Physicians are encouraging families in the region to vaccinate their children (ages 5-11) against COVID-19 as cases continue to surge across the state. The health plan is supporting access to the vaccine for Inland Empire families through sponsorships of child-friendly vaccine clinics across Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Members who receive their first COVID-19 vaccine are also eligible to receive a free $50 gift card at IEHP-sponsored clinics listed on the health plan’s website. IEHP is also providing fact-based information for parents and guardians on their website and across the plan’s social media accounts.

“IEHP is joining forces with several partners to ensure the community has access to vaccines and clinical information to stay healthy,” said Dr. Priya Batra, IEHP’s Senior Medical Director for Family and Community Health. “Vaccinating children who are eligible can protect unvaccinated younger siblings and family Members who are vulnerable to COVID-19. The risk of hospitalization and health complications is greatly reduced in children who are vaccinated.”

According to the CDC, the approved complete Pfizer dose for children aged 5-11 is 20 micrograms (a third of the 60 micrograms for adults) – administered at 10 micrograms per dose 21 days apart – and has undergone rigorous testing to prove it is safe and effective.

“It’s no secret the vaccine is effective in dramatically reducing contraction of COVID-19 and symptoms requiring hospitalization,” said Dr. Takashi Wada, IEHP’s Chief Medical Officer. “Providing our children that protection is essential, especially as our communities continue to open and try to return to normal operations. Vaccinating children will encourage and allow the safe return of all our children’s favorite sporting activities, play dates, school functions and more.”

To learn more about where to receive COVID-19 vaccines for you and your child, visit iehp.org.

About IEHP
With a mission to heal and inspire the human spirit, Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) is one of the top 10 largest Medicaid health plans and the largest not-for-profit Medicare-Medicaid plan in the country. In its 25th year, IEHP is supporting more than 1.4 million residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties who are enrolled in Medicaid or Cal MediConnect Plans and has a growing network of over 7,300 providers and nearly 2,500 Team Members. Through dynamic partnerships with Providers and Community Organizations, paired with award-winning service and a tradition of quality care, IEHP is fully committed to their vision: We will not rest until our communities enjoy optimal care and vibrant health. For more information, visit iehp.org.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A panel of U.S. health advisers on Tuesday endorsed kid-size doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, moving the U.S. closer to beginning vaccinations in children ages 5 to 11.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted unanimously with one abstention that the vaccine’s benefits in preventing COVID-19 in that age group outweigh any potential risks — including a heart-related side effect that’s been very rare in teens and young adults who get a much higher dose.

The FDA isn’t bound by the panel’s recommendation and is expected to make its own decision within days.

If the FDA authorizes the kid-size doses, there’s still another step: Next week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have to decide whether to recommend the shots and which youngsters should get them.

While children are at lower risk of severe COVID-19 than older people, 5- to 11-year-olds still have faced substantial illness — including over 8,300 hospitalizations reported, about a third requiring intensive care, and nearly 100 deaths.

The dose for young children is just one-third of the Pfizer shot already recommended for everyone 12 and older. Moderna also is studying its vaccine for young children.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kid-size doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may be getting closer as government advisers on Tuesday began deliberating whether there’s enough evidence that the shots are safe and effective for 5- to 11-year-olds.

A study of elementary schoolchildren found the Pfizer shots are nearly 91% effective at preventing symptomatic infection — even though the youngsters received just a third of the dose given to teens and adults.

In a preliminary analysis last week, Food and Drug Administration reviewers said that protection would “clearly outweigh” the risk of a very rare side effect in almost all scenarios of the pandemic. Now FDA’s advisers are combing through that data to see if they agree.

If the FDA authorizes the kid-size doses, there’s still another step: Next week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have to decide whether to recommend the shots and which youngsters should get them.

While children are at lower risk of severe COVID-19 than older people, 5- to 11-year-olds still have faced substantial illness — including over 8,300 hospitalizations, about a third requiring intensive care, and nearly 100 deaths, FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told the advisory panel.

Also, “infections have caused many school closures and disrupted the education and socialization of children,” he said.

“I want to acknowledge the fact that there are strong feelings” among the public for and against child vaccinations, Marks added, noting that the discussion would be on scientific data “not about vaccine mandates, which are left to other entities outside of FDA.”

Full-strength shots made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech already are recommended for everyone 12 and older but pediatricians and many parents are clamoring for protection for younger children. The extra-contagious delta variant has caused an alarming rise in pediatric infections — and families are frustrated with school quarantines and having to say no to sleepovers and other rites of childhood to keep the virus at bay.

States are getting ready to roll out shots for little arms — in special orange-capped vials to distinguish them from adult vaccine — as soon as the government gives the OK. More than 25,000 pediatricians and other primary care providers have signed up so far to offer vaccination.

