Due to Governor Northam amending Executive Order 72 last week, which allowed for some easing of state
restrictions, the Town of Cape Charles will follow suit and start to relax its pandemic protocol.
Beginning on Monday, April 5th, the Town will move to the first step of our recovery phase. This recovery will involve an incremental process to return to normal operations.
Limited numbers of citizens will again be able to enter Town facilities to conduct their business.
The primary public facing facilities affected are Town Hall, the Harbor, and the Library. Patrons will be allowed in these facilities by appointment or by contacting the office upon arrival.
Only one person per department will be allowed in most facilities at a time.
Details
Town Hall
• Only one person per department will be permitted in Town Hall at a time
• Appointments will be accepted by contacting the desired department
• Walk-ups are welcome by using the green call box at the front door to request entry. If
there is already someone at the department you wish to visit, you will be asked to wait
outside or make an appointment to return
• All visitors must wear face masks for entry
• There are no public restrooms available in Town Hall
• Normal business hours apply
Harbor
• Only one person will be permitted in the Harbor office at a time
• Appointments accepted by email (dockmaster@ccyachtcenter.com) or phone at 757-331-3100
• Walk-ups are welcome by knocking at the front door to request entry. If there is already
someone in the Harbor office, you will be asked to wait outside or make an
appointment to return
• All visitors must wear face masks for entry
• There is a restroom available for marina customers only in the Harbor office
Library
• Patrons will be allowed in the Library between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm
• Only two people will be allowed in the Library at a time, for up to 30 minutes each
• Appointments will be accepted by contacting the Library
• Walk-ups are welcome by knocking at the inside door to request entry. If there are already
two patrons in the Library, you will be asked to wait outside or make an appointment
• All visitors must wear face masks for entry
• Curbside service will also continue, contact the Library to use this service
• There is a public restroom available just inside the front outside the door of the Library
Oooooooo! I feel so SAFE!
LMAO!
CNBC
“Covid variant from South Africa was able to ‘break through’ Pfizer vaccine in Israeli study”
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR
UPDATED MON, APR 12 2021
The coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa is able to evade some of the protection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a new Israeli study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The data, published online over the weekend, suggest the B.1.351 is better able to “break through” the protection of the vaccine than the original strain, the researchers wrote in the study.
The new data comes as public health officials grow concerned that highly contagious variants, which studies have shown can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines, could stall the world’s progress on the pandemic.
Last month, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky issued a dire warning, telling reporters that she worried the United States is facing great peril as variants spread and daily Covid-19 cases begin to rebound once again, threatening to send more people to the hospital.
“I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said March 29.
“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/11/covid-variant-from-south-africa-was-able-to-break-through-pfizer-vaccine-in-israeli-study.html
CNBC
“Researchers identify five new cases of ‘double mutant’ Covid variant in California”
Rich Mendez @RICHMENDEZCNBC
PUBLISHED THU, APR 8 2021
Stanford University researchers have identified five new cases of a “double mutant” Covid-19 strain that was recently discovered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Doctors suspect it could be more contagious than earlier strains and may be resistant to existing vaccines.
The new variant originated in India where it’s credited with a recent 55% surge in cases in the state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, after months of declining cases.
It contains two key mutations, which scientists call E484Q and L452R, that have been found separately in other variants but not together in a single strain, according to Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of Stanford’s clinical virology laboratory, which discovered the new variant in the U.S.
“There’s a decent amount of information of how these mutations behave in viruses on their own, but not in combination,” Pinsky said in an interview.
In other variants, the L452R mutation has been shown to make the virus more transmissible.
There is also evidence that antibodies don’t recognize that mutation, which has been found in other strains to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.
If the mutation makes the virus more resistant to antibodies, that could reduce the effectiveness of both vaccines as well as antibody treatments that have become a critical tool for doctors in fighting Covid-19, according to Pinsky.
The double mutant variant “has known mutations in the scariest place to have a mutation — the receptor binding domain, where the virus uses to latch on to cells in our bodies in order to enter,” said Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at the University of California San Francisco.
“The mutations are either identical or eerily similar to mutations in variants that we already know about that have been scientifically proven to be more transmissible and/or evade vaccines.”
“Hence many believe that this Indian variant will also have these superpowers.”
