The Latest: Study says COVID riskier for heart than Pfizer

NEW YORK — A study from Israel says COVID-19 carries a far higher risk of heart inflammation than Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.

Researchers in Tel Aviv estimate there were three cases for every 100,000 people vaccinated with the Pfizer shot. But risk of it was 11 per 100,000 in people who were infected with the virus.

The finding were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Grace Lee is an infectious disease expert at Stanford University and says the paper is the first to assess the potential risks of vaccination “in the context of understanding the potential benefits of vaccination.”

Previous reports have linked the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to inflammation of the heart muscle. The problem was mainly seen in male teens and young men, who developed chest pain a few days after vaccination.

U.S. health officials say they have confirmed about 800 vaccine-associated cases total of two types of inflammation — in the heart muscle and in the lining of the heart.

The Clalit Research Institute researchers looked at hundreds of thousands of people who were vaccinated and not vaccinated. Separately, they looked at unvaccinated people who were infected or not.

Since two different groups of people were studied, the researchers were limited in making comparisons. The study focused only on the Pfizer vaccine, and it did not provide breakdown of results by age or sex.

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MORE ON THE PANDEMIC:

— Pfizer seeking FDA OK for COVID-19 vaccine booster dose

— WHO: Coronavirus origin window of opportunity stalled, ‘closing fast’

— New NY governor adds 12,000 deaths to publicized COVID-19 tally

— Treasury Department reports only 11% of rental assistance distributed

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— Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

HONOLULU — The state of Hawaii says 88% of executive branch employees are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and 92% are expected to be within the next month.

The state released the data after Gov. David Ige this month began requiring state employees to either show proof of vaccination or get tested every week.

The data cover 14,000 employees. The figures exclude workers at the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii.

The state Department of Human Resources Development says of its 87 employees applied for exemptions from the vaccination or testing requirement. Eleven workers were placed on leave without pay because they didn’t comply with the requirement.

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JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi health officials said Wednesday that a child younger than 5 has died from COVID-19.

Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist, said it was the sixth pediatric death from the virus in Mississippi since the pandemic began. He said the Health Department would not provide any identifying information, including where the child lived.

State Health Department spokeswoman Liz Sharlot also said Wednesday that law enforcement officers are investigating threats against the state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs. He has been imploring people for months to get vaccinated, but Mississippi still has among the lowest vaccination rates in the United States.

Dobbs wrote Tuesday on Twitter that he has received threatening phone calls from people promoting false “conspiracy theories” about his family.

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PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon will deploy “crisis teams” of hundreds of nurses, respiratory therapists, paramedics and nursing assistants to regions of the state hardest hit by a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations that have stretched hospitals to the limit.

Gov. Kate Brown said Wednesday that up to 500 health care providers from a medial staffing company will head to central and southern Oregon, as well as 60 additional nurses under a different contract provider.

State health officials say COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased 990% in Oregon since July 9.

The personnel will head to Bend, Redmond, Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass and Roseburg and can move around the state as conditions require.

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CHICAGO — Chicago officials say all city employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by mid-October.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the rule Wednesday, saying employees will have to submit proof of vaccination via an online portal by Oct. 15.

The city has already required employees in public schools, including teachers and principals, to be vaccinated by the same deadline. City officials say employees can apply for a religious or medical exemption, which will be individually reviewed.

Lightfoot says getting vaccinated is the best way to make it possible to recover from the pandemic.

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NEW ORLEANS — A child under age 1 is among the latest reported COVID-19 deaths in Louisiana.

The state health department didn’t provide the child’s exact age or where the death occurred. The child’s death was one of 110 in the Wednesday report, which said 85 of the deaths were listed as “confirmed” COVID-19 deaths and 25 as “probable.”

“We last reported a COVID death in a child 6 months ago,” the health department said on Twitter. “In total, 11 children younger than 18 have died from COVID in Louisiana.”

The department reported more than 6,619 confirmed and probable cases on Wednesday. Statewide hospitalizations dropped by 12 to 2,844.

The disease is blamed for more than 12,000 confirmed deaths in Louisiana.

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MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s top education official is urging everyone headed into school buildings to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and wear masks.

Jill Underly says those steps will help ensure schools don’t have to shut down amid a spike in new cases. The state superintendent of schools wrote an editorial Wednesday urging a united front against the virus. She noted the situation was different from last year thanks to the availability of vaccines.

Many schools in Wisconsin didn’t open in-person learning in the fall of 2020, taking a hybrid approach for at least part of the year.

Wisconsin’s two largest districts, Milwaukee and Madison, were both looking into a vaccine mandate for teachers, something Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says he supports. Evers is a former teacher, school administration and state superintendent for education.

