron.

Few are denying Omicron is a rapid spreader, highly contagious. In very short order, it’s become the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week. That’s almost a six-fold increase in Omicron's share. Consider that you only started hearing about it as recently as November 26.

The President of the United States was at risk of joining our celebrity infections list. He was exposed to a staff member who recently tested positive, around them for about half an hour on Air Force One going from Philadelphia to South Carolina. The staff member was fully vaccinated and boosted. The president took an antigen test Sunday and a PCR test Monday, and both were negative.

It’s been two years. How are scientists and health officials in the U.S. doing at gathering accurate and timely data that help inform policy? Terrible. Politico talked to more than a dozen state and federal officials involved in case tracking, whose comments ranged from it being “particularly galling” to “a horrible job” to “it’s embarrassing.” In fact, since other Western countries do it significantly better, the US administration has relied on international sources for the last eight months.

In the United States cases were up 21%, deaths are up 9%, and hospitalizations are up 16% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending up since December 14.

The five states that had the most daily deaths per 100,000 are Michigan, Arizona, Alaska, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

There are 10,511,784 active cases in the United States.

The five states with the greatest increase in hospitalizations per capita: Connecticut 71%, Washington, DC 66%, Rhode Island 61%, New Jersey 60%, and North Carolina 54%.

The top 10 counties with the highest number of recent cases per capita according to The New York Times: Thompkins, NY. Pike, IL. Cuyahoga, OH. Winona, MN. Clay, IL. Pope, MN. Fayette, IN. Greene, IL. Piatt, IL. And Jefferson, IN.

There have been at least 807,945 deaths in the U.S. recorded as Covid-related.

The top 3 vaccinating states by percentage of population that’s been fully vaccinated: Vermont at 76.5%, Rhode Island at 75.6%, and Maine unchanged at 75.1%. The bottom 3 vaccinating states are Idaho unchanged at 45.8%, Wyoming unchanged at 47%, and Alabama unchanged at 47.2%. The percentage of the U.S. that’s been fully vaccinated is 61.4%.

Globally, cases were up 4% and deaths down 10% over 14 days, with the 7-day average trending up since October 15.

There are once again over 23 million active cases around the world, at 23,058,341.

The five countries with the most new cases: The United States 143,530. The U.K. 91,743. Russia 27,022. Spain 26,568. And Germany 21,710.

There have been at least 5,360,383 deaths reported as Covid-related worldwide.

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