It will likely take until summer for the “average, healthy, young American” to have access to Covid-19 vaccination, a top infectious disease expert said.
The US CDC is reviewing new data that suggests a coronavirus variant first identified in the UK could be more deadly.
President Biden will reinstate Covid travel restrictions on Brazil and much of Europe, and add South Africa, a White House official told CNN.
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CVS plans to start on-site vaccinations in 11 states next month
From CNN Health's Lauren Mascarenhas
Crates are stacked up outside of CVS Pharmacy during the coronavirus pandemic on May 1, 2020 in New York City.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
CVS pharmacies will begin offering on-site vaccinations in 11 states in February, Dr. David Fairchild, associate chief medical officer at CVS Health said Monday.
CVS partnered with the federal government to vaccinate residents and staff in long-term care facilities. It announced Monday that it completed first-round doses in all participating facilities. Fairchild said CVS will soon begin vaccinating other eligible people.
In an interview hosted by the American College of Physicians and Annals of Internal Medicine, Fairchild said CVS will begin dispensing vaccinations at 272 retail locations across 11 states in February.
Fairchild said locations are distributed across the country geographically and across the social vulnerability index.
“We worked with an outside organization to help identify where our stores fell in terms of this vulnerability index, and our stores are pretty much distributed evenly across that index, so that’s a good thing in terms of assuring equity,” he noted.
Fairchild noted that vaccine eligibility varies by states, and the CVS digital screening tool will account for that.
“We can schedule first doses, and we also have the ability to have people come in just for their second dose if they got their first dose somewhere else,” he said. “And of course, the vaccinations are done in a way that’s no cost to them even if they do not have insurance.”
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UK to offer genomic expertise in identifying Covid-19 variants
From CNN’s Sharif Paget in Atlanta and Max Foster in the UK
The United Kingdom announced on Tuesday it will offer its genomics expertise in identifying new variants of the coronavirus to countries that do not have the resources to do so, according to a statement released by the country’s Department of Health and Social Care.
The platform will initially be led by Public Health England (PHE), which is working with National Health Service Test and Trace and the World Health Organization’s SARS-CoV-2 Global Laboratory Working Group.
The department said the UK has carried out more than half of all SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences submitted to the global database, a capability which helped PHE’s scientists detect the variant in Kent late last year.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to deliver remarks on Tuesday regarding this announcement and outline his vision for a collaborative global health system to ensure the world is better prepared against future threats.
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Variant first spotted in Brazil might become "more dominant," Fauci says
From CNN Health Andrea Diaz
Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Source: CNN
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the President, said the new variant of coronavirus called P.1 identified in Minnesota in someone who had recently traveled from Brazil, could become “more dominant.”
Additionally, Fauci said that they are paying close attention to this new variant as well as to the strain also recently found in California.
“Up until recently, we haven’t had a comprehensive genomic surveillance, which the CDC is really increasing together with a little bit of collaboration, in fact, a lot of collaboration with the NIH, that will get a much better feel for what is circulating in our own country,” said Fauci.
Vaccines vs. variants: Current vaccines for Covid-19 that are currently being administered are likely to be effective against the new variants, Fauci said.
Fauci said the antibodies that are induced by both the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccine seem to be effective in blocking the variant first found in the UK. He said the evidence also indicates vaccines will protect people against infection with variants first spotted in South Africa and Brazil.
“When you’re dealing with South Africa and Brazil – but mostly South Africa, we haven’t looked at Brazil as carefully as South Africa – although it’s been diminished somewhat it’s still well within the cushion range of being an effective vaccine,” Fauci said.
Additionally, Fauci said surveillance needs to increase so that scientists can stay on top of mutations in the virus.
CNN’s Erin Burnett speaks with Dr. Anthony Fauci:
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100 million doses in 100 days remains US target despite Biden's hopes, White House official says
From CNN's MJ Lee
The Biden administration’s official goal still remains 100 million vaccine shots in their first 100 days in office, despite the US President expressing optimism that the total number could be even higher, a White House official told CNN.
President Joe Biden said that he was hopeful that the United States could soon be administering 1.5 million coronavirus vaccines a day – 50% more than the 1 million doses per day goal he had been promising since before inauguration.
But the White House is still aiming for the original goal, which the administration still views as “ambitious but achievable,” the official said. However they also anticipate that plenty of things could go wrong given the unprecedented nature of the pandemic.
The official stressed that the hope now was to surpass that original goal of 100 million vaccine shots in the first 100 days.
Describing Biden as an “optimist,” the official also said the President has been pushing his Covid team to aim for progress beyond their initial goal of 100 million vaccines doses in 100 days.
Mexico's richest man is recovering from Covid-19, his son announces on Twitter
From CNN’s Kiarinna Parisi, Sharif Paget and Tatiana Arias
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helú listens to a question during a news conference in Mexico City, on October, 16, 2019.
Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images
Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helú, is recovering from Covid-19, according to his son, Carlos Slim Domit.
Billionaire businessman Slim Helú, 80, heads a global telecoms conglomerate that includes mobile companies Telmex, América Móvil and Grupo Carso.
The family’s namesake nonprofit Carlos Slim Foundation and AstraZeneca signed an agreement in October of last year to help manufacture and distribute the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine at no profit across Latin America, with an initial supply of some 150 million doses and first shipments expected in the first half of 2021.
Details of the agreement are published on the Carlos Slim Foundation website.
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0.01% of people tested positive for coronavirus after two vaccine doses, Israeli data shows
From CNN Health’s Elizabeth Cohen
An Israeli man receives his second Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from a medical professional at a vaccination center set up on a mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel, on Wednesday, January 20.
Oded Balilty/AP
About 0.01% of a large group of people who received two doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine tested positive for coronavirus after their second shot – and those patients had only a mild illness, according to preliminary data from an Israeli health care system.
Maccabi Healthcare Services found that out of approximately 128,600 people who received two doses of the vaccine, 20 became infected and tested positive more than a week after their second dose.
Maccabi did not test all patients after receiving their second dose. Instead, they tested an unspecified number of people who developed symptoms or who were exposed to someone with Covid-19.
The clinical trials for Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine showed it to be about 95% effective.
Of the 20 patients who tested positive, 50% suffer from chronic illnesses. All of the 20 patients experienced a mild illness with symptoms including headaches, cough, weakness or fatigue. No one was hospitalized.
Out of a population of just over 9 million people, Israel has given first vaccine doses to about 2.5 million people, and second doses to about 1 million people.
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Anti-curfew rioters clash with Netherlands police for third straight night
From CNN’s Mick Krever
Police in the Netherlands have deployed teargas and water cannons in an attempt to control anti-lockdown rioting in several cities across the country on Monday, a spokesperson for the national police said on Dutch television Monday evening.
This is the third consecutive night of confrontations with police in the Netherlands. A national, nightly curfew designed to reduce social contact came into effect in the country on Saturday, and runs from 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.
Police in several cities reported mostly young people setting off fireworks, throwing stones, and looting stores.
Groups of rioters have been “seeking confrontation with the police, and in a number of locations have been looting, especially in Rotterdam,” police spokesperson Willem Woelders said.
He said that police had deployed water cannons, and used tear gas in Haarlem and Rotterdam. Police had already made at least 151 arrests, Woelders said. At least 250 people were arrested on Sunday, police said.
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Close to a quarter of New York City first responders infected in first wave of pandemic, study indicates
From CNN's Maggie Fox
Health workers carry a patient to an ambulance on April 11, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Close to a quarter of all first responders in New York City appear to have been infected with coronavirus during the first wave of the pandemic, researchers reported Monday.
Antibody tests of more than 22,000 police, fire, emergency medical technicians, corrections and other workers between May and July showed 22.5% of them had antibodies indicating a previous infection with coronavirus, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-led team reported.
That’s close to the population as a whole in the hard-hit city, the team reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. But there were some telling differences from one type of worker to another—and some big surprises.
The study found that the percentage of police and firefighters with antibodies was similar to the overall seroprevalence of the population.
Seroprevalence is the number of people in a specific population who test positive for a disease.
“Seroprevalence was highest in correctional staff (39.2%) and emergency medical technicians (38.3%) and lowest in laboratory technicians (10.1%) and medicolegal death investigators (10.8%),” the team wrote.
Across the city as a whole just under 20% of residents had antibodies to the virus in tests done over the same time period.
One surprise finding: People who said they always wore gloves were more likely to have antibodies to the virus. This could be for two reasons: people may not take their gloves off properly, and infect themselves while doing so, or people who use more protective equipment are doing so because they are already in high-risk situations, the researchers said.
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About 6% of the US population has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine
From CNN’s Deidre McPhillips
Chief clinical officer John Corman MD at Virginia Mason administers a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle, Washington on January 24.
Grant Hindsley/AFP/Getty Images
More than 22.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the US, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly 6% of the US population – more than 19 million people – has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and about 3.3 million people are fully vaccinated.
In Alaska, about 11% of the population has received at least one dose, followed by West Virginia where more than 9% of the population has received at least one dose, the data shows.
Nationwide, about 55% of the 41.4 million distributed doses have been administered.
States have 72 hours to report vaccine data, so data published by the CDC may be delayed – and may not necessarily mean all doses were given on the day reported.
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It's important to prove that vaccines protect against new Covid-19 strains, Moderna president says
From CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas
As Covid-19 continues to evolve, it’s important to prove that vaccines provide protection against new strains, Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge said Monday.
“The virus is evolving,” Hoge said during a panel hosted by investment institute iConnections. “It’s not sitting still.”