Pfizer’s study tracked 2,268 children ages 5 to 11 who got two shots three weeks apart of either a placebo or the kid dose. Vaccinated youngsters developed levels of virus-fighting antibodies just as strong as teens and young adults who got the full-strength shots.

And so far, 16 kids given dummy shots developed symptomatic COVID-19 compared to three vaccinated youngsters, meaning the vaccine was nearly 91% effective. Most of the study data was collected in the U.S. during August and September as the delta variant surged.

The kid dosage also proved safe, with similar or fewer temporary side effects — such as sore arms, fever or achiness — that teens experience. At FDA’s request, Pfizer more recently enrolled another 2,300 youngsters into the study, and preliminary safety data has shown no red flags.

The study isn’t large enough to detect any extremely rare side effects, such as the heart inflammation that occasionally occurs after the second dose, mostly in young men and teen boys.

The FDA’s panel of independent experts will weigh whether Pfizer’s shot is likely to prevent more COVID-19 hospitalizations in young kids than might be caused by that rare side effect.

The FDA analysis calculated that in most scenarios of the continuing pandemic, the vaccine would prevent roughly 200 to 250 COVID-19 hospitalizations for every 1 million youngsters vaccinated, with about 58 hospitalizations for the heart inflammation. The side effect risk is based on levels in teens, and Pfizer expects it to be far lower in youngsters getting the kid-size dose.

Moderna also is studying its vaccine in young children.

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After the Biden administration earlier said all Americans would be eligible for the vaccine by May 1, in early April the administration moved that date to April 19.

“That doesn’t mean they will get it that day, it means they can join the line,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, describing what the change would mean for ordinary Americans.

Here are several locations where you can find the vaccine in Riverside:

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Parkside Medical Building, 8990 Garfield St #12

Arlington Prescription Pharmacy

Phone: 951-688-5232

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 10:00 am – 06:00 pm; Wednesday: 10:00 am – 06:00 pm; Thursday: 10:00 am – 06:00 pm

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7117 Brockton Ave

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 782-3653

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 08:30am-05:30pm; Wednesday: 08:30am-05:30pm; Thursday: 08:30am-05:30pm

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3361 Market Street

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 680-1145

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am-08:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am-08:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am-08:00pm

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8280 Magnolia Ave

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 687-1308

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 12:00am-12:00am; Wednesday: 12:00am-12:00am; Thursday: 12:00am-12:00am

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3440 La Sierra Ave

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 352-1933

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am-09:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am-09:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am-09:00pm

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3520 Tyler St

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 351-1083

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 09:00am-07:00pm; Wednesday: 09:00am-07:00pm; Thursday: 09:00am-07:00pm

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2755 Canyon Springs Pkwy

CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Phone: (951) 697-6449

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 09:00am-07:00pm; Wednesday: 09:00am-07:00pm; Thursday: 09:00am-07:00pm

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6852 Streeter Ave

Curative Medical Associates Inc (Riverside City Sears)

Phone: (888) 702-9042

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Hours: Tuesday: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

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7830 Limonite Ave

Jurupa Valley Pharmacy

Phone: (951) 332-2235

Available vaccine types: Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm

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3350 La Sierra Ave

Ralphs Pharmacy

Phone: (951) 637-9819

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 9:00 am – 9:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 9:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 9:00 pm

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6150 Van Buren Boulevard

Rite Aid

Appointment Available as of 2021-08-14 19:55:19 PDT

Phone: 951-688-5155 Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Wednesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Thursday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm

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17055 Van Buren Boulevard

Rite Aid

Appointment Available as of 2021-08-14 19:58:17 PDT

Phone: 951-780-3343

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Wednesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Thursday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm

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4920 La Sierra Ave

Rite Aid

Phone: 951-688-4196

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Wednesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Thursday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm

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6075 Magnolia Ave

Rite Aid

Phone: 951-682-0177

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Wednesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Thursday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm

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3849 Chicago Ave

Rite Aid

Phone: 951-686-2671

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Wednesday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm; Thursday: 09:00 am-9:00 pm

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5225 Canyon Crest Dr #8

Rite Aid

Phone: 951-686-2203

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Wednesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Thursday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm

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8015 Limonite Ave

Rite Aid

Phone: 951-361-0263

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Wednesday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm; Thursday: 08:00 am-10:00 pm

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9194 Magnolia Ave

Riverside 2

Phone: (951) 977-8667

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Hours: Tuesday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm

