DeSantis to push for permanent ban on Florida mandates for masks ...

John Kennedy

Capital Bureau | USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – In a wide-ranging attack on efforts to combat COVID-19, Gov. Ron DeSantis called Tuesday for the Republican-controlled Legislature to make permanent Florida’s prohibitions on mask mandates at schools and vaccine requirements for local governments and businesses.

The measures were enacted during a special session DeSantis called in late 2021, when he was fighting many Florida school districts, private businesses and the federal government under President Joe Biden, which were taking steps they saw as potentially needed to reduce the transmission of COVID-19.

The mandate bans approved then by Florida lawmakers are set to expire in June.

But DeSantis wants to keep them on the books and raised the specter that efforts to reinstate them could emerge from places like California, which actually lifted statewide requirements almost a year ago.

“Being the free state of Florida did not happen by accident,” DeSantis said in a campaign rally-like speech to a crowd at a Panama City theater where, prior to him taking the stage, a governor’s office staffer instructed people to wave signs bearing the message, “Science Not Censorship.”

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'Just nuts:' DeSantis continues to say mandates clash with freedom

DeSantis continued, touting his defense of Florida freedom. “It required us over the past few years to stand against major institutions in our society: The bureaucracy, the medical establishment, legacy media and even the president of the United States who, together, were working to impose a bio-medical security state on society,” he said.

For about an hour, DeSantis and other invited speakers cast doubt on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and masking, condemning what the speakers said were continuing efforts in other states to reinstate masks or require university students or staff to get booster shots.

“This is just nuts that we’re still doing this,” DeSantis said.

The deadline facing Florida on the COVID-19 mandate bans will bring the issue into the Legislature when it convenes in March. But it also gives DeSantis, widely seen as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, an opportunity to push back against the Biden administration.

COVID-19 vaccinations and masks also are an animating topic among many Republican voters nationally. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor reports that only 37% of Republicans say they are vaccinated and boosted, compared with 74% of voters who identify as Democrats.

More than 84,000 Floridians have died from COVID-19, while the state has reported almost 7.4 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

Florida doctors appear with DeSantis

Included at Tuesday’s event were a pair of area doctors: Dr. Jon Ward, a Panama City dermatologist who promotes “natural immunity” on his Twitter account and another, Dr. Tim Boyett, a Gulf Breeze radiologist, who shunned the vaccine but has been helped by what he said is a “three-day treatment regimen,” that he says has been successful with other patients fighting COVID-19.

U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Panama City, also a doctor, praised the governor’s approach.

Among those joining DeSantis was Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who was recently criticized by medical school colleagues at the University of Florida for what they concluded was flawed research which resulted in the state Health Department issuing guidance discouraging COVID-19 vaccines for men under age 40, citing possible cardiac risks the department found.

The governor’s office has dismissed the criticism.

“There’s a lot of lunacy out there,” Ladapo said of mask recommendations that came from state and federal governments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Surgeon General Ladapo derides California

He and DeSantis also ridiculed a California law that allows regulators to punish doctors for spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccinations and treatments.

“They should be allowed to say what they think and they shouldn’t be forced or essentially be scared into feeling they can’t express themselves,” Ladapo said.

DeSantis agreed and said he wants state lawmakers to include a new ban against any proposals that could lead to regulatory punishments for vaccine- or mask-questioning doctors in Florida.

“You’re going to have Florida become the state where if a very high-quality physician is driven out of California, this is the first place you’re going to have people want to go,” DeSantis said.

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport

New York will end its mask-or-vaccine mandate for indoor ...

CNN —

New York will lift its statewide mask-or-vaccine requirement for indoor businesses – but not for schools – on Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

“Given the declining cases, given the declining hospitalizations, that is why we feel comfortable to life this in effect tomorrow,” she said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that every business knows, this is your prerogative. And individuals who want to continue wearing masks, continue wearing masks.”

The mandate required businesses to ask customers for proof of vaccination or for them to wear masks indoors, except when eating or drinking. The emergency temporary measure was put in place two months ago and was set to expire Thursday.

The mask mandate still remains in place for schools, child care settings, hospitals, nursing homes and on public transit. Hochul said the state plans to review student Covid-19 test results and other metrics next month to decide whether to continue requiring masks in schools.

“After the break, after we’ve had kids tested, we are going to make an assessment that first week in March based on all the metrics I’ve described to you and look at that combined picture,” the governor said. She acknowledged it was a “strong possibility” the school mask mandate will be lifted.

Following the decision, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced private businesses can choose whether to require masks.

The move comes as the Omicron wave that swept across the US in the last few months has started to recede, prompting many state officials in politically liberal regions to pull back on Covid-19 mitigation measures.

People wearng masks work out at a gym in Manhattan, New York City, on May 19, 2021. ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images

A number of Northeast states with high vaccination rates, including New Jersey and Delaware, have set timelines for ending school mask mandates in recent days.

On Wednesday, Massachusetts announced it will lift its school mask mandate on February 28, according to Gov. Charlie Baker and the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“We’ve learned a lot about how safe schools are and how to keep kids in class learning over the course of this pandemic,” Baker, a Republican, said. “We have far more tools available to us to deal with the pandemic than we had back at the beginning.”

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee announced the state will be lifting its indoor mask mandates and proof of vaccination protocols on Friday.

In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state – which is seeing the fastest decline in hospitalizations since the pandemic – is planning to lift its statewide indoor mask requirement on February 28.

Further, nearly a dozen health officers in California’s Bay Area will lift universal mask requirements for most indoor settings starting next Wednesday, according to a joint press release. And the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment announced it will lift its school mask mandate on February 25.

NY’s requirement began two months ago

Gov. Kathy Hochul meets virtually with leadership from education groups including school superintendents, principals, school boards, and parent teacher associations. Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul

In New York, Hochul issued the mask-or-vaccine requirement for all indoor businesses in December 2021 as the Omicron variant caused a large increase in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. That wave of new cases peaked about a month ago and has since receded.

On Tuesday, Hochul said the requirement was put in place “when we first saw the early signs of this Omicron could be wildly contagious,” she said. “It certainly was, and so we put in some protections in place to help our workplaces and help employees and customers.”

Two weeks ago, a judge struck down the mandate, saying the Department of Health did not have the authority to put it in place, but an appeals court judge allowed it to stay in effect.

Hochul met earlier this week with teachers, superintendents and parents to thank them for keeping schools safe and open and to discuss how to continue to “smartly” protect against Covid-19.

In a statement released after the meeting, New York State School Boards Association Executive Director Robert S. Schneider summed up the challenge of determining Covid-19 protocols in schools.

“Like everyone, our members are ready to get past this pandemic and return to life as normal, and they want to do so in a way that keeps all of our students, teachers, employees and their families safe. The governor, like school board members, must balance many different concerns and ultimately decide based on what’s best for our students.”

