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WHO Sees 'Incredibly Low' COVID, Flu Vaccination Rates as Cases Surge

FILE PHOTO: A medical worker administers a dose of the "Cominarty" Pfizer-Bivalent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Nice, France, December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A medical worker administers a dose of the "Cominarty" Pfizer-Bivalent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Nice, France, December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
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WHO Sees 'Incredibly Low' COVID, Flu Vaccination Rates as Cases Surge

FILE PHOTO: A medical worker administers a dose of the "Cominarty" Pfizer-Bivalent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Nice, France, December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A medical worker administers a dose of the "Cominarty" Pfizer-Bivalent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Nice, France, December 7, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo

Low vaccination rates against the latest versions of COVID-19 and influenza are putting pressure on healthcare systems this winter, leading public health officials told Reuters.
In the United States, several European countries, and other parts of the world, there have been reports of rising hospitalizations linked to respiratory infections in recent weeks. Death rates have also ticked up among older adults in some regions, but far below the COVID pandemic peak.
Spain’s government has reinstated mask-wearing requirements at healthcare facilities, as have some US hospital networks.
“Too many people are in need of serious medical care for flu, for COVID, when we can prevent it,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s interim director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness.
She cited “incredibly low” vaccination rates against flu and COVID in many countries this season, as the world tries to move past the pandemic and its restrictions.
Governments have struggled to communicate the risks still posed by COVID and the benefits of vaccination since a global public health emergency was declared over in May 2023, infectious disease experts and health officials said.
Only 19.4% of US adults have received this season’s COVID vaccine based on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention’s National Immunization Survey, despite a recommendation that all adults get an updated shot to protect against serious illness.
That compares roughly with 17% of adults who got the bivalent booster in the 2022-2023 season, based on actual vaccine data reported to the CDC by states.
Nearly half of US adults over 18 got a flu shot this season (44.9%), roughly the same as last year (44%), according to the CDC.
“We don't think enough people have gotten the updated COVID vaccine,” CDC director Mandy Cohen said in an interview. “Folks still aren't understanding that COVID is still a more severe disease than flu.”
Flu represented 5.2% of US emergency visits compared with 3% for COVID in the week ended Dec. 30. Yet COVID accounted for 10.5 out of 100,000 hospitalizations in that time, compared with 6.1 per 100,000 for flu.
Most of the updated shots being used in the US and European Union are made by Pfizer with German partner BioNTech, or Moderna.
In Europe, flu is circulating at a higher rate than COVID, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said. In total, 24% of a representative sample of tests came back positive in the last week of 2023, up from 19% a fortnight earlier.
The rates are in line with previous flu seasons, said ECDC’s respiratory virus expert Edoardo Colzani. But “now we have COVID-19 as a new, unwanted guest”, he said.
The ECDC did not have vaccination rates for the continent for flu or COVID, but Colzani said early data showed COVID vaccine uptake well below pandemic levels.
In Europe, the new COVID shots are recommended for high-risk groups only, such as seniors and the immunocompromised. Among these groups, the WHO says there should be 100% coverage.
COVID rates are also rising in the southern hemisphere during their summer, the WHO said, because it is not yet a seasonal virus.
Last month, 850,000 new COVID cases and 118,000 new hospitalizations were reported globally, a rise from November of 52% and 23%, respectively, according to WHO, which added that actual figures were likely higher.
The vaccines are still very effective at preventing serious illness, even if they do not block infection, experts said.

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Rats Feast on New York’s City’s Bagged Garbage. Can Putting It in Bins End the Smorgasbord?

A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Rats Feast on New York’s City’s Bagged Garbage. Can Putting It in Bins End the Smorgasbord?

A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)
A resident walks through the courtyard of the Knickerbocker Village housing development in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City, US, November 22, 2024. (Reuters)

For half a century, New York City residents have taken out their trash by flinging plastic bags stuffed with stinking garbage straight onto the sidewalk.

When the bags inevitably leak or break open, they spill litter into the street, providing smorgasbords for rats. In the winter, the trash mounds get buried in snow and remain frozen in place for days, sometimes weeks, reinforcing the city’s reputation as filthy.

