March 2 coronavirus news

This Dec. 2, 2020 photo provided by Johnson & Johnson shows vials of the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the final step to sign off on the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine Tuesday, publishing the vaccine recommendation in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine was given emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration Saturday. On Sunday, the CDC’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously voted to recommend the coronavirus vaccine, and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky accepted the recommendation. 

The MMWR publication represents the final and official CDC recommendation for immunization of the US population.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the first single-dose Covid-19 vaccine authorized in the United States. It can be used to vaccinate Americans who are 18 years old and older.

The report said that the vaccine, made by Janssen, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine division, “is a reasonable and efficient allocation of resources” during the pandemic.

The CDC did not recommend the vaccine for one population group over the other, but its characteristics – the single dose that doesn’t need special refrigeration – should help states expand the availability of Covid-19 vaccines to “most community settings and mobile sites” once it is more widely available. The report also said the J&J vaccine might be good for people who would have a hard time returning to get a second dose, as would be needed for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“The feasibility of administering the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine in a wider variety of settings provides an opportunity to improve equitable access to an effective COVID-19 vaccine,” the report said.

Four million doses of the vaccine are now being shipped to the states. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House on March 2 in Washington, DC.

The White House announced another increase in vaccine supply amid the push to gets shots into American arms. 

Vaccine supply will be increased for states, tribes, and territories from 14.5 to 15.2 million doses per week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. She noted that states are also receiving 2.8 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses this week, for a total of 18 million doses this week.

The weekly supply to states, tribes, and territories was 8.6 million when Biden assumed office in January.

Governors were informed of the increase during a weekly meeting Tuesday, she said.

Psaki also confirmed that later Tuesday, President Biden will announce what she described as an “unprecedented, historic step,” the partnership between competitor pharmaceutical companies Merck and Johnson & Johnson to ramp up vaccine production. The federal government will be involved in the partnership and has invoked the Defense Production Act.

The Defense Production Act, Psaki later noted, has been invoked to implement fill finish capacity and drug substance availability.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release guidance for people who have been fully vaccinated when it is finalized later this week, a CDC official tells CNN.

The official confirmed the broad themes contained in the guidance, which were first reported by Politico.

The guidance is reported to include a recommendation that fully vaccinated people limit their social interactions to small home gatherings with other fully vaccinated people. It reportedly will also recommend that fully vaccinated people continue to wear masks in public and practice social distancing. Additionally, it reportedly will include scenarios for Americans to consider when making plans, including travel.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a FEMA-supported vaccination center in Philadelphia on March 2.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said a new Federal Emergency Management Agency-supported vaccination site in Philadelphia, and other ones like it around the US, will be able to vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day. 

As of today, FEMA has setup more than 500 federally supported community vaccination centers and that number is “growing,” Mayorkas said speaking at the Pennsylvania Convention Center – the location of one of FEMA’s Community Vaccination Center pilot facilities.

This was Mayorkas’ first trip outside of Washington, DC, since taking office and he told reporters he had received the vaccine. 

Mayorkas also issued a message to undocumented immigrants, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection “will not conduct immigration enforcement operations at or near vaccine distribution sites or clinics.”

He said race, ethnicity, access to transportation or immigration status should not impact access to the vaccine. 

The Center City Vaccination Center in Philadelphia is one of FEMA’s mass vaccination sites. It will open on March 3 and is staffed largely by uniformed military personnel, freeing up local staff, according to Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.

The vaccine being used at the facility is provided from a federal allotment, the mayor said, allowing the city to use its allotment elsewhere in the city. 

Kenney also took a dig at the Trump administration, saying, “imagine that, the White House is now actually trying to save lives. What a difference that makes.” 

A nurse picks up a Moderna Covid-19 vaccine that is ready to be administered at a vaccination site at Kedren Community Health Center in Los Angeles on February 16.

Nearly 70% of Americans are likely to get the vaccine as soon as it is available to them or have already gotten it, according to new poll results from Axios-Ipsos published Tuesday. 

The poll found that 68% of Americans said that they were likely to get the vaccine as soon as it was available, or have already gotten it.

The number of Americans saying they’re not at all likely to get the vaccine – 21% – remains essentially unchanged since January, but the number saying they’re not very likely to – 10% – has decreased by nine points since earlier in the year, according to the poll conducted Feb. 26 to March 1 and based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,088 adults age 18 and up. 

