Live: Coronavirus daily news updates, October 21: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world

U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved extending COVID-19 boosters to people who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decisions to allow “mixing and matching” of vaccine shots mark a big step toward expanding the U.S. booster campaign, which began with extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine last month. See if you qualify for a booster shot in Washington.

Meanwhile, children ages 5 to 11 will soon be able to get a COVID-19 shot at their pediatrician’s office, local pharmacy and potentially even their school, the White House said Wednesday as it detailed plans for the expected authorization of the Pfizer shot for elementary school youngsters in a matter of weeks.

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.

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11:24 am

Expert panel takes up complicated COVID-19 booster questions

 Influential government advisers are deciding Thursday how best to expand the nation’s COVID-19 booster campaign, including whether and when it’s OK to “mix and match” brands for the extra dose.

The advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are slated to discuss who should get extra doses of the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines — and the bigger question of getting a different brand for the booster than people’s original vaccination.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized both steps Wednesday, as part of a federal push to broaden booster access for the U.S. public. But the CDC, guided by its advisory panel, provides the final blessing.

About two-thirds of Americans eligible for COVID-19 shots are fully vaccinated, and several million have gotten additional doses of Pfizer’s vaccine after the FDA and CDC gave that go-ahead last month. While health authorities hope boosters will shore up waning immunity against milder coronavirus infections, all the vaccines still offer strong protection against hospitalizations and death — and getting the unvaccinated their first shots remain a priority.

Read the story here.

—Lauran Neergaard and Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press

11:15 am

US unemployment claims fall to new pandemic low of 290,000

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to a new low point since the pandemic erupted, evidence that layoffs are declining as companies hold onto workers.

Unemployment claims dropped 6,000 to 290,000 last week, the third straight drop, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the fewest people to apply for benefits since March 14, 2020, when the pandemic intensified. Applications for jobless aid, which generally track the pace of layoffs, have fallen steadily from about 900,000 in January.

New initial claims for unemployment benefits i n Washington fell 8.4% to 4,917 for the week that ended Oct. 16, from 5,368 the prior week, according to data from the federal Department of Labor. The Washington state Employment Security Department reports its own figures later Thursday; those often differ slightly from the federal numbers.

Unemployment claims are increasingly returning to normal, but many other aspects of the job market haven’t yet done so. Hiring has slowed in the past two months, even as companies and other employers have posted a near-record number of open jobs. Officials such as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had hoped more people would find work in September as schools reopened, easing child care constraints, and enhanced unemployment aid ended nationwide.

Yet so far, that hasn’t happened. Instead, some observers are starting to consider whether some of those who had jobs before the pandemic, and lost them, may have permanently stopped looking for work.

Read the story here.

—Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

10:15 am

‘We are coming for you,’ a Port Angeles doctor is told as public health workers find themselves in crisis

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As she leaves work, Dr. Allison Berry keeps a vigilant eye on her rearview mirror, watching the vehicles around her, weighing if she needs to take a more circuitous route home. She must make sure nobody finds out where she lives.

When the pandemic first hit the northern edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Berry was a popular family physician and local health officer, trained in biostatistics and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. She processed COVID-19 test kits in her garage and delivered supplies to people in quarantine, leading a mobilization that kept her counties with some of the fewest deaths in the nation.

But this summer, as a delta variant wave pushed case numbers to alarming levels, Berry announced a mask mandate. In September, she ordered vaccination requirements for indoor dining.

By then, to many in the community, the enemy was not the virus. It was her.

Berry should be attacked “on sight,” one resident wrote online. Someone else suggested bringing back public hangings. “Dr. Berry, we are coming for you,” a man warned at a public meeting. An angry crowd swarmed into the courthouse during a briefing on the COVID-19 response one day, looking for her, and protesters also showed up at her house, until they learned that Berry was no longer living there.

“The places where it is most needed to put in more stringent measures, it’s the least possible to do it,” Berry said. “Either because you’re afraid you’re going to get fired, or you’re afraid you’re going to get killed. Or both.”

Read the story here.

—Mike Baker and Danielle Ivory, The New York Times

9:15 am

Some colleges put new vaccine mandates in place — for the flu

After a pandemic-disrupted year of safety measures and Zoom lectures, the promise of coronavirus vaccines offered U.S. universities a shot at normalcy this fall. The virus has not been wiped completely from campuses, but major outbreaks have so far been rare.

The arrival of flu season, however, poses an added challenge.

Colleges are ideal breeding grounds for viruses, and some public health experts are predicting that this year’s flu season will be more severe than the last. To guard against outbreaks, a number of major universities are going beyond their usual autumn flu vaccine pushes — and enacting mandates.

