U.S. Seeing Increased COVID Transmission Despite Vaccinations

• In today’s Recommendations for Industry, we discuss the trends being seen in the TAG Risk Matrices. Read more below!
• The global COVID-19 death toll has surpassed 4 million individuals, with this count being more-than-likely underreported.
• 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.”
• The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has published a piece on COVID-19 misinformation – both within the U.S., but also globally. Variants, Misinformation, and ‘Brain Drain’ — The COVID-19 Vaccine Experience in Brazil, India, and Africa discusses the need for vaccine equity and misinformation’s negative impacts on achieving this.
• Prior to the Olympics, Japan is declaring a state of emergency for the next six weeks.
• New data finds that 30 county clusters (in the U.S.) with low vaccination rates and high populations continue to see COVID-19 cases rise (Delta variant) which threatens the overall safety in the U.S. Some of these clusters are included in Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
• Europe’s new COVID-19 passport is known as “Green Pass.”
• There is continued concern that reported COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. prison system is undercounting the number of individuals who have actually become ill and died.

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U.S. Seeing Increased COVID Transmission Despite Vaccinations

This week’s TAG matrices are showing a general country-wide upward trend of increased COVID-19 transmission rates, even in states with higher vaccination rates. This is a backward trend, likely due primarily to the high transmissibility of the Delta variant, and the reduced efficacy of vaccines against it.

With 40% of states having transmission rates above 1 – indicating that each person infected is transmitting the virus to more than one other person – TAG recommends that businesses keep a watchful eye out on the conditions in their communities and adjust worker protections as needed.

Risk Matrix

We have made a few changes to our risk matrix given the current conditions (and varied vaccination & case rates across the country). While we had originally marked our Test Positive Rates (TPR) cut-off rate at 10%, we are now using 5% as the cut-off. Additionally, we are now using a case rate > 10 cases/100k people as that is still a cut-off point that marks the beginning of concern.

TAG’s Matrix is showing:

• The Government Stringency Index is 23 this week. This is the same as last week, indicating a stability in government stringencies.
• Arkansas (16 cases/100k), Florida (10 cases/100K), Missouri (16 cases/100k), Nevada (15 cases/100k), Utah (13 cases/100k) and Wyoming (12 cases/100k) have a TPR ≥ 5%.
• No states have a TPR < 5% and a case rate ≥ 10/100k people.

Table 1.

Figure 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

• The FDA is hosting a webcast today, Thursday July 08, 2021 (12:00 PM – 1:00PM ET) on “SARS-CoV-2: Host-pathogen interaction, vaccines and variants of concern” presented by Professor Miles W. Carroll (Head of Emerging Pathogens Group at Oxford University) to discuss “how the human body responds to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection which will help in future treatments” while presenting results on the immunological response to infection and vaccination.
• J&J vaccine protects against Delta variant for at least 8 months, studies find J&J vaccine protects against delta variant for at least 8 months, studies find (healio.com)
  • Data from two preprint studies, submitted to bioRxiv, showed that Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose COVID-19 vaccine generates “strong, persistent activity” against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, including the rapidly spreading Delta variant
  • Data demonstrating the efficacy of the vaccine against variants came from a preprint study that assessed blood samples obtained from a subset of eight participants in the phase 3 ENSEMBLE study, which showed that the shot elicited neutralizing antibody activity against the delta variant “at an even higher level than what was recently observed for the beta variant (B.1.351) in South Africa.” According to the trial, the vaccine was 85% effective against severe disease and protected against hospitalization and death.
  • The second preprint study showed that the vaccine generated “a strong neutralizing antibody response that does not wane” but actually improved over time through at least 8 months
• COVID-19 Falls to 7th Among Leading Causes of Death in the U.S.
  • An updated issue brief examines COVID-19’s effect on mortality rates, and finds that as of June 2021, COVID-19 has fallen to number seven on the list of the top ten leading causes of death in the U.S. As recently as January 2021, COVID was the number one leading cause of death, with an average of 3,136 people dying daily. Amid widespread availability of vaccines, that number has fallen to an average of 300 daily deaths in June 2021. (Issue Brief)
• Almost half of US reported rising cases last week, attributed to Delta variant surge: Latest COVID-19 Updates Delta COVID variant spikes Missouri, Mississippi cases: Updates (usatoday.com)
  • Alaska and Arkansas more than doubled cases in just the last week. South Carolina and Kansas are up more than 50%
  • In Missouri, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients jumped by nearly 30% over the Fourth of July weekend in a hard-hit area where immunization rates are low, leading to a temporary ventilator shortage and a public call for help from respiratory therapists
  • About 95% of those hospitalizations have been in unvaccinated Mississippians, officials said.
• In last Thursday’s Recommendations for Industry, we discussed the U.S. risk matrix and despite fairly steady trends, cautions in the workplace are still needed. Read more here.
• A recent study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, published in Nature has found evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines may generate immune structures (through the germinal center) leading to lasting immunity against COVID-19.
• Moderna announced that its vaccine is effective against all COVID-19 variants, including high efficacy against the Delta variant!
• The Chinese COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac, appears to be safe and produce a good immune response in children under the age of 3, as published in The Lancet.
• The NY Times explores why young adults are among the groups with lower vaccination rates and why they may still be holding out against getting the vaccine!
• As discussed previously, the rise in US-COVID-19 cases is primarily driven by the Delta variant. Despite this, there COVID-19 vaccination sites are shutting down and scaling back.
• The Kaiser Foundation’s recent report has found a few big things: “Workers Are More Likely to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine When Their Employers Encourage It and Provide Paid Sick Leave, Though Most Workers Don’t Want Their Employers to Require It”, “3 in 4 Adults Live in Homes Where Either Everyone is Vaccinated or Everyone Remains Unvaccinated” and “A Third of Parents with Kids Ages 12-17 Report Their Kids Are Now Vaccinated; Most Parents Oppose Mandatory Vaccinations for School Children”.

Public Health and Food Safety:

• Deadly Listeria outbreak behind massive recall of Tyson chicken
  • The frozen chicken was shipped nationwide to retailers and institutions including hospitals, nursing facilities, restaurants, schools and Department of Defense locations
  • Products include frozen, fully cooked chicken strips, diced chicken, chicken wing sections, and fully cooked pizza with chicken
  • Products were sold under many brands including Tyson, Jet’s Pizza, Casey’s General Store, Marco’s Pizza, and Little Caesars