Other states set timelines for lifting mandates

Other states have started lifting their mask mandates. Oregon’s health department announced the state will remove general mask requirements for indoor public places no later than March 31. School mask mandates will also be lifted March 31, according to CNN affiliate KATU-TV.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state’s indoor mask requirement will expire February 15, though unvaccinated people will still need to wear masks indoors.

Washington’s outdoor mask mandate will be lifted on February 18, Gov. Jay Inslee said Wednesday afternoon at a news conference.

Inslee said it’s not time to lift all masking requirements just yet and he plans to share more information after gathering another week or so of data.

The governor said the state will make a “safe transition” when it’s time.

“The day to totally remove masks rapidly approaching,” Inslee said. “I did not require masks for symbolism, I required them because they work. Now I believe we’re in a position to transition to a different state.”

Democratic governors in New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut announced that school mask mandates will be lifted in the coming weeks. The governors cited the declines in Covid-19 case counts, hospitalizations, test positivity rates and rates of transmission in making their decision.

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said he recommends ending the statewide mask mandate in schools and childcare centers effective February 28, leaving decisions on mask requirements in schools to officials at the local level.

In Delaware, Gov. John Carney said that public and private K-12 mask mandates will expire March 31, and in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said the state’s universal mask mandate for schools and child-care settings will lift March 7.

Lifting of school mask mandates goes against guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has not provided states a road map for how to transition from the emergency phase of Covid-19 into the “new normal,” so these states have taken steps on their own.

“We’ve adhered overwhelmingly with the CDC guidance. The reason why we’re making this step today is our reality in New Jersey,” Murphy told CNN on Monday. “We are now in a dramatically different place than the norm right now across the country, which is why we feel like we can decouple and take this step.”

Pritzker, the Illinois governor, has teased changes to his state’s indoor mask policy in the past few days.

“I think I’ve said over the last few press conferences that I really believe that we ought to be looking seriously at how to ratchet that back. I think we’re going to be making announcements very soon about that,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday, in response to reporters asking about the mandate.

At a Monday news conference, Pritzker addressed a circuit judge’s temporary restraining order that blocked schools from enforcing portions of his school-related Covid-19 mitigation policies, saying he asked the state’s attorney general to work to get the restraining order overturned.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized New York’s mask mandate. It requires businesses to ask customers for proof of vaccination or for them to wear masks indoors, not both.

Eric Levenson Amir Vera Kristina Sgueglia

As US pushes to a pre-Covid reality, high-risk and disabled ...

CNN —

Tasha Nelson’s 10-year-old son held back tears when he heard the news. The two were in the car when the announcement came through the radio: Virginia’s freshly sworn-in governor had signed an order attempting to ban mask mandates in schools.

“My son looked up at me and he had tears in his eyes because he knew what it meant. He said, ‘Mom, does that mean I can’t go to school anymore?’” Nelson said. “He said, ‘Can’t we let the governor know about kids like me? I want to go to school too.’”

Jack, a fourth grader, has cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disease that causes persistent, damaging lung infections, making it harder to breathe over time. Like other immunocompromised, disabled and chronically ill Americans, Jack was taking measures, like masking, to dodge infections before the pandemic too. But with Covid-19 still rampant, it’s not as easy. Even though he’s vaccinated, the virus poses a serious, potentially deadly, risk to Jack. His 2-year-old brother, who is not yet eligible for the shots, is another concern.

Tasha Nelson with her 10-year-old son, Jack, who is no longer attending school in person after Virginia effectively barred schools from implementing mask mandates. Courtesy Tasha Nelson

Nelson is among a group of parents who sued Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin over that order, claiming it puts students who are immunocompromised or have disabilities at risk and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. CNN has reached out to Youngkin’s office for comment on the lawsuit.

Roughly two weeks after that lawsuit was filed, the governor signed a bill into law allowing parents to opt their children out of school mask mandates.

Nelson is keeping her son at home again because of it.

“This whole pandemic, our culture, media (and) government has made it very clear to high-risk and disabled people that we are an acceptable loss,” Nelson said. “We’re doing everything we can to survive this pandemic too.”

Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are declining nationwide, but transmission – how much virus is circulating in a community – remains high in more than 90% of the United States, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC still recommends everyone to mask indoors in areas of substantial or high transmission.

But public health experts are split on whether it’s time to lift mitigation measures. Some say dropping protections at a time when Covid-19 numbers are so high is a political move rather than a public health one. Others say the downward trends justify those moves and note Omicron is milder than earlier variants for most healthy people.

As local and state leaders nationwide remove mask and vaccination rules, those at high risk for severe disease say doing away with protections now leaves them more vulnerable, especially as they, or family members, return to in-person work or school. And for some, Covid-19 vaccines are not as effective in staving off a severe bout with the virus, prompting the CDC to recommend a fourth shot for immunocompromised people 12 years and older in October.

Roughly seven million American adults are immunocompromised, the CDC estimates. While not all have conditions that leave them severely immunocompromised and vulnerable to severe Covid-19, about 61 million adults – roughly one in four in the US – have some type of disability, according to the agency. More than three million children had a disability in 2019, according to the US Census Bureau.

“Everyone knows someone who had cancer, everyone knows somebody who had a kidney transplant for one reason or another, or someone who’s got Alzheimer’s or someone who has a heart condition or someone who was born with a rare immunodeficiency,” said Sara Willette, who has been in isolation with her husband in Iowa since the state reported its first case of the virus, some 700 days ago.

“The more protections that we remove, the less accessible the rest of the world becomes to people who are high-risk,” Willette said.

Even though Willette is triple vaccinated and preparing for her fourth shot, catching the virus could be deadly. She has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), meaning her body does not produce protective antibodies to defend itself against pathogens like bacteria or viruses.

The couple considered leaving their home in Ames and moving to southern California, where stricter masking protocols could have helped protect her. But they ruled out the idea after California’s governor lifted the indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people this month, citing a drop in infections.

Iowa’s lawmakers are going even further – a bill looking to effectively ban vaccine and mask mandates is making its way through the legislature. “We have to make a choice between staying alive and having a life,” Willette said.

The high-risk people CNN spoke to said as the country eagerly looks to move on from the pandemic, they feel forgotten – and worse, like they don’t matter to the rest of the American public. Some say they feel like they’ve been left to adapt to a more dangerous reality, while others are now mapping out a permanently isolated lifestyle.

Video Ad Feedback New York state supreme court judge strikes down mask mandate 02:30 - Source: CNN

Families faced with impossible choices

In Wilmington, Massachusetts, Karen Yurek’s family is navigating a tough balancing act. Yurek and her husband are both high-risk and on immunosuppressant medications. She has rheumatoid arthritis and he has multiple sclerosis. Both have received four Covid-19 shots and work remotely.

Their family was almost entirely isolated until last week, when their 6-year-old son, Billy, returned to school. Billy is vaccinated, and Yurek and her husband felt he could stay safe with the help of a universal masking requirement that was in place.

