Just don’t call it a booster
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— Anthony Fauci says additional vaccines make sense for vulnerable people but boosters are still not advised — for now.
— President Joe Biden criticized GOP governors for barring mask and vaccination requirements, telling them to help or “get out of the way.”
— There is no consensus about how to bring kids back to school, setting off a patchwork of requirements and heated debates across the country.
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JUST DON’T CALL IT A BOOSTER — U.S. health officials are holding firm that average Americans don’t need a Covid-19 booster shot anytime soon but are laying the groundwork for a quick pivot to that very plan, starting with medically vulnerable people.
It makes sense for immunocompromised people to get another vaccine, but that doesn’t mean it’s a booster, according to Biden chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci. “Giving them an additional shot is almost not considered a booster; it’s considered part of what their original regimen should have been,” he said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Tuesday “…Many of them, maybe most of them, have not gotten an adequate immune response to begin with.”
Wait, what? Fauci’s insistence that those shots wouldn’t necessarily be boosters might trace back to concerns he voiced before the Senate HELP committee that jumping on boosters for average, healthy people could erode confidence in the original vaccines while the administration tries to convince millions of holdouts to get them. (“We don’t want people to believe that when you’re talking about boosters that means that the vaccines are not effective.”)
Still: Fauci left the door open for a U.S. booster approach to land in the coming weeks. “CDC have been following that literally on a week-by-week basis; we evaluate whether we need it, to whom and when. And that decision could be made anytime,” he said, name-checking plans being implemented by Israel, France, and Germany and discussed in the United Kingdom.
And approved vaccines could be weeks away. The longtime infectious disease expert said Tuesday night that the first Covid-19 vaccine could be approved for U.S. use in a matter of weeks. “[FDA officials] said hopefully by the end of the month. I hope it’s even sooner than that,” Fauci said on Erin Burnett’s OutFront. “I think there are certain proportion of people who are just waiting for that full approval.”
BIDEN TO GOVS: HELP OR ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY’ — That’s the harder line the White House debuted on Tuesday as it battles both a Covid-19 resurgence and various state leaders opposed to public health measures.
In a speech, Biden took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in particular, pointedly noting their states account for one-third of all new cases — even as they have sought to bar local officials and businesses from requiring mask-wearing or proof of vaccination.
“Some state officials are passing laws … that forbid people from doing the right thing,” Biden said. “I say to the governors, please help. If you’re not going to help, get out of the way of people that are trying to do the right thing.”
The rebuke came hours after DeSantis dismissed concerns over Florida’s rising caseload. The governor claimed the media was stoking “hysteria” by focusing on case counts, POLITICO’s Gary Fineout reports, arguing the mortality rate remains lower than it was last year.
DeSantis has gone as far as preventing cities and school districts from implementing mask mandates or other restrictions. And in Texas, state universities can be fined if they try to require mask-wearing.
BACK-TO-SCHOOL DEBATE RAGES AMID DELTA SURGE — Nearly 18 months into the pandemic, there’s no consensus on how to keep students and staff safe as the new school year fast approaches. Local school leaders, whipsawed by changing federal guidance, find themselves building a patchwork of protections based as much on local politics as public health, Dan Goldberg, Juan Perez Jr. and Daniel Payne write.
The prospect of waves of school closures, or, worse, a children’s pandemic, is a nightmare for the Biden administration, which hoped July Fourth would mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Instead, the number of daily infections is up sixfold since the beginning of July, leading to the prospect of another year of remote learning, widening socioeconomic and racial gaps and battles over localities’ approaches.
“We have a huge crisis, and nobody wants to make a decision,” Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said in an interview. “You’re leaving superintendents wide open to fall to pressure from their community.”
Of the nation’s 200 largest school districts, 69 are mandating masks, according to Dennis Roche, co-founder of Burbio, which aggregates school data. But others’ mask requirements — recommended by the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics — have become mired in political debate and waves of heated complaints to administrators.
THE TRUST DEFICIT HAMPERING BIDEN’s VAX CAMPAIGN — More than half of unvaccinated adults believe that getting the Covid-19 vaccine is a bigger health risk than the disease itself, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
A majority of the unvaccinated are also skeptical of the vaccines’ effectiveness and think the news media has “generally exaggerated” the pandemic’s seriousness, in the latest signs that misinformation is hardening vaccine resistance.
