Where There’s (COVID) Smoke…

• In today’s Recommendations for Industry, we discuss the U.S. risk matrix and despite fairly steady trends, cautions in the workplace are still needed. Read more below.
• 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 announces 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, their 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.”

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Where There's (COVID) Smoke…

TAG’s weekly matrix is showing some fairly steady trends. However, in most states, we are only seeing case rates as being flat or slightly increasing; we are no longer seeing much decline – likely due to the increased cases of the Delta variant. At the same time, we are seeing the rate of new vaccinations slow, the closure of mass vaccination sites, and other signs of general reductions in COVID protections.

With all this, it is likely that businesses are beginning to find some workers reluctant to continue masking in the workplace when it is not being required elsewhere. However, neither CDC, OSHA, nor other federal agencies have backed off on their recommendations, advising that the unvaccinated continue to mask and maintain distance. TAG recommends that businesses continue to implement protections as needed and encourage or incentivize workers to be vaccinated – while working to find a balance between lifting workplace restrictions while continuing to protect workers. As our matrix shows, we’re doing okay, but we are still seeing some smoldering ashes and wisps of smoke, so we need to be sure that if things flare up, we are ready to react.

Risk Matrix

TAG’s Matrix is showing:

• • The Government Stringency Index is 23 this week. This is up from 22 last week, indicating a slight increase in government stringencies.
  • In Figure 1, this week, we compare the case rate/100K (Table 1) in the population to the percentage of a state’s population that has been fully vaccinated (Table 2). Table 3 compares the previous week’s percentage of states’ populations that have become fully vaccinated full dose (and the rate of change between the last week and this week).
  • As with last week, no states have a TPR ≥ 10% or TPR <10% and a case rate ≥25/100K people! However, vaccination rates are decreasing which can be problematic, especially as the Delta-variant cases are increasing in lower vaccination rate populations.

Table 1.

Figure 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

• In Tuesday’s Recommendations for Industry, we discussed how to implicate protections based off your employee’s vaccination status. Read more here.
• As the Delta variant’s prevalence rises throughout the country and throughout the world (especially in areas with lower vaccination rates), countries are tightening (or re-tightening) restrictions.
  • In fact, India is currently tracking a Delta variant offshoot, known as Delta Plus which “carries a mutation in the spike protein” similar to the Beta (B1351) variant.
  • In the UK, the Delta variant makes up 95% of all sequenced cases. The UK also saw a 46% increase of cases, just in the last week alone!
  • New travel restrictions are being reinstated and reevaluated in Europe. In fact, Germany is currently restricting entry from Portugal and Russia. As part of this, Portugal is the first EU nation to announce the Delta variant as its dominant variant strain. For those wishing to enter Spain, Malta, and Portugal, they will need to show that they are vaccinated; otherwise, a quarantine may be required or they will be restricted from entering.
  • Israel is reimposing indoor mask orders as their cases also continue to rise!
  • And South Africa is tightening its COVID rules as Africa’s (as a whole) third wave continues to rage.
  • Hong Kong is also banning all incoming flights from the UK; the UK will be classified as an “extremely high-risk” country from HK’s perspective.
  • COVID-19 outbreak is expanding in Australia.
• Bloomberg has interviewed the last and only foreign scientist to have worked at the Wuhan Lab, virologist Dr. Danielle Anderson.
• India is currently seeking E.U. approval for its own native vaccine, Covishield.
• There is another study that has shown that the “mix-and-match approach to COVID vaccines” can provide good protection against COVID.
• The NYT reports that a new trial shows that a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine can boost protections even more!
• The FDA is hosting a webcast on July 08, 2021 (12:00 PM – 1:00PM ET) on “SARS-CoV-2: Host-pathogen interaction, vaccines and variants of concern” hosted 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.”

Public Health and Food Safety:

• Food Safety News reports that the confirmed number of Salmonella infections from backyard chicken flocks now stands at 474 people; sickened individuals live in 46 states with 1/3 of patients younger than 5 years old.