Then, state officials announced they were lifting the mandate at the end of February. Yurek wrote to the Wilmington School Committee, urging them to keep masks mandatory to “protect the members of our community who don’t have the luxury of ‘normal’ anymore.”

The committee voted Wednesday to lift its mask mandate, posing a difficult dilemma for Yurek’s family: pull their child out of in-person class or risk serious illness.

“It’s really demoralizing,” Yurek said. “It just feels like everyone’s so focused on getting back to normal that … they’re forgetting about all of the really at-risk people. And if they’re not forgetting about them, that they’re just saying, ‘Well, you’re on your own.’”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s John Berman on Thursday that lifting school mask mandates given the current transmission levels could push cases back up. “We’ve been to this show before,” he said. “Where things came down, you pull back a little, and it bounces back.”

Karen Yurek's son, Billy, is seen here on his first day back to in-person school. He was excited to be back, Yurek said. Courtesy Karen Yurek

When asked this month about immunocompromised Americans who feel left behind, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is working to update its mask guidance so it is “relevant for the public, but also for the public who is immunocompromised and disabled,” but offered no further details.

To help keep more people safe, mask requirements should depend on how much virus is circulating in a community, said Raymund Razonable, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic and vice chair of the division of public health, infectious diseases and occupational medicine in Rochester, Minnesota. Shedding masks at a time the virus is still rampant and the threat of more variants – including an Omicron subvariant – loom is a risk, Razonable told CNN.

All but one of the remaining states that still had mask mandates in place – Hawaii – have announced plans to remove them.

Other local leaders have announced the end of vaccine measures too. The country’s capital put an end to its indoor business vaccine requirement Tuesday. In the following days, Philadelphia and Boston also announced they were dropping vaccine requirements. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams told employers to end work-from-home policies, saying in a news conference, “We need people back to work.”

“Unfortunately, for the most part, we’re seeing a lot of disregard for the immunocompromised and the disabled community,” said April Moreno, a public health expert and founder of the Autoimmune Community Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. “We’re hurting.”

Kris Giere, a 42-year-old who has Type 1 diabetes and lives in Indiana, a state that ended its mask mandate last April, echoed the same.

“I’m tired of having to worry about how many disease vectors I’m in contact with,” Giere said. “I’m on edge every day, because I don’t get to go back to normal. There is no going back to normal for me.”

‘We don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over’

When the CDC updated its isolation guidelines in December to say people can leave isolation five days after testing positive if their symptoms are gone or getting better, and to wear a well-fitted mask for 10 days, the agency also urged them to “avoid people who are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe disease,” for at least 10 days.

But it can be hard to know when someone – a coworker, a friend or a passerby – is immunocompromised or high-risk, Moreno pointed out. It’s why many conditions are known as “invisible illnesses.”

April Moreno, who was diagnosed several years ago with an autoimmune condition, says she feels like high-risk Americans are being disregarded. Courtesy April Moreno

“No one … has given me a giant foam hat with an arrow saying ‘immunocompromised’ on it,” said Matthew Cortland, who works on disability and health policy at Data for Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “The lengths we have to go to in order to mitigate, to some extent, the risk that society at large is just offloading onto us is absurd.”

Cortland permanently works from home. But many friends who are also chronically ill and disabled don’t have the same option. That’s why public health measures remain critical, Cortland said, including global vaccination campaigns, widespread availability and use of high-quality masks, research into more adaptive personal protective equipment, improvements to indoor air quality, better testing procedures and sufficient treatments.

The US has increased its order for one of the key preventive therapies for the immunocompromised, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced last week. But even with that boost, the country will only have enough of that monoclonal antibody treatment for less than a quarter of its immunocompromised population. And while there are other Covid-19 therapeutics that can help people including the severely immunocompromised, they are still also in short supply in many parts of the US and won’t be more widely available until spring, the US Food and Drug Administration has said.

“There’s not enough for the millions of immunocompromised patients,” said Razonable. In his hospital, he said there is a “sufficient” supply to cover only “the highest risk group” of people.

Two years in, high-risk Americans are feeling traumatized and exhausted from the daily risk assessments and new hurdles that life in a Covid-era America comes with.

As Cortland puts it: “No one wants to actually be done with the pandemic more than disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised Americans. We just don’t have the luxury of pretending the pandemic is over when it isn’t. And it clearly is not.”

As states plan to lift school mask mandates, CDC remains vague on ...

CNN —

As many states see declines in their daily Covid-19 case numbers and hospitalization rates, some have moved forward with plans to lift a significant mitigation measure: mask mandates in schools.

The moves go against guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the agency has remained mum about the states’ decisions, simply telling CNN on Monday that it still recommends universal masking for all in schools.

However, some public health experts have questioned whether it’s time for the CDC to update its school guidance, especially as the nation mulls over what life after the pandemic might look like. Without federal guidance on when and how to transition out of the pandemic phase and into a Covid-19 endemic phase, some states are taking steps on their own.

‘Dropping like a rock’

The Democratic governors of three East Coast states – Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey – announced Monday that they will lift mask requirements in schools in the coming weeks.

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said he recommends ending the statewide mask mandate in schools and childcare centers effective February 28, leaving decisions on mask requirements in schools to officials at the local level.

In Delaware, Gov. John Carney said that public and private K-12 mask mandates will expire March 31, and in New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said the state’s universal mask mandate for schools and child-care settings will lift March 7.

All three states referenced declines in their Covid-19 case counts, hospitalizations, test positivity rates and rates of transmission as reasons why they are planning to lift restrictions.

“Our case count, hospitalizations, the spot positivity rate, the rate of transmission are all dropping like a rock,” Murphy told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, adding that the state is making progress with vaccinations and that there will be better ventilation options in four weeks, when the mask mandate lifts.

“We’ve adhered overwhelmingly with the CDC guidance. The reason why we’re making this step today is our reality in New Jersey,” Murphy said. “We are now in a dramatically different place than the norm right now across the country, which is why we feel like we can decouple and take this step.”

Also Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state’s indoor mask requirement will expire February 15, though unvaccinated people will still need to wear masks indoors. He noted that California’s case rate has decreased 65% since its Omicron peak, and hospitalizations have stabilized across the state.

And the Oregon Health Authority announced Monday that the state will remove general mask requirements for indoor public places no later than March 31.

But as these states change their policies, the White House has not changed its position.

“The guidance is very clear, which is that we recommend masking in schools. That is the recommendation from the CDC,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a news briefing Monday, referring to the CDC’s guidance urging universal mask-wearing in schools for everyone 2 and older, regardless of a person’s vaccination status.

“It is also true that at some point when the science and the data warrants, of course, our hope is that that’s no longer the recommendation – and they are continually assessing that,” Psaki said of CDC officials. “It is also true that it’s always been up to local school districts to make determinations about how to implement these policies.”