He said that the emergence of new strains will “change the calculus” of vaccines.
“Now, usually, probably just with measuring the vaccine’s ability to provide neutralizing antibodies in the blood, but in some cases over time we may need to go look at whether or not we’re actually protecting in the real world against some of these new strains,” he added.
Hoge said this process could continue for years.
“Until we’ve got this thing sort of fully suppressed and in control, and people are broadly vaccinated or seropositive and protected against it, it’s going to be an ongoing battle for the next couple of years,” he noted.
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Restaurants in Los Angeles County reopen for outdoor dining after stay-at-home order is lifted
From CNN's Sarah Moon
The doors of the Baby Blues BBQ restaurant are seen locked in Los Angeles Monday, January 25.
Damian Dovarganes/AP
Los Angeles County will allow restaurants to reopen for outdoor dining with safety modifications on Friday, county officials announced in a news conference Monday.
The announcement comes after the state lifted its regional stay-at-home order, which also included a ban on outdoor dining, after a four-week projection of intensive care unit bed capacity is expected to meet the 15% threshold in all five regions.
L.A. County implemented the ban on outdoor dining in November amid a surge of new infections to reduce the possibility of exposure to coronavirus. The decision sparked controversy, drawing lawsuits from the California Restaurant Association and local restaurants hoping to overturn the ban.
County health officials also announced that starting today, museums, zoos, and aquariums can reopen for outdoor operations as well as fitness facilities and faith-based services. Personal care services can reopen for indoor operations with 25% capacity.
Private gatherings are also permitted as long as they are held outdoors and are limited to three households with a maximum of 15 people, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer announced.
While some businesses will be able to resume operations effective immediately, Ferrer reminded residents that “this is not the time for people to think we can get back to our normal businesses and our normal ways of interacting with each other.”
She urged people to be careful and follow health orders to “prevent another increase in cases that leads us back to more restrictions.”
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Pentagon weighs deploying thousands of troops to help Biden reach vaccination target
From CNN's Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann
President Joe Biden answers questions from reporters in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex on Monday, January 25, in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
The Department of Defense is weighing options to assist President Biden’s plan to vaccinate as many as 1.5 million people per day within months.
Discussions are taking place about deploying thousands of US troops to help with the vaccination efforts, according to four officials familiar with the talks who said a plan could be unveiled by the end of the week.
The discussions are at an early stage and no decisions have been taken yet, the officials caution. One official when pressed for an estimate said that as many as 10,000 troops could be deployed as part of the effort.
Such a deployment could start with medical units that have already been on standby orders for some time and have deployed in recent months to some of the hardest hit areas, one official said. The clock is already ticking on Biden’s first 100 days in office with the goal of delivering 100 million vaccine shots within that timeframe.
“It’s all about how we can get better involved in the vaccinations,” another official told CNN. “Planning efforts are ongoing, but there are no decisions.”
It’s unclear at this point if the plan would involve the use of active-duty troops, members of the National Guard, or some combination. Any plan will require that an approved request be sent from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the Department of Defense, a process that takes time.
Biden also stressed the importance of needing more people to administer the vaccine.
Nationwide, 31 states are already using their National Guard to help administer vaccines, involving 23,000 troops, director of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel Hokanson said Monday.
“We stand ready to assist in any way that we can to make sure that we can really help as much as possible. And that’s related not only to the state plans but also related to Operation Warp Speed,” said Hokanson.
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New variant of coronavirus called P.1 detected in US for first time, officials say
From CNN’s Maggie Fox
A new variant of coronavirus that worries health officials has been detected in the United States for the first time, officials in Minnesota said Monday. They said they had detected the P.1 variant of coronavirus in a traveler from Brazil.
P.1 is one of four variants being closely watched by officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until Monday, it had only been reported in Brazil and among a group of four travelers from Brazil to Japan.
“The variant was found through the MDH’s variant surveillance program. Each week this program collects 50 random samples from the University of Minnesota clinical laboratories, Infinity Biologix Laboratory in Oakdale, and other testing partners and then conducts special testing using a process called whole genome sequencing,” the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement.
The P.1 variant carries a pattern of mutations that appears to make the virus more easily transmitted.
It’s been the most common variant of the virus detected in a surge of cases seen in and around Manaus, the largest city in Brazil’s Amazon region.
There’s no evidence it causes more severe disease, however.
“One of the reasons we are able to detect those variants of concern in Minnesota so quickly is that we have one of the best public health laboratory surveillance systems in the US,” Minnesota Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm said in a statement.
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Vaccine distribution is an area of common ground for bipartisan group of senators, lawmaker says
From CNN's Jessica Dean
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore-Capito described the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine as a key area of common ground for the bipartisan group of senators who took part in a call with the White House on Sunday.
“I think we all recognize we have a ways to go with vaccine distribution and therapeutics and that’s a top line on commonality among everybody,” Moore-Capito said Monday afternoon.
President Biden said earlier on Monday he does not want to take a piecemeal approach with his Covid relief bill, but instead hopes Congress will pass one large bill encompassing a number of issues.
Moore-Capito elaborated on some of the questions and concerns shared on the call.
“We presented questions about money that still hasn’t been expended, are we targeting it well with individuals and everyone got a chance to kind of weigh in on that,” she said.
Moore-Capito said she didn’t know about plans for the group to meet again but said she imagined they would.
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Connecticut governor asks for state of emergency to be extended through April 20
From CNN’s Rebekah Riess
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has formally requested legislative leaders to extend his emergency authorization due to Covid-19 through April 20.
“We think by April 20 we’re going to have a really good handle on where we stand in terms of vaccinations, where we stand on supply of vaccinations, where we stand on bending the curve, where we stand compared to that super contagious variant of the germ that’s out there, hitting us every day right now, I think that’ll be a very good time,” Lamont said Monday.
Lamont said the state has identified four additional cases of the B.1.1.7 Covid-19 variant in the state, for a total of eight known cases. The governor said the state is assuming the variant is much more widespread than just the eight recorded cases.
According to Lamont, 27% of the people 75 years old and above in Connecticut have now received their first vaccine dose. At least 308,502 vaccine doses have been administered in total and Connecticut expects to have about 585,000 doses delivered by the end of this week, including first and second doses, according to Connecticut’s Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe.
Note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University, The Covid Tracking Project and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Vaccine makers say it will take time to scale up manufacturing
From CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas
Scaling up manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines can’t be done overnight without sacrificing quality, officials from vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna said Monday.
“In collaboration with our partner, we’re adding new abilities to supply, adding new material suppliers and growing that infrastructure as quickly as we can,” Dr. Rich Pelt, director of regulatory affairs at Pfizer, said during a panel hosted by investment institute iConnections.
It takes time to get that right, Pelt noted.
Moderna president Dr. Stephen Hoge said vaccine makers have an obligation to maintain quality and consistency as they scale up capacity.
He said the goal is to produce a consistent product at any manufacturing plant.
“There is six, nine months for us to bring new capacity online, no matter who does it, because you want to make sure that by the time it gets up and operating, that it’s really high quality,” Hoge said.
“That’s the frustrating thing about scaling up,” he added.
Hoge said that the introduction of new Covid-19 vaccines will be part of the solution.
“We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that we expect J&J, Johnson & Johnson, to have a vaccine here shortly and many others,” Hoge said. “We’re optimistic that actually the solution will not just be that we make more, but that actually there’s many more options available.”
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Biden says he thinks vaccine will be widely available by spring
From CNN's Maegan Vazquez
President Joe Biden speaks during an event on American manufacturing, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex on Monday, January 25, in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
President Biden indicated on Monday that he thinks anyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get it by this spring – a target similar to one set under the Trump administration.
He also said that his administration does know how many coronavirus vaccines are available in the US, shortly after his top spokesperson and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director both told press they weren’t sure how much vaccine was in the American supply.
Asked when any American who wants a vaccine will be able to get it, Biden said during an executive order signing at the White House, “I think it’ll be this spring. I think we’ll be able to do that this spring.”
Biden indicated that his administration knows the number of vaccines available in the US.
“(W)e are optimistic that we will have enough vaccine. And in very short order. As you know, we came in office without knowledge of how much vaccine was out being held in abeyance are available. Now that we’re here, we’ve been around a week or so, we now have that,” Biden said at an executive order signing at the White House.
Some context: Hours earlier, White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not provide details on the current coronavirus vaccine supply in the US, blaming problems inherited by the Trump administration for the Biden administration’s lack of information about the current supply levels.
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Covid-19 variant first found in the UK discovered in Nevada, state health official says
From CNN’s Keith Allen
The Covid-19 variant first found in the United Kingdom has been detected in Nevada, Dr. Mark Pandori, director of Nevada State Public Health Laboratory, said on a conference call Monday afternoon.
The state’s first known case of the variant was found in a symptomatic Las Vegas woman in her 30s after genomic sequencing was conducted at the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory in Reno, Pandori said.
“Yes, it’s here and yes there’s reason to be concerned about its biological capacity, that’s been shown, but the opportunity is here to prevent any further spread of it, or at least significant threat, or at least to stem its spread, because we believe we caught it pretty early,” Pandori said.
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Biden suggests US will get to 1.5 million vaccines a day
From CNN's Betsy Klein
President Biden said he expects the US will soon be able to vaccinate 1.5 million people a day. That moves the goalposts to roughly 500,000 more vaccinations than his target of one million per day in his first 100 days in office. Biden suggested the US could surpass that initial target in about three weeks.
