INDIANAPOLIS — Here are Thursday's latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic, including the latest news on COVID-19 vaccinations and testing in Indiana.
Registrations for the vaccine are now open for Hoosiers 12 and older through the Indiana State Department of Health. This story will be updated over the course of the day with more news on the COVID-19 pandemic.
IU Health: 125 workers leave over vaccination requirement
More than 100 Indiana University Health workers left their job after not meeting the organization's requirements on vaccination.
IU Health had set a deadline of Sept. 1 for employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. While the hospital system said most of its doctors, nurses and other employees met the deadline, fewer than 300 did not and were given an unpaid two-week suspension.
Suspended employees were given the opportunity to return to work if they provided proof of partial or full vaccination during their suspension.
State reports 7,774 more full vaccinations, 31 additional deaths
The Indiana State Department of Health reported that another 7,774 Indiana residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Thursday morning. The total number of Hoosiers now considered fully vaccinated is 3,188,168.
ISDH also reported Thursday that another 4,157 Hoosiers have tested positive for COVID-19, along with 31 additional deaths from the virus that occurred between Sept. 3 and Wednesday. Indiana has lost a total of 14,581 residents since the pandemic began.
IMS hosting 5-week COVID-19 vaccine, testing clinic
The Indiana Department of Health is teaming up with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to host a five-week clinic of free COVID-19 vaccinations and testing.
The clinic will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon to 8 p.m., beginning Sept. 21 and ending Oct. 30. The clinic will take place in the IndyCar parking lot at 4551 W. 16th St. across from Gate 2.
The two-dose Pfizer vaccine, which has been fully approved by the Food & Drug Administration, and single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be offered at the clinic. The flu vaccine will also be available, while supplies last.
Click here to pre-register to get vaccinated and search by ZIP code 46222. Click here to pre-register to get tested and click on the testing link at the top of the page; then, search for the IMS site.
No appointments are required for flu vaccinations, which will be available to everyone, regardless of insurance status. However, all applicable insurance coverage will be billed for seasonal influenza vaccine.
US unemployment claims rise after hitting pandemic low
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits moved up last week to 332,000 from a pandemic low, a sign that worsening COVID infections may have slightly increased layoffs.
Applications for jobless aid rose from 312,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. Jobless claims, which generally track the pace of layoffs, have fallen steadily for two months as many employers, struggling to fill jobs, have held onto their workers. Two weeks ago, jobless claims reached their lowest level since March 2020.
The increase was small and may be temporary. The four-week average of jobless claims, which smooths out fluctuations in the weekly data, dropped for the fifth straight week to just below 336,000, the lowest since the pandemic began.
The job market and the broader economy have been slowed in recent weeks by the delta variant, which has discouraged many Americans from traveling, staying in hotels and eating out. Earlier this month, the government reported that employers added just 235,000 jobs in August after having added roughly a million people in both June and July.
Hiring in August plummeted in industries that require face-to-face contact with the public, notably restaurants, hotels and retailers. Still, some jobs were added in other areas, and the unemployment rate actually dropped to 5.2% from 5.4%.
0.2% of Americans have died from COVID-19, data shows
A comparison of the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University and 2020 Census data shows approximately 1-in-500 Americans — about 0.2% of the U.S. population — have died due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. But there remain a couple of unknowns in tabulating the results.
The Census Bureau said as of April 1, 2020, there were 331.4 million people in the U.S. As of Thursday morning, JHU reported more than 666,600 deaths from COVID-19.
That comes out to roughly one in every 503 Americans having died due to coronavirus exposure.
Here's what's unclear in the data.
First, how many unreported COVID deaths have there been? The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which is often cited by federal health officials, estimated in May that there were more than 900,000 U.S. deaths directly caused by the coronavirus. Scientists have suggested the worldwide undercount could be in the millions.
The other factor is how many births there have been since the Census was compiled. It's been approximately 16 months since the final tally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that it provisionally calculated 3.6 million U.S. births in 2020. But it's unknown how many of those births could have already been part of the Census data. It also does not include births so far in 2021.
Either way, it's likely the number remains somewhere in the 1-in-500 vicinity.
Latest US, world numbers
There have been more than 41.53 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States as of 3:30 a.m. Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University. There have been more than 666,600 deaths recorded in the U.S.
Worldwide, there have been more than 226.39 million confirmed coronavirus cases with more than 4.65 million deaths. More than 5.78 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness like pneumonia, or death.
Indiana testing and vaccine clinics this week
The Indiana Department of Health is offering mobile vaccination clinics in the following counties this week to provide testing and vaccinations: Boone, Carroll, Clark, Delaware, Elkhart, Floyd, Franklin, Gibson, Johnson, LaPorte, Lawrence, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Martin, Monroe, Morgan, Orange, Pulaski, St. Joseph, Sullivan, Tippecanoe, Vigo and Wells.
COVID-19 vaccines will also be offered on the following schedule:
Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.:
Indiana Tech
1600 E. Washington Blvd., Fort Wayne, IN 46803
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.:
Wendell Willkie Days
Edward Jones Parking Lot, 325 N. Main St., Rushville, IN 46173
Hoosiers in the ZIP codes where the clinics are located will receive a text message or email informing them of the locations and services offered.
FDA strikes cautious, neutral tone ahead of Friday vaccine booster meeting
Influential government advisers will debate Friday if there's enough proof that a booster dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective — the first step toward deciding which Americans need one and when.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday posted much of the evidence its advisory panel will consider. The agency struck a decidedly neutral tone on the rationale for boosters — an unusual and careful approach that's all the more striking after President Joe Biden and his top health advisers trumpeted a booster campaign they hoped to begin next week.
Pfizer’s argument: While protection against severe disease is holding strong in the U.S., immunity against milder infection wanes somewhere around six to eight months after the second dose. The company gave an extra dose to 306 people at that point and recorded levels of virus-fighting antibodies threefold higher than after the earlier shots.
More important, Pfizer said, those antibodies appear strong enough to handle the extra-contagious delta variant that is surging around the country.
To bolster its case, Pfizer pointed the FDA to data from Israel, which began offering boosters over the summer.
That study tracked about 1 million people 60 and older and found those who got the extra shot were far less likely to become infected soon afterward. Pfizer said that translates to “roughly 95% effectiveness” when delta was spreading, comparable to the protection seen shortly after the vaccine’s rollout earlier in the year.
The Israeli data, also published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, cannot say how long the boosted protection lasts.
The FDA's reviewers, however, suggested they would mainly look to research on how the vaccines are working among Americans, saying that “may most accurately represent vaccine effectiveness in the U.S. population.”
Overall, the data show that the Pfizer and other U.S.-authorized COVID-19 vaccines “still afford protection against severe COVID-19 disease and death in the United States,” the agency said, summarizing the evidence.