CDC spokesperson Jade Fulce wrote in an email to CNN on Monday that “CDC guidance is meant to supplement — not replace — any federal, state, tribal, local, or territorial health and safety laws, rules, and regulations. The adoption and implementation of our guidance should be done in collaboration with regulatory agencies and state, tribal, local, and territorial public health departments, and in compliance with state and local policies and practices.”

When asked whether the CDC plan to release any updated guidance on when it’s appropriate to lift mask mandates in schools, the agency responded that “CDC continuously reviews data on the pandemic as well as the latest science to identify when changes to guidance are recommended.”

‘There has been … a lack of clarity for some time’

The CDC could improve its communications with state leaders and the public regarding its mask guidance – including when and why mask mandates should be implemented, what the benefits are, and the science and data behind such recommendations, Glen Nowak, co-director of the Center for Health & Risk Communication at the University of Georgia and former head of media relations for the CDC, told CNN on Monday.

“There has been, I think, a lack of clarity for some time regarding what the end goal is,” Nowak said.

“Even now, it would help if the CDC talked about what they were thinking or what they were doing, if anything, with respect to updating their mask guidelines and recommendations,” Nowak said. “What efforts are underway, and what are they trying to do? What are they trying to learn? I think, right now probably still among many people, that’s sort of a mystery.”

State and local officials have had to “take matters into their own hands” when it comes to changing school mask mandates, and that’s bad news for federal public health authorities, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN’s John Berman on Monday.

“That means that the federal government is becoming less and less relevant,” said Wen, who is also an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. “If the CDC guidance that they’re putting out is now not being followed by virtually anyone, that makes the CDC and our federal public health authorities have less credibility.

“And so I really believe that they need to be changing their guidance, and look, they don’t have to do it overnight. They can say ‘here is an off-ramp to masking. You meet these criteria, and this is how you can begin to remove masks or remove other restrictions.’ But we need to hear their leadership here. The CDC has already lost a lot of trust and credibility. This is their time to rebuild and remove restrictions as quickly as they were put in.”

When it comes to lifting mask mandates, the decisions are typically based on the risk of someone getting infected with the coronavirus within the community, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told CNN on Monday.

“If you’re fully vaccinated and boosted, and the broad community spread is low to moderate, then your risk is low,” Benjamin said. In New Jersey and some other states that plan to lift school mask mandates, state officials project that community spread of Covid-19 will probably be low.

Benjamin added that as the country looks ahead, beyond the public health emergency phase of Covid-19, it might be time for the CDC to update its guidance on mask-wearing in schools and the surrounding communities, especially as such guidance is based on data from Covid-19 case counts and test positivity rates in communities. Many people test for Covid-19 at home, which can skew data if they don’t report their results.

Separately, many state governors and leading public health experts are also calling for the White House to release guidance on what the end of the pandemic, and a transition into an endemic phase, might look like for the country. “Endemic” means a disease has a constant presence in a population but isn’t overwhelming health systems or affecting an alarmingly large number of people, as typically seen in a pandemic.

Consideration for lifting mask mandates

As some governors set timelines for the end of their states’ school mask mandates, Dr. Carlos del Rio, the executive associate dean of the Emory University School of Medicine, said it’s the right thing to do for school districts in highly vaccinated communities.

“In a highly vaccinated community, as the cases are decreasing right now with Omicron, in a couple of weeks, maybe removing masks is actually the right thing to do. It allows us the opportunity to actually peel off one of those restrictions that has been so controversial,” del Rio told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga on Monday. He added that there are other mitigation measures that schools can adopt, such as improving air ventilation in classrooms.

Del Rio said communities should continue to monitor Covid-19 cases as well as track hospitalizations and test positivity rates.

He thinks there are two possible metrics for lifting mask mandates, he told CNN in an email Monday: hospitalization rates and capacity levels in intensive care units.

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“If hospitalizations are clearly coming down and positivity rates are coming down in the community, it is the right thing to do,” del Rio told Golodryga of lifting school mask mandates.

On the other hand, many states that continue to see high Covid-19 case counts and low vaccination rates have not changed their school mask policies. For instance, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday that the state will continue to recommend face masks in schools, citing low vaccinations rates in children.

When asked what it will take for him to lift that recommendation, Beshear said he will look at the positivity rate and vaccination rate in people 18 and under.

Florida: Covid-19 vaccine not recommended for healthy children ...

CNN —

The Florida Department of Health will recommend against Covid-19 vaccinations for healthy children, the state’s top public health official said Monday, putting the state at odds with the guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recommended that children get vaccinated in November, when the shot became available to most kids. Since then, about 22 million children have become fully vaccinated, including 1.1 million Florida kids.

But Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said the state is going to issue separate guidance urging parents not to vaccinate their kids. Ladapo did not say when that guidance would become official and provided few additional details.

Florida would become the first state to break from the CDC on vaccines for children.

The announcement from Ladapo came at the end of a 90-minute discussion between some of the medical community’s most vocal skeptics of pandemic mitigation measures. The event, hosted by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, was harshly critical of the CDC and governments that took steps to slow the spread of the virus through mask mandates and shutdown measures.

Several of the doctors and scientists on DeSantis’ panel shared unproven concerns about the safety of the vaccine for kids.

Children vaccinated against Covid-19 are less likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19 infections than children who are unvaccinated, recent data has shown.

Vaccinated grade-schoolers are nearly half as likely to have a Covid-19 case that resulted in care at an urgent care clinic or emergency room compared with children who were unvaccinated, according to a large study funded by the CDC.

Almost 4.5 million children have had Covid just since the beginning of January.

Children infected by Covid-19 can develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome weeks later. This rare disease can lead to dangerous complications, causing parts of the body to become inflamed. MIS-C can affect major organs including the kidneys, brain, lungs and heart.

The vaccine is not authorized for children under the age of 5. About 25% of Florida’s eligible child population is vaccinated, compared with 30% nationally.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN he is “disappointed and actually concerned” by the Florida surgeon general’s announcement.

“I think [vaccination] continues to be the best recommendation,” he said. “I would continue to make it to all parents of children 5 and older. The benefits clearly outweigh the risks, and they provide us a firmer foundation for the control of Covid going forward.”

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Ladapo’s statement Is “wholly irresponsible and completely unsupported.”

“Although it is true that children are less likely to be infected and it is true that children are less likely to be severely infected, they can still be infected, and they can still be severely infected,” he told CNN. “And if you have a vaccine which is safe, which this is, and is effective, which this is, then you give it. What the Florida surgeon general didn’t do was in any sense explain himself. What possible reason could he have for not giving this vaccine to children and putting them in a position where they have to suffer this disease?”

The Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics was also critical of the decision.

“The COVID-19 vaccine is our best hope for ending the pandemic,” chapter President Dr. Lisa Gwynn said in a statement. “The Surgeon General’s comments today misrepresent the benefits of the vaccine, which has been proven to prevent serious illness, hospitalizations and long-term symptoms from COVID-19 in children and adolescents, including those who are otherwise healthy.