“I’m quite confident that we will be in a position within the next three weeks or so to be vaccinating people at the range of 1 million a day or in excess of that,” he told reporters Monday, clarifying that he was referring to 100 million shots, not necessarily 100 million people, since some of the vaccines require more than one shot.
He said his administration is working to produce additional vaccinators and feels “confident” they can do so. He also referenced the importance of creating a forum where Americans “can show up, stand in line, and get their vaccine without having to stand in line for eight hours, being able to pick up the phone, call the pharmacy and get your name on the list, etc.”
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Despite dropping cases, January on track to be Covid-19's deadliest month in US
From CNN's Deidre McPhillips
A casket is loaded into a hearse at the Boyd Funeral Home, as burials at cemeteries are delayed to the surge of Covid-19 deaths on January 14, in Los Angeles, California.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
The number of new coronavirus cases reported over the past seven days is 22% lower than a week ago and the seven-day average has been trending down for 10 days, according to a CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
Deaths were also lower than a week ago – by about 7% – but January is on track to be Covid-19’s deadliest month in the US.
At least 73,259people were reported to have died of Covid-19 in January, according to the most recent data from Johns Hopkins University – more than one death every 30 seconds. More than two cases were reported every second.
Despite the improvements, the average number of new cases and deaths reported each day in January are higher than any other month. The seven-day average for new cases and deaths both hit a peak in the first half of the month.
Dr. Ronald Moolenaar, deputy chief medical officer for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 Emergency Response, gave similar statistics in a briefing Monday to faith leaders. “So these statistics provide us with some valuable information, and when the percentages are decreasing, it tells us that mitigation efforts are working, and that we need to keep up the good work to reduce the spread of Covid,” Moolenaar said during the call.
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EU accuses AstraZeneca of "lack of clarity"
From CNN’s James Frater
The European Union has accused AstraZeneca of lack of clarity and said the company had provided “insufficient explanations” for delays in supplying its Covid-19 vaccine to member states.
“Discussions with @AstraZeneca today resulted in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations,” the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, tweeted after a meeting with the pharmaceutical giant on Monday. “EU Member States are united: vaccine developers have societal and contractual responsibilities they need to uphold.”
“With our Member States, we have requested from AZ a detailed planning of vaccine deliveries and when distribution will take place to Member States,” Kyriakides also said, adding that another meeting with AstraZeneca would be held on Wednesday.
“The European Union has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see the return,” she also said, adding that the bloc wants to know how many doses the company has produced, and who they’ve been sold to.
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US will be able to administer 1 million vaccine doses a day in about 3 weeks, Biden says
A screener registers residents of the William Reid Apartments at a Covid-19 pop-up vaccination site at the NYCHA housing complex on Saturday, January 23, in Brooklyn, New York.
Mary Altaffer/AP
President Joe Biden said he believes the US will be able to administer 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine each day in about the next three weeks
“I’m quite confident that we will be in a position within the next three weeks or so to be vaccinating people at the range of a million a day or in excess of that,” he said on Monday.
Biden said manufacturers have said they are able to produce more vaccine “in a relatively short period of time and then continue that down the road.”
With that volume of vaccinations, Biden said there also needs to be enough infrastructure in place – which includes things like medical equipment to inject the vaccine into people’s arms and freezing units to store the vials.
Biden also said there needs to be enough people to administer the doses and facilities were people can go to receive it, “which is not an easy task,” he added.
“It’s really important that we have the place, the facility, the circumstance where people can show up, stand in line and get their vaccine without having to stand in line for eight hours,” he said. “All those mechanical things are really. They sound simple but they’re all consequential when we’re trying to get out a minimum of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days,” he added.
“It’s going to be a logistical challenge that exceeds anything we’ve ever tried in this country. But I think we can do that,” Biden said.
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Biden outlines steps to safely reopen US schools
From CNN's Betsy Klein
Pre-kindergarten teacher Sarah McCarthy works with a student at Dawes Elementary in Chicago on Monday, January 11.
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times/AP
President Biden was pressed Monday on school reopenings, in light of reports that the Chicago Teachers Union has voted to refuse in-person work, and outlined the steps that must be in place for safe reopening as the country continues to battle Covid-19.
“We need the capacity, capacity to know the circumstance in the school is safe and secure for everyone,” he said, adding that every school should be “thoroughly sanitized.”
Teachers, Biden said, want to work.
“They just want to work in a safe environment… And we should be able to open up for every school, kindergarten through eighth grade,” he said.
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Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine could have major implications for rollout, researcher says
From CNN’s Amanda Sealy
Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center investigational pharmacy technician Sara Berech prepares a dose of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine for a clinical trial on December 15, 2020 in Aurora, Colorado.
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine could have a major effect on the rollout of vaccines because the company plans to make so many doses, one of the researchers who helped develop it said Monday.
“If this vaccine proves to be safe and effective, it could have major implications for the vaccine rollout because J&J has committed to producing and deploying at least a billion doses of vaccine during this calendar year, including at least 100 million doses for the US population,” Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School researcher who helped develop Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate, said.
“If it’s a single-dose vaccine, then a billion vaccine doses would translate into a billion people vaccinated,” Barouch said during an episode of the podcast Coronavirus Fact vs Fiction.
Barouch also serves as the director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston which began collaborating with Johnson & Johnson on this vaccine in March.
Last week, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said that Johnson & Johnson is “right around the corner” from seeking emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine from the US Food and Drug Administration.
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Michigan has at least 17 cases of the Covid-19 UK variant
From CNN’s Anna Sturla
Michigan now has at least 17 cases of the UK variant of Covid-19, Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun announced during a news conference Monday.
These 17 cases are inclusive of the cases previously announced Sunday.
Four of the B.1.1.7 variant cases were in Wayne County, which covers Detroit and Dearborn, and 13 in Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor, according to Khaldun.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services had previously ordered the University of Michigan to pause its athletic activities after variant cases were linked to the program.
Khaldun urged Michiganders to take advantage of testing and to be vaccinated when able.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer welcomed the new director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Elizabeth Hertel, while noting that all of the state’s vaccines have either been administered or scheduled, according to Whitmer.
“The fact of the matter is we don’t yet have the kind of supply that we nee – yet,” Whitmer said. “We do have a plan for 50,000 shots in arms per day, once we have the vaccines that we need.”
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About 200 National Guard members have tested positive for Covid-19 in Washington, DC
From CNN's Ellie Kaufman
A National Guard patrols a road block near the Capitol on January 19 in Washington, DC.
Matt Slocum/AP
Major Gen. William Walker, head of the DC National Guard, said that about 200 members have tested positive for Covid-19 and are being treated for the virus.
Walker said he was “deeply troubled” by the number of members who have tested positive and said they have been following US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols to avoid spreading the virus to others while deployed in Washington.
Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel Hokanson said that 200 out of 25,000 guards is “less than one percent” infected total.
Thousands of national guards were mobilized to the US capital following the deadly Capitol riot and in response to potential unrest around President Biden’s inauguration.
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California continues to see drop in new Covid-19 cases after holiday surge
From CNN's Stella Chan
Motorists wait in line for a rapid COVID-19 antibody and PCR test at the Southside Church of Christ in Los Angeles on January 18.
Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images
California on Monday reported another 27,007 cases to its Covid-19 count, bringing the state total to 3,136,158 cases, according to the state Department of Public Health (CDPH), marking the first full week of fewer than 30,000 cases each day since early December.
The CDPH announced 328 new deaths, well below the 14-day average of 504 deaths, for a total of 37,118 since the start of the pandemic. The deaths and case count each increased 0.9% from the prior day total.
The 14-day average positivity rate also continues to decline, falling to 9.4%, down more than 4% over the latest 14-day period.
Hospitalizations due to confirmed and suspected Covid-19 cases are down by 291 patients for a total of 18,347.
Availability of intensive care unit beds statewide are also showing signs of improvement with 1,168 available beds, up 52 from the prior day after plunging to all-time lows last week.
Monday morning, health officials lifted regional stay-at-home orders for the state. The Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California regions, three of the state’s five groups of counties, show a four-week projected ICU capacity of above the 15% threshold. The state also lifted the overnight curfew for residents in the purple tier, the most dire of the four-level color coded system signifying the infections are widespread.
NOTE: These numbers were released by the California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
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Double masking is likely more effective to stop spread of Covid-19, Fauci says
From CNN's Naomi Thomas
Dr. Anthony Fauci arrives to the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 21.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday that wearing two masks is likely more effective to stop the spread of Covid-19.
When asked about whether double masking or using an N95 mask makes a difference, Fauci told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that it likely does.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear masks in public settings and anywhere they will be around other people, and says people should wear masks that have two or more layers of fabric that fit snugly over the nose and mouth.
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White House blames Trump administration for lack of current Covid-19 vaccine supply information
From CNN's Maegan Vazquez
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a daily press briefing at the White House on January 25 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not provide details on the US’ current coronavirus vaccine supply, blaming problems inherited from the Trump administration for the Biden administration’s lack of information about current supply levels.
Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during Monday’s briefing whether there was a ballpark amount of the US’ vaccine supply, Psaki said, “Well, our team is working right now. We’ve been here for five days to evaluate the supply, so that we can release the maximum amount while also ensuring that everyone can get the second dose on the FDA recommended schedule.”
The comments come a day after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told “Fox News Sunday,” “I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have, and if I can’t tell it to you then I can’t tell it to the governors and I can’t tell it to the state health officials.”
Walensky indicated during the interview that the lack of knowledge about the US’ vaccine supply was a result of “the challenges” the Biden administration has been left with by the Trump administration.