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8938 Trautwein Rd

Sav-On Pharmacy

Phone: 951-656-3394

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 08:00pm

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2975 Van Buren Boulevard

Sav-On Pharmacy

Phone: 951-689-2370

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 08:00pm

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6363 Valley Springs Pkwy

Sams Club

Phone: 951-653-4840

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 9:00 am – 12:30pm, 1:30pm – 7:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 12:30pm, 1:30pm – 7:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 12:30pm, 1:30pm – 7:00 pm

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3520 Riverside Plaza Dr

Vons Pharmacy

Phone: 951-342-7930

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 08:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 08:00pm

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4343 Market Street STE D

Vien D Doan

Phone: (951) 784-7406

Available vaccine types: Moderna

Hours: Tuesday: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm; Wednesday: 8:00 am – 1:00 pm; Thursday: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm

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10992 Magnolia Ave

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-688-4154

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 09:00pm

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7000 Indiana Ave #112

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-892-7538

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 05:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 05:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 05:00pm

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8044 Limonite Ave

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-685-0139

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 12:00am – 12:00am; Wednesday: 12:00am – 12:00am; Thursday: 12:00am – 12:00am

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6600 Magnolia Ave

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-786-9243

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 09:00pm

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8917 Trautwein Rd

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-776-0470

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 09:00pm

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1745 University Ave

Walgreens Co.

Phone: 951-684-5661

Available vaccine types: Pfizer-BioNTech (age 12+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Wednesday: 08:00am – 09:00pm; Thursday: 08:00am – 09:00pm

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6250 Valley Springs Pkwy

Walmart Inc

Phone: 951-653-4849

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+), Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 6:00 am – 7:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm

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5200 Van Buren Boulevard

Walmart Inc

Phone: 951-689-4595

Available vaccine types: Moderna (age 18+)

Walk-ins accepted

Hours: Tuesday: 6:00 am – 7:00 pm; Wednesday: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm; Thursday: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm

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Riverside County | Contributed

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. nursing home industry’s resistance to forcing workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 for fear that too many of them might quit began to crack this week when its biggest player announced its employees must get the shot to keep their jobs.

The new requirement at Genesis Healthcare, which has 70,000 employees at nearly 400 nursing homes and senior communities, is the clearest sign yet that owners may be willing to risk an exodus at already dangerously understaffed facilities to quickly vaccinate the 40% of workers still resisting shots and fend off the surging delta variant.

Some experts are calling for mandatory vaccinations at nursing homes, warning that unprotected staff members are endangering residents. Even residents who have been inoculated are vulnerable because many are elderly and frail, with weak immune systems.

More than 1,250 nursing home residents across the U.S. were infected with COVID-19 in the week ending July 25, double the number from the week earlier, and 202 died, according to federal data.

“It’s so easy now to say, ’Well, Genesis is doing it. Now we’ll do it,'” said Brian Lee, who leads Families for Better Care, an advocacy group for long-term care residents. “This is a big domino to fall.”

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University, said he likewise foresees a “snowball effect.” He said resisting vaccination mandates at this point is “unconscionable.”

Some local governments are taking the decision out of the industry’s hands, with Massachusetts and Denver announcing mandatory vaccinations at nursing homes this week.

The question has become more urgent as the highly contagious delta variant drives up new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. to about 90,000 a day on average — the most since mid-February — and sends hospitalizations surging in states like Florida and Louisiana to the highest levels since the pandemic began.

Despite the terrible toll taken by the disease at nursing homes, many of the nation’s 15,000 such institutions have rejected mandatory vaccinations for fear large numbers of workers will leave in protest. Nearly a quarter of nursing homes are already short of nurses or nurse’s aides.

But Associated Press interviews this past week with managers at 10 mostly smaller nursing home operations across the nation that are requiring vaccines found that the threat of workers quitting en masse over the shots may be overblown.

After Canterbury Court in Atlanta announced a mandate in January, CEO Debi McNeil was so fearful of a “massive walkout” that she brought in medical experts to talk to workers, met with holdouts one-on-one and invited staff to gather in the community room for meetings that occasionally got heated.

In the end, only 10 of 180 workers quit, and McNeil said Canterbury’s nursing home, independent living and assisted living facilities have reported no new COVID-19 cases since February.

“It was a gamble that paid off for us,” McNeil said. “I thought more people would have mandated it by now.”

At Jewish Home Family in Rockleigh, New Jersey, only five of 527 workers at its nursing home and assisted-living facilities quit. Westminster Village in Bloomington, Illinois, lost only two out of 250.

“It’s important to educate, but at some point we have to end this pandemic,” said Scott Crabtree, CEO of Lambeth House in New Orleans, which lost only 10 of 200 workers after it started requiring shots when they became available last year. “When do we say, ‘Enough is enough?’″

More than 130,000 nursing home residents in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, making such institutions by far the deadliest place to be during the pandemic. About 80% of residents have been vaccinated, double the rate for staff, according to the government.