“The evidence is clear that when people are vaccinated, they are significantly less likely to get very sick and need hospital care. There is widespread consensus among medical and public health experts about the life-saving benefits of this vaccine.”

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Ladapo has become a lightning rod for criticism since his appointment to lead the Florida Health Department last year. Ladapo gained attention during the pandemic after penning a series of op-eds that challenged the consensus scientific opinion on vaccines, masks and mitigation strategies. He has also pushed unproven Covid-19 therapies, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

The Florida Senate confirmed Ladapo to become the state’s surgeon general last month. During his confirmation hearings, he declined to say whether he was vaccinated and wouldn’t answer questions from lawmakers about the effectiveness of vaccines.

Ladapo recently issued new guidance that discouraged private businesses from requiring their employees wear masks.

Steve Contorno Carma Hassan
Steve Contorno
Carma Hassan

Tennessee vaccine passport: Gov. Lee pushes bill banning ...

Tennessee Republicans are seizing on a conservative talking point that has taken hold in recent weeks: So-called "vaccine passports" and the need to prohibit them.

Gov. Bill Lee on Tuesday joined other Republican governors who have taken public stands in recent days against requiring proof of a COVID-19 vaccination, an issue widely discussed in conservative media.

"I think vaccine passports are a bad idea," Lee told reporters. "I do not believe governments should impose vaccine requirements or mandates in any way and I'm working with the legislature to support legislation that backs that up."

No city, county or government entity in Tennessee appears to have suggested forcing businesses to require patrons to show a vaccine passport. The legislation Lee is supporting, brought this week in the General Assembly, raises questions about existing vaccination requirements in public schools.

The bill moving through the state legislature would not prevent a private business from instituting its own vaccine requirements, according to a copy of the proposed amendment. It passed the House health subcommittee Tuesday.

"I don't think it's in the best interest of our state for businesses to impose restrictions and mandates for vaccines, but I also don't think government should impose itself in the private affairs of business practices," Lee said. "We're encouraging businesses in that way, but we're not going to restrict them."

Nashville officials, whom Lee and other Republicans have criticized for their approach to coronavirus restrictions, aren't seeking to require any such vaccine passport for commerce.

"The Metro Public Health Department does not have any plans to require proof of vaccination," said Brian Todd, spokesperson for the Nashville department. "A private business or company does have the right to require proof if they feel like it is in their best interest."

A spokesperson for Mayor John Cooper said his office shares the position of the health department. Both said the city is focused on ways to increase vaccine access and reach its "50 by 5" goal of seeing more than half of Nashville vaccinated by May.

MORE COVID-19 NEWS:Tennessee joins suit against tax mandate in COVID-19 relief plan

COVID-19 IN TENNESSEE:Nashville reports 79 new cases, two new deaths

COVID-19:Why COVID-19 vaccines for children could be the key to ending the global pandemic

Tennessee, where residents in many rural areas remain hesitant to receive the widely available COVID-19 vaccine, does not have a vaccination goal in place.

Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, the sponsor of House Bill 575, said in committee that a county neighboring his had implemented vaccine passport requirements for businesses but declined to name the county.

In an interview afterward, Ragan again refused to cite which county, explaining he "was provided information" on the issue but "did not verify that to the source."

Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, confirmed there have been no discussions in Knox County government about imposing vaccine passport requirements for businesses.

Governor opposed to public universities requiring COVID-19 vaccine proof

Lee also confirmed Tuesday he is opposed to public universities in the state requiring students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to attend classes.

"I think that private institutions have decisions they make on their own," Lee said. "I think government agencies should not have vaccine requirements."

The University of Tennessee system already mandates full-time college students submit proof of various immunizations, including Hepatitis B, Measles, Meningitis and Chickenpox.

While the University of Tennessee last summer said it intended to require a COVID-19 vaccine if it became available, the network of public universities has since backed away from that plan and announced in January it would not mandate the vaccine.

"In the interest of public health, we strongly encourage all faculty, students and staff to receive the vaccine as soon as they are eligible," spokesperson Jennifer Sicking said. "The UT System will continue to monitor COVID numbers to determine if additional measures are needed."

Under state law, children entering public grade schools must obtain a vaccine passport of sorts, called the "Official Immunization Certificate," according to the Tennessee Department of Health.

Local health departments rely on a state database, the Tennessee Immunization Information System, to generate those certificates.

Republicans in Florida, Texas have made similar announcements on vaccine passports

Lee and Tennessee legislative Republicans' vocal opposition to vaccine passports comes as conservatives in other states have raised the issue.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week issued an executive order prohibiting both government agencies and private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination to receive service, going a step further than Lee.

On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also issued an executive order barring government-mandated vaccine passports, though it does not apply to privately funded businesses.

President Joe Biden's administration on Monday and Tuesday reiterated the federal government will not be implementing a vaccine passport program, as some other countries intend to do.

"The government is not now, nor will we be, supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. "There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential."

Some other countries have already begun issuing or have announced plans to implement central vaccine passport programs.

New York state recently funded and helped launch Excelsior Pass, a voluntary app to show proof of vaccination that businesses can use as a condition for entry at concerts or other events. It is not required by the state in order to conduct business.

Monica Kast contributed.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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Iowa bill would forbid businesses from asking for COVID vaccine ...

Iowa businesses would not be able to ask about or maintain records of a person's medical treatment status — including vaccinations — under details of a bill that a group of House Republicans announced Tuesday.

The bill would prohibit businesses from hiring or firing someone based on their vaccination status and would additionally ban denying goods and services, providing incentives or discriminating based on that status. The bill would also widely prohibit mask requirements, its authors said.

The sweeping proposal mirrors a law passed by Montana lawmakers last year — the only one of its kind in the United States. During a pivotal election year, Republican-controlled state legislatures across the nation, including Iowa's, are expected to debate a bevy of coronavirus legislation aimed at pushing back against the Biden administration's approach to ending the pandemic.

While Iowa Republican leaders have expressed interest in more restrictions on vaccine mandates, the future of this proposal is uncertain.

State Republican leaders said Tuesday that they don't plan to take immediate action against vaccine mandates when the legislative session begins next week — but they didn't rule out further legislation altogether.

Both Gov. Kim Reynolds and House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said they would like to wait for the result of court challenges to the Biden administration's federal mandates before debating any new legislation.

"I think we need to wait," Reynolds, who has vocally opposed vaccine mandates and joined multiple lawsuits against them, told reporters Tuesday morning during a forum held by the Iowa Capitol Press Association.

The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments in multiple challenges to the Biden administration's vaccine-or-testing requirements for large employers and health care facilities on Friday.

Reps. Jon Jacobsen, R-Council Bluffs, and Mark Cisneros, R-Muscatine, have led work on the proposal, which would override the COVID-19 vaccination requirements that some businesses have put in place to fight the virus. The bill would apply widely to employers — including health care providers — and governmental entities but would not affect childhood immunization requirements for schools, Jacobsen said.

