Pa. counties told to expect fewer Johnson & Johnson doses; Rachel Levine becomes first openly transgender official to be confirmed by Senate

Voting mostly along party lines, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed former Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be the nation’s assistant secretary of health.

She is the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation.

The final vote was 52-48.

Levine had been serving as Pennsylvania’s top health official since 2017, and emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. She is expected to oversee Health and Human Services offices and programs across the United States.

President Joe Biden cited Levine’s experience when he nominated her in January.

Levine “will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability,” Biden said.

Transgender-rights activists have hailed Levine’s appointment as a historic breakthrough. Few trans people have ever held high-level offices at the federal or state level.

Sen. Pat Toomey, Republican from Pennsylvania, voted against Levine’s confirmation.

“In Pennsylvania, the pandemic struck seniors in nursing homes disproportionately hard compared to other states. This was due in part to poor decisions and oversight by Dr. Levine and the Wolf administration,” Toomey said in a statement.

“Moreover, the commonwealth’s extended economic lockdown that Dr. Levine advocated for was excessive, arbitrary in nature, and has led to a slower recovery. While I appreciate Dr. Levine’s service and responsiveness to my office over the past year, she has not earned a promotion to help lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and I cannot support her confirmation,” Toomey said.

Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf, who appointed Levine as the state’s Physician General and later as Health Secretary, offered his congratulations.

“I was proud to serve alongside her. Dr. Levine’s commitment to protecting the public health and safety is unmatched, and I am grateful for her tireless work during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Wolf said in a statement.

“Pennsylvania owes a great deal to Dr. Levine’s expertise and leadership, both before and after the pandemic. The nation is lucky to have her strength, experience and compassion in such a key role in the Biden Administration,” Wolf said.

» READ MORE: U.S. Senate confirms former Pa. Health Secretary Rachel Levine, a transgender doctor, for key post

— Associated Press

The frustration of officials in Philadelphia’s collar counties was exacerbated Wednesday when they said they were told the number of Johnson & Johnson doses flowing into the state beginning next week would be far less than the 200,000 per week that they had been expecting.

On a County Commissioners’ Association of Pennsylvania call, “it was shared with the county commissioners that the 200,000 doses a week of Johnson & Johnson that the state had been told that they were going to receive has been cut substantially,” Montgomery County Comissioner Chair Val Arkoosh said at a news conference, “and that number is something like 65,000 now, approximately. I’m not sure that is the exact number.”

”I have absolutely no idea how that is going to impact all these other plans. That has not been shared with us,” Arkoosh said.

Delaware County Council Vice Chair Monica Taylor and Chester County officials confirmed they, too, had heard of a significant decrease.

A state Department of Health spokesperson confirmed Pennsylvania would be receiving only 66,400 J & J doses next week, but noted it had gotten 13,000 doses of the vaccine this week and last. “Vaccine distributions from the federal government can fluctuate, but we do not anticipate any disruptions in our mission of getting shots into arms,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Mass vaccination sites and vaccinations for special population are still moving forward.”

Pennsylvania had said it planned to use the one-shot doses for state-run regional mass vaccination sites and targeted inoculation efforts for first responders and other workers.

— Erin McCarthy

Philadelphia government and business leaders have launched a year-long initiative aimed at accelerating the city’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, which has left many offices, shops, and cultural venues empty.

The estimated $1.5-million campaign, dubbed “Ready. Set. Philly!,” will take action to encourage workers, shoppers and tourists to return to the central business districts that power the city’s economy as increased vaccine availability makes it safe to do so, its leaders said at an event Tuesday to announce the initiative’s rollout.

The goal of the initiative, to be funded by businesses, is to help employers create return-to-work plans; to provide information about vaccines and workplace-return protocols; to coordinate on keeping city streets and transit lines safe and clean; and to devise events and activities to promote the city, officials said.

“We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Philadelphia Commerce Director Michael Rashid, a co-chair of the campaign. “This is our moment to get back on our feet together and to set ourselves up for success.”

» READ MORE: Philly launches $1.5M initiative to restore pandemic-wracked businesses and cultural vitality

— Jacob Adelman

Montgomery County is continuing to make progress vaccinating residents, but at its current pace it will take 10 weeks to make it through eligible residents who have pre-registered, County Commission Chair Valerie Arkoosh said Wednesday.

The county is vaccinating about 5,500 residents per week, Arkoosh said, but there is a backlog of about 89,000 residents who are eligible to receive the vaccine. That includes residents 65 years and older, health care workers, and residents with certain health conditions.

A third mass vaccination site opened Friday near the Willow Grove Park Mall to make vaccinations more accessible to residents in the eastern part of the county, but the supply of doses coming from the commonwealth hasn’t increased, Arkoosh said.