Psaki would not acknowledge Army Gen. Gus Perna’s role working on the supply issue, and whether Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, would have more answers. Asked whether Perna, who oversaw vaccine logistics under Trump, would have more information on the current supply, Psaki said, “Again, there is a new CDC director who is in charge, hence who spoke to this, and I think what we’re trying to do is fully assess what we have access to.”
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Biden will reinstate Covid-19-related travel restrictions today lifted by Trump
From CNN's Betsy Klein
President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 21.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
President Biden on Monday will sign a presidential proclamation on travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This move will reinstate the Covid-19 travel restrictions that former President Trump lifted last week, and includes non-US citizens who have been in Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, as well as the new addition of South Africa.
She continued, “On advice of our administration’s medical and Covid team, President Biden has decided to maintain the restrictions previously in place for the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Brazil. With the pandemic worsening and more contagious variant contagious variants spreading, this isn’t the time to be lifting the restrictions on international travel,” noting that in light of a and in light of the contagious variant, B1351, South Africa has been added to the restricted list.”
Psaki also announced that beginning Tuesday, international travelers to the United States “must provide proof of a negative test within three days of travel to airlines prior to departure.”
Asked later for clarification, Psaki said that the new negative testing requirement includes all people boarding planes, including US citizens, coming from overseas.
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AstraZeneca delays "not acceptable," says EU health commissioner
From CNN’s James Frater and Vasco Cotovio
European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides gives a statement at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on January 25.
John Thys/Pool/AP
The European Union’s Health Commissioner says AstraZeneca’s delays in supplying its Covid-19 vaccine to member states are “not acceptable.”
“The European Union has pre-financed the development of the vaccine and its production and wants to see the return,” she also said, adding that the bloc wants to know how many doses the company has produced, and who they’ve been sold to.
Kyriakides went on to say she’d written to AstraZeneca over the weekend, seeking clarification, and that the issue was again discussed between member states and the company during a joint steering board. A second meeting is scheduled for later today because according to the EU Health Commissioner, AstraZeneca’s answers “have not been satisfactory.”
“The European Union wants the ordered and pre-financed doses to be delivered as soon as possible, and we want our contract to be fully fulfilled,” she said.
The European Union purchased 400 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for its member states. The vaccine is in the final stages of approval with the European Medicines Agency and, according to Kyriakides, if all requirements are met, market authorisation could be granted by the end of this week.
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Stocks sink on vaccine and stimulus concerns
From CNN's Richard Davis
People walk by the New York Stock Exchange at Wall Street on January 12 in New York City.
Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
Stocks fell on Monday, with the Dow sinking 250 points, the S&P 500 down 0.5% and the Nasdaq about flat.
Investors are worried about vaccine availability after Merck pulled its Covid-19 vaccine plans.
A man walks through the downtown plaza area in Riverside, California, during the stay-at-home order on January 7.
Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
“We are turning a critical corner,” California’s top health official said as he announced the state is lifting regional stay-at-home orders.
The orders applied to Southern California, San Joaquin Valley, and Bay Area regions, encompassing over 90% of the state’s population. The four-week intensive care unit capacity projections for these regions are above 15%, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), the threshold that allows regions to exit the order.
Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions have been under the state order since Dec. 6 and the Bay area since Dec. 17. The mandate, aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19, instructed residents to stay home as much as possible and not mix with other households. It closed hair salons, museums, movie theaters, and restricted restaurants to take-out only service.
The other two areas, Northern California and Greater Sacramento, are not currently under the order. The mandate was triggered when intensive care unit capacity in a region falls below 15%.
Counties not under the regional order will abide by the state’s four-color tiering system:
Purple tier signals widespread risk and closes many non-essential indoor businesses.
Red is substantial risk and some non-essential indoor business operation are closed.
Orange is moderate and closes some businesses with modifications.
Yellow is minimal risk and allows most indoor businesses to operate with modifications.
The CDPH said the majority of the counties of the San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area, and Southern California regions are in the purple tier, the strictest. Outdoor dining and personal services may resume with modifications required by local jurisdictions.
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UK reports at least 592 new Covid-19 deaths
From CNN's Sharon Braithwaite
The United Kingdom reported 22,195 new Covid-19 cases and 592 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test on Monday, the government’s dashboard showed.
The total number of people in the UK who have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test now stands at 98,531.
According to the government’s data, 6,573,570 people have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, whilst 470,478 people have received the second dose.
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Mexico expects Russia's Sputnik V vaccine to be delivered soon
From CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey
A nurse shows the Sputnik V vaccine at a clinic in Moscow on December 5, 2020.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Mexican health officials expect Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to be delivered in the country “soon,” Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said after a phone call took place between the presidents of both countries on Monday.
The phone call between President López Obrador and President Vladimir Putin is one of the first scheduled engagements for López Obrador since he tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday.
López Obrador participated in the call from his residence at the presidential palace.
Some background on Russia’s Sputnik V:
Russia approved its first Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in August after testing it on several dozen people in a study with great fanfare from state TV.
Sputnik V showed more than 90% efficacy in trials, according to its makers at the Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Biology.
Preliminary data obtained 42 days after the first dose — 21 days after the second dose — indicates the vaccine’s efficacy could be higher than 95%.
Some experts have accused Russia of cutting corners with its vaccine development for political and PR gain — a claim Moscow has denied.
New York City "urgently" needs more vaccine supply, mayor says
From CNN's Kristina Sgueglia
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a press conference on Monday morning.
NYC Media
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said today that over 600,000 vaccines have been administered since the beginning of its effort, though he stressed the city “urgently” needs more supply, and flexibility to vaccinate.
As of now, the city has on hand just over 19,000 first doses remaining, with just over 107,000 expected in resupply this week, he said.
The city can stay on track for second doses, he said, and remains at capacity to vaccinate at 500,000 per week. Appointments continue to be rescheduled.
For context – 628,831 doses have already administered – the number can be compared to more than the entire population of Louisville, Kentucky, the nation’s 29th largest city, the Mayor said to ensure confidence in the effort.
Mega sites like CitiField and Yankee Stadium are “ready to go” he said adding “but we don’t have the vaccine.”
De Blasio noted that he and other mayors spoke with the Biden administration last week specifically about increasing vaccine capacity, noting the administration is “supremely focused” looking for every “conceivable way” to move vaccines quicker. He is “hopeful” they will get answers this week that will “fundamentally” change the reality.
What the numbers look like: New York City added 4,743 new cases of probable and confirmed Covid-19, marking 8.44% positivity, according to the Mayor.
Mayor de Blasio said Monday 240 patients were admitted to hospitals for suspected Covid-19, and the city is reporting at rate of 5.18 individuals hospitalized per 100k people.
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Further cases of UK variant found at German hospital under quarantine after outbreak
From CNN's Stephanie Halasz in London and Claudia Otto in Berlin
A German hospital that was placed under quarantine following an outbreak of the coronavirus variant has registered further cases of the UK variant.
Regional director of the Vivantes Humboldt-Klinikum hospital in Berlin Juergen Kirschbaum said in a press conference that so far 12 patients and 10 staff members had tested positive for the SARS-CoV2 variant of the type B.1.1.7 — the variant that was first identified in the UK — on the internal medicine and cardiology department.
The increase brings the total number of patients to 63.
In a different Berlin hospital, the Klinikum Spandau, two additional cases were found where patients had contact with the UK variant at the Vivantes Humboldt-Klinikum.
The hospital has been testing all patients since Sunday, it said, as well as immediately isolating patients who show Covid-19 symptoms. Kirschbaum added that while 1,100 staff members have been tested by 12 p.m. CET, not all results have come back yet.
The facility is expected to provide a further update later on Monday evening Central European Time.
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Dr. Fauci says mixed messaging about coronavirus "really cost us dearly"
From CNN's Naomi Thomas
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reflected on why the US was hit so badly by the coronavirus: mixed messaging, divisiveness and the federalist approach.
Fauci, who was speaking at a panel during the Davos World Economic Forum on Monday, added, there was “a profound degree of” divisiveness in the country and public health issues — such as mask-wearing – became political statements. “You cannot imagine how destructive that is to any unified public health message.”
Finally, Fauci spoke about the federalist approach in the US: 50 states and territories which are given a degree of flexibility to do things their own way.
While he said that under different circumstances this works well, in the pandemic, when the government didn’t want to tell the states what to do, there was a situation where he said that the states were “sort of left on their own,” meaning “we had a disparate, inconsistent response from one state to the other, which is antithetical to the fact that the virus is the same, it doesn’t know the difference between New York and Pennsylvania, between Louisiana and Mississippi, it’s all the same.”
“We needed to have a good cooperation between the federal government and the individual locals, which we did not have,” he said.
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Moderna says its Covid-19 vaccine is expected to protect against new variants
From CNN's Elizabeth Cohen
Stephanie Lecocq/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
The Moderna Covid-19 vaccine created antibodies that neutralized coronavirus variants first found in the United Kingdom and South Africa, the company said in a news release on Monday.
Two doses of the vaccine “is expected to be protective against emerging strains detected to date,” according to the release.
The company’s study showed that the variant first found in the UK had “no significant impact” on the vaccine’s effectiveness.
The results for the variant first spotted in South Africa, however, were not as optimistic — and some early studies have suggested vaccines may be somewhat less effective against this strain.
In the press release, Moderna noted that “a six-fold reduction in neutralizing titers was observed with (the variant discovered in South Africa) relative to prior variants.”
The company said the vaccine was still expected to be effective.
“Despite this reduction, neutralizing titer levels with (the variant discovered in South Africa) remain above levels that are expected to be protective,” according to the press release.