Walensky has warned of “impending doom” in the U.S. as states roll back Covid-19 restrictions.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/08/researchers-identify-five-new-cases-of-double-mutant-covid-variant-in-california-.html?recirc=taboolainternal
CNN
“CDC and FDA recommend US pause use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine over blood clot concerns”
By Jacqueline Howard, CNN
Updated 3:40 PM ET, Tue April 13, 2021
(CNN)The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration are recommending that the United States pause the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine over six reported US cases of a “rare and severe” type of blood clot.
One of the cases was fatal and one is currently in critical condition.
For people who have received the Johnson & Johnson shot, those who have developed severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination should contact their health care provider, according to the statement.
The agencies made the recommendation to pause the use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine quickly — even without giving states a heads up — because of concern that rare blood clot incidents might be treated inappropriately.
“The issue here with these types of blood clots is that if one administers the standard treatment that we as doctors have learned to give for blood clots, one can cause tremendous harm,” Marks said in Tuesday’s briefing.
The rare type of blood clots observed in association with the vaccine require unique treatment.
For instance, the anticoagulant drug heparin should not be used to treat these types of blood clots, Marks said, adding that health care providers had to be made aware of the pause immediately in case they see patients with possible blood clot symptoms.
“Treatment for this specific type of blood clot is different from typical treatments for other types of blood clots, which usually involve an anticoagulant called heparin,” he said.
“With cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, heparin may be dangerous and alternative treatments need to be given, preferably under the guidance of physicians experienced in the treatment of blood clots.”
CNBC
“Dr. Fauci: ‘We very well may need to get booster shots’ for Covid — here’s when”
Cory Stieg @CORYSTIEG
Published Thu, Apr 15 2021
White House chief advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said people may need to get booster shots for the Covid vaccines in a year, during an interview with MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan Monday.
Recent data suggests that Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid vaccines provide protection for at least six months, Fauci said.
Pfizer released data on April 1 showing that its mRNA vaccine is highly effective six months after the second dose.
Moderna said Tuesday that its Covid vaccine, which uses similar technology, was more than 90% effective at protecting against Covid and more than 95% effective against severe disease up to six months after the second dose.
“We know for sure it’s effective for six months and highly likely that it will be effective for considerably longer period of time,” Fauci said.
The Pfizer study only measured to the six-month mark, and more research needs to be done to determine when or how vaccine protection wanes.
“The way to get the answer is to just follow people closely enough to determine when that level of efficacy or protection diminishes, both with regard to the level of the antibodies as well as clinical data with regard to breakthrough infections,” Fauci said.
Ultimately, “if it turns out [to last] a year or a year and a half, we very well may need to get booster shots to keep up the level of protection,” Fauci said.
Moderna plans to have booster shots ready by the fall, CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday.
Pfizer said in February that it was testing a third booster dose of its vaccine.
More infectious Covid mutations could also necessitate regular boosters.
“We may have cycles where we have to keep boosting people — either boosting them with the original vaccine, which gives you enough antibodies to spill over to the variants, or develop a vaccine that’s specific for one or more of the variants,” Fauci told MSNBC in March.
CNBC
“Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months”
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR
PUBLISHED THU, APR 15 2021
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will “likely” need a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated.
Bourla said it’s possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually.
“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed.”
Researchers still don’t know how long protection against the virus lasts once someone has been fully vaccinated.
Earlier Thursday, the Biden administration’s Covid response chief science officer, David Kessler, said Americans should expect to receive booster shots to protect against coronavirus variants.
Kessler told U.S. lawmakers that currently authorized vaccines are highly protective but noted new variants could “challenge” the effectiveness of the shots.
“We don’t know everything at this moment,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said.
“It seems strong but there is some waning of that and no doubt the variants challenge … they make these vaccines work harder.”
“So I think for planning purposes, planning purposes only, I think we should expect that we may have to boost.”
CNBC
“Scientist who helped develop Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine agrees third shot is needed as immunity wanes”
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. @BERKELEYJR
PUBLISHED WED, APR 21 2021
The chief medical officer of BioNTech told CNBC on Wednesday that people will likely need a third shot of its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine as immunity against the virus wanes, agreeing with previous comments made by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
Dr. Ozlem Tureci, co-founder and CMO of BioNTech, which developed a Covid vaccine with Pfizer, said she also expects people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually, like for the seasonal flu.
That’s because, she said, scientists expect vaccine-induced immunity against the virus will decrease over time.
