While case counts are decreasing across the state, all large events in Washington will soon require proof of vaccination or a negative test. Gov. Jay Inslee announced the new policy Thursday, which applies to indoor events with more than 1,000 people and outdoor events with more than 10,000.
Meanwhile, U.S. health advisers said Thursday that some Americans who received Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine at least six months ago should get a half-dose booster to rev up protection against the coronavirus.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington.
Pfizer-BioNTech ask EU agency to OK vaccine for kids 5-11
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer and biotechnology company BioNTech said Friday they have requested to have their coronavirus vaccine licensed for children ages 5 to 11 across the European Union. If EU regulators agree, it would be the first opportunity for younger children in Europe to get immunized against COVID-19.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they submitted data to the European Medicines Agency, including late-stage results from a study testing their COVID-19 vaccine in more than 2,200 children ages 6 months to 11 years. The children received a lower dose than what’s normally given to adults.
The companies said in a statement that the results showed a “strong immune response” in the children and that the vaccine was also found to be safe. There are currently no COVID-19 vaccines licensed for use in children younger than 12 in Europe or North America; the ones made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are authorized for children 12 and older in the European Union.
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—The Associated Press
UK: 43,000 may have received false negative COVID results
British health officials said Friday that 43,000 people may have been wrongly told they don’t have the coronavirus because of problems at a private laboratory.
The U.K. Health Security Agency said the Immensa Health Clinic Ltd. lab in the central England city of Wolverhampton has been suspended from processing swabs after the false negatives.
Will Welfare, the agency’s public health incident director, said it was working “to determine the laboratory technical issues” behind the inaccurate tests.
The issue was uncovered after some people who were positive for COVID-19 when they took rapid tests went on to show up as negative on more accurate PCR tests.
The health agency said that “around 400,000 samples have been processed through the lab, the vast majority of which will have been negative results, but an estimated 43,000 people may have been given incorrect negative PCR test results,” mostly in southwest England. The incorrect results were given between Sept. 8 and Oct. 12.
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—Jill Lawless, The Associated Press
Newly discovered bat viruses give hints to COVID’s origins
In the summer of 2020, half a year into the coronavirus pandemic, scientists traveled into the forests of northern Laos to catch bats that might harbor close cousins of the pathogen.
The fecal samples the collected turned out to contain coronaviruses, which the scientists studied in high-security biosafety labs, known as BSL-3, using specialized protective gear and air filters.
Three of the Laos coronaviruses were unusual: They carried a molecular hook on their surface that was very similar to the hook on the virus that causes COVID-19, called SARS-CoV-2. Like SARS-CoV-2, their hook allowed them to latch onto human cells.
“It is even better than early strains of SARS-CoV-2,” said Marc Eloit, a virus expert at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who led the study, referring to how well the hook on the Laos coronaviruses binds to human cells.
The findings have significant implications for the charged debate over COVID’s origins, experts say. Some people have speculated that SARS-CoV-2’s impressive ability to infect human cells could not have evolved through a natural spillover from an animal. But the new findings seem to suggest otherwise.
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—Carl Zimmer, The New York Times
Wyoming district where student arrested extends mask mandate
A mask-wearing mandate will continue for at least another month in a Wyoming school district where a student who wouldn’t wear a mask got arrested for allegedly refusing to leave her high school.
Grace Smith, 16, might not be involved in future confrontations at Laramie High School, however. The junior said she was withdrawing after being “bullied, discriminated against and worst of all, legitimately threatened.”
Albany County School District No. 1 trustees voted 6-1 later in the meeting to extend the district’s mask mandate for everybody inside district buildings until Nov. 12. The mask requirement had been set to expire this Friday.
Wyoming has had one of the lowest vaccination rates and highest COVID-19 rates in the U.S. but the district is among just a few in Wyoming to require masks this fall. Smith’s anti-mask stance is widespread in this conservative state, where Republican Gov. Mark Gordon has vowed not to return to mask mandates since imposing an unpopular one last winter.
Laramie — home to the University of Wyoming, which has been requiring masks in most of its buildings this fall — has been somewhat more receptive to masks than many Wyoming communities which also have had heated debates over masks this fall.
Police arrested Smith at her high school Oct. 7 after she served two consecutive, two-day suspensions for not wearing a mask.
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—Mead Gruver, The Associated Press
