Health experts dismayed at Texas Gov. Abbott’s ban on vaccine mandates as state nears 70,000 COVID deaths, and U.K. government slammed for pandemic mismanagement

The Texas transfer comes because the Biden administration is about to subject guidelines requiring employers with greater than 100 staff to be vaccinated or to check weekly for the coronavirus, the Associated Press reported. A number of main firms, together with Texas-based American Airways
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and Southwest Airways
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have stated they might abide by the federal mandate.

“No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any particular person, together with an worker or a shopper, who objects to such vaccination for any purpose of non-public conscience, primarily based on a spiritual perception, or for medical causes, together with prior restoration from COVID-19,” Abbott wrote in his order.

Nearly 70,000 Texans have died of COVID-19, and greater than 4 million have been contaminated, whereas solely 50% of the state’s inhabitants has been vaccinated, according to a New York Times tracker.

Dr. Peter Hotez, vaccinologist and dean of the Nationwide Faculty of Tropical Drugs at Baylor School of Drugs in Houston, instructed MSNBC that Texas will seemingly lead the nation by year-end in COVID deaths.

As many of the present new instances, hospitalizations and deaths are in unvaccinated folks, leaders want to make use of all instruments, together with vaccine mandates, to halt transmission of the virus, he stated.

Texas is not only at odds with the federal authorities, which Abbott has accused of overreach in its try to make use of office necessities to extend vaccination charges. It’s also at odds with a lot of the world, with many governments in Europe and elsewhere utilizing mandates to influence the vaccine hesitant to roll up their sleeves and keep away from dying a preventable demise. The vaccines which have been licensed to be used have confirmed protected and efficient in stopping severe sickness and demise.

See now: J&J’s Stoffels, who managed development of the company’s COVID-19 shot, is retiring

Within the U.S., San Francisco and Los Angeles are the newest cities to require vaccination to have interaction in public life, together with getting into bars and eating places, becoming a member of New York and others which might be taking that motion in hope of ending the disaster.

See now: California becomes first state to mandate vaccination for elementary- and high-school students

The U.S. is averaging nearly 1,900 deaths from COVID a day, the Instances tracker exhibits, though, outdoors of some sizzling spots, instances and hospitalizations are coming down. However that signifies that each two days the nation is struggling the identical variety of fatalities as seen within the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001. The general U.S. demise toll is getting near 715,000, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracker is exhibiting that simply greater than 56% of the U.S. inhabitants is totally vaccinated, nicely under the 70% specialists say is required to comprise the outbreak.

Learn now: Failing to bring COVID-19 under control will cost $5.3 trillion in lost global growth over next five years, IMF estimates

A damning report from a U.Ok. parliamentary committee printed Tuesday discovered the federal government waited too lengthy to impose a lockdown within the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking an opportunity to comprise the illness and resulting in hundreds of pointless deaths, the AP and others reported.

The response “ranks as some of the vital public well being failures the UK has ever skilled,” the report discovered.

The lethal delay resulted from ministers’ failure to query the suggestions of scientific advisers, leading to a harmful degree of “groupthink” that brought about them to dismiss the aggressive methods adopted in East and Southeast Asia, in keeping with the joint report from the Home of Commons’ science and well being committees. It was solely when Britain’s Nationwide Well being Service risked being overwhelmed by quickly rising infections that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative authorities lastly ordered a lockdown in late March.

Lawmakers stated their inquiry was designed to uncover why Britain carried out “considerably worse” than many different international locations through the early days of the pandemic in order that the U.Ok. might enhance its response to the continued risk from COVID-19 and put together for future threats. The U.Ok. has the second highest demise toll in Europe, far greater than international locations like Spain and Italy that had been early sizzling spots.

Elsewhere, Russia, which has the very best demise toll in Europe, suffered one more document day by day demise toll at 973, the Moscow Times reported. Russia has now posted document numbers of COVID-19 deaths on 10 of the final 14 days, as a fourth wave of the virus spreads quickly throughout a rustic suffering from a low vaccination charge.

Thailand is planning to finish quarantine necessities for totally vaccinated vacationers from no less than 10 low-risk nations from Nov. 1, BBC News reported. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha acknowledged that “this choice comes with some danger” — however it’s seen as a key step to revive the nation’s struggling tourism sector.

See: Merck seeks authorization for what would be first pill to treat COVID-19, and AstraZeneca reports positive results for antibody treatment

In medical information, the World Well being Group is now recommending that people with compromised immune systems be supplied a further vaccine dose, a 3rd shot that needs to be considered as nonetheless a part of main vaccination. These persons are at better danger of struggling breakthrough infections after receiving two doses.

An advisory panel additionally really useful that folks above the age of 60 get a further dose of the vaccines made by China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac three months after their first pictures, after discovering proof in research that they carry out much less successfully over time.

Germany’s CureVac
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stated it will scrap improvement of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate and as an alternative give attention to creating second-generation mRNA pictures towards COVID-19 with GlaxoSmithKline
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“The choice can be aligned with the evolving dynamics of the pandemic response in direction of a better want for differentiated vaccines to handle the creating endemic SARS-CoV-2 scenario,” CureVac stated in an announcement.

Newest tallies

The worldwide tally for the coronavirus-borne sickness climbed above 238.3 million on Tuesday, whereas the demise toll edged nearer to 4.86 million, in keeping with the Johns Hopkins University knowledge.

The U.S. continues to guide the world with a complete of 44.5 million instances and 714,065 deaths. 

India is second by instances after the U.S. at 33.9 million and has suffered 450,963 deaths. Brazil has the second highest demise toll at 601,213 and 21.6 million instances.

In Europe, Russia has probably the most reported fatalities at 214,476, adopted by the U.Ok. at 138,167.

China, where the virus was first discovered late in 2019, has had 108,784 confirmed instances and 4,809 deaths, in keeping with its official numbers, that are extensively held to be massively underreported.