While it’s hard to say how much pandemic lockdowns impacted drug use, they were clearly a factor. “The biggest jump in overdose deaths took place in April and May, when fear and stress were rampant, job losses were multiplying and the strictest lockdown measures were in effect,” writes Goodnough. Researchers at Johns Hopkins surveyed current and former drug users and found that during the pandemic, many of them used drugs more often, and did so alone more frequently, too — which means no one can summon help if needed.

While drug use affects all ethnicities, people of color were more likely to suffer the stresses of frontline jobs or financial hardship, and less likely to have access to treatment for substance abuse. Meanwhile, treatment and needle-exchange centers were closed and with so many health-care resources focused on COVID-19, it became difficult to access anti-addiction treatments and naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdose symptoms. “We took our eye off the opioid epidemic,” Tami Mark of the think tank RTI International told The Washington Post. “When we weren’t looking, it got horribly worse.”

Cases on the rise, but vaccines remain politicized

Here we go again: COVID-19 case rates have doubled in the U.S. in recent weeks, a predictable fallout from July 4 celebrations, Dr. Bill Powderly of Washington University told AP. But this time the surge and its tragic consequences are largely affecting the half of Americans not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner predicted “a surprising amount of death” from hot spots in Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and Nevada. The federal government has dispatched a surge team to southwest Missouri where the team’s health communication specialist, contact tracers and others will assist with public health measures.

Meanwhile, the anti-vaccine movement has heated up, causing some outlets to reframe vaccine hesitance as outright “hostility” or “obstinance.” A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that the proportion of people who say they’re not likely to get vaccinated rose between April and June, from 24% to 29%. “Decisions are being made not because of evidence or facts or statistics, but strictly on political lines,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz told The Post. “And now people are going to die.”

Republican governors and lawmakers are working to bar vaccine passports in several states, writes Reid Wilson at The Hill, and Tennessee fired its medical director for immunization programs, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, after she issued guidance on vaccinating teenagers. Lawmakers criticized Fiscus in June for a memo to doctors detailing how a little-used 1987 law allows teens 14 and up to get vaccinated without parental consent, reports Brett Kelman at the Nashville Tennessean. Tennessee’s Department of Health then halted all vaccine outreach to minors, for COVID-19 or other standard childhood vaccines. COVID cases in the state are up more than 300% in the past 2 weeks.

Cases have risen by nearly 200% in Florida, too, but Gov. Ron DeSantis’s latest 2022 gubernatorial campaign merchandise suggests he’s not eager to implement measures to stop the spread, reports Hannah Knowles at The Washington Post. Supporters can now buy T-shirts, hats and drink koozies with slogans including “Don’t Fauci My Florida,” “Keep Florida Free” and a DeSantis quote: “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?” DeSantis is seen as a GOP frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election — if Donald Trump does not run again.

Another safety warning for Johnson & Johnson

The FDA issued a caution about a rare neurological condition, Guillain-Barre syndrome, that has occurred in 100 people who received J&J’s vaccine. It’s not certain the vaccine caused the syndrome in these cases; the CDC’s vaccine committee will meet Tuesday to discuss the issue. Guillain-Barre seems to be more common in men aged 50 or older who received the vaccine. The shot already carries a warning about a blood clotting condition more prevalent in younger women. “The second warning for the vaccine could dim its appeal as the only authorized one-shot vaccine against COVID-19, which public health officials hoped would make inoculation more accessible for different parts of the world,” writes Alice Park in TIME.

Guillain-Barre syndrome happens when the body’s immune system attacks its own nerves, causing weakness, tingling and, in severe cases, paralysis. The condition is treatable, and most people recover. Among the 100 people who developed Guillain-Barre after the COVID vaccine, 95 were hospitalized and one died. The syndrome often arises after an infection, and has also been associated with other vaccines. Risk after flu vaccination, for example, is one to two in a million. The risk after the J&J vaccine is even lower that for other vaccines or viruses, reports Adrianna Rodriguez at USA Today. “The risk of getting COVID and developing severe disease or long COVID is so much more than your risk of developing a rare syndrome of the vaccine,” Dr. Len Horovitz of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York told her.

Pfizer’s booster still uncertain

Representatives of Pfizer and the government met briefly last Monday to discuss the company’s push for a booster shot. Pfizer has not yet published its data in support of a third shot, but a company press release refers to “high neutralization titers” — science-speak for “lots of effective antibodies” — in subjects who got the extra vaccination. But antibodies aren’t the sole source of immunity. Vaccination also trains immune cells to remember and kill the virus, even if antibodies are no longer flooding the bloodstream. Those immune cells, once trained against the coronavirus, are expected to stick around for months or even years.

Officials want more data before deciding if boosters are needed. Israel, where two-thirds of the population has been at least partially vaccinated, may provide some hints in coming weeks. The nation just started offering boosters to people with compromised immune systems, such as transplant patients. For most people, “the scientific evidence says we don’t need one right now,” writes epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina of the University of Texas on her blog.

Amber Dance | Columnist

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Overdose fatalities rose in 2020, with Black people at high risk appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Programs to house homeless people in hotels during the pandemic are beginning to close down, forcing people back to group shelters or the streets, where many feel unsafe from the virus, violence, and other risks. Federal funding for emergency housing ends in September, and while additional dollars have been promised, it’s expected there will be a gap between the end of current efforts and the start of new programs, write Kelli Kennedy and Lisa Rathke at AP.

