HomeWorld NewsCoronavirus daily news updates, October 18: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
Coronavirus daily news updates, October 18: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
As more and more hospitals nationwide begin implementing COVID-19 vaccination mandates for their workers, immunization rates have been rising rapidly, despite fears of widespread labor shortages. More health care centers are also expected to follow after President Biden announced last month that he would require most of them that accept Medicaid or Medicare funding to vaccinate their employees.
In Washington, Monday marks the deadline for certain workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. Here’s what to know about the requirement, and how many state employees have complied.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington.
Colin Powell’s death from breakthrough COVID is rare event, data show
The death of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell following a breakthrough COVID-19 infection shines a high-profile spotlight on what has been a rare phenomenon.
Powell died at 84 from COVID-19 complications despite being fully vaccinated, his family announced on Monday. The decorated former general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was being treated at the Walter Reed National Medical Center.
The available data show that such deaths are exceptionally rare. More than 187 million people in the U.S. had been fully vaccinated as of Oct. 12. Of those, 7,178, or 0.004%, had died of a breakthrough infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of that group, 85% were over the age of 65.
People who come down with COVID-19 after getting vaccinated are also unlikely to wind up in the hospital, the data suggest. Through Oct. 12, 24,717 people had been hospitalized with a breakthrough case, and of that group, 67% were 65 or older.
The numbers reinforce results from the clinical trials of coronavirus vaccines and booster shots that showed that getting inoculated substantially reduces the odds that a recipient will become sick enough to require hospitalization or die if they do become infected.
Older adults who contract breakthrough infections do appear to be at higher risk of more serious outcomes, said Josh Michaud, associate director, global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Colin Powell, 84 years old, fits that profile,” he said. “Older adults have a greater risk that the infection will progress to a more severe stage, and some will progress all the way to death, unfortunately.”
Why COVID boosters weren’t tweaked to better match variants
More COVID-19 booster shots may be on the way — but when it’s your turn, you’ll get an extra dose of the original vaccine, not one updated to better match the extra-contagious delta variant.
And that has some experts wondering if the booster campaign is a bit of a missed opportunity to target delta and its likely descendants.
“Don’t we want to match the new strains that are most likely to circulate as closely as possible?” Dr. Cody Meissner of Tufts Medical Center, an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, challenged Pfizer scientists recently.
The simple answer: The FDA last month OK’d extra doses of Pfizer’s original recipe after studies showed it still works well enough against delta — and those doses could be rolled out right away. Now the FDA is weighing evidence for boosters of the original Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
But Pfizer and Moderna are hedging their bets. They’re already testing experimental doses customized to delta and another variant, learning how to rapidly tweak the formula in case a change eventually is needed — for today’s mutants or a brand new one. The tougher question for regulators is how they’d decide if and when to ever order such a switch.
Alpha, delta and more: Why virus variants are causing alarm
Viruses mutate all the time, including the one, SARS-CoV-2, that’s caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Although most genetic changes are innocuous, some can make the mutant more adept at infecting cells, for example, or evading antibodies.
Such “fitter” variants can outcompete other strains, so that they become the predominant source of infections. A succession of more-transmissible variants has emerged over the past year, each harboring a constellation of mutations.
The most worrisome so far is the so-called delta variant. It’s become dominant in much of the world since its discovery in India in October 2020, leading to surges in cases and hospitalizations, especially in places where less than half the adult population has been fully immunized.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s total number of coronavirus infections has topped 8 million, more than 5% of the population, and the daily infection toll hit a new record.
The national coronavirus task force said Monday that 34,325 new infections over the past day raised the pandemic-long total to 8,027,012. It also said 998 people died of COVID-19 in the previous day, bringing the total number of deaths to 224,310.
The death toll is minutely lower than the record 1,002 tallied on Saturday, but shows the country continuing to struggle with the virus as vaccination rates remain low.
Russian authorities have tried to speed up the pace of vaccinations with lotteries, bonuses and other incentives, but widespread vaccine skepticism and conflicting signals from officials stymied the efforts. The task force said Monday that about 45 million Russians, or 32% of the country’s nearly 146 million people, are fully vaccinated.
People with substance-use disorder may be at higher risk for breakthrough COVID cases, study finds
Vaccinated people with substance use disorders may be at a higher risk for experiencing a breakthrough COVID-19 case, a new study shows.
Research conducted earlier in the pandemic showed that people with addictions were already more likely to contract, and experience serious complications from, COVID-19. Now, with the vaccines widespread, that same population is still at risk, according to the study, conducted by researchers at Case Western University and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The last year and a half has been particularly difficult for people in addiction, between the heightened risk for COVID and a rapidly escalating overdose crisis — exacerbated by the pandemic — that killed more than 93,000 people in 2020 alone.