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Responding to leadership's comments about waiting to pass legislation, Jacobsen said he believes the "Venn diagrams are intersecting perfectly" for lawmakers to start discussing the bill while the Supreme Court is deliberating.

Jacobsen held a news conference Tuesday afternoon that included several members of a task force he had worked with to produce the bill. Presenters included several members of Informed Choice Iowa, a group that opposes vaccine mandates and has protested them at the Iowa Capitol multiple times.

Jacobsen portrayed the debate over vaccine mandates as a civil rights issue and suggested employer mandates have similarities to slavery.

“I can’t think of a greater civil rights issue than this. Think about it, if you … are coerced to lose control of your autonomy over your very body itself, you’re not in an employer-employee relationship, you’re in an indentured servant/slave relationship there," he said.

Their work follows last fall's special legislative session, when lawmakers passed a new law expanding medical and religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine. The bill also opened up unemployment benefits to workers who were fired for not complying with their employer's vaccine requirements.

More:Here's how Iowa Republican lawmakers plan to continue their fight against COVID-19 mandates in 2022

Republicans passed that law ahead of proposed federal vaccination mandates for large employers, federal contractors and health workers. Those federal mandates are facing court challenges, but several employers have required vaccinations on their own.

More than 200 Iowans have already claimed unemployment benefits for not complying with a vaccine mandate, according to state data.

More:Iowa court to see lawsuit alleging 'gross negligence' by Tyson during COVID-19 outbreaks

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, has said he plans to hold hearings for the new proposed bill in the House State Government Committee, which he chairs.

"This House Study Bill I feel is what we need to do now in response to protect Iowans," he said in the news release.

The bill says businesses that do not comply could lose their license, permit or other state authorization. It would also place liability on businesses "for any adverse reactions, injury, disabilities or death that is or may be related to the individual receiving forced medical treatment including vaccines."

The bill would still allow exceptions for records "necessary for the care and treatment of an individual," according to the bill.

It's unclear how much support the bill has, but Jacobsen said he feels "very bullish" about the bill's chances. Grassley, the House Speaker, didn't comment directly on the bill Tuesday.

"There's all sorts of bills flying around right now within the Legislature discussing what we may or may not do," he said. "Again, as the governor said, and as I stated, you know, seeing how this plays out moving forward through the courts' process … and when we get to that point, whether they're appropriate or not — we'll have

those conversations."

House Democrats, who are in the minority in the chamber, have said they believe further focusing on the issue of vaccine mandates is a distraction from other coronavirus-related steps that public officials could be taking, such as educating Iowans about the benefits of the vaccines.

"We need to spend our energy focusing on getting Iowans to get a vaccine that has been proven safe and effective," House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said Tuesday.

The Iowa Association of Business and Industry, which has opposed both the Biden administration's employer mandates and the Legislature's law that broadened exemptions, has not yet taken a position on the yet-to-be introduced bill.

"ABI members are proud of their role in keeping businesses open and the economy moving in Iowa during the COVID-19 pandemic," JD Davis, the association's vice president of public policy, said in an email. "Our members are grateful to the state officials who made this possible, including Gov. Reynolds and legislative leaders. However, it is stunning that some believe Iowa employers have been a negative aspect of the state's COVID-19 response."

Iowa's legislative session begins Monday.

Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at irichardson@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.

Stephen Gruber-Miller contributed reporting.

Gov. Mike Parson, AG Eric Schmitt push against Biden vaccine ...

Missouri's top officials are pushing back against federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements with an executive order and litigation aimed at resisting the Democratic White House on the issue of mandates.

Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, issued an executive order Thursday banning state government agencies from requiring workers to comply with federal requirements if they have religious or medical exemptions, as well as prohibiting those agencies them from penalizing workers or businesses that don't comply due to exemptions.

The order is largely symbolic at the moment, as the existing mandate from the Biden administration applies to federal employees and contractors and will have little impact on most state workers. Exceptions for religion and medical conditions are already included in the federal mandate, which takes effect Nov. 22 for federal workers and Dec. 8 for contractors.

The White House has also indicated it will order all private sector businesses with over 100 employees to require vaccination, though the exact timeline on that mandate is not known.

"In the state of Missouri, public health decisions are left to the people to either make their own personal decisions or speak through their elected representatives in the General Assembly," Parson said. "The Biden administration's vaccine mandates undermine and deny Missourians’ right to make personal health decisions and to speak through their elected representatives."

Vaccines in Missouri:Republicans blast Biden orders, lawmakers urge special session to counter

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate, said Friday he was leading a 10-state lawsuit against the Biden administration, asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to block the mandate for federal contractors. He called the federal requirement a "power grab" that "is sweeping in its scope," arguing it violates federal laws and "is an unlawful usurpation of states' police powers."

"My office has led the nation in taking action to fight back against attempts by petty tyrants to impose their control through mask mandates," Schmitt said in a statement. "Now, we're leading the nation in fighting back against this absurd federal overreach."

Schmitt's lawsuit was co-led by Nebraska AG Doug Peterson, and joined by Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. It comes a day after Florida filed a similar lawsuit seeking to block the mandate for contractors.

In his executive order, Parson ordered all divisions of state government to "cooperate fully and timely" with Schmitt's office on any litigation. The two have been among the most vocal opponents of the Biden administration's COVID-19 response and vaccine actions.

“The governor’s executive order appears carefully crafted to do absolutely nothing — except promote the attorney general’s latest frivolous lawsuit at taxpayer expense," said House Minority Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat. "If these two put as much energy into fighting the pandemic as they do into fighting those fighting the pandemic, Missouri would be in a much stronger position.”

Missouri's governor joins several others — from Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Texas — in publicly resisting the federal mandates, which have become a divisive political issue among top elected officials.

Vaccines in Missouri:Lawmakers weigh action on mandates as protesters rally at Capitol

Republicans across the state criticized the orders when President Joe Biden first introduced them in September and several conservative lawmakers asked Parson to call a special session to ban mandates for the private sector; he declined to do so. Those lawmakers later joined with an organization opposing workplace mandates to hold a protest inside the Missouri State Capitol.

As of Thursday, 49.3 percent of Missouri's population has been completely vaccinated, according to state data; it ranks below the U.S. state average of 58.26 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Galen Bacharier covers Missouri politics & government for the News-Leader. Contact him at gbacharier@news-leader.com, (573) 219-7440 or on Twitter @galenbacharier.

Iowa mask, vaccine mandate ban bill moves forward in Legislature

Opponents of vaccination mandates crowded into a Capitol meeting room Thursday for several hours to support a bill that would widely ban vaccination and mask mandates at businesses, governmental entities and schools.

The meeting came to an abrupt end around 5 p.m. as Rep. Bruce Hunter, the lone Democrat on the subcommittee, said the agreed-upon time for the meeting had run out. He left the room to join his colleagues in the House chamber, where lawmakers were also holding votes in the afternoon.

