Increased Cases May Necessitate Re-masking Mandates

• In today’s Recommendations for Industry, we discuss the potential for increased case rates potentially necessitating re-masking mandates. What does that mean for you, your business, and your employees? Read more below!
• The Delta variant is the dominant COVID-19 variant, globally; in fact, global COVID-19 deaths have begun to rise with illnesses jumping over 10% over the past week. Countries with the greatest cases, this last week, include Brazil, India, Indonesia, the UK, and Columbia. Despite an increase in vaccines being shipped/delivered to Asia (which has seen their worst surge in COVID-19 infections), Indonesia has surpassed India as Asia’s new COVID-19 epicenter.
• The Delta variant now accounts for 58% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States; we see this in the Risk Matrix in today’s newsletter & Recommendations for Industry! Similarly, hospitalizations of younger children (due to the Delta variant) have risen in two states, including Mississippi. Despite this, rates of vaccine hesitancy are still high in states (many of which have the highest COVID-19 cases).
• After Pfizer’s briefing with the FDA/CDC, both the FDA & CDC announced that nothing has changed and that fully vaccinated Americans don’t need a booster vaccine shot (at this time).
• Based on a recent real-world study from Israel, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has been found to be safe and have 78% efficacy in preventing infections in pregnant women.
• A recent publication in Lancet with data from South Africa has found that there is a potential that the Beta variant of COVID-19 may be deadlier (with a 30% increase of in-hospital death).
• “Children are not just little adults”; why the COVID-19 vaccine isn’t available for kids, yet!

Public Health & Food Safety:

• Five European countries (Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands) are investigating Salmonella illnesses associated with tahini and halva from Syria.

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Increased Cases May Necessitate Re-masking Mandates

We are continuing to see increases in COVID case rates across the country with some specifically identified hotspots of concern including the states of Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Nevada. With 90% of new cases identified in low vaccination-rate areas, it is becoming more and more obvious that states with higher rates of vaccinations are showing lower incidences of new cases.

With the Delta variant clearly now being the prominent strain – accounting for about 58% of cases in the US, according to CDC, the increase is also leading to increased hospitalizations (especially of those in their 20s to 40s) and is likely to lead to increased death rates within the next month. However, if the US is to follow the UK trends, with this year’s current wave of cases mimicking the autumn 2020 wave, the cases should cause fewer hospitalizations and deaths, potentially because Delta is impacting younger, healthier populations.

At this point, TAG recommends businesses take a watchful approach, keeping an eye on case rates in your areas and keeping an even closer eye on your employees. Anyone with symptoms should stay out, and if you do have an outbreak in your workforce, re-masking mandates should be implemented immediately.

With the increases being seen, TAG is receiving numerous client questions on parameters for potentially reversing, or just slowing, the relaxation of worker COVID protections. To assist in your efforts, we are doing a full assessment and will be providing more information in next week’s newsletters, and the Return to Work Toolkit. (Contact TAG for more information on the toolkit.)

Risk Matrix

TAG’s Matrix is showing:

• The Government Stringency Index is 21 this week. This is down from 23 last week, indicating a decrease in government stringencies.
• Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming have a TPR ≥ 5% and a case rate ≥ 10/100k people.
• No states have a TPR < 5% and a case rate ≥ 10/100k people.

As you can see in Table 1, below, case rates for Arkansas and Missouri have exceeded 20 cases/100k population, which puts these states in a fairly high-risk situation. Similarly, over the past 2 – 4 weeks, case rates have steadily climbed above 10 cases/100k in Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. In these latter states, the Test Positive Rates are all above 5% and vaccinations are on the lower end (all below 40% of the population are fully vaccinated).

Table 1.

Figure 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

• In Tuesday’s Recommendations for Industry, we discussed TAG’s new whitepaper on how the pandemic has led to a shift in worker mindsets and what that means for your business. Read more here.
• Although the CDC and FDA have both issued statements that a booster shot against COVID-19 is not needed (at this time, based on current information), Pfizer is expected to discuss vaccine boosters (and its need) with officials in the next few days.
• Additionally, the WHO Director-General is encouraging Moderna and Pfizer to focus on supplying the COVAX vaccine supply (to push down vaccine inequities globally) rather than simply focusing on creating boosters. At the same time, in Israel, COVID-19 booster shots are being offered to at-risk adults.
• With the increase in COVID-19 cases – mostly in unvaccinated populations – especially in five hotspots including Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Nevada – deaths are expected to rise as COVID-19 death rates tend to “follow three to four weeks behind spikes in cases.”
• The CDC has issued new guidance for schools this fall, emphasizing reopening as “many students have suffered from months of virtual learning.”
• There is fear that attendance at the Euro 2021 finals may lead to another COVID-19 outbreak.
• The FDA has added another warning for the J&J vaccine, now indicating that there is a very small potential risk of Guillan-Barré syndrome which has been identified in 10 individuals out of 12.8 million people who have received the vaccine. Altogether, the J&J vaccine is still safe.
• President Biden is making moves to bring about vaccination to more individuals living in the U.S., “including door-to-door outreach, sending vaccines to health care providers and pediatricians who can encourage adolescents to get shots, wider availability at pharmacies and expanding mobile clinics and vaccination sites for workers.”

Public Health & Food Safety:

• There are new changes to the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances (National List); these changes will go into effect on July 26.
• A recent study from UGA found that 60% “of cattle fecal samples contained multiple strains of Salmonella that traditional testing methods missed” and that “one out of every 10 samples tested positive for Salmonella Reading, a drug-resistant serotype of ”