Overnight Health Care: White House trumpets return to normalcy | Arkansas COVID cases reach new high for second day | Preliminary data show J&J vaccine could be effective against delta variant

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Today: The White House is spreading a message of normality this holiday, even as large pockets of the country remain unvaccinated. The WHO wants countries to recognize non-Western vaccines, and Arkansas is seeing a major spike in COVID-19 infections.

We’ll start with the administration’s holiday plans:

The White House is getting ready for a big Fourth of July celebration, trumpeting a return to normalcy despite the delta variant

The Biden administration is spreading the message far and wide this holiday weekend that the United States is getting back to normal after a grueling 16 months from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 Americans.

President Biden, Vice President Harris and other top officials are fanning out across the country for the Fourth of July for what the White House has dubbed the “America is Back Together” tour. The travel, paired with a large celebration at the White House on Sunday for first responders and military families, amounts to a victory lap for the administration as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to tick down.

But experts warned the White House must be careful not to be seen declaring victory over the virus at a time when the more contagious and potentially deadly delta variant is circulating and less vaccinated pockets of the country have seen setbacks.

“It is still very important to get more people vaccinated to prevent surges related to the Delta variant and other future variants and I am concerned that a celebration of ‘independence from the virus’ sends the wrong message to people who are not yet vaccinated,” said Eric Toner, a senior scientist with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. “We should not be seeming to be declaring ‘mission accomplished’ at this point.”

Biden administration officials will attend community roundtable events, baseball games, parades, festivals and barbecues across the country this weekend, making stops in Colorado, Virginia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Ohio, Iowa and New Hampshire and Puerto Rico, a White House official said.

Read more here. 

States with lower vaccination rates are more vulnerable to the delta variant. In Arkansas, coronavirus cases reached a new high for the second day since the winter. 

Arkansas on Thursday reported its largest single-day increase in coronavirus cases for the second time in a row in four months amid urging from Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) for residents to get vaccinated as soon as possible. 

The state recorded 700 new infections Thursday, up from the 686 new cases the day before, according to a state department of health graphic Hutchinson tweeted Thursday. 

The state also reported 12 new coronavirus-related hospitalizations Thursday, bringing the total to 337, though Arkansas recorded no new fatalities due to the virus. 

Since the start of the pandemic, Arkansas has had a total of more than 350,000 infections, with 5,909 deaths as a result of COVID-19, according to the health department. 

Hutchinson in his tweet said that while the “past two days have seen some of the highest reports for vaccine distribution in a while, our hospitalizations and new cases continue to rise.”

“Delays in getting vaccinated allow the Delta Variant to spread,” he added. “Let’s get the first shot before the weekend of the 4th starts.” 

Read more here. 

Preliminary data show J&J vaccine could be effective against delta variant

Preliminary data show that Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose coronavirus vaccine could be effective against the delta variant (B.1.617.2) of the coronavirus.

The company said in a statement that its vaccine demonstrated a “strong, persistent activity against the rapidly spreading Delta variant and other highly prevalent SARS-CoV-2 viral variants.”

The company added that the data showed the durability of the response lasted for at least eight months.

Moderna said on Tuesday that its vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies after two doses against the delta and the beta variants in a lab study.

Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca have also been found to offer protection against hospitalization due to the variant in a study in the United Kingdom.

Context: There has been growing concern about the level of protection offered by the J&J vaccine against the delta variant, leading some people to take matters into their own hands and get a booster dose of an mRNA vaccine like Moderna or Pfizer-BioNtech. This announcement could tamp down some of those concerns, but it’s also worth noting the data have not been published yet. 

Read more here. 

WHO calls on countries to recognize all authorized vaccines for travel

The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on countries opening up their borders to recognize any COVID-19 vaccine it has authorized for emergency use.

In a joint statement Thursday with the COVAX initiative, the WHO urged “all regional, national and local government authorities to recognise as fully vaccinated all people who have received COVID-19 vaccines that have been deemed safe and effective by the World Health Organization.”

The statement came as the European Union began rolling out its digital travel certificate that will allow vaccinated travelers to have unrestricted movement across the region. 

But only vaccines that have received EU marketing authorization are recognized, although individual countries can decide if they want to allow travelers who have received other vaccines. That means the EU program does not recognize the AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured in India by the country’s Serum Institute — branded as Covishield — because they have not been cleared by EU regulators. 

There are just four vaccines that currently qualify under the EU certificate’s criteria: Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca doses manufactured in Europe by the company itself, which are chemically identical to the European-made doses. 

Read more here.

Louisiana governor signs abortion pill ‘reversal’ bill

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed into law a Republican-backed bill requiring that doctors administering abortions in the state inform patients that they may stop the pregnancy termination process halfway through taking the abortion pill. 

The legislation, which was previously passed overwhelmingly by the GOP-dominated Louisiana state legislature, was one of several bills signed into law by the anti-abortion Democratic governor on Friday.

The new law states promotes the distribution of details on “reversing” a medication-induced abortion, a claim which has been disputed and which professional groups like the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say is not backed by scientific evidence. 

The drug regimen includes two drugs, with mifepristone taken first and misoprostol taken later. The nonsurgical abortion is available to patients during the first nine weeks of pregnancy. 

The newly signed Louisiana law is scheduled to take effect Aug. 1. 

“We did this through bipartisan cooperation and compromise,” Edwards said in a tweeted statement. “As we have proven time and time again, the people of Louisiana are best served when all of us put aside our differences and focus on projects, programs and progress for all.”

But similar law blocked: The law comes despite the fact that a federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a similar Indiana law that had required medical providers share information on “reversing” a pill-induced abortion.

U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon said in his ruling that abortion-rights groups that filed a lawsuit against the Indiana measure had “a reasonable likelihood of success” on their argument that forcing health care providers to detail specific information violates their free speech rights. 

Read more here. 

What we’re reading

Is Biden declaring ‘independence from the virus’ too soon? (New York Times)

Hospital prices must now be transparent. For many consumers, they’re still anyone’s guess (Kaiser Health News)

15 million people in the U.S. have missed their second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, CDC says (The Washington Post)

State by state

Missouri asking for help from federal ‘surge response teams’ as Delta variant spreads (Kansascity.com)

Puerto Rico could start losing Medicaid funding in two months (NBC) 

Clyburn to push Medicaid expansion in series of town halls (Durham Herald-Sun)