Throughout April, COVID-19 levels remained low but appear to be trending upward once again. The Food and Drug Administration has scheduled meetings on COVID-19 vaccinations for children 5-years and younger.
The Arizona Department of Health Services reported 3,911 new cases of COVID-19 and 238 new deaths related to COVID-19 in Arizona this week. The state has now crossed the 30,000 deaths threshold with 30,189 since pandemic records began.
According to KJZZ, the positivity rate for COVID-19 tests in Arizona has been trending upward for three weeks, with now 6% of tests reporting positive, whereas at the beginning of April only 3% of tests were positive. Dr. Eugene Livar, chief of ADHS’s bureau of epidemiology and disease control said that the trends are consistent nationally, but hospitalizations remain low.
We have seen some increases recorded across the nation, so it’s something that we would expect here in Arizona. One of the big messages that we have is to continue your due diligence with the prevention of COVID-19.
National News
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set tentative dates in June to publicly review vaccines for the youngest children. Parents and parental advocacy groups have voiced frustration with the slow pace of the approval process. The FDA will convene an outside panel of experts on June 8, 21 and 22 to review applications from Moderna and Pfizer for child vaccines, according to Associated Press.
The FDA also set a June 7 meeting to review the Novovax COVID-19 vaccine for adults. The vaccine has been authorized in Europe but faces production issues.
Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis released details of Trump-era political appointees interfering with COVID-19 guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prior to publication. Inside Health Policy reports that the subcommittee published a series of emails from May 2020 in which federal officials discussed changes to a draft, citing religious liberty concerns and offering changes and suggested that the CDC should only be allowed to publish the guidance “contingent on striking the offensive passages.”
The FDA issued a warning last Friday concerning counterfeit versions of some versions of at-home over-the-counter COVID-19 tests being distributed in the U.S. These include counterfeit Flowflex COVID-19 Test Kits and iHealth COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test Kits.
Counterfeit COVID-19 tests are tests that are not authorized, cleared or approved by the FDA for distribution or use in the U.S., but are made to look like authorized tests so the users will think they are the real, FDA-authorized test. The performance of these tests has not been adequately established and the FDA is concerned about the risk of false results when people use these unauthorized tests.
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