Covid-19 live updates If 70 percent of adults get a shot by July 4, U.S. can avoid later surge, Fauci says

The Biden administration has scrambled to devise a way to keep paying enhanced unemployment benefits to an estimated 3.6 million Americans who stand to lose them soon in Republican-led states, but Labor Department officials have come to think that the law does not allow them to do so.

With a federal intervention now unlikely, jobless Americans in at least 22 states including Arizona, Ohio and Texas are set to see their payments fall by $300 each week — or be wiped out entirely — as GOP governors try to force people back to work in response to a potential national labor shortage.

The trouble centers on federal coronavirus stimulus programs, some of which date back to the earliest days of the pandemic. Congress over the past year has added $300 to every out-of-work American’s typical weekly unemployment check, extended the number of weeks they are eligible for aid, and offered benefits to those who are self-employed, including gig-economy laborers, who otherwise aren’t able to collect jobless support.

Experts say it’s a no-brainer for adults and adolescents to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

But for younger kids, the case isn’t as clear-cut.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for use in children ages 12 to 15, though it could be months before a vaccine is approved for use in children younger than 12. Pfizer has said it could apply for emergency use authorization for vaccines in this younger age group by early fall, and Moderna may be on a similar timeline.

Yet it’s unclear how big the benefit would be from getting them vaccinated, some experts say.

Children under 12 are rarely hospitalized with or die of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus — and there’s evidence they don’t spread the virus as easily as adults.

With vaccine demand dropping, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is launching a $2 million lottery that will hand out $40,000 cash prizes to some vaccinated state residents — along with a grand prize of $400,000.

Hogan said daily drawings for a $40,000 prize will be held from Tuesday to July 3. On July 4, the grand prize of $400,000 will be awarded via a random drawing.

All Maryland residents 18 and older who received their coronavirus vaccination in Maryland will be eligible. No registration or entry is necessary.

More than a year after the pandemic began, officials in some school districts across the country concede that they failed during the crisis to deliver the quality of education that students with disabilities are legally entitled to receive. The consequences of this failure are likely to linger for years, if not decades, advocates and experts warn.

More than 7 million students are eligible for special educational services under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These children, each of whom follow an individualized education program that spells out what extra or different services they need at school, account for an estimated 14 percent of U.S. schoolchildren.

While some thrived while learning from home during the pandemic — including a boy whose wheelchair left him feeling out of place at school but who became indistinguishable from his classmates on Zoom — many did not, and advocates and educators say many have suffered significant developmental setbacks.

CHICAGO — For the second time this season, and the second time in seven weeks, the Washington Nationals are dealing with a positive coronavirus test and trying to contain the spread. But while April’s outbreak reached 11 players and two staff members, this situation is already different: Erick Fedde, the player who tested positive, was vaccinated with a Johnson & Johnson shot earlier this season. And the team has determined that Tanner Rainey, who has not been vaccinated, was the only player who had to quarantine after Fedde’s positive result turned up Wednesday morning.

Both pitchers were inactive — and on the coronavirus-related injured list — when the Nationals beat the Cubs, 4-3, at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night. Yet Max Scherzer thinks that, because Fedde is vaccinated and asymptomatic, he shouldn’t have to go on the IL. Scherzer confirmed that Fedde was the positive case in his postgame video conference call with reporters Wednesday. Then the 36-year-old starter stated his opinion.

“We got to update the rules here. We got to start following the science, listening to what the CDC says,” Scherzer said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday rebuffed calls by some Republicans to relax the chamber’s guidelines on face masks, telling reporters congressional leaders have a responsibility to ensure the floor of the House “is not a petri dish.”

A day earlier, the House rejected a GOP effort to roll back the guidelines, with Democrats arguing that if lawmakers want to be maskless, they need to be vaccinated.

“We have to wait for them to be vaccinated, because they are selfishly a dangerment to other people, including staff people here,” Pelosi said when asked about the actions of some House Republicans who refuse to wear masks but have declined to say whether they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Pelosi said she is “hopeful” the restrictions in the House can eventually be removed but questioned why a number of Republican lawmakers have insisted on relaxing the guidelines even as their vaccination status remains unclear.

“What is this, the honor system?” she asked. “The honor system, as to whether somebody has been vaccinated? Do you want them breathing in your face, on the strength of their honor?”

According to a CNN survey last week, House and Senate Democrats have a 100 percent coronavirus vaccination rate.

At least 92 percent of Senate Republicans have been vaccinated, the survey found. But only 95 out of 212 House Republicans — or 44.8 percent — said they have been vaccinated, according to CNN.

“This is about science and governance,” Pelosi said Thursday. “Science and governance. We have a responsibility to make sure that the House of Representatives chamber is not a petri dish because of the selfishness of some not to be vaccinated or … because it requires us to wear a mask.”

She added: “It’s not a, shall we say, subjective decision. The attending physician has said until everybody’s vaccinated, we wear masks.”

Pelosi also suggested Thursday that, depending on how things progress, lawmakers who refuse to wear a mask and have not been vaccinated may not be allowed on the floor of the House.

“We have facilities up above in the gallery where people can come to vote,” she said. “We don’t want to deter anybody’s ability to exercise their constitutional duties. We have that responsibility, as well. So we’re trying to balance everybody being able to exercise his or her constitutional duties, as well as protect the security, the staff and the other members.”

For more than 14 months, D.C. restaurant and bar owners dreamed of the day they’d be allowed to reopen as usual, with groups of patrons packed onto bar stools and the chaotic, happy din of conversations and clinking glasses.

On May 10, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser told them that this was becoming reality: In just 11 days, they could go from running at 25 percent indoor occupancy, often short-staffed or focusing on takeout to stay afloat, to roaring back to full dining rooms of expectant guests, some of whom won’t have sat inside a restaurant for a year.

“The suddenness of the announcement was crazy,” says Jackie Greenbaum, owner of numerous restaurants, including Bar Charley and Little Coco’s.

It’s not just restaurant owners who were blindsided: Bowser also announced that live music could return in bars on May 21, and at larger nightclubs three weeks later. Joe Lapan, the co-owner of Adams Morgan’s Songbyrd Music House, says he and his partners had started booking concerts for the fall, not realizing they’d be able to host bands sooner.

“The timing snuck up on everyone,” he says. The first in-person show on Songbyrd’s current calendar is Sept. 24, though there’s a live-streamed event on May 27.

Amid concerns about leading her Colorado county’s public health response in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic last summer, Emily Brown had another worry: whom she might run into at the grocery store.

She was the target of a fearsome Facebook post referencing “bodies swinging from trees.” But when she sought protection, local leaders in Rio Grande County instead removed her as head of the county’s public health department.

“I’ve been surprised at who professes that vitriol so vocally on platforms like social media,” she told The Washington Post in June.

Seeking to address the mounting online harassment endured by health workers across the state during the pandemic, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a bill Tuesday making it illegal to post personal information about health workers, officials and their families that threatens their safety.