*** UPDATE *** New York Times…

With a new surge of coronavirus infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people familiar with the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.

[ *** End Of Update *** ]

* I shared this with you earlier today…

Last fall, 36 residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home died of COVID-19 in a matter of weeks. After several reports and legislative hearings, Republicans sent a letter to the Illinois Attorney General to investigate if state statute applied to the “negligent and disturbing activities that arose.” […]

State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, comes from the long-term care industry. He was one of 26 lawmakers who signed the letter.

“Any private entity that had that kind of situation would have been prosecuted for one death, two deaths, but 36 deaths,” Caulkins told WMAY.

* With that in mind, here’s WSIL TV…

To help ensure transparency, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced today that COVID-19 vaccination data for both residents and staff in long-term care (LTC) facilities is now available on the IDPH website at dph.illinois.gov/covid19/long-term-care-facility-data.

Given that LTC facilities have experienced a significant portion of COVID-19 deaths, particularly early in pandemic, this resource will be used for tracking COVID-19 vaccinations for both staff and residents in facilities across state.

The new site will display an interactive map where the user can choose to view either the percentage of staff or percentage of residents who have been vaccinated. The site will also show weekly confirmed cases, total confirmed cases, weekly COVID-19 deaths, total COVID-19 deaths, and vaccination rates.

Click here to go to the site. I looked at Rep. Caulkins’ home county of Macon. The worst staff vaccination rate is at Fair Havens Senior Living: 4.58 percent. That’s not a typo on my part.

I’m kinda wondering if Rep. Caulkins would support a vaccine mandate for nursing home employees.

* Some history from Clarence Page…

I remember nothing but gratitude and relief from my own parents about the rise of polio vaccines in the 1950s. That’s what I found in a survey by polling pioneer George Gallup in 1954, shortly after Jonas Salk’s new polio vaccine became available.

Gallup found the American public to be generally “very optimistic” about the shots. Such optimism was what I expected from those seemingly more innocent and trusting post-World War II days.

But, reading on, I found more thorns among the roses. Asked if they were willing to take the new shot themselves, Gallup found 60% of Americans said they were willing to do it while 31% said they would not.

That’s remarkably close to the 35% who told Gallup they would not take a COVID-19 inoculation last year shortly after it was first announced. Even higher numbers — 45% — said they would not take the new vaccines for smallpox in 2002 or the swine flu in 2009.

So, I think that in the future many of us will look back on this era and view vaccine skepticism as a natural and predictable development. I also think that vaccines will help us live long enough to be able to look back.

* Kankakee Daily Journal…

COVID-19 transmission in Kankakee County on Tuesday shifted from “moderate” to “substantial,” the second highest metric from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID data tracker.

Areas with 1 to 49 cases per 100,000 people are considered to have moderate transmission, while 50 to 99 is substantial and 100 and above is high, according to the CDC.

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) uses 50 cases per 100,000 as a target threshold for counties to aim to stay under.

The data tracker showed Kankakee County moving from 36 cases per 100,000 on July 24 to 50.06 on Tuesday, with Kankakee County Health Department administrator John Bevis saying there could be as many as 55.

All but six Illinois counties are rated as having substantial or high community transmission, according to the data tracker.

* Other news…

* Poll: America’s pandemic pessimism returns: Americans place the most blame for rising COVID-19 cases and the spread of new variants on the unvaccinated [79 percent]

* “Mask up to keep it up”: Preliminary evidence of the association between erectile dysfunction and COVID-19

* Surprise dip in UK COVID cases baffles researchers: Hospitalizations in England have also started to decline gradually — there were 645 admissions on 1 August, compared with 836 on 25 July. However, Paget cautions that there is some indication that infections might now be creeping up again.

* Arkansas’ Republican Governor Admits Mistake on Mask Mandates as Cases Soar: ‘I Wish That Had Not Become Law’: Arkansas has the third-lowest vaccination rate in the country — ahead of only Mississippi and Alabama among all states.

* NYC, big employers taking hard line against vaccine holdouts

* Chicago has no plans yet for vaccine mandate for restaurants and gyms, Arwady says, but city is watching New York closely

* Here’s what we know about the delta-plus variant