Some workers have rejected the vaccine because they think it was rushed into development and is unsafe, or they feel protected because they already got COVID-19.

“It’s too soon to put that crap in my body,” said Christina Chiger, a nurse’s aide at a nursing home in Tampa, Florida. “It took how many years to perfect the polio vaccine? This was done in months.”

Others have been swayed by false rumors that the vaccine was made from dead babies or contains microchips or will make you infertile. That last notion concerned Michaela Murray, a nurse’s aide at an Alabama nursing home that made vaccinations mandatory.

“I was kind of worried, but I talked to the doctors and they put my mind at ease,” said Murray, who agreed to get a vaccine to keep her job at Hanceville Nursing & Rehab Center, which had only six of 260 workers quit. “I had had COVID and didn’t want to go through that again.”

Pennsylvania-based Genesis said volunteer vaccinations were appropriate earlier in the pandemic, but not now, as the more infectious variant spreads and only 65% of its staff has received shots. Genesis is giving employees until Aug. 23 to get their first shot.

“To succeed against the delta variant is going to require much higher vaccination rates,” said Chief Medical Officer Richard Feifer. “Our tactics in the fight have to change.”

Jennifer Moore of Hollywood, Florida, whose husband is living at a nursing home where only 35% of the staff is vaccinated, said it’s also a matter of ethics.

“Whenever I see a story about somebody being anti-vax, I just want to scream,” said Moore, whose husband, Thomas, has Parkinson’s disease. “I understand people have concerns about the vaccine, but these people are working with the most vulnerable population. They have a duty to their patients.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will require state employees and all health care workers to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or get tested weekly, tightening restrictions in an effort to slow rising coronavirus infections in the nation’s most populous state, mostly among the unvaccinated.

The new rule will take effect next month, officials announced Monday. There are at least 238,000 state employees, according to the California controller’s office, and at least 2 million health care workers in the public and private sectors.

While about 62% of all eligible Californians are fully vaccinated, the state has struggled to make significant progress in recent weeks. Infections and hospitalizations are rising, with the highly contagious delta variant now making up an estimated 80% of cases in California, though the growing numbers are still far below where they were during the winter peak.

“An individual’s choice not to get vaccinated is now impacting the rest of us in a profound and devastating and deadly way,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in announcing the new policy.

Despite the change for state workers and increasing infections, the Democratic governor has been hesitant to impose new requirements on mask-wearing or social distancing since he allowed the state to reopen on June 15. It comes as Newsom faces a recall election in September that’s largely over his handling of the pandemic, with California having been the first to impose a statewide stay-at-home order last year and business and school shutdowns lasting longer than many other states.

Now, local governments like Los Angeles County — the nation’s largest county — are requiring or urging residents again to wear masks indoors. And cities and counties in the San Francisco Bay Area previously imposed COVID-19 vaccination requirements for workers.

Santa Clara County officials said they plan to require all 22,000 county employees to get vaccinations, not waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to grant full approval for the COVID-19 vaccine to implement the policy, which is still being developed.

Officials said most employees are already fully vaccinated.

New York City also announced Monday that it will require all of its municipal workers — including teachers and police officers — to get vaccines by mid-September or face weekly testing.

In California, those without proof of vaccination will continue to be required to wear masks at work.

“If they’re not vaccinated and we cannot verify that they’ve been vaccinated, we are requiring that they get tested,” Newsom said of state workers. “California is committed to vaccination, verification and or testing on a weekly basis. We’re not stopping just with state employees.”

He said vaccine verification will also be required in jails and homeless shelters.

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“It was extremely frustrating because we just spent a year and a half avoiding this thing and it was scary. I mean I brought home the life-threatening illness that has been killing people around the country,” Fruit said. “The only thing worse than that is knowing I gave it to my kids.”

The couple’s two kids, aged 7 and 9, had fevers and congestion while the infection left Fruit sick in bed.

“I had never felt pain that bad in my head in my life. With my medical history, I’m pretty confident that if I hadn’t had the boost from the vaccination, I might not be standing here talking to you right now,” he said.

The family fully recovered, but their story represents what could turn out to be the next big concern of the COVID-19 pandemic: breakthrough cases in which those who are vaccinated still get infected.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said breakthrough cases are to be expected because no vaccine offers 100% protection.

“COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. However, no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people. There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized or die from COVID-19,” the CDC said.

Evidence also suggests, the CDC said, that fully vaccinated people are much more likely to survive their illness. “However, fully vaccinated people are much less likely to be hospitalized or die than people with similar risk factors who are not vaccinated,” the CDC said.