But the two Republicans decided to stay longer than the allotted three hours to allow many more people the chance to speak. After Hunter left, they announced that they would advance the bill to the full House State Government Committee.

The hearing — which extended significantly longer than most legislative subcommittee meetings — was the first test for a far-reaching bill that would specify that businesses, governments and schools couldn't fire workers based on their medical treatment status, including vaccinations.

House Study Bill 647 would also ban mask requirements and would make businesses, schools or governmental entities that violate the law liable for any adverse reactions that stem from receiving “forced medical treatment.”

In the opening hours of the subcommittee meeting, a number of speakers provided testimony taking aim at the federal government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the medical guidance on COVID-19 treatment.

"The medical freedom and privacy bill must pass," said Dr. Mollie James, who has claimed to "jailbreak" COVID-19 positive patients from hospitals. "Doctors need to be able to take care of our patients with all evidence available."

►More: Iowa doctor goes national and stages hospital 'jailbreaks' for COVID-19 patients

Hunter questioned whether some of the testimony from doctors was germane to the bill.

"It really doesn't have anything to do with whether people are being discriminated against," Hunter said.

But Rep. Jon Jacobsen, R-Council Bluffs, who led a group that drafted the bill, said much of the testimony dealt with the main issue of the bill, which is the privacy of medical data.

Some later speakers detailed their experience with vaccination mandates.

The legislation faces opposition from several Iowa health care groups, although no one from the groups had spoken before the hearing ended.

In an email, Iowa Public Health Association executive director Lina Tucker Reinders said the bill doesn't exempt health care facilities, which is concern.

"Limiting knowledge of a patient’s medical history would limit Iowa’s medical providers’ ability to deliver optimal care to patients," she wrote. "While the intent of this bill may be to protect a person’s right to remain unvaccinated, (and as a reminder, there is no COVID-19 vaccine mandate in Iowa), its far-reaching scope will have unintended and harmful consequences."

Iowa House Democrats have also criticized Republicans' focus on the issue of vaccine mandates as a distraction from other coronavirus pandemic-related steps that public officials could be taking, such as educating Iowans about the benefits of the vaccines.

Jacobsen's proposal echoes a law passed by Montana lawmakers — the only one of its kind in the United States. In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Republican-controlled state legislatures across the U.S. are expected to debate a bevy of coronavirus legislation aimed at pushing back against the Biden administration's approach to ending the pandemic.

What else would Iowa's anti-vaccine bill do?

The bill would also widely ban mask requirements and prevent entities from offering incentives for vaccination.

“Basically, what we're trying to do is get back to 2019, where you simply could not query anybody in the workplace or elsewhere based on their health status," Jacobsen said.

Background:Proposed Iowa GOP bill would forbid businesses from discriminating based on vaccine status

While it doesn't specifically name the COVID-19 vaccine, that's the bill's main target, Jacobsen said. The bill is not intended to affect existing childhood vaccine requirements for schools, he said.

Iowa Republican leaders have shared interest in more restrictions on vaccine mandates, but the future of this proposal is uncertain.

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who chairs the House State Government Committee, has said he supports holding hearings on the bill and expects it to have a full committee hearing, the next legislative hurdle in becoming a law, next week ahead of a key legislative deadline.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, told reporters Thursday that he wasn't passing immediate judgment on the legislation and expected the legislation to work its way through the process.

"I don’t think it’s my job to have a closed mind and just make a decision of the entirety of the caucus," he said. "So we’ll see what that looks like. However, I think we have to continue to remind Iowans that we have taken significant action."

What steps have Iowa lawmakers taken to curtail COVID vaccine and mask mandates?

The proposal would expand on other Republican-led efforts over the past year in Iowa that have taken aim at COVID-19 vaccination mandates. In May, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law to withhold state grants and contracts from local governments or businesses that require customers to prove they have received the COVID-19 vaccine.

In October, Reynolds signed another law giving employees of Iowa businesses wider latitude to claim medical and religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination mandates. It also allows people to receive unemployment benefits if they're fired for noncompliance.

More:Gov. Kim Reynolds signs law expanding exemptions from employer vaccine mandates; joins lawsuit against Biden

Republicans have also passed legislation prohibiting local mask mandates at schools, although an appeals court ruled in January that the state's ban cannot be enforced where masks are required to accommodate students with disabilities.

Under state law, Iowa's public schools also cannot require proof of the COVID-19 vaccine for students to enter school buildings, Iowa Department of Education spokesperson Heather Doe said in an email.

Jacobsen and other Republicans developed the legislation as legal challenges have unfolded surrounding several federal vaccination mandates the Biden administration issued last year. Requirements for employees of large businesses and for federal contractors have since been blocked in court, but mandates for health care workers and members of the military remain in effect.

Despite those existing mandates, Jacobsen said he expects to affect "probably 98%" of Iowa's population with the bill.

The Register's Tony Leys contributed to this report.

Ian Richardson covers the Iowa Statehouse for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at irichardson@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8254, or on Twitter at @DMRIanR.

Omicron variant will 'find just about everybody,' Fauci says, but ...

CNN —

As the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire across the United States, it’s likely just about everybody will be exposed to the strain, but vaccinated people will still fare better, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert said Tuesday.

“Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those who have been vaccinated … and boosted would get exposed. Some, maybe a lot of them, will get infected but will very likely, with some exceptions, do reasonably well in the sense of not having hospitalization and death.”

In contrast, those who are not vaccinated are “going to get the brunt of the severe aspect of this,” he added.

Across the United States, at least one in five eligible Americans – roughly 65 million people– are not vaccinated against Covid-19. More than 62% of the country has been fully vaccinated, but only 23% are fully vaccinated and boosted, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fauci’s comments came in response to a question about whether the pandemic has entered a new phase. That will come when there’s enough protection in the community and drugs to easily treat severe Covid-19, he said, adding, “We may be on the threshold of that right now.”

Also Tuesday, US Food and Drug Administration acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said that while most people could catch the virus, the focus now should be on making sure hospitals and essential services function.

Woodcock was responding to a question from Sen. Mike Braun about whether it’s time for the United States to change its Covid-19 strategy. Her statement was not a new assessment of Covid-19, but rather an attempt to make clear the need to prioritize essential services as the Omicron variant surges.

“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is: Most people are going to get Covid,” Woodcock said Tuesday at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. “And what we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, you know, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”

On Tuesday, the number of US patients hospitalized with Covid-19 hit a record high, adding strain to health care networks and pushing states toward emergency staffing and other measures as they struggle to cope.

More than 145,900 people were in US hospitals with Covid-19 as of Tuesday – a number that surpasses the previous peak from mid-January 2021 (142,246), and is almost twice what it was two weeks ago, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The hospitalization record comes amid a surge in cases fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The United States averaged more than 754,200 new Covid-19 cases daily over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That’s about three times last winter’s peak average (251,987 on January 11, 2021), and 4.5 times the peak from the Delta-driven surge (166,347 on September 1), according to JHU.

