News Room

One of President Joe Biden’s first official acts is to require the use of masks and social distancing in all federal buildings, on federal lands and by federal employees and contractors. The White House recommends:

• Every American to wear a mask when they are around people outside their household.
• Every governor to make that mandatory in their state.
• Local authorities to also make it mandatory to support their state’s orders.

Health experts and scientists have repeatedly said that wearing masks and social distancing helps stop the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Julie Swann with North Carolina State University has studied the effectiveness of masks. She leads a team chosen by the CDC to create models for supporting states with their decision-making on the coronavirus.

A growing number of states that have struggled to speedily distribute the COVID-19 vaccine are enlisting the National Guard for help. Washington is the latest. Governor Jay Inslee on Monday said he would deploy the Guard to set up mass-vaccination sites, with a goal of ramping up to 45,000 inoculations a day from a current daily average of only 12,000. Previously, Like most states, Washington had mostly planned to rely on hospitals and pharmacies to distribute the vaccine around the state. But its distribution numbers have lagged. 

The United States is set to mark 400,000 deaths due to COVID-19 about a month after recording 300,000 deaths. Ten percent of all American COVID deaths have been reported in the past 11 days, according to data from the New York Times and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Dr. Ajay Sethi, an infectious diseases expert from UW-Madison, said it doesn't look like the pace for new deaths will slow down any time soon. "[With] our current trajectory, we're gonna be at about half a million deaths in the United States a little after Valentine's Day," he said. The numbers are increasing quickly because of the way the virus spreads, according to Dr. Oguz Alagoz, a professor at UW-Madison who models the spread of infectious diseases.

The travel industry should be ready to start feeling good. Although there have been 400,000 deaths and 24 million cases in the United States alone, COVID-19 vaccine rollout has begun. But ‘last-mile’ problems of distribution and sluggish city and state response has slowed vaccination programs across the country. The US Travel Association (USTA) calls the rollout “a long-awaited light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, bringing to life the number one assurance travelers need—a vaccine.”

Top public health officials and long-term care stakeholders have both praised West Virginia for how quickly it’s been able to distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines to long-term care facilities. Last week, the state announced that it’s now administering doses to more seniors after finishing initial vaccine rounds at all of its nursing homes. Its success sent experts digging to see just how the state was able to master its long-term care vaccination program, while so many others are struggling. “The first important point is that West Virginia opted out of a federal partnership program that relies on the giant CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains to deliver vaccines to nursing homes.