- KFF Medicaid Unwinding tracker: The Kaiser Family Foundation just published a new tracker detailing Medicaid enrollment by state. Enrollment rose to record levels during the pandemic, as a federal measure tied to the public health emergency forbid states from taking people off the insurance program. Now, states are going through the slow process of evaluating people’s eligibility and taking some off the program, in a process called “unwinding.” The KFF tracker is following this process, presenting both Medicaid enrollment data by state and information on each state’s timeline for evaluation.
- Biden administration ends vaccine mandates: In time with the federal public health emergency’s end, the Biden administration has announced that it will lift its COVID-19 vaccine rules for federal workers and contractors. International travelers to the U.S. also will no longer need to provide proof of their vaccination status, and the administration is working to end requirements for other groups of workers and travelers. This change is, essentially, another signal of the administration giving up on mass vaccination campaigns; after all, most of the people who got their shots under these rules haven’t received an Omicron booster.
- Vaccine protection wanes over time: A new review paper from researchers in Trento, Italy, published this week in JAMA, shows the importance of booster shots for maintaining protection from COVID-19. The researchers compiled and analyzed findings from 40 studies that evaluated vaccine effectiveness. Overall, they found, the protection that both primary series and booster shots provide against an Omicron infection drops significantly by six months and nine months after vaccination. Remember: Americans over 65 and/or immunocompromised, you’re now eligible for another bivalent/Omicron-specific booster.
- Disparities in COVID-19 deaths persist: Two new studies this week examine COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity. The first study, from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, examined deaths of all causes during the pandemic, finding that Black and Native Ameircans had higher death rates than other racial/ethnic groups. COVID-19 was the fourth highest cause of death in 2022, after heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injury. The second study, from Andrew Stokes and collaborators, examined COVID-19 deaths during the U.S.’s first Omicron wave compared to earlier surges, finding that disparities decreased—but only because white deaths went up during the second year of the pandemic.
- Characterizing Long COVID neurological symptoms: Another new study from this week: researchers at the NIH performed detailed examinations of 12 Long COVID patients to better understand their neurological symptoms. The researchers used an approach called “deep phenotyping,” which involves a variety of tests that aren’t typically used in clinical settings. They found that the patients had a number of abnormalities in their immune systems and autonomic nervous systems compared to healthy controls, pointing to different potential drivers of symptoms.
- FDA approves RSV vaccine: Finally, a bit of non-COVID good news: for the first time, the FDA has approved a vaccine for RSV, the seasonal respiratory virus that can cause severe symptoms in older adults and young children. This vaccine, made by GSK, was approved for adults ages 60 and up and will likely get distributed during the next cold/flu season. Scientists have been working on RSV vaccines for decades, making this a major milestone for reducing the disease’s impact. Helen Branswell at STAT has more details.
Tag: vaccine mandate
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Sources and updates, May 7
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Sources and updates, October 31
A lot of COVID-19 data sources caught my eye this week!
- More booster data from the CDC: This week, the CDC added both booster shot trends by day and booster shots by primary series type to its COVID Data Tracker. For booster shot trends, click “People Receiving a Booster Dose” on the Trends page, and for primary series data, scroll down to “Covid-19 Booster Dose Type by Primary Series Type” on the Vaccination Totals page. So far, it looks like a lot of Johnson & Johnson recipients are opting for mRNA boosters.
- KFF’s latest Vaccine Monitor update: The Kaiser Family Foundation has released the latest edition of its monthly vaccine poll, the COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor. This month’s edition focuses on vaccinations for children ages 5 to 11, in line with the recent discussions around shots for this age group, but it also includes other polling on general vaccination demographics, boosters, mandates, and more.
- Under-testing in U.S. prisons and jails: A new report from the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project explores how insufficient COVID-19 testing of incarcerated people in the U.S. contributes to skewed case rates. Even in the states that have tested their incarcerated populations the most, this report shows, that testing is still far less frequent than testing for other congregate living facilities, like nursing homes.
