NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, July 25th, 2022

COVID-19 Update: Novavax wins FDA approval; President Biden fights off BA.5

It’s time for anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties here and across the coun­try are work­ing to mitigate.

United States

On Wednes­day, July 20th, the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) approved for use a new COVID-19 vac­cine by Novavax. It is not mRNA-based, but instead relies on more tra­di­tion­al vac­cine tech­nol­o­gy that deploys a harm­less ver­sion of the spike pro­tein of the virus to teach the immune sys­tem to cre­ate anti­bod­ies to defeat the virus. There is hope that it could appeal to those who did­n’t want to receive the pre­vi­ous­ly approved vac­cines that uti­lize mRNA technology.

(There is, with­in the Unit­ed States, a small group that has been wait­ing to receive this vac­cine for this very rea­son, who call them­selves “Novas­tans.”) Boost­ers from Novavax are hoped to become avail­able some­time this fall.

On Thurs­day, July 21st, Pres­i­dent Biden test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. He had pre­vi­ous­ly been vac­ci­nat­ed and dou­ble boost­ed, his result­ing symp­toms are mild, and he has been tak­ing a course of Paxlovid as part of his treat­ment.

The First Lady, Jill Biden, con­tin­ues to test negative.

Wash­ing­ton

Twelve coun­ties in the state are cur­rent­ly list­ed as “high risk” for COVID-19. Under this risk lev­el, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion rec­om­mend com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers wear masks in indoor pub­lic set­tings and oth­er pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures such as being ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against the virus.

King, Sno­homish, Skag­it, Mason, Lin­coln, Franklin, Ben­ton and Klick­i­tat coun­ties have joined Grays Har­bor, Thurston, Adams and Spokane coun­ties. Clark, Grant and Wal­la Wal­la coun­ties have declined to Medi­um status.

As a result of the rise in cas­es, there have been ongo­ing dis­cus­sions since at least July 14th regard­ing whether or not a mask man­date should return to King County.

Oregon

Nine­teen coun­ties in the state are cur­rent­ly list­ed as “high risk” for COVID-19. Clat­sop, Mar­i­on, Polk, Ben­ton, Lane, Dou­glas, Was­co, Jef­fer­son, Crook and Deschutes coun­ties have joined Mult­nom­ah, Coos, Cur­ry, Kla­math, Lake, Union, Wal­lowa, Bak­er and Mal­heur coun­ties. Jack­son, Wash­ing­ton, Clacka­mas, Josephine and Umatil­la have declined to Medi­um status.

A num­ber of Ore­gon Shake­speare Fes­ti­val per­for­mances have been can­celed this week as a result of this lat­est spike in cas­es and more are under consideration.

Idaho

Six coun­ties in the state are cur­rent­ly list­ed as “high risk” for COVID-19 by the CDC. Canyon Coun­ty joined include Ada, Adams, Elmore, Payette and Wash­ing­ton coun­ties, while Boise and Gem coun­ties have declined to Medi­um status.

British Colum­bia

A poll released on Wednes­day, July 20th, indi­cates that 55% of British Columbians would pre­fer a return to mask man­date. Only 30% would pre­fer the cre­ation of a vac­cine passport.

The hard, cold numbers (plus vaccinations)

Wash­ing­ton has had 1,719,776 cas­es and 13,531 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the forty-eighth worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the forty-sev­enth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

16,678,351 tests have been recorded.

  • Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 15,157,152
  • Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 73%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 69%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 38%

Ore­gon has had 842,352 cas­es and 8,022 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the fifti­eth worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the forty-fifth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

11,999,720 tests have been recorded.

  • Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 8,163,981
  • Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 70%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 64%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 34%

Ida­ho has had 475,344 cas­es and 5,017 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the thir­ty-third worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the thir­ty-fourth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

3,023,075 tests have been recorded.

  • Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 2,599,811
  • Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 56%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 53%
  • Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 19%

British Colum­bia has had 377,372 cas­es and 3,855 attrib­ut­able deaths.

British Colum­bia has the thir­teenth worst infec­tion rate and the eighth worst death rate among the thir­teen Cana­di­an provinces and ter­ri­to­ries per hun­dred thou­sand pop­u­la­tion. (If it were an Amer­i­can state, it would be fifty-third and fifty-third, respec­tive­ly, out of fifty-three.)

  • Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the province: 13,016,884
  • Dos­es admin­is­tered: 12,164,203 (93.4%)

That does it for this install­ment of COVID-19 Update. Stay safe and well!

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