David Montefiori, a virologist at Duke University Medical Center, said while he’s “cautiously optimistic” Moderna’s vaccine will work well against this strain, he’s still not sure.
The variant first identified in the UK has also appeared in more than 45 other countries, including 195 cases in the US.
The variant first identified in South Africa has appeared in more than 20 other countries. No cases have been identified in the US, but experts say it’s likely there are cases and US surveillance, which has been widely criticized, has not yet found them.
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Fauci says reinstating travel restrictions is a "prudent decision"
From CNN's Naomi Thomas
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on Good Morning America on Monday that it was a “prudent decision” for the new administration to reinstate travel restrictions.
He said that he thinks the travel ban will be important “in addition to having a situation where anybody coming into the country now is going to be required to have a negative test before they even get on the plane, when they land to have a degree of quarantine, as well as another test.”
Some context: On Sunday, CNN reported that Biden would reinstate Covid travel restrictions on non-US citizens who have been in Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and much of Europe. The restrictions were also extended to travelers who have recently been in South Africa. The reinstating of the travel restrictions came one week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would have lifted them on Jan. 26.
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson considers hotel quarantines as pressure to reopen schools grows
From CNN’s Sharon Braithwaite
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a coronavirus press conference in London on January 22.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the idea of quarantining people arriving into the country in hotels for 10 days as a Covid-19 measure is “definitely” being “looked at.”
The Prime Minister suggested that more must be done to protect people with the threat of new variants spreading from other countries saying we have “got to be able to keep that under control.”
As coronavirus infections and death rates soar across the country, schools in England have been closed to most pupils since a third national lockdown began on January 5, as well as large sections of 2020. Now pressure is building on the British government to reopen them.
On Monday, Johnson said people “mustn’t assume” that schools will be closed until Easter, following recent media reports, warning decisions are dependent on Covid-19 infection rates.
He said parents and teachers will be told of any decisions “as soon as we can” but the government is not yet able to give a timeframe for when pupils will return to classrooms.
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It's 9 a.m. in New York and 2 p.m. in London. Here are the headlines from Europe
From CNN's Sarah Dean in London and Sharon Braithwaite in Pisa, Italy
Europe continues to battle further waves of the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some of the key lines from the continent today:
The UK is considering whether to make people arriving in the country quarantine in hotels amid concerns over the import of new variants. And Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing questions over his plan for getting pupils back into classrooms amid media reports that schools could stay closed until after Easter.
France is mulling whether to impose a third national lockdown. The head of the scientific council advising the French government on the pandemic said Sunday that it would “probably need a new lockdown” and that there is an “emergency” in the country.
Austria became the latest European country to make medical-grade face masks mandatory in some public places. People must now switch their face coverings to FFP2 filtering facepiece respirators or N95 masks when traveling on public transport as well as when visiting shops, markets or when picking up takeaway food.
The European Union could approve AstraZeneca shot this Friday, according to German health ministry spokesman Hanno Kautz. The vaccine has been under review by the European Medicines Agency since January 12.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday condemned the violence of protests over the weekend. On Sunday, police in Amsterdam used water cannon to disperse protesters demonstrating against restrictions.
How one rural county in Washington state hasn't wasted a single vaccine dose
From CNN's Christina Zdanowicz
A rural county in Washington state is lapping the field when it comes to distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.
Kittitas County says its experience in triaging and managing disasters, especially wildfires, is the secret to why it is outpacing the vaccine rates in the state.
“We’re a fairly rural county, and we get significant weather events, mostly wildfires,” said Rich Elliott, the deputy fire chief of Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue.
“Our county has a 25-year history of just sort of everybody – the hospital, the school districts, law enforcement, fire agencies, federal state partners – we just cooperate.”
When the pandemic started and there was a need for personal protective equipment and testing, groups working with the emergency management center banded together to respond.
Now the cross-functional team of essential workers and volunteers are working to distribute the vaccine and it’s working, says Elliott, who is in charge of vaccine distribution for the county. In fact, he says a single dose hasn’t been wasted.
Plateau of US Covid-19 cases not yet a result of vaccines, Fauci says
From CNN's Naomi Thomas
Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a press briefing at the White House on January 21, in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on NBC’s “Today” show on Monday that he didn’t think that the vaccine was responsible for the plateau of Covid-19 cases yet.
However, he said that people can’t get complacent, because the coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom is now circulating in the US and it transmits more easily from person to person.
“The good news is what you just said, that we seem to be plateauing,” Fauci said. “The sobering news is that we cannot bring our guard up and lose the intensity of being able to use the public health measures to prevent the further spread, because if in fact the variant becomes dominant, if the variant that has greater degree of transmissibility becomes dominant, we’re going to be faced with another challenge of a virus that has a more efficient capability of spreading.”
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Hong Kong authorizes emergency use of Fosun-BioNTech Covid-19 shot
From CNN's Chandler Thornton and Eric Cheung in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has greenlit the Fosun-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine – the first shot to be approved in the city – according to a government statement released on Monday.
The statement said the initial batch of 1 million doses is expected to arrive in Hong Kong in late February, where on arrival the government would begin the rollout “as soon as possible.”
Some background: The approval of the Fosun-BioNTech shot comes after an advisory panel unanimously voted in favor of the vaccine for emergency use last week, where the 12-member panel were in agreement the vaccine met the safety and quality requirements in Hong Kong for emergency use.
Hong Kong’s airline Cathay Pacific said in a statement they would expect their passenger rates to reduce by nearly 60% and cargo capacity by 25% if the government does go ahead with plans.
Under the proposed plans by the government, pilots and cabin crew would be expected to face a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine when they return from an overseas trip.
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CVS completes first round of vaccines in skilled nursing facilities
From CNN’s Nadia Kounang and Samira Said
CVS pharmacy employee Aamra Shaheen administers the first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to a resident at an assisted living facility in Alameda, California on January 20.
Jessica Christian/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
CVS, a partner in the US’ federal program to vaccinate residents and staff of long-term care facilities, says it has completed the first round doses in all participating skilled nursing facilities as of Monday. The company has administered 1,039,365 doses in 7,822 skilled nursing facilities.
As part of the federal partnership program, CVS and Walgreens are contracted to administer Covid-19 vaccines to more than 40,000 long-term care facilities, including skilled nursing facilities, assisted living and other facilities. CVS anticipates completing administration of first round doses in all long-term care facilities by mid-February.
“We’ve administered nearly two million shots to one of our most vulnerable populations through onsite and, in many cases, room-to-room visits,” Karen Lynch, executive vice president of CVS Health, said in a press release.
Walgreens and CVS have come under fire for a slow rollout, with some nursing homes saying it has taken too long to get the shots. The company says that doses administered out of doses allocated is not an accurate way to its track progress; dose allocations were based on long-term care facility bed counts and multiplied by two to account for staff, “but at most facilities occupancy is far less than bed count and staff uptake remains low.”
Walgreens said last week it expected to complete administering nearly all of its first Covid-19 vaccine doses to nursing home residents and staff on Monday.
In its news release on Monday, CVS said that a Covid-19 vaccine will eventually be available to the public at its pharmacies based on vaccine availability and prioritization recommendations, and it has the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million shots per month. Currently, CVS pharmacies in Indiana, Massachusetts and New York are offering vaccines to specific age groups.
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"New York City does not have enough doses" of the Covid-19 vaccine, health commissioner says
From CNN’s Jennifer Henderson
New York City Health Commissioner David Chokshi speaks with CNN on Monday, January 25.
CNN
New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi told CNN Monday that the city “does not have enough doses” of Covid-19 vaccine to “be able to meet the demand we know exists among New Yorkers.”
Speaking to CNN New Day’s Alisyn Camerota, Chokshi said the current supply, only a few thousand doses, will be used in the next 24 to 48 hours and that New York City had the ability to administer more vaccines if there was more supply.
During one week in January, every three seconds a New Yorker was being vaccinated equaling more than 220,000 doses being administered in one week, but Chokshi said the number of vaccinations could easily double or go even higher if they had the supply.
More than 20,000 vaccine appointments scheduled for last week had to be rescheduled, Chokshi added.
He expects to get a re-supply Tuesday and Wednesday of 100,000 doses, but he says those doses will be gone by the end of the week.
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California governor expected to lift regional stay-at-home orders today
From CNN's Kevin Flower and Alta Spells
California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to lift regional stay-at-home orders in the state Monday, allowing for gyms and restaurants to have limited outdoor activity according to a letter from the California Restaurant Association to its members and shared with CNN, which said it had been notified of the plan Sunday evening by the governor’s office.
Currently, counties in Southern California, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Bay area are under regional stay-at-home orders which were instituted in early December as Covid-19 cases began to surge.
The Los Angeles Times reported that while hospitals in southern and central parts of the state remain under pressure from a high number of patients, the Newsom administration projects that intensive care unit capacity in those areas will exceed 15% over the next 4 weeks, which would allow for the lifting of regional shutdowns under the governor’s December order. State officials have not shared how they make the “four-week ICU calculations,” according to the LA Times.
Once announced, the change is expected to take effect immediately with all counties reverting to a colored tier system that assigns risk based on the numbers of cases and rates of positive Covid-19 tests, the newspaper reported.
It is unclear whether stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles County — where hospitals continue to be overwhelmed — will be lifted when the order is canceled, the L.A. Times reported.
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Weary Brits fear it will take much longer to beat the new Covid-19 variant
From CNN's Ivana Kottasova in London
People in the United Kingdom have been living under lockdown for the past three weeks, hoping their sacrifice would bring the country’s latest coronavirus surge – caused by the new, more contagious variant of the virus – under control.