- Impact of School Opening on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission: A group of scientists (including school data expert Emily Oster) recently published a new paper in Nature examining how school reopening models—remote, hybrid, or in-person—contribute to community transmission. In most parts of the country, reopening model did not have a significant impact on transmission, they found; the South was an exception. The authors shared the data underlying their paper, with some information from Burbio and the CDC removed due to requirements from those organizations.
- Reporting recipe for breakthrough case data: Dillon Bergin, my colleague at the Documenting COVID-19 project, wrote this reporting recipe, which guides local newsrooms through acquiring data on and covering breakthrough cases in their areas. The recipe accompanies a recent story that Dillon wrote, in collaboration with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, on breakthrough cases by occupation in Las Vegas. (Unsurprisingly, healthcare workers and casino workers were likely to have breakthrough cases, the Las Vegas data show.)
- Polling on small businesses and vaccine mandates: Here’s another vaccine survey released this week, this one from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The agency asked small businesses about their positions on vaccine mandates, as well as hiring challenges and other issues. 64% of small business owners support “businesses in their area requiring vaccines for their employees,” the survey found.
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Vaccine requirements are the next big strategy
After vaccine incentives largely failed to drive up vaccination numbers, government agencies and corporations alike are now opting for requirements. Hundreds of thousands of Americans learned this week that, in order to keep their jobs, they need to get their shots—or go through a more arduous process like weekly COVID-19 testing.
Here are the major mandates I saw announced this week, and how many people are impacted by each one.
- All city workers in NYC: 340,000 municipal workers in the city will need to get vaccinated or tested weekly. This includes teachers, police, and firefighters; a previous NYC guidance (announced last week) focused on public health workers. Staffers in nursing homes and other congregate care settings need to be vaccinated by August 16, while other workers need to do it by September 13—the first day of school in NYC this fall.
- All state workers in California: A few hours after the NYC requirement was announced, California governor Gavin Newsom said that all CA state employees will similarly need to get vaccinated or opt into weekly testing. This applies to about 246,000 state employees and an undetermined number of healthcare workers, according to the New York Times.
- All frontline workers in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): Also on Monday, the VA announced that all healthcare workers in VA facilities need to get vaccinated, along with facilities staff and others on the frontlines of patient care. Employees have eight weeks to get fully vaccinated, or may face consequences including potential firing. This applies to about 115,000 workers.
- All Disney employees: Disney is requiring vaccinations for all salaried and non-union employees. Those who haven’t gotten their shots yet have 60 days to do so, and new hires need to be fully vaccinated before starting work. It’s unclear from the company’s announcement if Disney workers will get a testing option or what the consequences for remaining unvaccinated may be. Disney employs over 200,000 people.
- All Walmart employees: Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S., is requiring all U.S.-based corporate employees to be vaccinated by October 4. This doesn’t include workers in Walmart stores, but those workers are strongly encouraged to get their shots as well—and will get a $150 bonus upon vaccination. Walmart employs about 1.5 million people in the U.S., in total.
- All Google employees: Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google’s new policy on Wednesday: anyone coming back to work at a Google campus must be vaccinated. The policy is starting in the U.S., but will be expanded to the rest of the world as well; Google employs over 100,000 people globally.
- Netflix actors and crew: Netflix is requiring all actors and crew in close contact with those actors to get vaccinated in order to come on set. Some have called for the requirement to be expanded to everyone at the company. The company employed about 9,400 full-time workers in 2020; it’s unclear how many will be impacted by the requirement.
- Shake Shack workers and customers: The franchise’s founder and CEO announced Shake Shack’s requirement on Thursday, saying it would apply to full-service restaurants in NYC and Washington, D.C. While this requirement impacts far fewer workers than others in this list, it’s unique in that workers aren’t the only ones who need to be vaccinated: any customer hoping to dine in a Shake Shack needs proof of vaccination, too.
It’s unclear how much of a dent these mandates will make in overall vaccination numbers over the next few weeks. But surveys from KFF and others have suggested that, for many Americans, a vaccination requirement may be the last push they need to get their shots.
COVID-19 Data Dispatch 