Tureci’s comments come after Bourla said in an interview that aired April 15 that people will likely need a booster shot, or third dose, of the Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated.
He also said it’s possible people will need to get additional shots each year.
Researchers say they still don’t know how long protection against the virus lasts after six months of being fully vaccinated, though public health officials and health experts expect protection to wane after some time.
Last week, the Biden administration’s Covid response chief science officer, David Kessler, said Americans should expect to receive booster shots to protect against coronavirus variants.
He told U.S. lawmakers that currently authorized vaccines are highly protective but noted new variants could “challenge” the effectiveness of the shots.
“We don’t know everything at this moment,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“We are studying the durability of the antibody response,” he said.
“It seems strong, but there is some waning of that, and no doubt the variants challenge … they make these vaccines work harder.”
“So I think for planning purposes, planning purposes only, I think we should expect that we may have to boost.”
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC last week that the company hopes to have a booster shot for its two-dose vaccine available in the fall.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/scientist-who-helped-develop-pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine-agrees-third-shot-is-needed-as-immunity-wanes.html
REUTERS
“Peeling paint, unsanitary practices among issues at U.S. plant making J&J COVID-19 vaccine – FDA”
Carl O’donnell Manas Mishra Julie Steenhuysen
April 21, 2021
A U.S. plant that was making Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine must fix a long list of problems including peeling paint, shoddy cleanups, and poorly-trained staff to resume operation, according to a highly critical report by the Food and Drug Administration.
Neither J&J nor the FDA has said when they expect vaccine production to resume at the Baltimore plant owned by Emergent Biosolutions Inc.
The 12-page report described dirty facilities and many instances of potential contamination.
In some cases, employees carrying unsealed medical waste collided with containers used to make material for vaccines, it noted, adding that containers had been spotted elsewhere with cracks.
Problems were not investigated and cleanups were superficial, it added.
In one example, a worker moved between rooms where different materials were being made on 19 different days while only documenting a single required shower, the report said.
FDA inspectors said the facility was not large enough, describing crowded rooms difficult to walk through without bumping into containers of materials and small doors that forced workers to push containers on the ground rather than use machines to carry them.
“Paint flecks were observed on the floor all along the sides of these walls” on corridors surrounding the manufacturing room and in a room were vials were filled, it said in one section, adding that there was “brown residue” on the wall and “black residue” on the floor in one plant room.
The investigation confirmed media reports that J&J shots made at the Emergent plant had been contaminated with material used to make vaccine for AstraZeneca.
At the time, workers responded to the mix up with little more than a routine cleaning, it noted.
Millions of J&J doses were ruined, the New York Times reported.
Production of AstraZeneca’s vaccine was moved elsewhere.
“There is no assurance that other batches have not been subject to cross-contamination,” the report said.
J&J has drawn scrutiny for months over its halting process to scale up production of the one-shot vaccine that is easier to handle and use than other authorized vaccines.
Its use in the United States has been paused since last week as health officials study a possible link to a very rare but serious blood clot condition.
Emergent has been seeking regulatory authorization to make the J&J vaccine in the United States.
It stopped production at the plant recently, saying the FDA had asked it to do so after an inspection.
“What’s important is that the FDA caught these deficiencies” and took steps to ensure the vaccine produced there was not used, said vaccine researcher Dr. Anna Durbin of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
“Emergent has some work to do to clean up their process.”
“They will likely need to be re-inspected by the FDA before any vaccine produced there would be accepted,” she said.
FAILURE TO TRAIN PERSONNEL
The inspection report said the FDA team had reviewed security camera footage in addition to an in-person site visit to the Emergent plant.
It found failure to train personnel to avoid cross contamination of COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
The inspection, carried out between April 12 and April 20, also noted that Emergent did not produce adequate reports showing that the vaccines it was producing met quality standards.
I would not take any of their vaccine at gun point.
CNBC
“New Covid variant detected at Texas A&M lab shows signs of antibody resistance and more severe illness in young people”
Rich Mendez @RICHMENDEZCNBC
PUBLISHED THU, APR 22 2021
Scientists at Texas A&M University’s Global Health Research Complex say they’ve detected a new Covid-19 variant that shows signs of a more contagious strain that causes more severe illness and appears to be resistant to antibodies.
The new variant, BV-1, named after its Brazos Valley origin, was found during Texas A&M’s routine coronavirus screening via saliva sample in a young student who had mild cold-like symptoms.