As of July 6, the CDC reported that 5,186 patients from 48 states who had breakthrough infections were hospitalized or died, with 4,909 hospitalizations and 988 deaths. People aged 65 and up accounted for 75% of those cases.

As of Tuesday, more than 159 million people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the CDC.

California State | Contributed

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Some people say that the metal objects stick because the skin is wet due to perspiration, or the incline of our deltoid muscles is such that the coin just stays in place as our muscle keeps it from falling. But I didn’t get my vaccine in my arm. Instead, I was injected in my gluteus maximus. Once upon a time, I could bounce a quarter off of my gluteus maximus, but now I can’t. My wife says it is because of my age and how the skin loses some of its elasticity as we get older. But I don’t agree with her. The quarter doesn’t bounce—because it now sticks to it. I can slide across my couch and pick up all the loose change that has been hiding in the cushions. There is some benefit to becoming a magnet, after all.

As a side note, when I first heard these rumors about the vaccine turning us into magnets, I wanted my wife to test the theory. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if I should be alarmed, but the first thing she wanted to use was a kitchen knife. If one of my kids hadn’t interrupted us, I may very well have made yet one more trip to the hospital.

The question that one must ask: why are the vaccine makers using magnetized chemicals, or magnetic particles in these vaccines? I have an explanation and it seems to make sense to me. These vaccine sites act as cell sites—better known as cell towers—to receive and focus G5 signals that they are using to alter our DNA and to control us from within. These G5 signals then help the microchips in our bodies to receive and transmit data and to get updates and upgrades as they become necessary.

If you haven’t heard by now, then let me be the first to tell you, that Pfizer is now pitching the idea of a third shot, and they are calling it a booster shot. They have, by now, realized that most of us are a little on the obese side. Extra layers of fat in our bodies and the heavy amount of cholesterol in our blood tends to interfere with the signal. They are noticing an “erosion of vaccine efficacy” as we send more and more data back to them through these magnetic channels. They now need a “signal booster,” that’s why they refer to it as vaccine booster, haha, as if we won’t pick up on the joke. They are so blatant about everything that they don’t even care if we know what they are doing.

The plot is even more sinister. I have to delve into some heavy science to explain it. As we all know from our introductory Chemistry classes, all molecules in our bodies have what is commonly known as a dipole moment. A dipole moment results from electrical polarity (read that as magnetic polarity) of these chemicals. The bigger the chemical, the stronger the magnetic polarity. Since DNA is a huge molecule in our bodies, it has the largest dipole moment—thus the strongest magnetic polarity. Have things started to fall into place for you yet, or not? The magnets in these vaccines help pull the DNA strands apart, because the magnetic dipole of our DNA is attracted to them, thus making it not only easy, but extremely efficient, for the mRNA (messenger RNA) in these vaccines to get in there and do its job of changing things around. Very convenient, huh? Our DNA is being modified by these vaccines, yes, and all those stories that we have read on social media are, therefore, correct. As a full disclosure, I know all this because I am a Biochemist through my education. I have studied DNA, and enzymes, and proteins. My graduate presentation was about snRNPs (pronounced “snurps”), which stands for small nuclear ribonucleoproteins. With latest technologies, we are now dealing with nanoparticles, and Pfizer is working with a company known as BioNTech. Put all the pieces together and we start to see the big picture. Now, our first reaction about this flagrant DNA manipulation is of fear. Oh my goodness, the big government is changing our DNA, and we automatically assume that it is a bad thing. But, consider for a moment, why can’t it be a good thing?! I mean, there is some DNA that should definitely be modified, and possibly even be improved upon.

Let me give you exhibit A: my kids. I have six of them. That is my DNA roaming the earth. Yes, some of you smarty pants will say that it is also that of my wife, but you all know that my DNA is the dominant one. Nothing sexist about it. Just the way God meant it to be.

My one son can play Xbox for eighteen hours in a row, but he can’t get through a six-minute video for his class. He’ll spend hours looking for answers to his school homework on the internet, in other words, cheating, but won’t read the one page assigned where all the answers are given. Now, that DNA could stand some modification! Maybe an improved DNA will take my other son out of the gym and put him into a job. Maybe my two daughters will stop breaking out into heavy bouts of eczema whenever they have to do any kind of physical work.

Maybe my hair will start growing where they belong—on my head—and not into my ears or my nostrils. Maybe my Achilles tendon will heal itself after I tore it climbing one flight of stairs. Maybe the diabetes gene that I inherited from my mother will finally be suppressed and let me live a normal life. Maybe that Alzheimer’s that is on its way to erase all the good memories from my mind, will be rendered to the annals of medical history. I don’t mind if I have to vote for Democrats for the rest of my life, or to have to accept that climate change is real, or to even sign on to the Green New Deal. It will all be worth it.