But despite the harsh restrictions, case numbers are not dropping as fast as experts have hoped. Deaths continue to rise and public health experts and government are starting to warn people that the country will be in this battle for the long run.
The new variant, known as B.1.1.7, has wreaked havoc in the UK, fueling a surge in cases towards the end of 2020 despite a national lockdown being in place. Data showing an uptick in cases in younger people suggests this was largely because schools had stayed open, enabling the variant to spread rapidly.
For many experts, the decision to enter another lockdown came too late.
“It’s amazing that we seem to be making the same mistakes over and over again – with increasing loss of life,”Dr. Julian Tang, clinical virologist at the University of Leicester, noted in comments to the UK’s Science Media Centre.
Merck halts development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates
From CNN’s Jamie Gumbrecht
Seth Wenig/AP
Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced Monday it is discontinuing development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates, after early studies showed immune responses were inferior to natural infection and other Covid-19 vaccines.
Merck said it plans to submit results from Phase 1 trials of its vaccine candidates, known as V590 and V591, for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Two Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have already been authorized for emergency use in the United States by the US Food and Drug Administration; both are about 95% effective after two doses.
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Japan reports rise in Covid-19 deaths at home
Japanese police reported an increased number of people who died at home from Covid-19 in January and December, according public broadcaster NHK.
NHK reports the National Police Agency confirmed 75 deaths between January 1 and January 20 and 56 deaths in the month of December. In total, it has recorded 197 deaths at home since March 2020.
The broadcaster says many cases of infection were only confirmed in post-mortem examination and that people could not be seen swiftly by doctors despite falling ill.
Some background: To date, Japan has reported more than 368,000 coronavirus cases, according to the tally from Johns Hopkins University.
Earlier this month, the country expanded its state of emergency in several prefectures and banned all foreign nationals from entering the country.
The state of emergency orders companies to encourage their staff to work from home and reduce office populations by 70%. Residents of the affected areas are also urged to avoid non-essential outings and restaurants have to stop serving alcohol by 7 p.m. and close by 8 p.m. Sports and entertainment events in Japan are also requested to limit the number of attendees.
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EU could approve AstraZeneca vaccine this week, says German health ministry spokesman
From CNN's Stephanie Halasz and James Frater in London and Sharon Braithwaite in Pisa, Italy
Anthony Devlin/Bloomberg/Getty Images
German health ministry spokesman Hanno Kautz said he expects the European Union to approve the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot this Friday.
The vaccine – which has already been approved for emergency use in the UK – has been under review by the European Medicines Agency since January 12. The bloc has already fast-tracked the reviews for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot as well as the Moderna vaccine and both have been authorized for use.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot on Monday morning over the phone and “made it clear that she expects AstraZeneca to deliver on the contractual arrangements foreseen in the advance purchasing agreement,” EU Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said.
The conversation between the two comes after the EU expressed its “deep dissatisfaction” on Friday, after being informed by AstraZeneca that vaccine deliveries to member states – pending authorization – would not arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2021, as originally forecast.
“Of course, production issues can appear with a complex vaccine but we expect the company to find solutions and to exploit all possible flexibilities to deliver swiftly,” Mamer added.
Separately EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides sent a letter to AstraZeneca Sunday “to request further clarifications” over the shortfall of its deliveries, EU spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker said Monday.
“In this letter the Commissioner stresses the importance of deliveries in line with the schedules laid down in the agreement, and she reiterated that the scaling up of the production capacity has to happen concurrently with the conduct of clinical trials to ensure the availability of vaccines as quickly as possible. This is really important premise of the contract,” de Keersmaecker added.
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Google Maps will soon display Covid-19 vaccination sites in four US states
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business
Google Maps are set to roll out a new feature, beginning in four US states, that displays locations offering Covid-19 vaccinations, the company announced on Monday.
Google (GOOGL) announced the feature would roll out in the coming weeks in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. They added that since the beginning of the year the search for “vaccines near me” have increased five fold and was introducing this feature to ensure it provides “locally relevant answers.”
The results will be shown in designated panels in search results about if an appointment is required, if the vaccine available to certain groups only and if there is a drive-thru.
Google said it’s working with “authoritative sources” for the information, including local governments and retail pharmacies.
It’s the latest change to Google Maps in relation to the pandemic. In September, the Maps app began displaying seven-day averages of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people.
The company intends to roll out information about vaccine sites to other states and countries at a later point.
UK lawmakers call for plan to get students back to classrooms
From CNN’s Sarah Dean in London
British lawmakers are calling on the country’s government to set out a “route map” for the reopening of schools, amid media reports that students might not return to in-person teaching until after the Easter holidays.
Chairman of the education select committee, Conservative MP Robert Halfon, tweeted Sunday that he had asked to table an urgent question on the matter in Parliament.
“Given media speculation on schools no longer opening post Feb half-term, I’ve written to Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to ask for House of Commons Urgent Question to get clarity,” Halfon added.
“We know the significant damage this is doing to children in terms of mental health, educational attainment, safeguarding hazards and their general wellbeing,” Halfon said in an interview with Sky News on Monday.
He said he’d like a plan for support staff and teachers to be given the vaccination as a priority after the clinically vulnerable. He added he was not a lockdown skeptic but worried hugely about the effects of school closures on children.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey told BBC Breakfast she was “not aware of any decisions being made yet” over when schools would reopen.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, also called for a government plan on schools, including which children could be brought back first and when, in an interview with BBC News on Monday. He asked whether there could be a rota system in place and said the “sense of a plan would give a reassurance for parents.”
Writing in the Daily Mail newspaper on Monday, UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: “The last thing any parent wanted was to see schools closing to most pupils – as they had to at the start of this month.” On returning to classrooms, he said “as soon as Covid infection rates are back under control then we will get them back there as quickly as we can”.
It comes as other Conservative MPs, such as Esther McVey, are backing a campaign to reopen schools. McVey tweeted Sunday: “Schools need to reopen for the child’s best interest and for families too. If vaccinating teachers, after the most vulnerable in society, removes the barriers to reopening schools then we should do it. You can’t close schools and not have a workable alternative.”
Schools in England have been closed to all students expect for children of key workers and vulnerable pupils since the start of a national lockdown on January 5.
Read more on what history can tell us about the long-term effects of disruptions to education:
Austria makes medical-grade masks mandatory on public transport and in shops
From Nina Avramova in Vienna, Austria
People wear FFP2 protective masks while shopping in a supermarket in Vienna, Austria, on January 25.
Ronald Zak/AP
Austria became the latest European country to make medical-grade face masks mandatory in some public places on Monday.
People must now switch their face coverings to FFP2 filtering facepiece respirators or N95 masks when traveling on public transport as well as when visiting shops, markets or when picking up takeaway food from restaurants.
The new mask mandate is for all individuals aged 14 and over, the Austrian Health Ministry website said. Children from the age of six can instead wear a mouth and nose covering, while children below six are exempt from mask use.
Some context: France and Germany introduced similar measures in public spaces last week.
France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran on Tuesday said homemade masks were made with the best intentions but “do not necessarily offer all the necessary guarantees.”
A few days later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cited the spread of new coronavirus variants, which were first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, as the reason for stricter requirements in the country. “I urge people to take this seriously. Otherwise it is difficult to prevent a third wave,” Merkel told journalists in Berlin on Thursday.
Austria has reported a total of 398,399 Covid-19 cases as of Monday, according to data from the country’s health ministry.
Pfizer applies for vaccine approval in South Korea
From CNN’s Gawon Bae in Seoul
Vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Thomas Kienzle/AFP/Getty Images
Pfizer Korea has applied for approval of its vaccine developed with BioNTech in South Korea, the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Monday.
The ministry aims to review the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine within 40 days, and quality assurance certification within 20 days.
South Korea plans to import 10 million doses of the vaccine and reported last month it was working to move up delivery to the second quarter of the year.
AstraZeneca applied for approval of its vaccine in South Korea earlier this month.
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Dutch Prime Minister condemns violence of lockdown protests
From CNN's Mick Krever
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte speaks to the press in the Hague, Netherlands, on January 25.
Lex van Lieshout/ANP/AFP/Getty Images
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has condemned the violence of anti-lockdown demonstrators, saying their behavior was “unacceptable.”
On Sunday, police and protesters clashed during a demonstration against Covid-19 restrictions in central Amsterdam, where more than 240 arrests were made, according to Reuters.
Police used water cannon, dogs and riot police on horseback to disperse the protesters.
According to NOS, riot police were deployed in at least 10 cities and towns after a new nightly curfew came into effect on Saturday night. Vehicles were set alight, police had stones thrown at them and public property was destroyed.
Rutte added that 99% of people in the country are sticking to the curfew.
Since mid-December, schools and non-essential shops have been shut in the Netherlands. There have been more than 13,600 coronavirus-related deaths and more than 962,000 infections in the country so far, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Some background:
The Netherlands implemented a nighttime curfew between 9.00 p.m. and 4.30 a.m. from Saturday, in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Last Wednesday, Rutte warned of a third Covid-19 wave coming from the new coronavirus variants, and also banned flights from high-risk areas including the UK, South Africa and all countries in South America.
The Netherlands is the last country in the European Union to begin vaccinations and has only inoculated a total of around 77,000 doctors and nurses, according to Reuters.
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Israel imposes almost total ban on incoming flights for one week
From CNN’s Amir Tal and Andrew Carey in Jerusalem
A passenger walks through the arrival hall of Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday, January 24.
