The Washington Post - Coronavirus Updates

Important developments in the pandemic.

By Ben Guarino with Lindsey Bever  Email The Post's coronavirus coverage linked in this newsletter is free to access from this email.   The latest By next week, the Food and Drug Administration may expand the emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to include children as young as 12. Officials who spoke with The Post said the agency continues to work on the authorization, though an agency spokeswoman declined to offer a timeline. In late March, Pfizer submitted data to regulators showing the vaccine prevented symptoms in a trial of 2,300 teenagers aged 12 to 15. In the most significant update to distribution since President Biden took office, the White House is changing how it allocates unused vaccine doses. States are allotted vaccines based on population, though some states do not order their full allotment. Now, unordered vaccines will no longer carry over week-to-week; instead, the White House will shift those remainder vaccines into a federal bank that can be tapped by other states. Biden said Tuesday he has set a goal of getting at least the first dose of the vaccine into 70 percent of Americans by July 4. Teenagers and those who have been unable to access vaccines will be the focus of campaigns in coming months, he said, as will those who are reluctant to get a shot.  How do you change the minds of Americans who don't want to get the vaccine? The White House, public health charities and researchers are using polls and focus groups to find the messages that resonate most. For one skeptic-turned vaccinated American, the switch was the realization that if she became ill, she wasn't sure who could care for her child. American customers and companies are scrambling to find cars to rent as travel resumes. Rental car operators sold off so much of their fleets last year that wait times – and prices – for their remaining cars have spiked. In Hawaii, tourists have embraced an unusual rental strategy: Renting U-Haul pickups, vans and trucks to drive to the beach when other rental cars are unavailable or too expensive.  Australia threatened to penalize its residents with stiff fines or jail time if they returned home from India, where a severe outbreak continues. The backlash against that policy has intensified, causing Prime Minister Scott Morrison to play down the chance of anyone being punished: “I think the likelihood of anything like that occurring is pretty much zero,” Morrison told an Australian media outlet. Other important news Latino evangelicals are more likely than the average American to be unvaccinated, prompting organizations such as the National Latino Evangelical Coalition to push for vaccine acceptance.  Maryland is paying state employees $100 to get vaccinated, the latest example of a state-funded money-for-shots program. If the thought of traveling after vaccination gives you anxiety, know you are not alone, mental health researchers say.   Guide to the pandemic Track confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. and the spread around the world. U.S. vaccine distribution and delivery, tracked by state. Guides: Finding vaccine appointments | Vaccines | Variants | Masks Follow updates about the pandemic from Post reporters across the globe. Submit a question and we may answer it in a future story or newsletter.    Your questions, answered "We know the vaccines are not 100 percent effective. Are there numbers or percentages of vaccinated people who have gotten the virus anyway? Do we know if in those cases the impact is significantly less than those without a vaccine?" —Diane in North Carolina Yes, out of the more than 100 million people who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in the United States, a small number have still contracted covid-19. But the data shows that most of them were fine — and many did not even experience symptoms. Citing the most recent numbers, some 9,200 people have experienced breakthrough cases, defined as infections that occur at least 14 days after patients are fully vaccinated, and 2,525 (27 percent) of those 9,200 were asymptomatic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only 835 (9 percent) were hospitalized. And a fraction — 132 (1 percent) — died. Health experts have said these numbers are not unexpected or cause for concern. “There’s nothing there yet that’s a red flag,” Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, said about the breakthrough cases last month at a White House news briefing. The number of hospitalizations and deaths due to breakthrough infections is small, and even so, the CDC said that 15 percent of the fatalities were reported as asymptomatic cases or unrelated to covid-19. In several cases, Fauci said the patients who died were elderly. He explained with elderly patients, particularly those with underlying health issues, they may not mount a strong immune response to the vaccine. Fauci said experts are going to closely monitor the situation, “but I don’t see anything that changes our concept of the vaccine and its efficacy.” The fact is, no vaccine is a sure thing. But in U.S. clinical trials, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which use mRNA technology, were 95 percent effective at preventing covid-19. The Johnson & Johnson shot was 72 percent effective at preventing moderate illness and 85 percent effective at protecting against severe cases. In the real world, the findings seem to be fairly similar with 90 percent protection among those who took both doses of the mRNA vaccines. It has been a bumpy ride, but we are getting there.