Now, New Yorkers are slowly adjusting to a radically new routine, at least for America's biggest city: Putting their trash in bins. With lids.

Earlier this month, covered bins became a requirement for all residential buildings with fewer than 10 living units. That’s the majority of residential properties. All city businesses had to start using bins earlier this year.

“I know this must sound absurd to anyone listening to this who lives pretty much in any other city in the world,” said Jessica Tisch, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, who oversaw the new measures before becoming the city's new police commissioner this week. “But it is revolutionary by New York City’s standards because, for 50 years, we have placed all our trash directly on the curbs.”

Residents who've already experienced trash containerization elsewhere agree it's long overdue for New York City to catch up.

“You see plastic bags open with the food just rotting and stinking and then it leaking out over the sidewalk and into the road,” said John Midgley, who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn and has lived in London, Paris and Amsterdam. “Just the stink of it builds up, you know, week after week after week.”

New York City's homes, businesses and institutions put about 44 million pounds (20 million kilograms) of waste out on the curb every day, about 24 million pounds (11 million kilograms) of which is collected by the city's sanitation department. Much of the rest is handled by private garbage carters.

In the early 20th century, New York City required trash to be placed in metal cans. But in the era before widespread plastic bag use, refuse was thrown directly into the bins, making them filthy and grimy.

Then in 1968, the city’s sanitation workers went on strike. For more than a week, trash cans overflowed. Garbage mounds piled high on sidewalks and spilled into the streets like some dystopian nightmare.

Plastic bag makers donated thousands of bags to help clean up the mess, and New Yorkers never looked back, said Steven Cohen, a Columbia University dean specializing in public affairs.

“It had to do with convenience,” he said. “After the strike, the sanitation workers preferred the modern advance of lighter and seemingly cleaner sealed plastic bags.”

Plastic kept more odors in, compared to the old metal bins. A worker could grab the neck of a bag and easily fling it into a truck.

But Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has deemed trash bag mounds Public Enemy No. 1 in his well-documented war against the city's notorious rats.

Rats have little problem getting into a plastic bag. Durable bins with closing, locking lids should, in theory, do a better job of keeping them out.

The bin requirement, which took effect Nov. 12, comes with its own challenges. Among them: Finding a place for large, wheeled bins in neighborhoods where most buildings don't have yards, alleys or garages. Landlords and homeowners also have to collect the empty bins and bring them back from the curb in the morning — something you didn't have to do with plastic bags.

Caitlin Leffel, who lives in Manhattan, said residents of her building had to hire someone “at surprisingly high cost” to bring out the bins the night before and bring them back in three times a week.

“I know there are problems with the way this city has collected trash for years,” she said. “But the way this program has been rolled out, it has not taken into account many of the nuances of living in New York City.”

Building superintendents are also grumbling about the added work of bringing bins back from the curb.

“It’s completely rearranged our lives,” says Dominick Romeo, founder of NYC Building Supers, a group of building managers that recently rallied in front of City Hall against the new requirements. “Folks are running around like crazy.”

Eventually, the largest residential buildings — those with more than 31 units — will have their own designated container on the street. New trash trucks built with automated, side-loading arms — another innovation that is already common in many other countries — will then clear them out.

The upgrades should make pickups easier and cleaner, even if it might take longer for trash collectors to make the rounds, says Harry Nespoli, president of the union representing some 7,000 city sanitation workers.

For now, he says, workers are still tossing trash into their trucks manually, which has its own downsides.

“Some places, they’re not even using bags. They're just putting their trash into the bins,” Nespoli said. “It's going to take time to get everyone to do it the right way, but at the end of the day, it's our job to pick it up.”

Tisch believes New Yorkers will eventually come around to the new reality.

City officials, for now, are issuing written warnings for non-compliance. Not everyone knows about the new rules yet. But come Jan. 2, fines ranging from $50 to $200 will kick in.

“No one wants to live on a dirty block,” Tisch said. “No one wants to walk past a heaping mound of trash and trash juice when they are leaving to go to work or they are walking their kids home from school.”