Coronavirus : vaccine advisers will meet today to discuss next steps with Johnson & Johnson

 

Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping new proposal to overhaul the country’s unemployment insurance system, hoping to modernize the benefits — and add more money to millions of Americans’ weekly checks — in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

The new draft legislation put forward by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) seeks to address the financial hardships that many families experienced over the past year, as the coronavirus left a record number of people out of work and struggling to obtain aid amid the worst economic crisis in a generation.

Under the Democrats’ proposal, Americans could more quickly apply to their states for jobless assistance. Their checks may be much larger as well, allowing many low- and middle-income workers to receive up to 75 percent of the wages they earned when they had stable employment.

A federal vaccine committee will meet Wednesday to talk about the future of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine after federal recommendations that its use be paused while blood clot issues are reviewed.

Federal health agencies Tuesday recommended the halt as they investigate six U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot among more than 7 million people who received the shot. One of the six women died in March, another is in critical condition and three others are still hospitalized.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration panels are expected to be presented with safety information from Johnson & Johnson and CDC experts before making a decision about continuing a pause on the vaccine or discontinuing its use for certain populations.

Across the globe, multiple countries had already restricted use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot after European regulators flagged the vaccine as having potential links to extremely rare but potentially fatal blood clots.

Now that U.S. federal authorities have recommended pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of similar clots, and while regulators investigate, governments in Australia, Europe and South Africa are also halting the shot’s rollout or scrapping plans to purchase more doses.

• An abrupt call by federal health officials Tuesday to pause use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine threatened to slow progress against the pandemic in the United States, as new infections trended upward nationwide.
• Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) issued an executive order Tuesday prohibiting the development and use of vaccine passports.
• More than 7.4 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered in the United States, and there have been six reports of blood clots, a rate of about 1 in 1.1 million vaccinations.
• When asked about the pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, President Biden tried to reassure Americans that there will be enough coronavirus vaccine shots for “every single solitary American.”
• Pfizer has ramped up its vaccine production and will deliver 10 percent more doses to the United States by the end of May than previously agreed, the company’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, said Tuesday.
• To date more than 45 percent of the eligible U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose, though the number of new cases continued to trend upward at an average of 11 percent over the past week. At least 562,000 people have died of covid-19.