COVID-19: Officials Urge Expanding Vaccination / Infected Gorillas / Early Mitigation Strategies

By Amy Orciari Herman

Edited by David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, and Lorenzo Di Francesco, MD, FACP, FHM

U.S. federal health officials on Tuesday urged state governors to "strongly recommend" COVID-19 vaccination for all adults aged 65 years and older and for those 18 and older with medical comorbidities.

At a news briefing, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield noted that more vaccine is available than is being requested by states. Dr. Redfield and Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, emphasized that the CDC's vaccine priority groups were not meant to be exclusive, and that states should not wait for one priority group to be fully vaccinated before moving on to another group.

Accordingly, the way vaccine doses are allocated will change in 2 weeks: they will be distributed based on the pace of vaccine administration and the size of the population age 65 and older in each state. The aim, Azar said, is to get doses to states where they can get out quickly to the most vulnerable.

Azar and Redfield also encouraged high-risk patients with COVID-19 to ask their clinicians why they haven't been offered FDA-authorized monoclonal antibody treatments. These include bamlanivimab and casirivimab-imdevimab combination therapy.

In other COVID-19 news:

• Gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. It's believed that an asymptomatic staff member passed the virus to the gorillas, making it the first known natural transmission to primates. The zoo's director said that "aside from some congestion and coughing, the gorillas are doing well." They are quarantined together and reportedly eating and drinking. "We are hopeful for a full recovery," she said.

• An analysis of COVID-19 mitigation strategies in 37 European countries from January through June found that the earlier that mitigation strategies went into effect, the lower COVID-19–associated mortality was in subsequent months. In particular, each 1–standard deviation increase in a "stringency index" early in the pandemic was associated with 12.5 fewer deaths per 100,000 population by the end of the study period. In MMWR, researchers conclude: "Earlier implementation of mitigation policies, even by just a few weeks, might be an important strategy to reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19."