 Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Health Care. The White House recruited another social media influencer to urge vaccinations, with President Biden posing with the man behind the “Dude With Sign” Instagram account. If you have any tips, email us at nweixel@thehill.com, psullivan@thehill.com and jcoleman@thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter at @NateWeixel, @PeterSullivan4, and @JustineColeman8. Today: CDC signed off on third vaccine doses for immunocompromised people. Canada is going big on vaccine requirements, and the White House is funding rural hospitals to help combat COVID. We’ll start with vaccines: CDC recommends third vaccine dose for immunocompromised people The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday officially recommended an additional dose of coronavirus vaccines for certain people with compromised immune systems, clearing the way for doses to be administered to a few million Americans as soon as possible. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on the recommendation for people with moderate to severely compromised immune systems only a few hours after it was unanimously endorsed by the agency's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In a statement, Walensky said the recommendation is "an important step in ensuring everyone, including those most vulnerable to COVID-19, can get as much protection as possible from COVID-19 vaccination." "At a time when the Delta variant is surging, an additional vaccine dose for some people with weakened immune systems could help prevent serious and possibly life-threatening COVID-19 cases within this population," Walensky added. Narrow list: The CDC's definition of immunocompromised is pretty narrow. It includes people undergoing treatment for solid tumors or blood cancers; organ transplant patients, including those who have gotten a stem cell transplant within the last two years; and people with advanced or untreated HIV. Not a booster: The additional doses are not considered boosters, because they are considered part of the primary vaccine series. Neither the CDC nor FDA recommend booster doses for the general population, though some people have been taking matters into their own hands to get extra doses. More than 1 million people in the U.S. have received unauthorized booster shots of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, the CDC said. About 90,000 people have received an additional dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Honor system: There is no requirement for people to show proof that they meet the definition. Patients will only need to attest to pharmacists that they fall into one of the specific categories. Read more here. Canada to require all air travelers to be vaccinated The Canadian government announced Friday that it will require all commercial air travelers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, in addition to passengers on interprovincial trains and cruise ships. Canada is also requiring vaccinations for all federal government workers, as well as employees in air, rail and marine transportation. Contrast with the US: The steps are far-ranging moves to get more people vaccinated, and go significantly farther than what the Biden administration has required in the United States. At the end of July, President Biden announced federal workers would have to be vaccinated, but stopped short of a full mandate by also leaving an option of getting tested regularly instead. Vaccinations are not required for air travel within the United States, and even in requiring vaccines for their own employees, United Airlines is an exception among the major airlines in that it is mandating the shots. The Biden administration has been encouraging U.S. employers to act on their own to mandate vaccinations for their workers. Read more here. US reports nearly 1 million vaccinations in past day, most since early July The United States on Friday reported almost a million new COVID-19 vaccinations from the previous day's total, the biggest one-day tally for vaccinations since early July. About 918,000 were administered on Friday, according to Cyrus Shapar, the White House's COVID-19 data director. The number includes 576,000 people getting their first dose of the vaccine. The increase signals a rise in the vaccination rate amid a push to get more people shots as the delta variant fuels a surge in cases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average number of shots per day has jumped from about 500,000 in mid-July to about 700,000. But the latest figures are still well below the peak in April, when more than 3 million shots were being given each day. White House touts number: "Strongest 24 hours of vaccinations since before July 4th," tweeted White House chief of staff Ron Klain. "Vaccine requirements and incentives are starting to pay off -- as well as the tragedy of seeing so much needless illness and loss due to Delta's impact on the unvaccinated." Read more here. Schools become COVID-19 battleground As the delta variant continues spreading rapidly across the country, causing a new wave of infections and hospitalizations, it is sending school administrators scrambling to adjust reopening plans. Schools will open in the next weeks, but there’s no national consensus on how to keep classrooms safe, raising questions and conflicts for the nation’s teachers, parents and school boards. Local districts in Florida, Arizona and Texas are at war with their GOP governors over the refusal to allow mask requirements. Meanwhile, parents in Georgia's largest school district are filing a lawsuit because the school requires students to wear masks. School board members are being screamed at, and in one viral video, health care workers in Tennessee who advocated for masks were harassed after they spoke at a school board meeting. In California, all teachers will need to be vaccinated — unless they want to produce a negative COVID-19 test instead. But proof of vaccination is required for anyone who wants to eat inside a restaurant or go to a gym in some major cities. It creates an impossible situation for school administrators. “Our superintendents are under tremendous pressure and have been, this is now going into the third school year that's been affected by this pandemic. And they get it from all sides,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. Read more here. White House announces funding to aid rural hospitals in fighting pandemic The Biden administration on Friday announced the allocation of billions of dollars in funding intended to aid hospitals and combat the COVID-19 pandemic in rural communities. The administration announced $500 million in funding through the Department of Agriculture would be used to create the Emergency Rural Health Care Grant Program, which will allocate most of that money to assist rural hospitals and boost COVID-19 testing and vaccination efforts. The program will also provide more than $100 million in grants to make rural health care providers more viable in the long term, the White House said. Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services is allocating $8.5 billion from the American Rescue Plan signed into law earlier this year to pay health care providers in rural communities who provide Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Plan services as compensation for lost revenue amid the pandemic. "These funds will help ensure that providers can effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and will place them on stable financial footing to continue serving their communities into the future," the White House said in a release outlining the additional measures. Significance: Rural communities have been hit especially hard by the pandemic, and experts have cautioned that proximity and access to hospitals, testing and vaccination sites have added to those challenges. Read more here. What we’re reading Pfizer CEO to public: Just trust us on the Covid booster (Kaiser Health News) Why the coronavirus lab leak theory won’t go away (Politico) Elective surgeries are being delayed again. Doctors want to handle it differently this time (Stat News) State by state COVID cases are rising In ICE facilities, putting detainees and the public at risk (New Orleans Public Radio) Texas deploys 2,500 out-of-state medical workers to fight Covid as younger patients crowd hospitals (CNBC) COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing in Texas nursing homes, and nearly half of workers are unvaccinated (Texas Tribune) Michigan won't mandate masks in schools right now, but hopes local districts do (Detroit Free Press) | 
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