People with a college degree and Democrats expressed the greatest interest in getting vaccinated. 

Nearly one-quarter – 23% – of respondents have gotten at least one vaccine dose, up from 19% last week and 3% in the Jan. 11 poll. Half – 53% – of those age 65 and older have gotten at least one shot. 

Higher rates of vaccination were reported by those who were college educated (29%), more affluent, with a $50,000 or higher household income (25%), and white (25%.) This can be compared to those with a high school education or less (16%), less affluent, with a household income lower than $50,000 (18%), or Black (19%) and Hispanic (17%). 

Three quarters of the respondents – 75% – also said that it’s very or somewhat important for teachers to get fully vaccinated before going back to school to teach. 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a press briefing in New York on March 2.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for the state to expand vaccination eligibility to include sanitation workers, lifeguards, district attorneys, courtroom staff, board of elections staff, building inspectors and New York City Housing Authority frontline staff among others. 

“The state of New York is not keeping up with the need to update… these eligibility categories,” he said during a briefing Tuesday.

De Blasio also announced that in an effort to enhance equity of distribution of the vaccine, a new vaccination site will open in Co-Op city in the Bronx Thursday.

“The Bronx has been very hard hit by the Covid crisis,” he said adding the “Bronx is often overlooked.”

The city’s top health adviser Dr. Jay Varma discussed the variants during the briefing in an effort to quell concerns.

“There may be a day when we have to do something different because of it, but right now so far the answer is clear; there’s nothing different we need people to do in New York,” he said.

New York City is tracking the spread of variants and also examining for new ones, with the capacity to sequence over two thousand specimens a week, he added.

New York City added 211 patients for suspected Covid-19 – which is “finally” getting close to the 200 threshold that the city desires, the mayor explained. 

The hospitalization rate is 4.3 per 100,000 people which is “still high” the mayor cautioned. The city added 3,558 confirmed and probable Covid cases, marking a 6.09% positivity both on a 7 day rolling average.

More Americans are feeling hopeful about the pandemic now than over the last year, according to new poll results from Axios-Ipsos published on Tuesday. 

Nearly half — 48% — of Americans said hopeful best describes their mood today, up from only 20% who felt that way over the past year, according to the poll, which was conducted Feb. 26 to March 1 and based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,088 adults ages 18 and up.

This number goes up to 61% for those who have received at least one shot of vaccine. 

The most hopeful groups are people over 65, Democrats and people who have been vaccinated. 

This can be compared to feelings over the last year, when 41% of respondents said that “stressed/worried” were the words to best describe their mood. An equal percentage said they were frustrated. Twenty-six percent said that they felt “overwhelmed/burned out,” 19% angry and 16% “sad” or “discouraged.” 

“The negative emotions are still there, but they’re less prevalent than during the past year,” said Axios — 20% said that they were stressed or worried now.  

Looking back at the past year, Democrats were more likely to report feeling stressed or overwhelmed, compared with Republicans who were more likely to report frustration and anger. 

The poll also looked at how long people thought it would take for life to get back to normal. 

They found that 65% of respondents thought that it would take at least six months to start getting back to normal. An increasing minority — 33% — expect to return to something like normal, pre-coronavirus life within the next six months. This is up from 26% last week. 

A shipment of China's Sinopharm vaccine is unloaded in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 1.

Venezuela has received 500-thousand doses of the Sinopharm vaccine developed by China, President Nicolás Maduro announced.

“With great joy I announce that at this moment 500 thousand doses of Covid-19 vaccines are arriving in Venezuela, from the People’s Republic of China. This is wonderful news that fills us with great hope. Soon, we will begin the mass vaccination of our people,” Maduro said on Twitter.

The vaccines, along with a load of medical supplies, such as masks and Covid-19 tests, landed at the Simón Bolivar Airport in Caracas late Monday night, the Venezuelan government reported.

The Venezuelan Ministry of Health approved the use of the Sinopharm vaccine on Monday.

This is the second shipment of vaccines to reach Venezuela, which received 100,000 of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in early February.