New York City, eager to house tourists in hotels again, is relocating about 8,500 people to shelters this summer — even though only 14% of the city’s homeless population has been vaccinated against COVID-19. “Once you take the vaccine, they’re going to use it as an excuse to put you in one of those congregate death traps,” said homeless advocate Shams DaBaron, who spent time at the Lucerne Hotel as part of nonprofit Project Renewal’s program in cooperation with the city’s Department of Homeless Services. DaBaron was speaking on behalf of several residents of the Four Points by Sheraton Midtown who’d locked themselves into their hotel rooms rather than leave. For many homeless people, moving from hotel to shelter is a backwards step, reports Rich Calder at The Wall Street Journal. “They were hoping their next move would be into permanent housing,” said Corinne Low of the aid group UWS Open Hearts.

Leaving hotel rooms is particularly risky for women and transgender people, writes Lauren Hepler at the San Francisco Chronicle. Up to 92% of homeless women had experienced some sort of violence in their lives before the pandemic. While local and state officials are planning permanent housing programs, Hepler reports, they aren’t incorporating gender-based housing that advocates say is crucial to protect women.

One nation, divided by vaccination status

When it comes to vaccinations, America is starting to look like two separate nations. COVID-19 cases are dropping in well-vaccinated urban and suburban communities, writes The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, but rising in rural areas, where just 54% of adults have received a vaccine. A CNN analysis finds ongoing disparities between the communities most likely to be fully vaccinated — white, older than 65 — and the populations most heavily affected by the coronavirus, including Black and Hispanic people, adults under 30, and Southerners.

“The biggest tragedy,” Leonhardt writes, “is that this situation is avoidable.” Vaccines have saved an estimated 279,000 American lives and prevented more than 1 million hospitalizations, according to an analysis by The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that also supports the Center for Health Journalism’s webinar program. Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that more than 99% of COVID deaths in June were among people who weren’t vaccinated.

Last Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced his latest push to vaccinate people, including door-to-door vaccinations, workplace clinics and, again, a request that employers offer paid time off for vaccinations. But many health experts say the time for polite entreaties has passed, and it’s now time for vaccine mandates at schools and businesses, report Michael D. Shear and Noah Weiland in The New York Times. About 6% of people will not get the vaccine unless it’s required, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine monitor. Global health law professor Lawrence O. Gostin of Georgetown University said, “We have to make being unvaccinated the hard choice, not the easy one.”

Vaccines beat delta, but by how much?

The highly contagious delta variant is now officially the dominant strain in the U.S. The three U.S.-authorized vaccines work against all variants tested so far, though their precise efficacy against delta is still uncertain. In Israel, where 60% of people have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, officials reported the vaccine’s efficacy against any variant of COVID-19 infection was down to 64%, and blamed the spread of delta. The vaccine’s ability to prevent severe disease and death remained high. However, data from the United Kingdom and Canada suggest efficacy against symptomatic infection of 79% to 88% after two doses of Prizer’s vaccine, and 72% from just the first dose of Moderna’s vaccine. It’s hard to nail down real-world numbers because populations and measurements vary, explains Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce at Business Insider. A new study indicates that both doses of Pfizer’s vaccine are crucial to prevent delta infection, yet the CDC says nearly 15 million people in the U.S. who got an initial Pfizer or Moderna shot missed their second dose.

Do you need a booster shot?

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine also appears to confer immunity against delta in a test tube, but on-the-ground data are scarce. That’s led some infectious disease experts who originally got the “one-and-done” jab to get a second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce reports at Business Insider. Virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan told The Washington Post that she did so — not because she worried she’d get sick herself, but out of concern that she might spread the disease to others or give the virus opportunity to evolve into a deadlier variant.

Is that necessary? “No one knows, actually,” tweeted UCSF infectious disease physician Dr. Monica Gandhi. Johnson & Johnson is conducting a trial of a two-dose schedule, but no results have been released yet, so the federal government has not made a recommendation about boosters. Gandhi told the Los Angeles Times that rates of breakthrough infections appear to be similar among people who got the three different vaccines. And in fact, it may be difficult for Americans who received the Johnson & Johnson shot to get another one right now, if records indicate they’re fully vaccinated, report Ben Guarino and Allyson Chiu in the Post.

Pfizer announced Thursday it plans to seek authorization for a booster shot, of the same formulation as its original vaccine. But the Department of Health and Human Services quickly shot back with a statement that “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.” Pfizer will also test a delta-specific booster starting in August.

Wealthy nations hoard vaccines

Although data so far indicate the current shots and dosing schedules provide lasting immunity, the European Union has already ordered more than a billion Pfizer doses that may be deployed as boosters in the next few years. Reuters reports that the U.K. and U.S. are also considering third-dose shots, and the U.K. may give third doses to vulnerable individuals starting in September, writes Ashley Furlong at Politico. Yet more than half the world’s citizens have yet to score their first shot. In low-income countries, only one in 100 people has received even one dose, reports T.V. Padma at Nature, and some may have to wait until 2023 for protection.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the way in which a few nations have scooped up vaccines “morally indefensible” at a press conference last Wednesday. “From a moral, epidemiological or economic point of view,” he said, “now is the time for the world to come together to tackle this pandemic collectively. As long as the coronavirus continues to circulate globally, the risk of new and more dangerous variants remains.

Amber Dance, Ph.D., is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in Southern California. She contributes to publications including PNAS Front Matter, The Scientist, and Nature. She also edits books on a variety of topics.

Amber Dance | Columnist

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Homeless losing housing; nation divided along vaccination lines appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.