The country has averaged 1,646 Covid-19 deaths a day over the past week – 33% higher than a week ago, according to JHU. The peak average was 3,402 daily on January 13, 2021, JHU data shows.

The Omicron variant caused 98.3% of new coronavirus cases in the United States last week, according to estimates posted Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A technician administers a Covid-19 test Monday at a drive-thru location at Churchill Downs, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Leaders activate new measures to combat surging numbers

Hospitals are increasingly juggling staffing issues – not just because of the increased demand, but also because their employees, who are at a high risk of infection, have to isolate and recover after testing positive.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam declared a limited state of emergency Monday after the number of intensive care unit hospitalizations more than doubled since December 1. The order allows hospitals to expand bed capacity and gives more flexibility in staffing, he said, adding that it also expands the use of telehealth as well as expanding which medical professionals can give vaccines.

In Texas, at least 2,700 medical staffers are being hired, trained and deployed to assist with the surge, joining more than 1,300 personnel already sent across the state, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement to CNN.

Kentucky has mobilized the National Guard to provide support, with 445 members sent to 30 health care facilities, the state announced.

“Omicron continues to burn through the commonwealth, growing at levels we have never seen before. Omicron is significantly more contagious than even the Delta variant,” said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, noting the earlier variant that spurred a surge of cases in the summer and fall.

“If it spreads at the rate we are seeing, it is certainly going to fill up our hospitals,” he said, and Kentucky is “down to 134 adult ICU beds available.”

And New Jersey reinstated a public health emergency, Gov. Phil Murphy announced, saying the state needed to “commit every resource available to beating back the wave” caused by Omicron. In the past two weeks alone, the state saw more than 10,000 people requiring hospitalization due to Covid-19, the governor said in a video announcement.

Mitigation measures such as mandatory masking are also being revived in some areas.

Delaware Gov. John Carney signed a universal indoor mask mandate Monday because of hospitalization increases, with some hospitals “over 100% inpatient bed capacity amid crippling staffing shortages,” he said. Churches and places of worship are exempt, while businesses should provide masks to customers and have signage about indoor mask requirements.

“It’s time for everyone to pitch in and do what works. Wear your mask indoors. Avoid gatherings or expect to get and spread Covid. Get your vaccine and, if eligible, get boosted. That’s how we’ll get through this surge without endangering more lives,” Carney said.

Share of hospitalizations from breakthrough infections is growing, but risks for unvaccinated are higher

The HHS data on Covid-19 hospitalizations includes both those patients who are hospitalized because of Covid-19 complications and those who may have been admitted for something else but test positive for Covid-19. This has been true throughout the pandemic, though the share of patients who fall into each category may have changed over time.

Fully vaccinated people are accounting for a growing share of people hospitalized with Covid-19 – but hospitalizations among people who received a booster shot are still rare, and the gap in risk by vaccination status has been wide.

Between April and July 2021, before the emergence of the Omicron variant, more than 90% of Covid-19 hospitalizations were among people who were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, according to a study published by the CDC.

But a sampling of data collected by CNN suggests that figure has dropped to somewhere between 60% and 75% in recent days and months:

• In Pennsylvania, about 75% of Covid-19 hospitalizations between September and early December 2021 were among people who were not fully vaccinated, according to data from the state health department.

• In New York, about 61% of Covid-19 hospitalizations during the week ending January 2, 2022 were among people who were not fully vaccinated, according to data from the state health department.

• Beaumont Health, the largest health care system in Michigan, reported on Thursday that 62% of Covid-19 patients in its eight hospitals were unvaccinated.

In some hospitals, up to 40% of patients with Covid-19 “are coming in not because they’re sick with Covid, but because they’re coming in with something else and have had Covid or the Omicron variant detected,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told Fox News on Sunday.

But Covid-19 cases in hospitals strain resources, regardless of whether a patient was hospitalized because of Covid-19, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said.

“If they get (incidentally) diagnosed with Covid in the hospital, they still need to go into infection protocol – personal protective equipment, all of that still needs to be utilized. So it’s a huge drain on the system overall,” Gupta said Tuesday.

While fully vaccinated people are accounting for a larger share of Covid-19 hospitalizations, multiple accounts suggest that those who are fully vaccinated and boosted account for a small share.

In the University of Maryland Medical System, less than 5% of hospitalized patients were fully vaccinated and boosted, President and CEO Dr. Mohan Suntha said Thursday. Beaumont Health reported Thursday that only 8% of Covid-19 patients were fully vaccinated and boosted.

The CDC did not respond to CNN’s multiple requests for data on the share of Covid-19 hospitalizations by vaccination status.

The agency publishes data on its website regarding the relative risk by vaccination status. Cumulatively, the risk of hospitalization has been eight times higher for unvaccinated people than for fully vaccinated people. But in the last week of November, CDC data showed that hospitalization rates were about 17 times higher for unvaccinated people than for fully vaccinated people.

Schools and industries face Omicron issues

The debate over safety in schools from Covid-19 continues to play out as only about one in six children ages 5 to 11 is fully vaccinated, according to data from the CDC.

As Los Angeles prepared to return to school on Tuesday, approximately 62,000 students and staff had tested positive for Covid-19 and will have to stay home, data from the Los Angeles Unified School District showed Monday, equating to a 14.99% positivity rate. The positivity rate of Los Angeles County at large, by comparison, has spiked to 22%.

In Chicago, educators returned to school Tuesday and students are expected to resume in-person learning Wednesday following a nearly weeklong dispute. The Chicago Teachers Union had voted to teach remotely last week, and the school district responded by canceling classes for four days.

The agreement, announced late Monday, included metrics for when a classroom would need to go remote due to Covid-19 levels.

In areas where schools have returned to in-person learning after the holiday break, the time needed for those with Covid-19 to recover has impacted some essential services.

Other sectors also are struggling due to high infection rates.

Some municipalities have seen nearly a quarter of their trash collection workforce call in sick in recent weeks due to Covid-19, leading to delays, according to the Solid Waste Association of North America.

“This coincided, unfortunately, with increased trash and recycling volumes associated with the holidays. However, we hope that as volumes decline and sanitation workers return to work, these delays will prove temporary,” executive director and CEO David Biderman said in a statement Monday.

In travel, US airlines canceled thousands of additional flights over the weekend due to Covid-19 callouts and winter storms, and cruise line Royal Caribbean International announced it has canceled voyages on four ships because of “ongoing Covid-related circumstances around the world.” Last week, Norwegian Cruise Line canceled the voyages of eight ships.

Public transit systems in major metropolitan areas such as New York City and Washington, DC, have had to scale back service with employees ill from Covid-19. In Detroit, 20-25% of SMART bus service is canceled or delayed, the agency said in a statement Saturday.

Travis Caldwell Jason Hanna Deidre Mcphillips Christina Maxouris