Venezuela is also in line to receive a share of vaccines through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program, but negotiations have stalled due to the political situation in the country. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which handles COVAX distribution in the Americas, has previously said Venezuela would receive their share of vaccines as soon as their payment and delivery processes are finalized.

Venezuela currently has at least 139,545 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,348 recorded deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo speaks during a press conference on Monday, March 1.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo opposed the government’s proposal to impose a weekend lockdown in the French capital in an effort to fight the rise in Covid-19 cases.

“I disagreed with this proposal. A proposal that I find difficult, hard and even inhumane,” Hidalgo said in a televised address Monday. 

She offered softer proposals instead such as teaching classes outside during the week, in an effort to bring case numbers down. 

“We will make our playgrounds and public gardens available in an organized and secure way, which we can rearrange for this purpose,” she said. 

Government spokesperson Gabriel Attal has accused the Paris town hall of flip-flopping after a Paris deputy mayor advocated just last month for a strict three-week lockdown in Paris. 

The French Riviera and the metropolitan area of Dunkirk in northern France have been under weekend lockdowns since last Friday.  

President Emmanuel Macron is expected to hold a Defense council meeting Wednesday to discuss new restrictions.

The COVAX program will deliver 237 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to some 142 countries by the end of May, the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced today. 

COVAX is a program run by a coalition that includes the Vaccine Alliance known as Gavi and the World Health Organization (WHO), and is funded by donations from governments, multilateral institutions and foundations. Its mission is to buy coronavirus vaccines in bulk and send them to poorer nations that can’t compete with wealthy countries in securing contracts with the major drug companies.

During a virtual press briefing, Tedros said that when the history of the pandemic is written, Covax “will be one of its standout successes.”  

This week alone, COVAX will deliver a total of 11 million doses, according to Tedros.  

The vaccine rollout by the program is already underway, with Ghana and the Ivory Coast becoming the first countries to receive doses through COVAX last week, according to Tedros.

A patient receives a dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in Nagykata, Hungary, on February 24.

The European Union’s 27-nation vaccine strategy is splintering as member states turn to nations outside the bloc to boost a faltering rollout plagued by supply issues, contract skirmishes and sluggish takeup.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced Monday that he intends to work with Israel and Denmark on future vaccine production and cooperation around developing further shots to combat new coronavirus mutations. He will visit Israel with Danish leader Mette Frederiksen on Thursday.

The Austrian leader has been sharply critical of the EU’s vaccine strategy and the bloc’s regulator, the European Medicines Agency. The EU authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in late December 2020, weeks after it had been granted approval in the UK and US.

Brussels has opted for a centralized approach to vaccine procurement and distribution but its plan has been hindered by supply and distribution problems. Only 5.5% of the EU’s population of 447 million has received a first vaccine dose, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The EMA has not yet given the green light to the Sputnik V vaccine. “The [Slovakia] approval is based on the results of the clinical trials of Sputnik V in Russia and a comprehensive assessment of the vaccine by experts in Slovakia,” the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which backed Sputnik V’s production, said Monday.

Read the full article here.

The first batch of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses are offloaded from a plane at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Nigeria, on March 2.

Nigeria today received nearly 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, its health ministry announced on social media. 

The country’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said on Monday that Nigeria would take delivery of 3.92 million doses of the shot, the first arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine in Africa’s most populous nation. 

Nigeria is now the third West African country to receive the coronavirus vaccine – joining neighbors Ghana and Ivory Coast – which have all been supplied through the COVAX program.

COVAX is a global initiative that helps poorer and smaller countries gain access to Covid-19 vaccines.

Faisal Shuaib, who heads the NPHCDA, said in a statement Monday that Nigeria’s vaccine rollout would start “with critical healthcare workers, who are in the frontline.”

“We are fully prepared to receive and deliver the vaccine to eligible Nigerians as we have commenced the training of health workers and ensured that cold chain facilities are ready at all levels. We have a robust cold chain system that can store all types of Covid-19 vaccine in accordance with the required temperature,” Shuaib added.

In a follow-up statement on social media Monday, Shuaib said a website had been launched to register Nigerians for Covid-19 vaccination.

Nigeria plans to inoculate at least 70% of its population aged 18 and above. This, the NPHCDA said, would be done in four phases within two years. 

UNICEF’s representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, said more vaccines will be sent to the country – adding that the arrival of the first 3.92 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot was part of 16 million doses that were allocated earlier.