The findings point to an ever-wider gulf between vaccinated Americans and the minority who have refused, with those who got the shots overwhelmingly believing the vaccines work well in protecting them against a dangerous virus.
But the unvaccinated have a starkly different worldview. In addition to downplaying Covid-19, just 16 percent support the federal government requiring vaccinations for its employees. And fewer than 50 percent say they are likely to wear masks indoors, at work or in crowded outdoor settings.
There’s a similar lack of alarm over the threat of more hazardous variants: 39 percent of the unvaccinated say new variants will worsen the pandemic (versus 74 percent of vaccinated people), and 27 percent are worried about variants affecting them personally (versus 40 percent of the vaccinated).
Those divisions are breaking down along political lines. While more than half of Republicans say they’ve gotten or plan to get a vaccine, they still lag Democrats and independents. And just 47 percent of Republican respondents agreed the vaccines are “extremely” or “very” effective at preventing people from dying from Covid-19.
UNVAXXED GOV’T WORKERS FACE DISCIPLINE FOR REFUSING TESTING — Federal employees who are unvaccinated but refuse to get tested regularly will face disciplinary action under the administration’s new Covid-19 requirements, an OMB official told PULSE.
The restrictions rolled out last week are considered federal workplace policy, meaning that unvaccinated workers who violate any of those public health measures could be punished under the “progressive discipline” standards at their agency.
Disciplinary actions that can be taken for violating regulations range from formal admonishment to “removal,” according to federal statute — with agencies given leeway in determining what’s appropriate.
But other details remain unsettled. The administration is still collecting the vaccination status of its employees and contractors, meaning it does not yet know how many have not gotten the shot.
OMB also does not yet know how much regular testing will ultimately cost, the official said, because it’s relying on individual departments to negotiate their own testing contracts.
CDC IMPOSES TARGETED EVICTION BAN — The agency is prohibiting evictions in counties where the virus is circulating most, in a move that sets up a potential clash with the Supreme Court, POLITICO’s Katy O’Donnell, Laura Barrón López and Heather Caygle write.
The ban will last until Oct. 3 and cover areas experiencing “substantial” and “high” levels of community transmission — a classification that currently includes most of the country. It resolves a standoff in Congress following the expiration of the administration’s earlier eviction ban, and also gives state and local programs more time to distribute rent relief.
But it could run into quick legal trouble. The Supreme Court previously indicated a majority of justices believed CDC overstepped its authority by prohibiting evictions. And even Biden on Tuesday cautioned the new measure could soon face legal obstacles.
TRUMP HEALTH CHIEF URGES VACCINATION — Former HHS Secretary Alex Azar urged Americans to get vaccinated in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday where he touted his involvement in the Operation Warp Speed vaccine effort but lamented the politics fueling vaccine skepticism.
“…We did not predict the politicization of vaccines that has led so many Republicans to hold back,” Azar wrote, later calling on the Biden administration to “find voices that will be trusted in conservative communities” to instill confidence.
Azar did offer light criticism of Donald Trump, writing that he wished the former president would have gotten vaccinated in public. But he couched it in praise, calling the vaccines one of Trump’s “greatest accomplishments.” He also neglected to mention that several prominent conservative voices, including Trump, have driven vaccine skepticism themselves.
The former secretary also recounted the formation of Warp Speed and early steps to focus on Covid-19 testing and vaccine development. Vice President Mike Pence took over leading the effort in February 2020 as the coronavirus crisis mounted.
San Francisco will begin administering “supplemental” Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to people who received the Johnson & Johnson shot, Jay Barmann reports for SFist.
Unvaccinated Americans should bear the burden of Covid-19 restrictions, including limitations to their air travel, for the greater public safety, Juliette Kayyem, an Obama assistant secretary for homeland security, wrote in the Atlantic.
Decentralized vaccination efforts make tracking unauthorized booster shots a logistical nightmare as health officials seek data on additional vaccinations, Stat News’ Rachel Cohrs writes.