Tag: Coronavirus

A new analysis estimates that COVID-19 has killed 6.9 million people worldwide, more than twice the reported toll of 3.2 million. That includes about 905,000 Americans — higher than the official estimate of 574,000, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation analysis.

The New York Times reports that the United States may finally be “turning the corner” on COVID-19. The fact that some states, including Wisconsin, are seeing days with no new pandemic deaths means the coronavirus is on the run, the Times reports.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday blocked the Biden Administration from enforcing a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pause on certain evictions during the pandemic, ruling the CDC lacked the legal authority to halt evictions.

Today we feature a story by WPR’s Shamane Mills, who describes the various ways public health officials are trying to get vaccines to the roughly 57% of Wisconsinites who are not yet inoculated against COVID-19.

Today we highlight a story by WPR’s Rob Mentzer, who interviewed so-called long haulers who continue to experience symptoms of COVID-19 long after they were infected. Mentzer found many of them report fewer and less severe symptoms after receiving a vaccination.

With more than a third of American adults hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine, social psychologists are trying to understand the reasons for that reluctance — in efforts to more swiftly end the pandemic, the New York Times reports.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development is encouraging nearly 28,000 people who were denied federal pandemic unemployment benefits to reapply. That’s after the U.S. Department of Labor expanded eligibility for its Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. The agency says it is mailing notices to previously denied applicants who may be eligible for up to 79 weeks of aid payments under the expansion.

Wisconsin has detected just 605 “breaththrough” COVID-19 infections among 1.8 million residents who are fully vaccinated, David Wahlberg of the Wisconsin State Journal reports. That infection rate of 0.03% demonstrates the staggering effectiveness of getting two injections of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or a single Johnson & Johnson shot.

Wisconsin counties that overwhelmingly voted for former President Donald Trump — such as Taylor, Clark and Rusk counties — are also registering the state’s lowest vaccination rates, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in a new analysis.

Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is criticizing the push to vaccinate as many U.S. residents as possible to end the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. “The science tells us the vaccines are 95% effective, so if you have a vaccine quite honestly what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?” Johnson said during an interview Thursday with Madison conservative radio talk show host Vicki McKenna, as reported by the Associated Press.

As President Joe Biden celebrated 200 million vaccine doses administered across the United States — double the number he promised in his first 100 days in office — Wisconsin set its own milestone Thursday: 4 million shots into arms. Still, public health officials in the state have a steep climb toward achieving “herd immunity” from COVID-19. Milwaukee’s mass vaccination site at the Wisconsin Center is expected to close at the end of May after federal emergency funding for it is scheduled to end. And some regions of Wisconsin are reporting less demand for vaccinations than expected.