At least 156,017 Nigerians have been infected with Covid-19 and 1,915 have died from Covid-related complications, according to the country’s official count. 

Findings of a survey released last month by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and a national institute for medical research suggest that more Nigerians have had the coronavirus than official records show. 

Read more about COVAX here:

FILE - In this image taken from video on Tuesday Oct. 13, 2020, people work inside the UNICEF warehouse, the world's largest humanitarian aid warehouse, in Copenhagen, Denmark where the groundwork is being laid for the Covax initiative, led by the World Health Organization and the Gavi vaccine alliance. An IBM threat intelligence team said Thursday, Dec. 3 it detected a cyberespionage effort that used targeted phishing emails to try to collect sensitive information from organizations involved in the U.N. initiative for distributing COVID-19 vaccine to developing countries. (AP Photo)

Related article Why COVAX could become the most important acronym of 2021

An employee packs a box of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine into a cooler for shipping from pharmaceutical distributor McKesson Corporation's facility, in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, on March 1.

President Biden is expected to announce later today that Merck & Co. will partner with Johnson & Johnson to help manufacture the company’s coronavirus vaccine, administration officials familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN.

One official added that Biden will address it during his remarks at the White House this afternoon, hailing the partnership as a way to quickly jumpstart the sluggish vaccine production.

The planned partnership was first reported by The Washington Post.

Merck is expected to dedicate two of its facilities to helping Johnson & Johnson, an administration official said, in a rare partnership between two competitors.

Merck had been working on developing its own Covid-19 vaccine, but discontinued its effort at the end of January after early studies showed immune responses were inferior to natural infection and other Covid-19 vaccines.

Workers hand out coronavirus testing kits in Bristol, England, on March 1, after three returning residents of a neighboring region were found to have been infected with the Covid-19 variant first detected in Brazil.

A coronavirus variant of concern first reported in Brazil, known as P.1, may be up to 2.2 times more transmissible and could evade immunity from previous Covid-19 infection by up to 61%, a new modelling study by researchers in Brazil and the UK suggests. 

The team sequenced viruses sampled from people infected with coronavirus between November 2020 and January 2021 in Manaus, where the new variant was first detected, and found the proportion of samples with this variant rose from 0 to 87% within seven weeks. 

They also identified 17 mutations, including 10 in the surface spike protein, used by the virus to enter cells. Three of the mutations in the spike protein are linked to helping the virus bind to human cells. These include the N501Y mutation also found in the variants first found in the UK and South Africa and thought to help the virus bind more easily to human cells and the E484K mutation also found in the South African variant, which is also thought to help the virus evade existing immune responses.  

When investigating how these changes affect the ability of the virus to cause infections, the models created from the data showed the P.1 variant to be 1.4 to 2.2 times more transmissible than other variants as well as the original coronavirus strain, and 25% to 65% more likely to evade existing protective immunity from previous non-P.1 infections, making people susceptible to reinfection.  

The sampling also found that the emergence and circulation of the P.1 variant of concern was due to multiple introductions of the variant within the population.  

But he cautioned that “our results from Manaus should not be generalized” to other contexts of variants of concern. 

“We need to see whether this is generalizable to other settings,” said Sharon Peacock, professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “This is relevant to where the study was done but we don’t know how that will pan out in other countries.” 

Six cases of the P.1 variant were reported in the UK this week, with a manhunt underway to find one unidentified case. The researchers commented that this is unlikely to cause a surge in cases, adding that “you need many introductions to start an epidemic, so six is very few.”  

In the United States, 10 cases of the P.1 variant have been identified in five states – Alaska, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota and Oklahoma – according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz speaks at a news conference at the federal chancellery in Vienna on March 1.

Austria’s leader has announced that his country is looking to start closer cooperation with Israel and Denmark to further develop vaccines against Covid-19.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the effort aims to produce shots that are effective against coronavirus variants, as well as research new treatment methods, as reported by CNN’s Austrian affiliate, Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), a public broadcaster. 

Kurz added that he will visit Israel with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Thursday.

The chancellor is due to meet with Austrian pharmaceutical producers today, ahead of the Israel trip, his office said in a Tuesday press release.

