The summer months are now coming to a close as the United States begins to head towards its colder seasons, something health officials have been dreading since the initial coronavirus outbreak in March. With the hotter months of the year not bringing any halt to the virus's spread, the U.S. will be forced to enter a dual flu and coronavirus season as the population moves into indoor activities.
Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant sectary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters on Tuesday, reported by CNBC, that the U.S. has had some minor victories decreasing both state infection rates and hospitalizations since the outbreak's July peak. That success was attributed to public health mandates like masks, social distancing, testing and contact tracing. However, there are still several states that have positivity rates, or the percentage of positive tests, that are above 10%, risks more severe outbreaks without social intervention.
With the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend, often seen as the end of summer, Giroir warns that the citizens needs to remain responsible so that the coronavirus can be mostly controlled in the fall. Yet, the U.S. has not had too much success in the past avoiding typical holiday gatherings, with major outbreaks correlating to past national celebrations like Memorial Day and Independence Day.
"If we get through this weekend, as Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said yesterday on the governors' call, and we do what we're supposed to do, we're going to be in really good shape going into the fall," Giroir stated, quoted by CNBC.
Vaccine Update
A panel of health experts from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, commissioned earlier by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, have laid out recommendations on ways to best distribute COVID-19 vaccines once they are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for public use and made available. The plan created by the panel consists of four phases.
In the first phase, vaccines would be given to health-care workers and those who are most vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infection, like the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. The panel noted that this would be about 15% of the U.S. population.
The second phase would include essential workers, teachers, and those in group settings like people in homeless shelters and prisons as well as staff of those facilities. Phase two will also include all older adults that did not qualify for phase one.
Phase three will then provide the vaccine to young adults and children, effectively accounting for 85% to 95% of the nation's population by the end of the phase. The fourth phase aims to include everyone else who was not able to get vaccinated in the pervious phases.
Contact Tracing Update
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) announced Tuesday that they will be expanding their COVID-19 contact notification software beyond the need for a separate app by adding the capability to the next iOS and Android respective updates in September.
Users will now be able to opt-in to receive push notifications about potential COVID-19 exposure without relying on public health authorities to create and utilize an app. The pair's software uses Bluetooth signals from iPhone or Android smartphones to determine how closely as for how long a user had come into contact with an infected individual also using the technology. The software dose not collect any location or identifying data; its goal is to help those who may be infected have the ability to self-quarantine and get tested as early as possible, not necessarily contact trace.
Apple and Google's system relies on large public adoption to be most effective, so the two hope the new system will led to more users by reducing barriers to entry.