“So for those of you that have noticed that our sites are not full, you are correct,” Arkoosh said. “We have significantly more capacity to administer vaccines than we have doses to give.”

Overall, more than 218,000 residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, roughly 32% of the county’s adult population. More than 84,000 county residents are fully vaccinated.

“We continue to communicate to the Pennsylvania Department of Health that we have the capacity to administer higher quantities of vaccine,” Arkoosh added. “We are hopeful that our vaccine supply will continue to grow in the coming weeks.”

Pennsylvania plans to open two mass vaccination clinics in the Philadelphia suburbs using Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine. Arkoosh said that county leaders were disappointed that the Department of Health wasn’t distributing the additional shots through clinics in the four suburban counties, specifically to use for particularly vulnerable populations.

“We are incredibly frustrated. We have conveyed as clearly as we possibly can to the Pennsylvania Department of Health that we believe we have been shortchanged on vaccines, and that we have more than abundant capacity to give vaccines,” Arkoosh said. “So I just ask people to be patient, and as soon as we get it, we will make it available.”

— Rob Tornoe

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the state is within weeks of an exponential increase in vaccine deliveries from the federal government, a shift that is coming as the state’s case count continues to rise.

The state added 4,337 new cases and 28 deaths. The rate of transmission has been at 1.09 for days, meaning each new case is leading to at least another infection. The trend is not unexpected, and health officials said the developing variants and strains were responsible for the growing spread of the virus.

Statewide hospitalizations have topped 2,000 for the second straight day, with most of those patients being treated for COVID-19. However, officials said the numbers of patients in the ICU and those on ventilators are dropping.

Murphy implored residents to continue wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands.

“Only all of us together control the direction in which these numbers move,” he said.

With more than 3.5 million people in the state full or partially vaccinated, the state is moving ahead on plans to reopen schools fully this fall. Murphy said parents would not be allowed to choose remote learning if their district has returned to classroom instruction.

“We are expecting Monday through Friday, in person, every school, every district,” he said.

— Allison Steele

Pennsylvania is continuing to see a new spike in new COVID-19 cases, even as the commonwealth continues to increase vaccination efforts.

The Department of Health reported 4,467 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, exceeding 4,000 cases for the first time in a month and the most infections reported in a single day since the beginning of February.

Pennsylvania is now averaging nearly 3,500 new cases a day, up 41% over just the past two weeks.

The most dramatic increase in cases are occurring in the Poconos and the commonwealth’s rural central counties, which get significant traffic from New York and New Jersey, where cases are also spiking.

As of Wednesday, Pennsylvania had 198 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the United Kingdom, according to data from the CDC, up from 168 cases on Monday. The variant can spread more easily than the original strain of coronavirus, and is thought to be driving up infection rates in Europe, where many countries have been forced into mandatory shutdowns.

A decrease in the number of residents hospitalized by COVID-19 has also stalled. On Wednesday, the Department of Health reported 1,631 COVID-19 patients hospitalized across the commonwealth, up 7% over the past two weeks from 1,530 patients.

Pennsylvania reported 48 new COVID-19 deaths Wednesday. At least 24,876 Pennsylvanians have died after contracting the virus, 52% of whom were residents in from nursing homes or personal care facilities, according to the Department of Health.

— Rob Tornoe

Early real-world evidence from health care workers in two states shows how effective COVID-19 vaccines are at preventing infection of the virus, Anthony Fauci said during the White House’s COVID-19 briefing Wednesday.

The New England Journal of Medicine released data Tuesday from two studies of health care workers — one from Texas and one from California — that showed the positivity rate for COVID-19 plummeting among employees that have been fully vaccinated.

At the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the infection rate among unvaccinated staffers was 2.81%, but dropped to 0.05% for those who have been fully vaccinated. In California, fully vaccinated workers at the University of California, San Diego; and the University of California, Los Angeles, saw their positivity rate drop to 0.17%.

Fauci, the nation’s leading infections disease expert, said the results show how “extremely effective” the vaccines are at combating COVID-19. But he also cautioned that with just 13% of the country fully vaccinated and case numbers remaining at high levels, now is not the time to declare victory against the virus.

“Every day we get closer and closer to that extraordinary degree of effectiveness which we’re seeing at the community level,” Fauci said. “At the end of the day, that is what it is that is going to end this pandemic in this country.”

— Rob Tornoe

Nearly half of the nation’s elementary schools were open for full-time classroom learning as of last month, but the share of students learning in-person has varied greatly by region and by race, with most nonwhite students learning entirely online, according to results from a national survey conducted by the Biden administration.