According to ORF, Kurz criticized the European Union’s authorization process, saying access via the bloc “was principally the right thing to do, but the European Medicines Agency is too slow in terms of authorization of pharmaceutical companies.”

Frederiksen echoed a similar message, saying on Danish state TV on Monday that: “The European vaccine effort can no longer stand alone.”

The Danish Prime Minister pointed out that this is the reason that the countries are cooperating.

“We must have vaccine production skyrocketing. One of the partners I believe in a lot is Israel,” she added. “All countries that have vaccines in surplus – we would like to buy them.”

For Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, vaccinating all Mexicans is a matter of responsible national health policy as well as social justice.

“Vaccines will start arriving little by little,” he said on February 15, during his daily morning press conference, a week after returning to public activities after contracting Covid-19.

“Today we launched our vaccination plan and it won’t stop. We will press ahead with the goal of vaccinating all the people, according to pre-established priorities,” the President added.

But there are already clear signs that not every Mexican is ready or willing to get a shot in the arm.

In Aldama, a small town of about 7,000 located in the central highlands of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, some people say they will not get vaccinated, regardless of any vaccination plan or where the vaccine comes from.

“Why would I get vaccinated? I’m not sick. It wouldn’t be good if they tried to force us to get vaccinated. I don’t know,” said María Magdalena López Santís, an Aldama resident to CNN in broken Spanish.

This time, it seems a lack of information and conspiracy theories that have spread in the region like wildfire are to blame for vaccine hesitancy.

Read the full story here:

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Carlos López/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (11752435a) View of daily life in the indigenous town of San Juan Cancuc, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, 07 February 2021 (issued 09 February 2021). San Juan Cancuc has become one of the first Mexican towns to distance itself from the federal immunization plan against covid-19. 'Here people do not want to be vaccinated because it can have negative effects. Not even older adults want to' said Sebastián Santis, one of its inhabitants, on 09 February. Located in the mountains of the Altos area of the southeastern state of Chiapas, the municipality is mainly populated by Tzeltal Mayans. San Juan Cancuc, the Mexican indigenous town which refuses to be vaccinated out of fear, Mexico - 09 Feb 2021

Related article Whole towns are refusing Covid-19 vaccines in Mexico

A nurse fills a syringe with the Sputnik V shot at a vaccination site in Moscow on February 17.

More than 60% of Russians said they are not ready to get a shot of the Sputnik V vaccine, and about the same number believe Covid-19 is of an artificial origin, according to the results of a survey released Monday by independent pollster Levada-Center. 

According to Levada, which conducted the poll in late February, 62% of Russians surveyed said they don’t want to be vaccinated with Sputnik V. Only 30% said they would, compared to 38% in December.

The main reasons stated by respondents against getting the vaccine were concerns over side effects (37% of those not ready for vaccination) or wanting to wait until the trials are complete (23%). Another 16% of respondents said they “don’t see any point” in getting vaccinated. In December 2020, fewer people feared side effects (29%), and more were waiting for the trials to finish (30%).

The survey, which queried 1,601 people in 50 regions via in-person interviews, also found that 64% of people thought the theory that the new coronavirus was created artificially as a biological weapon was more probable than its natural origin, which only 23% believed. 

The origins of novel coronavirus became highly politicized last year, and many conspiracy theories have arisen in the US, Russia and elsewhere about the origins of the virus in humans. 

In China, for instance, officials and state media have promoted the idea that the coronavirus may have emerged from a lab, and US politicians and conspiracists have pushed the idea that a Chinese lab might have been responsible. 

The World Health Organization team that went to Wuhan, China last month to explore the origins of the virus said the version that the virus emerged from a lab is highly unlikely and is not being investigated further.

There are now three Covid-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration, manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. All three will be distributed across the United States.

Many people are wondering which Covid-19 vaccine they should get: Is one better for certain groups of people? Given how many people still can’t get any vaccine, will people have a choice? If so, which vaccine should they choose?

We asked CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen for her advice. Wen is an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Wen is also a volunteer participant in the Johnson & Johnson clinical trial, though she doesn’t know yet whether she received the vaccine or placebo.

Can you explain the differences between the three FDA-authorized vaccines? What do we know about their safety and efficacy?