Ariel Schalit/AP
Israel’s main international airport will be almost completely shuttered for the next week, after the government banned all incoming flights by non-Israeli airlines, in an effort to stop the entry into the country of new variants of the coronavirus.
The measures came into effect at midnight and will last until January 31, according to a joint statement from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Health Ministry Sunday.
Israeli carriers are also facing “temporary restrictions” on their operating licenses, meaning they are also expected to cancel all flights, with exceptions permitted on departing flights if they are for medical treatment, legal proceedings that require participation, or to allow for attendance at the funeral of a relative.
Foreign carriers are now only be allowed to land in Israel if the flight is a medical emergency evacuation or a cargo plane.
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Cat tests positive for Covid-19
From CNN's Gawon Bae in Seoul
South Korea reported its first case of an animal Covid-19 infection after a household cat tested positive for the virus, according to the country’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA.)
The cat tested positive for Covid-19 on January 21, KDCA said in a news release Monday.
Three cats were tested after their owners – a mother and her daughter – tested positive for the virus. One of the three animals also tested positive.
The prayer home where the cats live is located in South Korea’s South Gyeongsang province, where the mother and daughter also stayed. At least 112 Covid-19 cases have been linked to the prayer home in the past week, KDCA added.
The cat has been separated from other cats to prevent spread within a pet care shelter.
KDCA said there has been no reports of pets infecting humans, but the care unit is looking after the infected cat with PPE gear as a preventative measure.
Health authorities and the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency will work on a Covid-19-related guideline for pets.
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France probably needs a new lockdown, government adviser says
From CNN's Saskya Vandoorne in Paris
French physician Jean-Francois Delfraissy, head of France's scientific council on Covid-19 is seen at the Senate in Paris, on September 15, 2020.
Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images
The head of the scientific council advising the French government on the Covid-19 pandemic said Sunday that France would “probably need a new lockdown” and that there is an “emergency” in the country.
France enacted two lockdowns in 2020. The first started in March and lasted until May while the second “lockdown light” began late October and ended in December.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said a third lockdown would be inevitable if the restrictive measures currently in place did nothing to curb the infections driven by the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK.
The average number of new infections in France has been gradually increasing from 18,000 per day to more than 20,000, according to figures from the country’s Health Ministry.
France passed the threshold of 3 million Covid-19 cases on Friday and so far more than 1 million people have been vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry.
Measures to fight the pandemic: On Sunday, new border controls went into effect for people entering France from other European Union countries by air or sea. Travelers must be able to show a negative PCR test carried out fewer than 72 hours before departure.
Nine days ago, the start of a nationwide curfew was brought forward by two hours to 6 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron will chair a Defense Council meeting Wednesday to decide on new restrictions.
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"Healthy, young" Americans will likely get Covid-19 vaccine in mid- to late summer, expert says
From CNN's Christina Maxouris
A patient's blood is blotted after receiving a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at Virginia Mason's vaccine clinic in Seattle, Washington on January 24.
But the US continues to add staggering numbers of cases daily and faces several major challenges when it comes to vaccines. States say they don’t have enough doses, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Sunday there’s a lack of information on supply.
“I would say one of the biggest problems right now is I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have,” Walensky told Fox News. “If I can’t tell it to you, then I can’t tell it to the governors and I can’t tell it to the state health officials.”
“If they don’t know how much vaccine they’re getting, not just this week but next week and the week after, they can’t plan.”
It likely will be months from now until the vaccine is widely available to the American public, Gounder, who is also a former member of the Biden transition Covid-19 advisory board, said.
Second batch of China's Sinovac coronavirus vaccine arrives in Turkey
From CNN's Sharif Paget, Gul Tuysuz and Isil Sariyuce
Containers of Covid-19 vaccines, ordered from China's Sinovac Biotech, are unloaded upon arrival at Istanbul Airport in Turkey, on January 25.
Muhammed Enes Yildirim/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A second batch of 6.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech arrived in Istanbul early Monday, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Turkey received 3 million doses of Sinovac vaccine in December. The country’s drug authorities approved it for emergency use on January 13, before starting a mass vaccination drive the day after.
Ankara has previously said the deal with Sinovac Biotech is for 50 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Turkey has so far inoculated over 1.25 million people, mostly health workers and the elderly, according to the Turkish Health Ministry.
The country has nearly completed vaccinating healthcare workers and has begun an at-home vaccination program for the elderly over the age of 85 across all 81 provinces, the ministry said Friday.
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Australia halts New Zealand travel bubble for 72 hours
From CNN’s Sophie Jeong
The Australian government has suspended quarantine-free travel for New Zealanders arriving in Australia for a minimum of 72 hours, after a South African variant of Covid-19 was detected in a woman after 14 days of quarantine in New Zealand.
Travelers coming from New Zealand to Australia in the next 72 hours will be required to enter mandatory hotel quarantine for up to 14 days on arrival or other such arrangements in individual states and territories, according to a media release from Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt.
In addition, anyone who arrived in Australia from New Zealand on or since January 14 is asked to get tested and remain in isolation until they receive a negative test. This change comes into effect immediately, the release said.
The move comes after New Zealand said on Monday that a woman who tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving quarantine in New Zealand had been infected with the South African variant.
Since October, travelers coming from New Zealand did not need to complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine if they have been in New Zealand for 14 days prior to travel.
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New Zealand's new Covid-19 case likely came from a returned traveler in hotel, health officials say
From CNN’s Sophie Jeong
Minister for Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins speaks during a news conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on January 24.
Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
A woman in New Zealand who tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving quarantine likely contracted it from another returned traveler on the same floor in her quarantine hotel, according to the country’s health officials.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health confirmed to CNN in an email that the case is “not due to community transmission.”
The 56-year-old woman recently returned from Europe and underwent 14 days of quarantine at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. She returned two negative tests during her stay before leaving quarantine on January 13, according to a media release from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health Sunday. She later developed symptoms and tested positive for the virus.
Genome sequencing results of the woman and another guest who was in the quarantine facility are identical, according to a media release from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health Monday. Early information suggests the transmission occurred between January 9 and 13, the release said.
The ministry added that the woman had contracted the South African variant. She has 15 close contacts, who are all self-isolating and have been tested.
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In Japan, more than 18,000 Covid-19 patients are waiting for a hospital bed or isolation center place
From CNN's Junko Ogura and Selina Wang in Tokyo
At least 18,111 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Japan are waiting for a hospital bed or space at isolation centers in the 11 prefectures in the country under a state of emergency, according to local health officials.
CNN spoke to health officials in each prefecture where the virus is most prevalent.
Coronavirus cases in Japan have surged drastically in the past two months. As of Sunday, the country has reported a total of 360,661 infections, a 74% increase from a month ago and 165% increase from two months ago.
Satoshi Hori, an infectious disease expert at Juntendo University, told CNN that high-risk groups – such as the elderly and those displaying severe symptoms – should be admitted to hospital upon receiving a positive result. People who develop mild symptoms after contracting Covid-19 are sent to designated facilities for isolation, Hori said.
Overwhelming surge: Prefectures are in charge of local protocols of where and when to move people who test positive for Covid-19. The 18,111 patients reported Sunday includes people with mild or no symptoms who are waiting for space in an isolation center.
Among the 11 prefectures under a state of emergency, Tokyo has the highest number of infected people on the waiting list, having jumped nearly five times from December 19 to more than 7,500 people on Sunday, according to a Kyodo News Agency report Sunday. Meanwhile, the western prefecture of Hyogo has seen its number increase almost six times to at least 727 people.
Japan’s Ministry of Health declined to give CNN comment on the number of people waiting for hospital or isolation accommodation and said it does not release statistics on those cases.
This post was updated with the latest available figures.
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A strict lockdown in northeast China has left residents short of food and medicine
From CNN's Beijing bureau
Volunteers check orders of daily necessity goods at a supermarket according to wish lists of residents in quarantine in Tonghua, China, on January 24.
Xu Chang/Xinhua/Sipa USA
Residents of a city in northeast China have taken to social media to complain that a stringent coronavirus lockdown has left them short of food and medicine, triggering an online uproar and an apology from local officials.
Tonghua, a city of about 2 million in Jilin province, has been locked down since January 18 amid rising Covid-19 infections. All flights, trains, buses and taxis have been suspended, and residents barred from leaving their homes.
Under the restrictions, people must order daily necessities online, and have them delivered to their residential compounds by volunteers, according to the municipal government.
However, Tonghua residents complained on Chinese social media last week that there had been a delay in deliveries, causing a shortage of food, medicine, and infant milk powder.
The backlash: The residents’ posts ignited a wave of criticism against the Tonghua government, with some accusing local officials of disregard for people’s livelihood in order to meet epidemic control targets.
Following the backlash, city officials admitted Sunday that the delivery of daily necessities is “untimely and unavailable” to some residents, citing a shortage of manpower.
On Sunday night, some residents posted photos online of vegetable packages they received, but many others said they were still waiting.
The Tonghua government said Monday that vegetables had been delivered to nearly 67,000 households, and more than 7,000 officials and volunteers would continue to distribute food to the rest of the residents.
Stark contrast: Some social media users pointed to the disparities between the harsh lockdown measures in Tonghua and the more humane quarantine policies in some major cities.
In Shanghai, the government was lauded for allowing residents of “medium-risk” neighborhoods to bring their pets to government-designated hotels for quarantine.
The Beijing municipal government said it would allow each household to leave one family member at home to take care of pets if they are ordered to go into quarantine.
