Black Americans also are less likely to get vaccinated than white Americans. Of the Black adults who say they won’t take the vaccine, half are worried they may get COVID-19 from it, according to a report by the Kaiser COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor.
“If (patients) are not in an extended facility, they’re at home. Their families are going to be of the same ethnicity and their family members are on the front lines,” Baker said. “We need to start from the front lines to make things equitable.
Baker said more education and transparency is needed to overcome rational distrust in the medical system after centuries of structural racism, especially after a CDC study last week found that more than half of nursing home staff declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19 when they were offered a shot.
On the same day it hosted Super Bowl LV, Florida on Sunday became the first state to report 200 cases of coronavirus variants, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
The concerning news comes as public health officials across the nation are bracing for a possible surge in coronavirus infections for those who may have failed to take heed of warnings not to gather for Super Bowl parties.
The game itself was played before 22,000 masked fans, many of them vaccinated health care workers, at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium, but videos on social media after the game showed revelers in Tampa, many maskless and ignoring social distancing guidance, celebrating in the streets.
USA TODAY
Some pregnant women remain unsure about getting the COVID-19 vaccine because safety data is scarce and health agency guidelines are
vague and in some cases contradictory.
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Monday that about 10,000 pregnant women in the U.S. have been vaccinated since the Food and Drug Administration authorized two vaccines, and so far there have been “no red flags.”
“We had a lot of pregnant women vaccinated. The FDA followed them and will continue to follow them,” he said during a media roundtable at the IAS COVID-19 Conference: Prevention. “Even though we don’t have good data on it, the data that we’re collecting on it so far has no red flags.”
USA TODAY
The virus that causes COVID-19 changes all the time. In most cases, the changes are harmless. But they can add up. And when they do, the virus can become more contagious or deadlier, and potentially evade vaccines, treatment, diagnostics or natural immunity.
We know that a number of these potentially more dangerous or difficult variants are circulating in the U.S. in increasing numbers. But scientific leaders say there s no reason to panic about the variants yet.
Instead, what needs to happen is more research into the potential risks of these variants, better tracking of these changes and a doubling down on protection efforts that we know work, including wearing face masks, avoiding crowds, and getting vaccinated as soon as possible.
In the headlines:
► Canada won’t be getting any Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines next week and 50% fewer than expected over the next month, officials said Tuesday, prompting the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, to ask U.S. President Joe Biden to share a million doses from Pfizer’s Michigan plant.
► Florida’s surgeon general urged the federal government Wednesday to increase allotments of coronavirus vaccine to states like his where large concentrations of seniors face the greatest risk of illness and death from COVID-19.
► India began supplying coronavirus vaccines to its neighboring countries on Wednesday. India’s Foreign Ministry said the country would send 150,000 shots of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine to Bhutan and 100,000 shots to the Maldives.