Texas A&M scientists say that cell culture-based experiments from other labs have shown that several neutralizing antibodies had no effect in controlling other variants with the same genetic markers as BV-1.
“We do not at present know the full significance of this variant, but it has a combination of mutations similar to other internationally notifiable variants of concern,” said Texas A&M Chief Virologist Ben Neuman.
“This variant combines genetic markers separately associated with rapid spread, severe disease and high resistance to neutralizing antibodies.”
The lab has identified many Covid mutations through its genetic sequencing program, but Neuman said the genetic makeup of this strain is particularly concerning.
Scientists at the lab say the new variant is related to the B.1.1.7 strain out of the U.K., which current vaccines have been shown to be effective against.
The related U.K. strain makes up a majority of variant infection in the U.S.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/22/new-cov … eople.html
CNBC
“MIT researchers say you’re no safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet in new study challenging social distancing policies”
Rich Mendez @RICHMENDEZCNBC
PUBLISHED FRI, APR 23 2021
The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors is as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world.[/b][/color]
MIT professors Martin Z. Bazant, who teaches chemical engineering and applied mathematics, and John W.M. Bush, who teaches applied mathematics, developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor setting that factors in a variety of issues that could affect transmission, including the amount of time spent inside, air filtration and circulation, immunization, variant strains, mask use, and even respiratory activity such as breathing, eating, speaking or singing.
Bazant and Bush question long-held Covid-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization in a peer-reviewed study published earlier this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America.
“We argue there really isn’t much of a benefit to the 6-foot rule, especially when people are wearing masks,” Bazant said in an interview.
“It really has no physical basis because the air a person is breathing while wearing a mask tends to rise and comes down elsewhere in the room so you’re more exposed to the average background than you are to a person at a distance.”
The important variable the CDC and the WHO have overlooked is the amount of time spent indoors, Bazant said.
The longer someone is inside with an infected person, the greater the chance of transmission, he said.
Opening windows or installing new fans to keep the air moving could also be just as effective or more effective than spending large amounts of money on a new filtration system, he said.
Bazant also says that guidelines enforcing indoor occupancy caps are flawed.
“What our analysis continues to show is that many spaces that have been shut down in fact don’t need to be.”
Six-feet social distancing rules that inadvertently result in closed businesses and schools are “just not reasonable,” according to Bazant.
“This emphasis on distancing has been really misplaced from the very beginning.”
“The CDC or WHO have never really provided justification for it, they’ve just said this is what you must do and the only justification I’m aware of, is based on studies of coughs and sneezes, where they look at the largest particles that might sediment onto the floor and even then it’s very approximate, you can certainly have longer or shorter range, large droplets,” Bazant said.
“The distancing isn’t helping you that much and it’s also giving you a false sense of security because you’re as safe at 6 feet as you are at 60 feet if you’re indoors.”
“Everyone in that space is at roughly the same risk, actually,” he noted.
Pathogen-laced droplets travel through the air indoors when people talk, breathe or eat.
It is now known that airborne transmission plays a huge role in the spread of Covid-19, compared with the earlier months of the pandemic where hand-washing was considered the leading recommendation to avoid transmission.
Those droplets from one’s warm exhalation mix with body heat and air currents in the area to rise and travel throughout the entire room, no matter how socially distanced a person is.
People seem to be more exposed to that “background” air than they are by droplets from a distance, according to the study.
Masks work in general to prevent transmission by blocking larger droplets, therefore larger droplets aren’t making up the majority of Covid infections because most people are wearing masks.
The majority of people who are transmitting Covid aren’t coughing and sneezing, they’re asymptomatic.
As for social distancing outdoors, Bazant says it makes almost no sense and that doing so with masks on is “kind of crazy.”
“If you look at the air flow outside, the infected air would be swept away and very unlikely to cause transmission.”
“There are very few recorded instances of outdoor transmission.” he said.
Bazant also said that a big question that is coming will be when masks can be removed, and that the study’s guidelines can help quantify the risks involved.
“We need scientific information conveyed to the public in a way that is not just fearmongering but is actually based in analysis,” Bazant said.
After three rounds of heavy peer review, he said it’s the most review he’s ever been through, and that now that it’s published he hopes it will influence policy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/23/mit-researchers-say-youre-no-safer-from-covid-indoors-at-6-feet-or-60-feet-in-new-study.html