Women’s work, ‘Curated Cocktails,’ Met Gala: News from around our 50 states From USA TODAY Network and wire reports
Alabama
Montgomery: The state has temporarily paused giving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine out of an “abundance of caution” while federal officials investigate reports of rare blood clots, the state health officer announced Tuesday. Dr. Scott Harris cautioned people to remember those were just six incidents out of 6.8 million doses of the J&J vaccine that have been given across the nation. “COVID-19 vaccine safety is a top priority for Alabama. It is important to know that the adverse effects potentially stemming from the Johnson & Johnson shot have been extremely rare in the country, but out of an abundance of caution, Alabama is temporarily pausing these shots until we know more,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. Some vaccine appointments were likely canceled this week, Harris said. But he said the J&J vaccine ma
KUT
The director of Austin Public Health says the department needs to change its process to reach and vaccinate more people in Austin and Travis County after nearly 3 out of 4 first-dose coronavirus vaccine appointments released Monday went unfilled. In conversations with some of my colleagues across the state of Texas, a lot of us are getting to a point where we re going to have to pivot and change strategies, Stephanie Hayden-Howard told a joint session of the Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday. Because now we re at a point where there is more vaccine that is readily available in our community. So we must be strategic and start [making] those changes.
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KUT
Cars line up at at drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination site at the Toney Burger Activity Center in South Austin last month.
Numbers tracking the coronavirus pandemic in the Austin area have stopped improving and could worsen, new projections show.
The projections released Friday by UT s COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, show lines flattening in the weeks ahead and possibly rising. The consortium reports a 32% probability that the pandemic will worsen here and a reproduction number of .91. A rate above 1 would mean the pandemic is growing in severity. We re seeing plateauing of the projections for hospital admissions, ICU admissions and hospital utilization, Austin Public Health interim Medical Director Dr. Mark Escott said in a briefing. And as of today, entering the stage 2 is off of the projections through the first week of May.