Muhammad Naeem

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio, the state that launched the national movement to offer millions of dollars in incentives to boost vaccination rates, planned to conclude its program Wednesday — still unable to crack the 50% vaccination threshold.

The state’s not alone in mixed results for prize giving.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s May 12 announcement of the incentive program had the desired effect, leading to a 43% boost in state vaccination numbers over the previous week. But numbers of vaccinations have dropped since then.

“Clearly the impact went down after that second week,” DeWine acknowledged Wednesday.

Multiple other states followed Ohio’s lead, including Louisiana, Maryland, and New York state, with the impact on vaccinations hard to pin down.

Under New Mexico’s “Vax 2 the Max” sweepstakes program, vaccinated residents could win prizes from a pool totaling $10 million. The rewards include a $5 million grand prize that will be drawn later this summer. The sweepstakes kept the vaccination rate from declining further but the initial boost was small. According to the governor’s office, the seven-day average of new vaccination registrations was 1,437 per day during the first week of the contest — just 85 more per day than the previous week.

California awarded $116.5 million in prizes — the country’s largest pot of vaccine prize money — and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said they increased vaccinations at a time when more was needed to get people to overcome reservations or inertia.

From the time the incentives were announced May 27 until the June 15 finale, Newsom said California was one of the few states to see a week-over-week increase in the rate of vaccinations, including a 22% increase in the week prior to awarding of the grand prizes.

The Sacramento Bee noted that the increase was skewed because the previous week included three lower vaccination days over the Memorial Day weekend, and found most of the increase was from second doses of the Pfizer vaccine three weeks after 12- to 15-year-olds became eligible on May 13.

In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, hoped to use a series of prize giveaways to inject new life into a vaccine drive that drastically slowed down after a strong early start.

When he announced the drawings last month, Justice had projected that more than two-thirds of eligible residents ages 12 and over would be vaccinated by the time he removed a mask mandate on Sunday. But the state fell short of that goal — 61.5% had received at least one dose by Sunday’s first drawing.

In late May, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced that Oregonians who are 18 or older and have received at least a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine will automatically be entered to win $1 million or one of 36 $10,000 prizes — with one winner in each county. Oregonians, ages 12 to 17, have a chance to win one of five $100,000 scholarships. The drawing is set to take place on June 28.

The Oregonian reported in early June that the seven-day average of adults receiving their first shots had actually decreased from about 9,000 the day before Brown, a Democrat, announced the lottery to 6,700 nearly two weeks later.

This month, Brown announced additional prizes including travel packages to destinations around Oregon and more than 1,500 gift cards, worth $100, that were being distributed at vaccine sites during the weekend of June 12 – an incentive that officials said brought a noticeable increase of people to sites.

In Colorado, vaccinations have slowed since its lottery was rolled out by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis last month, with about 589,000 fewer doses given out in the month since Polis’ announcement, compared to the same amount of time a month before the contest began.

The state is offering five residents the chance to win $1 million each in weekly lottery drawings from June 4 until July 7.

In Ohio, about 5.5 million people have received at least one shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as of Wednesday, or about 47% of the population. About 5 million people, or 43% of the population, have completed the process.

While the incentive’s success was short-lived, it got Ohioans who were either straddling the line or those who had not plans to get the vaccine to get vaccinated, Ohio’s governor said.

As evidence, Jonathan Carlyle of Toledo, an Amazon deliveryman who won the second $1 million prize on June 2, and said the next day: “When y’all announced the Vax-a-Million, as soon as I heard that, I was like ‘Yes, I need to go do this now.’”

DeWine continues to urge Ohioans to get vaccines, saying the end of state social distancing requirements, the return to in-person school classes in the fall, and the multiplying of virus variants remain a concern. Last week, DeWine held a news conference at Thomas Worthington High School in suburban Columbus along with students and coaches urging middle and high school children who play sports to get vaccinated.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri in Columbus, Ohio, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Sara Cline in Salem, Oregon; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Patty Nieberg in Denver; and Don Thompson in Sacramento contributed to this report. Amiri, Cline and Nieberg are corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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A day after her interview for a part-time job at Target last year, Dana Anthony got an email informing her she didn’t make the cut.

Anthony didn’t know why — a situation common to most job seekers at one point or another. But she also had no sense at all of how the interview had gone, because her interviewer was a computer.

More job-seekers, including some professionals, may soon have to accept impersonal online interviews where they never talk to another human being, or know if behind-the-scenes artificial-intelligence systems are influencing hiring decisions. Demand for online hiring services, which interview job applicants remotely via laptop or phone, mushroomed during the COVID-19 pandemic and remains high amid a perceived worker shortage as the economy opens back up.