Dr. Leana Wen: The vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were authorized first, back in December. They are similar to one another in that they are both developed using the mRNA platform. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has just been authorized. It uses a different way of stimulating an immune response, with an inactivated cold virus. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both require two shots. Johnson & Johnson has just been authorized as a one-dose vaccine.

All three vaccines have very favorable safety profiles, meaning that they are all very safe, when tested in tens of thousands of people. All three are virtually 100% in clinical trials at preventing hospitalizations and deaths, which is the endpoint that we really care about.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines appear to be more effective at preventing mild to moderate disease, about 95%. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is about 72% effective, based on US trials. However, these results should not be compared directly, because the trials were not done as head-to-head comparisons.

Why not? You can see why people would look at those numbers and say, 95% versus 72%? I’ll take the one that’s 95%.

Dr. Leana Wen: This is an understandable concern. Here are three reasons why this is not the right comparison.

First, the vaccines were studied at different time periods. The Pfizer and Moderna studies were done before these more concerning variants became a major factor.

Second, one the main locations where the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was studied was South Africa, where the predominant variant at the time of the study was the B.1.351 variant. There is substantial concern that none of the vaccines we have may work as well against this variant.

For the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it appears that it, too, is less effective against the South African variant. However, it’s still very effective. Even in South Africa, the vaccine prevented 82% of severe disease (compared to 86% in the United States).

Third, let’s remember that the the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a one-dose vaccine. This simplifies logistics substantially to not have to make second appointments and allocate second doses.

Read more vaccine answers from Dr. Wen here:

A health care worker administers the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at the Bible-Based Fellowship Church on February 13 in Tampa, Florida.

Related article Which Covid-19 vaccine should I get? Dr. Wen weighs in

An employee wears a protective mask and face shield while overseeing the craps table at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in July 2020.

More than 200 commercial and tribal casinos – including every casino in New Jersey – reopened their doors as ‘smoke free’ on Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, this kind of public health momentum in casinos would not have been possible, Brian King of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health said during the CDC’s weekly partner call.

All casinos in New Jersey, which includes Atlantic City, have adopted smoke-free policies, King said.

“Seeing that implementation of a broad public health policy in this environment at the state level of a major hub for gambling and casinos is very important,” King said. “It’s definitely a public health win and shows an added benefit of not only protecting workers but also patrons.”

The question remains if these casinos will remain smoke-free when other restrictions ease and more people become vaccinated. 

“If all these casinos remain smoke free even post Covid-19, this could have an immeasurable in terms of not only protecting the public who attend these venues, but also workers who are working eight hours or more per day in these environments,” King added. 

A doctor prepares a dose of the Oxford-Astra-Zeneca vaccine at a vaccination unit in London on February 28.

A single dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines reduces the risk of hospitalization from Covid-19 by more than 80% in people aged over 80, new data from Public Health England (PHE) shows.

The effect was seen three to four weeks after vaccination.

People aged over 70 were also shown to have up to 61% protection against symptomatic disease from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and up to 73% from the Oxford-Astra-Zeneca vaccine.

“This adds to growing evidence showing that the vaccines are working to reduce infections and save lives,” Dr. Mary Ramsay, head of immunization at PHE, said in a press release. 

During a press conference on Monday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock hailed the real-world data, highlighting that the UK’s daily number of deaths is decreasing “much faster” than in the first peak, and it’s “falling faster in the over 80s who got the jab first than in the under 80s.”

The UK has administered Covid-19 shots to more than 20 million people, with campaigns first targeting the over-80s who are most vulnerable to the disease. 

The new data supports the country’s decision to use both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines at a time when other countries in Europe showed concern about using the AstraZeneca shot in older people.

“These findings are particularly welcome news due to the age range of the participants who were all aged 70 and over,” said Deborah Dunn-Walters, chair of the British Society for Immunology COVID-19 and Immunology Taskforce, and Professor of Immunology at the University of Surrey.  

“Previous clinical trials for both vaccines have not included many individuals from this age range. This is important because as we get older, our immune systems don’t function as well as they did when we were younger, meaning that older people sometimes produce lower immune responses to vaccination,” she said.

But Ramsay stressed the need for people to stay vigilant with measures such as social distancing and hand washing.

“It is important to remember that protection is not complete and we don’t yet know how much these vaccines will reduce the risk of you passing Covid-19 onto others,” she said.

