The latest The coronavirus's delta variant may force nations onto a detour as they try to end the pandemic. Britain recently delayed its long-planned full reopening due to the more contagious variant, which makes up roughly 90 percent of that country's new infections. Some experts are also urging caution for unvaccinated people in the United States, where the delta variant, first detected in India last year, makes up 6 percent of new cases. Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser on the coronavirus response for the Biden administration, called the delta variant "basically covid-19 on steroids." An experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by the German company CureVac was just 47 percent effective in a large-scale preliminary trial, dashing hopes for the promising vaccine based on messenger RNA technology. The result may underscore the challenge posed by the virus variants: Virtually all the covid-19 cases identified in the trial were caused by 13 different variants. The CureVac vaccine is particularly important to Europe, which preordered 225 million doses. Realizing that even a historic immunization campaign is unlikely to eliminate the coronavirus, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it would speed up attempts to develop drugs to treat future viruses. The $3.2 billion plan is modeled on the medications that turned HIV, once considered a death sentence, into a manageable illness. In a strategy similar to the one used for vaccine development, the government is simultaneously preordering antiviral drugs to combat the current coronavirus, despite uncertainty about whether they will work. The full devastation of India's recent surge in infections — now finally receding — is hard to truly understand. One phenomenon underlines the scale of the nation's loss: Nearly 600 children have lost both parents to the disease. Washington Post reporters and videographers explored what life is like for 5-year-old twins whose parents died of covid-19. Other important news National museums, including the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives, are rapidly dropping their requirements that fully vaccinated visitors wear masks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is navigating inflation concerns and an economy recovering from the pandemic. The Post took a deep dive into her views. Tokyo announced an end to its state of emergency, easing restrictions weeks before the Olympic Games begin in July. Nearly 900 people in New York City received expired doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Experts said those shots are not dangerous but urged recipients to get new ones. |
Your questions, answered "My son and family are coming home from Japan this summer for vacation. They are U.S. citizens but work in Japan. They have not gotten vaccines there. Can they get a vaccine here in the U.S. while on vacation?" — Dede in Virginia The answer is probably yes, with the caveat it may depend on where your family seeks to get vaccinated. Overall, there's been a seismic change in the country's vaccine campaign. At the start of the year, health officials were desperate to avoid allocating the small stock of doses improperly (and people who jumped the line made national headlines). But, by mid-spring, the U.S. vaccine supply had outstripped demand and efforts shifted to getting people to take them — offering shots at bars or shots at barbershops. Not that this is applicable to your family, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that jurisdictions cannot add citizenship requirements to coronavirus vaccinations. And if the members of your family are not official residents of a state, that's not an obstacle to immunization in about half the country: 24 states do not have any residency requirements for vaccination, according to a tracker run by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. That includes Virginia, where you're writing from. Other states have residency requirements but they make exemptions for workers. Frankly, at this point, some vaccine administrators may not be asking many questions about residency. Some cities make vaccines explicitly available for visitors — not only for citizens returning home but for tourists, too. In New York City, for instance, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) proposed a plan to park mobile vaccine clinics near tourist destinations such as Times Square or Central Park. "We think this is a positive message to tourists — come here, it's safe, it's a great place to be, and we're going to take care of you," the mayor said when announcing the plan last month. When your relatives arrive in the U.S., it's possible they may only have to walk a short distance off the plane before being offered a vaccine. As of June 1, anyone older than 12 who travels to Alaska can get a vaccine, including at the state's three major airports. Similarly, vaccines have been available to travelers at airports in California, Florida and other states. Some of these sites may exist for only limited periods; Miami International Airport's pop-up vaccine site, where proof of residency isn't needed, is slated to end Friday. Just keep in mind that if your family is in the country for a limited amount of time, scheduling a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccine could be an issue, because the shots need to be spaced weeks apart. But many of the on-the-spot clinics offer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as only one dose is needed for full vaccination. |
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