Read the story here.

—Lauren Lumpkin, The Washington Post

8:15 am

Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging?

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Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging?

Yes, as long as the virus that caused the pandemic keeps infecting people. But that doesn’t mean new variants will keep emerging as regularly, or that they’ll be more dangerous.

With more than half the world still not vaccinated, the virus will likely keep finding people to infect and replicating inside them for several months or years to come. And each time a virus makes a copy of itself, a small mutation could occur. Those changes could help the virus survive, becoming new variants.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the delta variant is twice as contagious as earlier versions of the virus. And while it could still mutate to become more infectious, it probably won’t double its transmission rate again, says Dr. Adam Lauring, a virus and infectious disease expert at the University of Michigan.

“We’ve seen a stage of rapid evolution for the virus. It’s been harvesting the low-hanging fruit, but there’s not an infinite number of things it can do,” Lauring says.

Read the story here.

—Christina Larson, The Associated Press

7:45 am

India celebrates 1B vaccine doses, hopes to speed 2nd shots

India celebrated giving its billionth COVID-19 vaccine dose on Thursday, a hopeful milestone for the South Asian country where the delta variant fueled a crushing surge earlier this year and missteps initially held back its inoculation campaign.

About half of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people have received at least one dose while around 20% are fully immunized, according to Our World in Data. Many of those shots have come in just the past couple of months, after the rollout languished in the first half of the year amid vaccine shortages and problems with the system for rolling them out.

The success of the campaign has been credited with driving down coronavirus cases since the devastating months at the start of the year when India was recording hundreds of thousands infections a day, hospitals buckled under the pressure, and crematoriums and graveyards became overwhelmed.

Read the story here.

—The Associated Press

7:21 am

Moscow to shut shops, schools as COVID-19 deaths soar

Authorities in Moscow on Thursday announced plans to shut restaurants, cinemas and non-food stores and introduce other restrictions later this month, as Russia registered the highest daily numbers of new coronavirus infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic.

The government coronavirus task force reported 36,339 new confirmed infections and 1,036 deaths in the past 24 hours. That brought Russia’s death toll to 227,389, by far the highest in Europe.

President Vladimir Putin has voiced consternation about vaccine hesitancy and sought to urge more to come forward for jabs.

Read the story here.

—Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press

6:49 am

Vaccine doubts fuel doctor’s rise in Minnesota governor race

WATERTOWN, Minn. (AP) — The small-town family doctor angling to become Minnesota’s next governor smiled, leaned into the camera and told his Facebook viewers that Sweden had just paused the Moderna vaccine for people under age 30 over “significant concern” about heart inflammation.

Dr. Scott Jensen, clad in a white lab coat, quickly pivoted: “So what happens to military people who are threatened with a dishonorable discharge if they are unwilling to potentially put their heart health at risk?”

The post swiftly racked up thousands of views and favorable comments — evidence of Jensen’s early success in tapping conservative anger at the Democratic strategy of trying to vaccinate, mask and social-distance America out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Messages like the video have been a key part of how Jensen, a former state senator with a reputation as a moderate before the pandemic hit, has emerged as the early frontrunner among Republicans seeking to unseat Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.

Jensen’s video drew a cautionary label from Facebook attesting to the safety of vaccines. Earlier this year, he had been temporarily banned from advertising on the site and was kicked off TikTok for allegedly spreading misinformation, though the social media platforms never said exactly why.

The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice has opened — and dropped — four investigations against Jensen, based on anonymous allegations that he spread misinformation and gave bad advice about COVID-19. Jensen has discussed the cases on social media but declined to release the letters he received from the board, whose investigations are not public unless they result in disciplinary action.

Read the full story.

—The Associated Press

6:17 am

Olympic torch arrives in Beijing under a cloud of protests and COVID fears

The Olympic torch arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, beginning a countdown to a Winter Games being held under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic and calls for a boycott over China’s rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.

The arrival ceremony, like the official lighting of the Olympic flame in Athens on Monday, unfolded without spectators, one of many concessions to COVID-19 that will severely restrict access to the Games, which begin on Feb. 4.

China, with the “full support” of the International Olympic Committee, is planning to hold the Games with even greater health protocols than those in place during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo this year.

Only vaccinated and screened residents of China will be able to attend as spectators, while athletes, broadcasters, journalists and others working at the Olympic sites will be confined to one of three bubblelike environments for their entire visit. Those not vaccinated face 21-day quarantines upon arrival.

Read the full story.

—The New York Times

6:15 am

Catch up on the past 24 hours

—Kris Higginson

Seattle Times staff & news services