In the United States, officials are rolling out new incentives to encourage vaccination as demand slows. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Thursday launched a $2 million lottery that will distribute dozens of $40,000 cash prizes to vaccinated residents — along with a grand prize of $400,000. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) also announced a $5 million “vax and scratch” lottery.
Here are some significant developments:
What are Americans making for dinner? Reservations.
With nearly half of all Americans at least partially vaccinated and 100 percent of Americans tired of their own cooking, restaurant traffic is rocketing back.
Restaurant reservations, including diners who placed themselves on waiting lists, were up 46 percent in April compared with April 2019, according to the review site Yelp (and up 23,000 percent compared with April 2020, when most Americans began staying at home during the pandemic). Yelp’s competitor OpenTable paints a similarly rosy picture.
In some states, restaurant traffic has blown by pre-pandemic levels, prompting industry experts to draw parallels between now and the Roaring ‘20s, which followed the 1918 influenza pandemic, bringing boom times for restaurants and other parts of the hospitality industry.
True pandemic death toll could be 6-to-8 million, WHO official says
The true death toll of the coronavirus pandemic could be much higher than the official figure of 3.4 million people, a World Health Organization official said Friday, estimating that the global loss of life could be as high as 8 million.
Speaking at a virtual briefing, Samira Asma, WHO’s assistant director general for data and analytics, said the official figure was probably an underestimate.
“This number would truly be two to three times higher,” she said. “So I think safely about 6-to-8 million deaths could be an estimate on a cautionary note.”
The current lower figure is likely to be a reflection of countries underreporting cases and death tolls, which has long been a problem amid the health crisis. Factors such as lack of testing, confusion over other possible causes of death and questionable data from some governments can muddy the waters.
Earlier this month, the British Medical Journal cited a study that indicated Britain’s death toll could be as high as 209,000 — official figures put it at 127,000 — and that the figure in the United States could be more than 905,000, significantly higher than the 588,000 cited by coronavirus resource centers and officials.
Dogs are effective in detecting the coronavirus, study shows
Dogs are able to better detect the presence of the coronavirus than many rapid lateral flow tests, according to a French study that found that the animals had an accuracy rate of 97 percent when it came to identifying positive swabs and 91 percent when sniffing out negative readings.
French officials say the study, which was led by France’s national veterinary school and the research unit of a Paris hospital, is the first of its kind and highlights how useful dogs can be in the fight to contain the pandemic, which has claimed more than 3.4 million lives globally.
In the study, which was carried out on more than 300 people in March and April, researchers took pads that had been held for two minutes under the armpits of participants and sealed them in jars before giving them to at least two of the nine dogs to sniff.
Officials involved with the study confirmed that participants were aged between 6 and 76 and that dog handlers on-site were not aware of which samples were positive.
With many countries easing lockdown restrictions and attempting to rebuild shattered economies, accurate rapid diagnostic tests have been widely used in a bid to curb infections, welcome crowds back to events and as a safety device to allow freedom of travel.
But according to a broad review of more than 60 studies, lateral flow tests are estimated to have a success rate of 72 percent when it comes to identifying positive results from people who reported coronavirus symptoms and 58 percent when it came to identifying those who did not.
“These are excellent results, comparable with those of a PCR test,” Professor Jean-Marc Tréluyer told French media as the Paris hospital board said the investigation serves to highlight the ability dogs have to detect the coronavirus.
Perspective: When it comes to unmasking, do we trust each other to follow the rules?
A new dimension of social anxiety opened up last week, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention liberated the smiles, scowls and jowls of Americans with new guidance saying masks aren’t needed for those of us who are fully vaccinated.
Cities and states quickly scrambled to revise their requirements. Many lifted the mandate completely; some left the decision up to individual businesses. D.C., for example, continued to require masks on public transportation, in schools and medical offices, and inside any business that requires it.
But those of us who haven’t been jabbed? Keep the masks on, please.
Vaccines for crawfish: How New Orleans is luring critical tourism back
Fifteen months after the New Orleans’ French Quarter was completely shut down, visitors and music are slowly returning.
The city is hoping continued vaccination efforts, in a state where vaccine hesitancy is high, will help a billion dollar tourism industry get back on its feet.
Japan confirms plans to issue vaccine certification for travel
Japan is planning to issue certificates to people who have completed their coronavirus vaccination schedule as a growing number of advanced economies move toward reopening for international travel later this year.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on Thursday that he would lead an intergovernmental team to explore such certification, sometimes known as “vaccination passports,” the Nikkei newspaper reported. The program is likely to begin with physical certificates. The government is looking into creating an app, which local media said could be based on a verification system that the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation are helping to develop.
The Nikkei said that the certificates are envisioned for use at borders and hotels. Asia’s second-largest economy has barred most international travelers from entry since the start of the pandemic and Japanese business groups, including the influential Keidanren, have been pushing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government to create a system to facilitate travel.
It was not immediately clear if such certificates would be mandatory for all international travelers seeking to enter Japan. Kato and Taro Kono, Japan’s vaccine chief, have both warned that such systems could discriminate against people who are not vaccinated.
Japan’s move comes as the European Union announced it would reopen its borders to many inoculated international travelers in the coming weeks, despite remarks from the World Health Organization’s top Europe official on Thursday that the “pandemic is not over yet.” More details on what have been called “green certificates,” which would facilitate movement across internal borders within the bloc, could be released as early as Friday.
Japan is grappling with a spike in infections that has raised questions over whether the Tokyo 2020 Games, which are set to kick off on July 23, will go ahead. The country is operating one of the slowest vaccination programs of the world’s wealthy nations, but on Friday it approved vaccines developed by Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca.
Biden vowed to ‘follow the science,’ but left many out with sudden mask guidance
President Biden repeats the phrase frequently. “We follow the science,” he pledged on a visit to the National Institutes of Health. “Follow the science,” he told staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This administration will follow the science,” he said during a White House event announcing the 50 millionth vaccine shot delivered to an American.
But in following that scientific advice, the administration left out nearly everyone else — local and state health departments, labor unions, governors and numerous other public officials, many of whom were caught off guard by one of the most significant developments of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Covid-19 live updates: Europe moves to jump-start travel; variant danger looms over Britain - The Washington Post
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