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CORONAVIRUS

Same goal, different paths: US, EU seek max vaccine rates

Associated Press BRUSSELS — The Belgian town of Aarschot has a vaccination rate of 94% of all adults, but Mayor Gwendolyn Rutten worries her town is too close for comfort to the capital of Brussels, where the rate stands at 63%. But there’s not much she can do about it. Her hope is that the government mandates vaccination. “Otherwise, you drag all others back into danger,” Rutten said in a recent interview. But few European Union countries have issued outright mandates, instead requiring people to show proof of immunization, a negative test or recent recovery from COVID-19 ...

Explainer: What are current COVID-19 guidelines for schools?

Associated Press ATLANTA — It’s a back to school season like no other for students, teachers and parents across the U.S. Schools have opened nationwide this fall only to find thousands of students and their teachers sickened by the coronavirus. That wasn’t the long-awaited return to normality many had hoped for in resuming in-person instruction. Along with the surge in cases, districts have contended with angry parents, school board members and the public on the questions of mandated vaccines. Quarantine rules have changed. So have mask requirements. Confusion and distress ...

Outbreaks strand some students at home

Associated Press/Report for America RALEIGH, N.C. — Within his first week back at school after a year and a half, 7-year-old Ben Medlin was exposed to a classmate with COVID-19, and he was sent home, along with 7,000 other students in the district, for 14 days of quarantine. Not much learning went on in Ben’s home. On some days last week, the second-grader was given no work by his teachers. On others, he was done by 9:30 a.m., his daily assignments consisting of solving 10 math problems or punctuating four sentences, according to his mother. “It was very much just thrown ...

As COVID-19 vaccine mandates rise, religious exemptions grow

Associated Press About 3,000 Los Angeles Police Department employees are citing religious objections to try to get out of the required COVID-19 vaccination. In Washington state, thousands of state workers are seeking similar exemptions. And an Arkansas hospital has been swamped with so many such requests from employees that it is apparently calling their bluff. Religious objections, once used sparingly around the country to get exempted from various required vaccines, are becoming a much more widely used loophole against the COVID-19 shot. And it is only likely to grow following ...

COVID-19 cases climbing, wiping out months of progress

Associated Press COVID-19 deaths and cases in the U.S. have climbed back to levels not seen since last winter, erasing months of progress and potentially bolstering President Joe Biden’s argument for his sweeping new vaccination requirements. The cases — driven by the delta variant combined with resistance among some Americans to getting the vaccine — are concentrated mostly in the South. While one-time hot spots like Florida and Louisiana are improving, infection rates are soaring in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee, fueled by children now back in school, loose mask ...

FDA experts among group opposing US booster shot plan

Associated Press The average person doesn’t need a COVID-19 booster yet, an international group of scientists — including two top U.S. regulators — wrote Monday in a scientific journal. The experts reviewed studies of the vaccines’ performance and concluded the shots are working well despite the extra-contagious delta variant, especially against severe disease. “Even in populations with fairly high vaccination rates, the unvaccinated are still the major drivers of transmission” at this stage of the pandemic, they concluded. The opinion piece, published in The Lancet, ...