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US reports more than 130,000 new Covid-19 cases
From CNN's Alta Spells in Atlanta
The United States reported 130,485 new coronavirus infections and 1,769 virus-related fatalities on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
According to JHU’s tally, the nationwide totals now stand at 25,124,954 cases, including 419,209 deaths.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
Vaccine numbers: At least 41,411,550 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 21,848,655 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
AstraZeneca responds to EU's concerns over lower vaccine deliveries
From CNN's Michael Nedelman in New York, Martin Goillandeau and James Frater in London
Boxes of vials of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine sit in a fridge at Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol, England, on January 9.
Andrew Matthews/WPA Pool/Getty Images
Reduced yields in the European supply chain are the reason that lower volumes of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine will initially be delivered to EU member states, according to a spokesperson for the drugmaker.
The European Union expressed its “deep dissatisfaction” on Friday, after being informed by AstraZeneca that vaccine deliveries to member states – pending authorization – would not arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2021, as originally forecast.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson told CNN that reduced yields at a manufacturing site in the European supply chain have caused the lower volumes of initial deliveries, but there is no schedule delay to the start of shipments once its vaccine receives approval in Europe.
EU’s expectations: The EU was expecting 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first quarter of this year. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) received an application for conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on January 12. The decision on granting marketing authorization could be given by January 29.
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China reports 80 new Covid-19 cases
From CNN's Beijing bureau
A medical worker collects a nucleic acid sample at a testing site in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on January 23.
Wang Jianwei/Xinhua/Getty Images
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) detected 80 new coronavirus cases on Sunday – 65 of them transmitted locally, according to a Monday statement.
Most of the cases were identified in the north of the country, where some provinces have in recent weeks been battling to contain localized outbreaks of the virus
Some 29 cases were found in China’s northernmost province, Heilongjiang, while 19 were detected in Hebei province, which surrounds the capital, Beijing. The northern province of Jilin reported 12 cases.
Quarantine center: Nangong, a city in Hebei, has built 1,500 temporary quarantine treatment rooms following the emergence of coronavirus clusters in the northern province.
A further 6,500 rooms will be built in the coming days, according to the state-owned China News Service.
The single-occupancy rooms are equipped with their own heaters, toilets, showers, and other amenities, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Wuhan, one year on: On Saturday, China marked the anniversary of the start of a 76-day lockdown in the central city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019.
The case numbers in Wuhan today are zero, which is a stark contrast to January 25, 2020, when the city reported 618 infections and 45 deaths.
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A year from lockdown, Wuhan returns to normal life, but still haunted by emotional scars
From CNN's David Culver and Nectar Gan
People walk along a street near a market in Wuhan, China, on January 19.
Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
On the surface, Wuhan bustles like a city that has never known a paralyzing 76-day lockdown.
At dawn, market vendors busily unload fresh fruits and vegetables. Office workers fill popular eateries during lunch break. As dusk falls, elderly couples descend on the city’s parks, practicing dance moves by the Yangtze River. Red lanterns have been erected around the city in anticipation of the Lunar New Year celebrations.
A year has passed since the central Chinese city of 11 million people was placed under the world’s first coronavirus lockdown on January 23. At least 3,869 Wuhan residents eventually died from the virus, which went on to claim more than 2 million lives around the globe.
The world was stunned when flights, trains and buses leaving Wuhan were canceled, highways were blocked and people were ordered to stay in their homes, relying on officials and volunteers for daily necessities. Initially, it was difficult for patients, families and even some healthcare workers to get to the hospital.
But the Chinese government has since heralded those drastic steps as crucial to curbing the initial outbreak, and similar measures have now been enforced in countries around the world – with some cities outside China undergoing multiple lockdowns.
In that context, Wuhan has become a success story in taming the virus. It has not reported a local coronavirus infection for months.
On December 31, as millions of people in other countries spent New Year’s Eve in the confinement of another lockdown, Wuhan’s residents packed glittering streets to celebrate the arrival of 2021 with a midnight countdown.
Today, residents speak proudly of the resilience and strength of their city, and the efforts they made to ward off Covid-19.
But the severe measures also came at a huge personal cost to residents, and despite the apparent return to normal life, deep emotional scars haunt the city.
Some residents who lost loved ones to the virus are still living in grief, angry at the government for its early missteps in preventing people from knowing facts that could have saved lives.
Fauci reveals Trump administration attempts to discredit him and threats on his life
From CNN Health’s Naomi Thomas
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens to President Donald Trump speak to reporters at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2020.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Dr. Anthony Fauci opened up about his experience working under the Trump administration, his relationship with the former president and threats to his personal safety, in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published Sunday.
As cases rapidly escalated in the Northeast, the former president had “almost a reflex response” to try to minimize the situation, Fauci said.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he was concerned about who Trump was getting his information from. He said Trump based his assessment of coronavirus treatments on anecdotes rather than data from clinical trials.
When leadership of the White House coronavirus task force changed last February, into the hands of the White House, the situation turned from “the standard kind of scientifically based, public-health-based meetings,” to “the anecdotally driven situations, the minimization, the President surrounding himself with people saying things that didn’t make any scientific sense,” Fauci said.
When Fauci contradicted Trump’s misinformation, he said the White House response started to become “somewhat nefarious - namely, allowing Peter Navarro to write an editorial in USA Today saying I’m wrong on most of the things I say. Or to have the White House press office send out a detailed list of things I said that turned out to be not true.”
Fauci said that Trump even called him personally to ask why he wasn’t being more positive about the pandemic.
Fauci said he and his family received death threats, starting in the spring. He said the death threats to his family upset him more than anything else. He shared an experience where he received a letter containing white powder, which turned out to be nothing. He recalled the moment, saying:
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Australia approves Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19
From CNN's Hilary Whiteman in Brisbane and Sharif Paget in Atlanta
Australia has granted “provisional approval” for the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, making it the country’s first coronavirus vaccine to receive regulatory approval, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement Monday.
The TGA said the vaccine met “strict standards for safety, quality and efficacy” and the provisional approval is for individuals 16 years and older.
The Pfizer vaccine went through Australia’s normal regulatory process, which is why it has come later than some other countries that approved it for emergency use.
The first vaccines will be given in late February, starting with 80,000 doses a week, Health Minister Greg Hunt said in a news conference Monday.Australia has purchased 10 million Pfizer doses, enough for 5 million people in a country of 25 million.
Australia had hoped to start its vaccination program in mid-February but the Pfizer rollout was delayed by global supply issues.
The vaccine rollout is expected to begin across 30-50 hospital sites and those who need protection the most, such as frontline health workers and quarantine border workers, will be the first to receive the shots, according to a joint press release from the country’s prime minister and health minister
The vaccine will be rolled out in five phases over the coming months and will eventually involve more than 1,000 vaccination administration sites, the release said.
Despite the Pfizer vaccine being first to receive approval, most people in Australia will receive the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, which is still going through regulatory approval. Australia plans to make that vaccine in a domestic production facility, which is expected to produce approximately 1 million doses a week from late March.
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Mexico's President tests positive for Covid-19
From CNN's Tatiana Arias
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has tested positive for Covid-19, he said on Sunday evening.
The President, who tweeted from his official Twitter account, said his symptoms are mild and that he was receiving medical treatment.
He added that Secretary of the Interior Dr. Olga Sanchez Cordero will represent him at the daily morning briefings.
Mexico is one of 17 countries in the world that has reported more than 1 million Covid-19 cases. Newly confirmed deaths and cases have risen steadily throughout the country since early October, with recent daily numbers some of the highest since the beginning the pandemic.
Lopez Obrador, who rarely wears a mask, has faced widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic.
38 Capitol Police officers test positive for Covid-19 after Capitol riot
From CNN's Nadia Kounang and Whitney Wild
More than three dozen Capitol Police officers have tested positive for coronavirus since the Capitol riot on January 6, the union representing the Capitol Police told CNN Sunday.
It’s unclear how many of the 38 officers may have been on duty during the attack or when they contracted the virus. But health officials have worried that the mass of largely unmasked people, many shouting and pushing, would result in the spread of the virus. Several police officers were directly assaulted during the insurrection.
Biden to reinstate Covid travel restrictions on much of Europe, Brazil and adding South Africa
From CNN's Arlette Saenz
US President Joe Biden on Monday will reinstate the Covid travel restrictions on non-US citizens who have been in Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, a White House official told CNN.
Additionally, the President will extend the restrictions to travelers who have recently been to South Africa, the official said.
This will come one week after former President Donald Trump signed an executive order lifting the restrictions on travelers from these countries effective January 26 – a move the Biden transition quickly said Biden would reverse as president.
CDC reviewing new data that suggests coronavirus variant identified in UK could be more deadly
From CNN's Elizabeth Cohen
Scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are speaking with UK health officials to learn more about British data that suggests a new coronavirus variant could be more deadly.
A UK report released Friday states there is “a realistic possibility” that the new variant has a higher death rate than other variants.
While the data is not conclusive, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “there is some evidence that the new variant … may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.”
The US just marked 25 million Covid-19 cases. Now it's a race between vaccines and variants
From CNN's Christina Maxouris and Holly Yan
It took just over a year for the US to go from one to 25 million coronavirus infections.
That’s an average of about 67,934 new infections every day, or an average of one new infection every 1.2 seconds since January 21, 2020.
As infections kept soaring this weekend, so did the death toll. As of Sunday, more than 419,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US death toll could reach 569,000 by May 1, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation – even though “42,800 lives will be saved by the projected vaccine rollout.”
