On Monday: The FDA expanded the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine boosters to children ages 12 to 15. They also considered that vaccine uptake among 12- to 17-year-olds has slowed recently and weighed the record numbers of Covid-19 cases in children amid a surge of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The advisers made the recommendation after hearing research on rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis in young people who have gotten Covid-19 vaccines and noting that many parents are concerned about long-term side effects of vaccines. Rochelle Walensky must sign off on the recommendation for it to take effect. “A single Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine booster dose is recommended for persons aged 12-17 years at least five months after primary series under the FDA’s emergency use authorization,” the new recommendation said.ĬDC Director Dr. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 13-1 Wednesday in favor of expanding the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine booster recommendation to include people ages 12 to 17. Health officials are instead focused on amplifying and educating people on best practices and suggest parents get their kids into better-fitting masks if necessary.Įvery variant of Covid-19 “teaches us to continue to be humble in the face of a fast-moving, sneaky infection that mutates rapidly throughout different parts of the globe,” Ghaly said. Though he encouraged the use of surgical grade masks, Ghaly said there is no plan to mandate the use of N95 or KN95 masks, even in schools. Double masking is also an acceptable approach. Ghaly urged the public to ensure that masks are high-quality, well-fitted and have a good seal around the nose and mouth. “We are looking at the impact of Covid on our hospital system and its collective ability to serve Californians, as what is going to help us determine when it’s appropriate to lift the indoor mask mandate,” state Health Secretary Mark Ghaly said in a teleconference with reporters. ![]() Health officials will be eyeing hospitalizations as a metric to drop the mandate, but don’t have a specific number as a goal and will rather look at the big picture of Covid’s current status as well as predictive models to make their decision. 15 as the Omicron variant began to take hold in the state. The mandate to wear face coverings at indoor locations was reinstated in California on Dec. “It’s difficult to really predict precisely what could happen in the next couple of weeks.”Ĭalifornia’s mask mandate for indoor public places will remain in effect until at least mid-February, health officials announced Wednesday. “There is a variety of reasons that are really leading to challenges in trying to predict what hospitalization numbers might look like,” she said. There are “lots of unknowns” about what hospitalizations may look like over the next couple of weeks, according to Herlihy. “But, while we see case numbers that are unlike anything we’ve seen previously, we see percent positivity values that are higher than we have seen previously, we are not seeing that same trend, at least at this point, in our hospitalization numbers.” ![]() “We have seen a rapid increase in the number of hospitalizations here in Colorado,” she said. We are now up above 25%, which is the highest value we’ve had since the beginning of the pandemic,” she added.Ĭolorado is estimated to be on day 18 of the Covid-19 surge, according to Herlihy, and it will take several more weeks before a clear peak in hospitalizations is seen. “You can see this really rapid rise in our percent positivity value. Specifically, this data looks at PCR based tests or molecular tests.” ![]() This is the percentage of tests that are being reported to Public Health that come back positive. When introducing a slide showing the data during a news conference, state epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy said, “You can see our percent positivity data. Colorado’s seven-day average positivity rate is above 25%, the highest since the start of the pandemic, according to health officials.
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