The NE US Local Vaccination Campaign

The Local Vaccination Campaign Total People Fully Vaccinated (two doses of Moderna or Pfizer or one dose of Johnson & Johnson) Massachusetts: 4,667,841 (up 14,019 from Thursday) Rhode Island: 724,995 (up 2,836 from Thursday) Reported changes from the last issue of this newsletter. View all vaccine news and numbers on Globe.com Top Stories: Vaccinations Only one town in Rhode Island has a COVID-19 vaccination rate below 50 percent. Children 12 or younger who want to attend shows at the Wang and Shubert theaters will be able to get rapid-tested for free on-site.

 

 

 

 

The Local Impact Massachusetts:  772,932 cases (up 6,049 from Thursday)  ·  18,394 deaths (up 52 from Thursday)  ·  541 hospitalizations (down 30 from Thursday) Rhode Island:  175,487 cases (up 1,316 from Thursday)  ·  2,856 deaths (up 4 from Thursday)  ·  94 hospitalizations (down 3 from Thursday) Reported increases or decreases from the last issue of this newsletter. Sources: Massachusetts Department of Public Health Rhode Island Department of Health View all COVID-19 news and numbers on Globe.com Top Stories: COVID-19 Impact Here's what to know about rapid at-home COVID-19 tests, from my colleague Martin Finucane. An unknown numbers of families in Massachusetts have been dealing with a dilemma: balancing their child's health with their education, despite there being very few remote learning options this year. Celtics forward Jaylen Brown tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. Hopkinton High School is the first school in Massachusetts to get approval to drop its mask mandate for vaccinated students and staff members.

 

 

Across the US and Around the World US 403,576,826 vaccinations 44,535,321 cases 715,413 deaths Sources: Johns Hopkins Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Most and Least Vaccinated US States (% of population fully vaccinated) Top Ranked Vermont (70.3%) Connecticut (69.6%) Rhode Island (69.4%) Maine (69.1%) Massachusetts (68.6%) Bottom Ranked West Virginia (40.7%) Idaho (42.5%) Wyoming (42.6%) Alabama (43.6%) Mississippi (44.4%) Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Worldwide  6,512,087,645 vaccinations 238,578,220 cases 4,862,662 deaths Source: Johns Hopkins  Top Stories: US and Worldwide Across the country, many people are finagling their way into getting unsanctioned booster doses. Public health officials are facing a new challenge: The arrival of booster vaccine doses is making it even harder to convince completely unvaccinated people to even get their first doses. Researchers say that vaccines could have saved more than 22,000 lives in Texas and Florida. Hundreds of Los Angeles firefighters plan to sue the city over its vaccine requirement. According to Airfinity, a data firm that tracks vaccine shipments, Moderna has been giving vaccines almost exclusively to wealthy countries, leaving out poor countries. Whistle-blowing doctors in Brazil say that Prevent Senior, which operates 10 hospitals, forced doctors to prescribe unproven drugs and falsified death certificates to leave out COVID-19, among other things.

What's Next

• Experts say an increase in COVID-19 transmission remains a threat as we head into the winter.
• Employers with 100 or more employees are still waiting for details on President Biden's vaccine mandate. In the meantime, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is facing barriers to even trying to put the requirement in place.
• The United States has the supply to start administering COVID-19 vaccines to younger children, once authorized, and plans to start the rollout as early as November.

The demand for headstones is surging, in part due to the pandemic.