US Covid Deaths Fall Below 300 A Day For First Time In More Than A Year

AP: US Hits Encouraging Milestones On Virus Deaths And Shots
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have dipped below 300 a day for the first time since the early days of the disaster in March 2020, while the drive to put shots in arms hit another encouraging milestone Monday: 150 million Americans fully vaccinated. The coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But now, as the outbreak loosens its grip, it has fallen down the list of the biggest killers. (Kunzelman, 6/21)

AP: First Lady To Visit Nashville, Encourage Vaccinations
First lady Jill Biden will travel to Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday as part of a national effort to get more Americans vaccinated against COVID-19. Biden will attend a pop-up vaccination site with signer-songwriter Brad Paisley at Ole Smoky Distillery in Nashville in the evening. (6/22)

Young adults and seniors still appear to be slow to get the vaccine —

The Washington Post: Youngest Adults Are Least Likely To Be Vaccinated, And Their Interest In Shots Is Declining, CDC Finds 
The nation’s youngest adults remain the least likely to be vaccinated against the coronavirus — and their weekly rates of vaccination are declining, according to federal research released Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed adult vaccination rates by age through May 22, finding 80 percent of adults older than 65 had been immunized compared with just 38.3 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds. (Johnson,, 6/21)

Axios: Vaccinations Of Seniors Lag Behind In 11 States 
In 11 states, more than 20% of senior citizens remain unvaccinated, a rate much higher than the national average, the New York Times reports. People over 65 years old are particularly vulnerable to experiencing severe symptoms and death from COVID-19. (Saric, 6/21)

In other updates on the vaccine rollout —

Axios: CDC Launches Spanish WhatsApp Chat To Boost Latino COVID Vaccinations 
WhatsApp and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have partnered to deliver information on the coronavirus vaccine to Spanish-speaking users, the social media platform announced Monday. 36% of Latinos have had at least one vaccine dose compared to 45% of white people as of June 14, per the Kaiser Family Foundation. Reaching the Latino community on WhatsApp, which hosts a huge immigrant user base, could help counter misinformation and mistrust, NBC News reports. (Chen, 6/21)

CIDRAP: COVID Vaccination Site Deserts May Affect Rollout, Study Reveals
In Brooklyn, New York, communities with higher rates of poverty and minorities may have less access to COVID-19 vaccination sites, according to a JAMA Network Open research letter late last week. The researchers looked at Brooklyn's 18 communities and found 87 COVID-19 vaccination sites for its population of 2,604,747. A little over half of the people (51.7%) were Latino or Black, 52.6% were female, and the median age was 35.1 years. (6/21)

The New York Times: Many Parts Of The U.S. Needed Persuading To Get Vaccinated. Not South Texas. 
While officials across the country have offered free beer, concert tickets and millions of dollars in lottery winnings to encourage vaccinations, residents of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas have needed little prodding. Exposure to death and disease has been enough incentive. The four-county region accounts for nearly 10 percent of the state’s some 52,000 deaths from the coronavirus. But today, deaths are significantly down, as are case numbers, and vaccination rates are higher than both the broader state and national averages. In one county, about 70 percent of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, according to state figures and a vaccine tracker by The New York Times. (Sandoval, 6/21)

Albany Herald: Georgia State University Awarded $500,000 Grant
The Prevention Research Center at Georgia State University has received a one-year, $500,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify behaviors and solutions to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake in the African American and refugee, immigrant and migrant community in Clarkston. Clarkston, in DeKalb County, is one of the largest refugee resettlement communities in the country, with thousands of refugees having resettled there and in surrounding communities over the past two decades. (6/21)

Los Angeles Times: Fixing California COVID Digital Vaccination Record Issues
When California officials unveiled a new system to provide digital COVID-19 vaccine records last week, they billed it as a convenience, an easy way for residents to demonstrate and verify their inoculation status. But the offering has not been without hiccups. Already, the state has received nearly 70,000 troubleshooting forms submitted online by residents looking to correct or complete their information, according to the California Department of Public Health. Though only a fraction of the 558,000 digital records that have successfully been created since the system went live Friday, the numbers demonstrate how even relatively uncommon issues can wind up inconveniencing tens of thousands of people. (Money, 6/21)

Also —

Des Moines Register: COVID-19 Vaccine Symptoms Leads Waukee Woman To Discover Breast Cancer
Jennifer Moseley received the COVID-19 vaccine to protect herself from one disease. She ended up saving herself from another. The Waukee grandmother remembers exactly when she got the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine: 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 20 — she had wanted to get the shot before visiting her daughter, Madie Kornberg, and her grandson, Sam, in Jacksonville for his birthday later that week. The day after her shot, she came down with the flu-like symptoms that are commonly reported as symptoms of the vaccine. (Kay LeBlanc, 6/21)