Coronavirus, COVID-19, coronavirus variants, and vaccine updates for 8-05-2021

This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for August 5th, 2021.

Yesterday we had an Axios poll that shows unvaccinated Americans mostly blame foreigners visiting the United States for the surge in the Delta variant. And apparently the White House agrees with them. The administration is taking the first steps toward requiring nearly all foreign visitors to the U.S. to be vaccinated. Travel restrictions curtailing international travel to the U.S. have long been in place, with no apparent effect on the prevalence or spread of the Delta variant. 

The U.K. plans to offer vaccines to 16 and 17-year-olds in the next few weeks. An independent body of scientists that makes recommendations to the government changed its advice. Healthy 16 to 17-year-olds can be offered a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine without parental consent.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says children and adolescents transmit the coronavirus efficiently to household contacts and some of those contacts require hospitalization. The good news, no one in the study younger than 18 required hospitalization, however the study was done last year before the more dangerous Delta variant took hold.

The director general of the World Health Organization has a message for countries giving COVID booster shots. Stop it. He’s calling for a moratorium of at least two months on boosters because, "We should not accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines, using even more of it while the world's most vulnerable people remain unprotected."

The U.K.’s “Freedom Day” when restrictions were completely lifted brought screams of irresponsibility and predictions of doom and 100,000 cases daily from pandemic experts and the World Health Organization. Instead, the British are astounding the world with a drop in cases for the fifth day in a row. Why it’s happening is still guesswork, but most speculation has to do with the U.K. being more than 72% fully vaccinated. And if you factor in COVID survivors with antibodies that number could be as high as 92%.  

In the United States cases were up 139%, deaths are up 49%, and hospitalizations are up 92% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending up since July 5.  

There are now 5,757,856 active cases in the United States.

Keeping in mind that several states have stopped reporting their daily case numbers, the five states with the most new cases: Florida 16,935. Texas 12,334. California 10,909. Georgia 4,860. And Louisiana 4,779. 

The top 10 counties with the highest number of recent cases per capita according to The New York Times: Sabine, TX. Lafourche, LA. St. James, LA. Iberia, LA. Gulf, FL. St. Charles, LA. Nassau, FL. St. Mary, LA. Dimmit, TX. And Terrebonne, LA.  

There have been at least 614,797 deaths in U.S. recorded as Covid-related.

The top 3 vaccinating states by percentage of population that’s been fully vaccinated: Vermont at 67.7%, Massachusetts unchanged at 64.1%, and Maine at 64%. The bottom 3 vaccinating states are Alabama and Mississippi at 34.5%, and Arkansas unchanged at 36.6%. The percentage of the U.S. that’s been fully vaccinated is unchanged at 49.7%.

The 5 countries with the largest recent 24-hour increase in the number of fully vaccinated people: Eswatini up 18%. Kyrgyzstan 10%. Sri Lanka 9%. And the Philippines and South Africa 8%. 

Globally, cases were up 16% and deaths were down 4% over 14 days, with the 7-day average trending up since June 21. 

There are 15,730,573 active cases around the world.

The five countries with the most new cases: The United States 112,279. India 42,817. Brazil 40,460. Iran 39,357. And Indonesia 35,867. 

There have now been at least...

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