For the White House, the survey results, released Wednesday, mark the starting line for President Joe Biden’s pledge to have most K-8 schools open full-time in his first 100 days in office. But they also show that he never had far to go to meet that goal.

Among schools that enroll fourth graders, 47% offered full-time classroom learning in February, while for schools that teach eighth-graders, the figure was 46%. The data suggested that at least some students weren’t opting in.

In total, about 76% of elementary and middle schools were open for in-person or hybrid learning, according to the survey, while 24% offered remote learning only. The percentage of students spending at least some time in the classroom has likely increased since February, when coronavirus rates were just coming down from a national surge.

Across all regions, students in rural areas and towns were far more likely to be back in the classroom full-time compared to students in cities and suburbs.

The Education Department said it will issue updated data from the survey each month through July. The information is published on a dashboard on the agency’s website.

» READ MORE: More than 100,000 Pennsylvania teachers and staff have been fully vaccinated, Wolf says

— Associated Press

The weather is warming up, and after a year of staying at home and stressing out over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some of us really need a vacation.

But are you allowed to go on a vacation right now? In a word: Yes. The stay-at-home order has long been lifted, and Pennsylvanians are free to travel. Additionally, at the beginning of March, the commonwealth loosened out-of-state travel restrictions, eliminating the 14-day quarantine and testing requirements for travelers coming to Pennsylvania.

But in the middle of a pandemic, nothing is simple, including traveling. The Health Department says we are still “safer at home,” though some restrictions have eased. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that travel “increases your chances of spreading and getting COVID-19,” and that staying home is the best protection against getting sick — even if you are vaccinated.

So while you can travel, it’s important to think about whether you should. While you can mitigate the risk of getting sick, you can’t eliminate it. Here is what you need to know.

» READ MORE: Can you go on vacation yet? What if you're vaccinated? Here's how to know what's safe.

— Nick Vadala

Officials in New Jersey, Montgomery County, and at the White House will offer coronavirus updates on Wednesday. Here’s a schedule of how to watch and stream:

— Rob Tornoe

While the United States lagged behind much of the world in its initial response to COVID-19, so far the country is outpacing most of the globe when it comes to fully vaccinating residents.

The United States is averaging about 2.5 million vaccinations a day, and overall the country has administered over 128 million vaccine doses. More than 45 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, roughly 13.7% of the population, while another 39 million people have received one shot.

Only Israel, Chile, and a handful of smaller countries have fully vaccinated a greater percentage of their residents than the United States, according to an analysis by Johns Hopkins University.

Pennsylvania has fully vaccinated nearly 1.6 million residents, and another 1.3 million have received one shot. Philadelphia, which is handling its own vaccine rollout, has fully vaccinated about 170,000 people. Another 280,000 have received their first dose.

Combined, roughly 13.5% of Pennsylvanians have been fully vaccinated.

New Jersey has fully vaccinated 1.28 million residents, roughly 14% of the state’s population. Another 1.1 million people have received at least one dose.

— Rob Tornoe

Even as more Americans are vaccinated and talking about post-pandemic life, new cases of COVID-19 are ticking upward in much of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as variants of the virus spread and people eager to take advantage of warm weather begin to let down their guard.

New Jersey has the highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the United States, with close to 28,000 residents testing positive in the last seven days. Traveling in a similar pattern to its early days, the virus is spreading fastest in the northern part of the state, sweeping down the shore and across the Delaware River into the Poconos.

The statewide rate of transmission is 1.09, meaning each case is leading to at least one more infection. The spikes in new cases have so far been largely concentrated in the north and central part of the state, with numbers in South Jersey remaining stable.

In Pennsylvania, rural central counties and the Poconos — which get significant traffic from North Jersey and New York, where rates also are spiking — have seen the most dramatic increase in cases. Over the last seven days, the number of new cases per 100,000 residents is up 45% in Pennsylvania’s northern central counties, including Clinton, Centre and Clearfield, and up 43% in the northeast. Comparatively, new cases are rising more moderately in Pennsylvania’s urban centers: they are up 28% in the Philadelphia region and 24% in the Pittsburgh area.

It’s a pattern established early in the pandemic as people from the New York metropolitan area fled to Pennsylvania seeking space and safety. Last April, Monroe County — the Poconos gateway — had Pennsylvania’s highest COVID-19 infection rate, followed by Lehigh and Luzerne Counties. The area not only is full of vacation homes and tourist attractions, it also has become something of a bedroom community for people who work east of the region.

» READ MORE: COVID-19 is again rising fast in North Jersey, the Shore, and the Poconos

— Sarah Gantz and Allison Steele