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates a majority support nationwide for mask and vaccine requirements in schools.

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ST. PAUL — Minnesotans who get their first COVID-19 vaccine dose at the State Fair can walk away with a $100 Visa gift card.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced the State Fair edition of the state’s $100 reward program Wednesday. The first 3,600 Minnesotans to get their first dose at the fair can immediately claim their gift cards. The fair opens Thursday and runs through Labor Day.

The State Fair deal follows a $100 incentive program where nearly 80,000 Minnesotans claimed gift cards.

Anyone 12 or older who needs their first or second dose can get vaccinated at the fair clinic, which offers both the two-shot Pfizer and single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Only Minnesotans receiving their first dose qualify for the reward.

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NEW YORK — Pfizer is seeking U.S. approval of a booster dose of its two-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

The drugmaker announced Wednesday it has started the approval process for a third dose of its vaccine for Americans ages 16 and older. The company says it expects to complete its application with the Food and Drug Administration by the end of this week.

U.S. health officials announced last week plans to dispense COVID-19 booster shots to all Americans to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant of the coronavirus. Pfizer’s vaccine received full regulatory approval this week.

While health officials say vaccine protection against coronavirus infection wanes over time, the three vaccines used in the U.S. made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are still providing strong protection against hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19.

Earlier this month, U.S. regulators said transplant recipients or others with weakened immune systems can get an extra dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

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ATLANTA — More than half of all Georgia public school students are required to wear masks in class, according to district announcements tracked by The Associated Press.

At least 55 of Georgia’s 180 traditional school districts are requiring masks in at least some schools, up from only a handful of districts before class started in August. The rules cover at least 945,000, or about 55%, of Georgia’s 1.7 million public school students.

The shift began in late July, when Atlanta and Gwinnett County schools joined DeKalb and Clayton counties in saying they would require masks. But many other districts tried to open their doors as mask-optional in early August. Some switched positions within days, while others held out for weeks.

During that time, infections leaped. More than 1% of school-age children in Georgia have tested positive for the coronavirus in the past two weeks. Children between the ages of 5 to 17 are now more likely than adults as a whole to test positive. The state Department of Public Health reported more than 30 infection clusters in schools statewide, the highest since the start of the epidemic.

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BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s higher education leaders say coronavirus vaccinations among college students are increasing as the state offers $100 cash cards for those who get the shots amid campus immunization requirements.

Presidents of Louisiana’s four public college systems spoke Wednesday at the Board of Regents meeting. They praised the governor’s “Shot for $100” campaign that has persuaded more than 2,000 students to get immunized against COVID-19.

Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed says those numbers are only expected to increase as 12 campuses started classes this week.

All of Louisiana’s four-year universities are requiring students get vaccinated, though the state has broad exemptions.

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LONDON — The international scientists dispatched to China by the World Health Organization to find out where the coronavirus came from say the search has stalled and warned the window of opportunity for solving it is “closing fast.”

In a commentary published in the journal Nature, the WHO-recruited experts say the origins investigation is at “a critical juncture” requiring urgent collaboration but has instead come to a standstill.

They noted among other things that Chinese officials are still reluctant to share some raw data, citing concerns about patient confidentiality.

In their analysis, published in March, the WHO team concluded the virus likely jumped to humans from animals, and they described the possibility of a laboratory leak as “extremely unlikely.”

But the WHO experts say their report was intended only as a first step, adding further delays “will render some of the studies biologically impossible.”

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ALBANY, N.Y. — New Gov. Kathy Hochul promised more government transparency on her first day in office.

By day’s end her administration had quietly delivered it by acknowledging nearly 12,000 more deaths in the state from COVID-19 than had been publicized by her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.

New York now reports 55,395 people have died of COVID-19 in New York based on death certificate data submitted to the CDC, up from the roughly 43,400 that Gov. Cuomo had reported to the public as of Monday, his last day in office.

Federal prosecutors previously launched a probe examining his administration’s handling of data around deaths among nursing home patients. The state, under Cuomo, had minimized its toll of nursing home residents’ deaths by excluding all patients who died after being transferred to hospitals.

Cuomo used those lower numbers last year to erroneously claim that New York was seeing a much smaller percentage of nursing home residents dying of COVID-19 than other states.

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BOSTON — Only 11% of the tens of billions of dollars in federal rent assistance meant to help tenants around the country avoid eviction has been distributed, according to the Treasury Department.

The latest data from the department that oversees the program shows the pace of distribution increased in July over June and nearly a million households have been helped.

But with landlords challenging a federal eviction moratorium in court, there’s concern a wave of evictions will happen before much of the assistance has been distributed. Lawmakers approved $46.5 billion in spending on rental assistance and most states are now distributing the first portion of $25 billion.