Booster shots are likely to be here before long because of the outdated, 60-year-old basic standard the Food and Drug Administration uses to authorize medicines for sale.
Jul 21, 2021
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Multnomah County worked to vaccinate people of color and people experiencing homelessness.
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MOTOYA NAKAMURA/MULTNOMAH COUNTY
The question for health experts is not if the latest and most contagious strain of COVID-19 will spread through communities, but how large the outbreak will be.
Jul 14, 2021
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People who are interested in helping others get vaccinated are often referred to as “vaccine fairies” on the social site, Reddit. Amanda Blum of Portland says she has helped about 200 people get vaccination appointments after they contacted her for support via her Reddit post./Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPB
Experts say the Delta variant is 40% to 50% more transmissible than other variants, which means that unvaccinated people can more easily catch it and vaccinated people face a higher risk of a breakthrough infection.
Jul 5, 2021
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GOV. KATE BROWN HOLDS OPENING UP CEREMONY AT PROVIDENCE PARK./KRISTYNA WENTZ GRAFF/OPB
Brown faced questions about lagging vaccination rates among people of color, with about 45% of Black people, Latinos and Native Americans vaccinated compared with 60% for whites.
Infectious disease experts warn there is the potential for flareups with the presence of highly infectious variants and the risk of others emerging that could evade vaccines.
Officials are engineering a series of expansions to Medicaid that may bolster protections for millions of low-income Americans and bring more people into the program.
In addition to the death toll and people suffering persistent symptoms, the pandemic has threatened the health of vulnerable people who've been devastated by the loss of jobs, homes and opportunities for the future.