Though the vaccine is still highly effective and the risk of a breakthrough infection relatively low, researchers believe that the high prevalence of other co-occurring health issues among people with addiction may be behind the increased risk for a breakthrough infection. When the study authors controlled for adverse socioeconomic health determinants — like issues with employment and housing — and comorbidities, the risk of breakthrough infections for people with and without a substance use disorder was the same.
The only exception was in patients diagnosed with a cannabis use disorder — a generally younger group of patients who were still found to be more likely to develop a breakthrough infection, even after researchers controlled for other factors.
About 76 million people suffered anxiety because of the pandemic
As the coronavirus spread around the world, some 76 million people reported anxiety problems brought on by the pandemic, a 26% increase from 2019 to 2020, according to research published in the Lancet journal.
Based on data from 48 studies, encompassing 204 countries and territories, the researchers determined that this pandemic-inspired increase brought the global total for anxiety disorders to 374 million people. Women were affected more often than men, and younger people (especially those in their early 20s) more often than older people. Overall, the numbers increased the most in countries hit hardest by the pandemic, most likely affected by such things as business and school closures, social restrictions, job losses, money problems and more.
The pandemic’s impact on mental health worldwide, according to the research, also included an increase in the number of people reporting depression, with about 53 million new cases of depressive disorder in 2020 attributed to the pandemic.
That represents an increase of 28% from the preceding year, bringing the global total of those affected by depression to 246 million people. The researchers noted that “emerging evidence” indicates that the pandemic may be having a similar effect on other health issues, such as eating disorders, furthering the need to strengthen mental health care in most countries.
School says vaccinated kids must stay home for 30 days to protect others, citing debunked claims
In April, a Miami private school made national headlines for barring teachers who got a coronavirus vaccine from interacting with students. Last week, the school made another startling declaration, but this time to the parents: If you vaccinate your child, they’ll have to stay home for 30 days after each shot.
The email from Centner Academy leadership, first reported by WSVN, repeated misleading and false claims that vaccinated people could pass on so-called harmful effects of the shot and have a “potential impact” on unvaccinated students and staff.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has debunked claims that the coronavirus vaccine can “shed or release any of their components” through the air or skin contact. The coronavirus vaccines do not contain a live virus, so their components can’t be transmitted to others.
Colin Powell, exemplary general stained by Iraq claims, dies of COVID-19 complications
WASHIINGTON (AP) — Colin Powell, who served Democratic and Republican presidents in war and peace but whose sterling reputation was forever stained when he went before the U.N. and made faulty claims to justify the U.S. war in Iraq, has died of COVID-19 complications. He was 84.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell rose to the rank of four-star general and in 1989 became the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that role he oversaw the U.S. invasion of Panama and later the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991.
But his legacy was marred when, in 2003, he went before the U.N. Security Council as secretary of state and made the case for U.S. war against Iraq at a moment of great international skepticism. He cited faulty information claiming Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed away weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s claims that it had no such weapons represented “a web of lies,” he told the world body.
In announcing his death on social media, Powell’s family said he had been fully vaccinated.
Employee vaccination rates are high at Washington state’s public universities
There is high anticipation over whether Washington State University will allow its head football coach, the highest paid state employee, to bypass getting a coronavirus vaccine by qualifying for a religious exemption.
Among Coach Nick Rolovich’s 437 colleagues at WSU who have also sought a religious exemption, 22% have been successful as of Oct. 6, according to university records.
But they appear to be a small minority. At WSU and the state’s five other institutions of higher learning, the vaccination rate for employees as of midweek last week was high — ranging from 88% (at least partially vaccinated) on the low end at WSU to 98% on the high end at the University of Washington and The Evergreen State College.
Welcome to COVID vaccine deadline day. What fallout can you expect, now that we’ve hit the moment when most state government, health care and school workers in Washington are required to be fully vaccinated? Our Q&A outlines which workers complied, which didn’t and what happens next.
The Nick Rolovich era could end today as we find out whether WSU will give its football coach — the state’s top-paid employee — a religious exemption from vaccination. His refusal to get a shot puts him in a very small minority as the state’s public universities prepare to cut ties with workers who aren’t vaccinated by today’s deadline.
Nineteen months after one of the first U.S. superspreader events hit the Skagit Valley Chorale, members are finally singing together again, with the infamous outbreak hanging over every decision. The cold, windy outdoor practices have their miserable moments, but still, the return feels “liberating and victorious.”
The pandemic pushed some children out of Washington’s schools. New data tells us who left. Explore the changes in public K-12 and community college enrollment, the upticks in for-profit school enrollment and more.
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