These systems claim to save employers money, sidestep hidden biases that can influence human recruiters and expand the range of potential candidates. Many now also use AI to assess candidate skills by analyzing what they say.

Anthony likes to look an interviewer in the eyes, but all she could see was her own face reflected in the screen. “I interview better in person because I’m able to develop a connection with the person,” she said.

But experts question whether machines can accurately and fairly judge a person’s character traits and emotional signals. Algorithms tasked to learn who’s the best fit for a job can entrench bias if they’re taking cues from industries where racial and gender disparities are already prevalent.

And when a computer screens out some candidates and elevates others without explanation, it’s harder to know if it’s making fair assessments. Anthony, for instance, couldn’t help wondering if her identity as a Black woman affected the decision.

“If you apply for a job and are rejected because of a biased algorithm, you certainly won’t know,” said Oxford University researcher Aislinn Kelly-Lyth. In a face-to-face interview, by contrast, a job seeker might pick up discriminatory cues from the interviewer, she said.

New rules proposed by the European Union would subject such AI hiring systems to tighter regulation. Advocates have pushed for similar measures in the U.S.

One of the leading companies in the field, Utah-based HireVue, gained notoriety in recent years by using AI technology to assess cognitive ability from an applicant’s facial expressions during the interview. After heated criticism centered on the scientific validity of those claims and the potential for racial or gender bias, the company announced earlier this year it would end the practice.

But its AI-based assessments, which rank the skills and personalities of applicants to flag the most promising for further review, still consider speech and word choices in its decisions.

The privately owned company helped create a market for “on-demand” video interviews. Its known customers have included retailers like Target and Ikea, major tech companies like Amazon, banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, oil giants, restaurant chains, supermarkets, airlines, cruise lines and school districts. The Associated Press reached out to numerous brand-name employers that use the technology; most declined to discuss it.

HireVue CEO Kevin Parker says the company has worked hard to ensure its technology won’t discriminate based on factors such as race, gender or regional accents. Its systems, which translate speech to text and sift for clues about team orientation, adaptability, dependability and other job skills, can outperform human interviewers, he said.

“What we’re trying to replace is people’s gut instinct,” he said in — naturally — a video interview.

HireVue says it interviewed more than 5.6 million people around the world in 2020. Supermarket chains used it to screen thousands of applicants a day amid a pandemic-fueled hiring surge for cashiers, stockers and delivery crews, Parker said.

Providers of broader hiring-focused software such as Modern Hire and Outmatch have started offering their own video interviews and AI assessment tools. On its website, Outmatch touts its ability to measure “the must-have soft skills your candidates and employees need to succeed.”

HireVue notes that most customers don’t actually use the company’s AI-based assessments. Atlanta’s school district, for instance, has used HireVue since 2014, but says it relies on 50 human recruiters to score recorded interviews. Target said the pandemic led it to replace in-person interviews with HireVue interviews, but the retail giant told the AP it relies on its own employees — not HireVue’s algorithms — to watch and evaluate prerecorded videos.

None of that was clear to Anthony when she sat down in front of a screen to interview for a seasonal job last year. She dressed for the occasion and settled into a comfortable spot. The only hint of a human presence came in a prerecorded introduction that laid out what to expect — noting, for instance, that she could delete an answer and start over.

But she had no way to know what sort of impression she was creating. “We’re unable to provide specific feedback regarding your candidacy,” Target’s rejection email said. She was rejected again after completing a HireVue interview for a different job in December.

“I understand companies or organizations trying to be more mindful of the time and the finances they spend when it comes to recruitment,” said Anthony, who obtained a master’s degree in strategic communications last year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Still, the one-way interviews left her uneasy about who, or what, was evaluating her.

That inscrutability poses one of the biggest concerns about the rapid growth of complex algorithms in recruitment and hiring, Kelly-Lyth said.

In one infamous example, Amazon developed a resume-scanning tool to recruit top talent, but abandoned it after finding it favored men for technical roles — in part because it was comparing job candidates against the company’s own male-dominated tech workforce. A study released in April found that Facebook shows different job ads to women and men in a way that might violate anti-discrimination laws.

Governments across the U.S. and Europe are looking at possible checks on these hiring tools, including requirements for outside audits to ensure they don’t discriminate against women, minorities or people with disabilities. The proposed EU rules, unveiled in April, would force providers of AI systems that screen or evaluate job candidates to meet new requirements for accuracy, transparency and accountability.