Data released last week by PHE from studies in health workers found that one dose of the vaccine prevented people from catching asymptomatic Covid-19 by at least 70%, which suggests the vaccines may help to reduce the spread of infection, but more data is needed.

The UK is increasing the rate of second doses being administered, with just over 800,000 now inoculated with both shots.

A nurse administers a Covid-19 vaccine at a community vaccination center in Hong Kong, on February 26.

China plans to inoculate 40% of its population with Covid-19 vaccines by the end of June, respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan has revealed.   

“Today I asked my CDC friends about China’s (vaccination) plan and they replied that (China is) planning to reach 40% by the end of June,” said Zhong on Monday at a panel hosted by Tsinghua University and the Brookings Institution.

With a population of 1.4 billion, 40% represents about 548 million people. China has only vaccinated 3.56% of its population — roughly 51 million people — so far, Zhong said.

He added that it could take at least three years to reach any kind of herd immunity.

However, Wu Zunyou of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention said if existing vaccination rates continue, China and the US could be the first countries to open up travel.

A bottle of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020.

A panel of World Health Organization experts has strongly advised against using hydroxychloroquine to prevent Covid-19 after reviewing all existing studies on the subject. 

The panel announced the recommendation in the BMJ medical journal on Monday, as part of the first version of WHO’s living guideline for drugs to prevent Covid-19. 

The panel concluded with high certainty that taking hydroxychloroquine does not prevent hospitalization or death from Covid-19. The panel also recommended that researchers studying hydroxychloroquine as means of Covid-19 prevention — also known as prophylaxis — consider ending their trials. 

Trump’s claims: Hydroxychloroquine is typically used to treat autoimmune diseases and to prevent malaria, but early in the pandemic it was touted by former US President Donald Trump as a “game-changer,” prompting a flurry of clinical trials and a bump in sales of the pills. But many studies later showed the drug was not helpful in treating coronavirus patients and also did nothing to prevent infection.

The panel’s recommendation is based on six studies that included more than 6,000 participants. Three of the trials included volunteers who had a known exposure to Covid-19. 

Emergency use: The US Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization for use of the drug against coronavirus last year, and the National Institutes of Health stopped its research.

An employee with the McKesson Corporation packs a box of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines for shipping in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, on March 1.

The first single-dose Covid-19 vaccine has been authorized for use in the United States after advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unanimously voted to recommend the Johnson & Johnson shot for Americans 18 and older.

Distribution of the vaccine began Sunday night, right after CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky officially rubber-stamped the authorization.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a bit different than the two already in use in the US. Most importantly, it only requires one dose and is easier to handle, because it can be kept at simple refrigerator temperatures for up to three months. That makes its rollout a lot easier compared to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

The technology is different too. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a brand-new technology called messenger RNA, or mRNA. They deliver genetic material directly into cells, which then follow the genetic instructions to make tiny pieces that look like a part of the coronavirus.

Those little proteins stimulate an immune response, generating antibodies and immune cells that “remember” what they look like and that will be ready to respond quickly in case of a fresh attack.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses viral vector technology. A common cold virus called adenovirus 26 is genetically engineered so it can infect cells, but won’t replicate there. It cannot spread in the body, and won’t give people a cold. Like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it delivers genetic instructions.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has shown efficacy of 72% in the US and offered 86% protection against severe forms of the disease in the country. Moderna’s and Pfizer efficacy rate in clinical trials was 94% to 95%.

A version of this story appeared in the March 1 edition of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks during a news conference at the Queen Theater on December 8, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware.

The US risks losing its recent gains in the battle against Covid-19 as highly contagious variants take advantage of Americans getting lax with safety measures.

After weeks of tumbling case numbers, new infections are on the rise again — about 2% more this past week compared to the previous week, Walensky said Monday.

“Similarly, the most recent seven-day average of deaths has also increased more than 2% … to nearly 2,000 deaths per day,” she added.

Walensky also called out states easing up on Covid-19 safety mandates.

“I am really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from Covid-19,” she said.

“Please stay strong in your conviction. Continue wearing your well-fitting mask and taking the other public health prevention actions that we know work.

“Ultimately, vaccination is what will bring us out of this pandemic. To get there, we need to vaccinate many more people.”