HireVue has begun phasing out its face-scanning tool, which analyzed expressions and eye movements and faced derision by academics as “pseudoscience” reminiscent of the discredited and racist 19th century theory of phrenology. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint in 2019 with the Federal Trade Commission, citing a HireVue executive who had said 10% to 30% of a candidate’s score was based on facial expressions.

“The value it was adding related to the controversy it was creating wasn’t very much,” Parker told the AP.

HireVue also released portions of a third-party audit that examined fairness and bias issues around its automated tools. A published summary recommended minor changes such as modifying the weight given to the especially short answers disproportionately provided by minority candidates.

Critics welcomed the audit but said it was merely a start.

“I don’t think the science really supports the idea that speech patterns would be a meaningful assessment of someone’s personality,” said Sarah Myers West of New York University’s AI Now Institute, which studies the social implications of AI. For instance, she said, such systems have historically had trouble understanding women’s voices.

Kian Betancourt, a 26-year-old who is pursuing a doctorate in organizational psychology at Hofstra University, also failed a remote HireVue interview for a consulting position earlier this year. He acknowledged that he might have tried too hard to predict how the system would evaluate him for a consultancy job, tailoring his diction to include keywords he thought might boost his score.

While Betancourt is supportive of “structured interviews” involving a standard set of questions, he’s bothered by the opacity of automated systems.

“Tell people exactly how we’re being evaluated, even if it’s something as simple as, ‘This is an AI interview’,” he said. That basic information can affect how people present themselves, he said.

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A small study offers the first hint that an extra dose of COVID-19 vaccines just might give some organ transplant recipients a needed boost in protection.

Even as most vaccinated people celebrate a return to near normalcy, millions who take immune-suppressing medicines because of transplants, cancer or other disorders remain in limbo — uncertain how protected they really are. It’s simply harder for vaccines to rev up a weak immune system.

Monday’s study tracked just 30 transplant patients but it’s an important step toward learning if booster doses could help.

It didn’t help everybody. But of the 24 patients who appeared to have no protection after the routine two vaccinations, eight of them — a third — developed some virus-fighting antibodies after an extra shot, researchers from Johns Hopkins University reported in Annals of Internal Medicine. And six others who’d had only minimal antibodies all got a big boost from the third dose.

“It’s very encouraging,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, a Hopkins transplant surgeon who helped lead the research. “Just because you’re fully negative after two doses doesn’t mean that there’s no hope.”

Next up: Working with the National Institutes of Health, Segev’s team hopes to begin a more rigorous test of a third vaccination in 200 transplant recipients this summer.

For transplant patients, powerful immune-suppressing drugs prevent rejection of their new organs but also leave them extremely vulnerable to the coronavirus. They were excluded from initial testing of the COVID-19 vaccines, but doctors urge that they get vaccinated in hopes of at least some protection.

Some do benefit. The Hopkins team recently tested more than 650 transplant recipients and found about 54% harbored virus-fighting antibodies after two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines — although generally less than in otherwise healthy vaccinated people.

It’s not just a concern after organ transplants. One study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune disorders found 85% developed antibodies, said Dr. Alfred Kim of Washington University in St. Louis. But those who used particular kinds of immune-suppressing drugs produced dramatically lower levels that are a cause for concern.

“We tell our patients to act like the vaccine is not going to work as well as it does for their family and friends,” said Kim, who would like to test a third dose in autoimmune patients, too. “This is very frustrating news to them.”

Doctors sometimes give extra doses of other vaccines, such as the hepatitis B shot, to people with weak immune systems.

And guidelines issued in France recommend a third COVID-19 shot for certain severely immune-suppressed people, including transplant recipients, Segev noted.

The U.S. hasn’t authorized extra COVID-19 vaccinations. But around the country, a growing number of immune-compromised patients are seeking third doses on their own — the people Hopkins sought to test.

In San Francisco, Gillian Ladd agreed to blood tests before and after an extra dose. The recipient of a kidney and pancreas transplant, Ladd, 48, was terrified to leave her house after learning she had no measurable antibodies despite two Pfizer shots.

With the additional dose, “I had gotten what I needed in order to survive,” Ladd said, but she’s still is sticking with masks and other precautions.

“I am being as careful as I possibly can while acknowledging that I’m coming back into the world of the living,” she said.

Further research is needed to tell if a third dose really helps, who’s the best candidate and if there are brand differences — plus whether the extra immune stimulation could increase the risk of organ rejection.

But Segev cautions boosters aren’t the only possibility. In addition to antibodies, vaccinations normally spur other protections such as T cells that can fend off severe illness. He and several other research groups are testing whether immune-compromised patients get that benefit.

For now, “the best way to protect these people is for others to get vaccinated” so they’re less likely to get exposed to the coronavirus, stressed Washington University‘s Kim.

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