July 14 coronavirus news

An extra dose of coronavirus vaccine might help some people, including those with immune system deficiencies, National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins said Wednesday. 

“I wouldn’t call that a booster, though,” Collins added. “I would just say that’s trying to get the primary immunization up to the level it needs to be – that’s under consideration.”

Pfizer said a booster for its vaccine could be needed six months to a year after completion of the first two vaccine doses, prompting a rare public rebuke from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration. The company met with administration and top public health officials this week to discuss the data. 

“There was nothing there that would change the view of myself, or the FDA or the CDC, that we need boosters imminently,” Collins said. “I think Pfizer was a bit apologetic that they might have jumped the gun a bit on that.”

Collins added that he believes Covid-19 vaccine boosters may be needed at some point but not right now.

Argentina surpassed 100,000 total Covid-19 deaths on Wednesday, the country’s health ministry reported.

The current Covid-19 death toll in the country stands at 100,250.

The country reported 4,702,657 total Covid-19 cases as of Wednesday, according to the ministry. A total of 614 people died from Covid-19 today, the ministry added.

Correction: An earlier version of this post included the wrong total of Covid-19 cases in Argentina. The total number of Covid-19 cases in the country is 4,702,657.

 A Emergency sign is seen at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 7.

Los Angeles County is seeing a surge in new Covid-19 cases, topping 1,000 for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, and though hospitalizations remain low, each admitted patient to a county hospital has been unvaccinated, officials said.

Some context: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services runs four hospitals, including those affiliated with University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, along with 19 healthcare centers throughout the region. There are currently about 400 Covid-19 patients in Los Angeles County hospitals. 

Ghaly called the hospitalizations entirely preventable.

“At this point, this really is a preventable illness, a preventable infection, and the healthcare workers will continue doing everything they can to support the lives and health of the individuals that come in, but it’s really been a very challenging year, and I think it’s made all the more challenging because we see the suffering that these patients and their families are going through, and it’s very preventable at this point in time,” she said.

While still well below the spike in cases seen early this year, the increase in cases in Los Angeles is helping drive the state’s positivity rate up to 3%, a level not seen in the state since February.

Over 60% of California residents have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The percentage is slightly higher in Los Angeles County, but daily vaccination rates have been steadily declining over the past couple of months, according to data from the county health department.

There is currently no need for a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, acting US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said Wednesday.

Woodcock said what’s important is that people get their primary vaccinations.

“We think the most important thing is to get the unvaccinated people vaccinated,” she said. “The Delta variant is circulating and we’re seeing rise in infections in many states across the United States, especially where people aren’t, (where) there’s not a high rate of vaccination.”

The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed Wednesday it is temporarily halting all adolescent vaccine outreach, even for vaccines not related to Covid-19, telling CNN the issue is “polarized.”

“We recognize where we are around the national conversation around vaccinations and it is a polarized conversation, and that is true in our state. And so we’re just taking this opportunity to evaluate our messaging and to ensure that we’re not hurting our efforts,” spokesperson Sarah Tanksley told CNN in a phone call.

Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician who was the state’s medical director of the vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization, said Monday she was fired in a dispute over parental permission for vaccinating children. She said the health agency was stopping all its outreach efforts involving childhood vaccines.

Tanksley said Covid-19 and other childhood vaccines would still be available while the department of health re-evaluates the vaccination notification process. She said the goal was to ensure that vaccination reminders are sent to the parents of the adolescent. 

In a few cases, immunization reminders were sent directly to minors who had contact information listed in the department’s electronic health records, according to a statement given to CNN by the Tennessee Department of Health.

The halt impacts all outreach to adolescents, including Covid-19 second-dose reminders, HPV vaccine reminders and kindergarten vaccination surveys, according to the documents circulated within the department obtained by CNN and first reported by The Tennessean.

Research published in June by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed routine child and adolescent vaccinations dropped in the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, but Tanksley said she doesn’t think the pause in communications to Tennessee’s adolescents will have an impact.

“We’re already seeing our childhood immunization rates rebound to pre-pandemic levels,” Tanksley told CNN Wednesday. “This is just kind of our opportunity to recognize the conversation and be mindful of those conversations so that we can be as supportive to the decision makers in our state.”

Tanksley said she is confident the department of health will continue to successfully communicate with parents and providers. “This is not a monthlong evaluation period or anything like that,” she said.

Asked how many children have gotten the Covid-19 vaccine without parental permission in Tennessee, Tanksley cited the number previously shared before a Tennessee Government Operations Committee hearing in June: eight unaccompanied adolescents, five of whom were already at a health facility for other reasons when they got vaccinated. The other three were the children of the state’s health commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey, according to Piercey’s testimony at the hearing. 

“The other three were my own children, who I sent unaccompanied to get their second dose because they’re 16 and their mom works,” Piercey said.

The Delta variant might spread faster than other strains of the coronavirus because it makes more copies of itself inside our bodies quicker than other strains of the coronavirus. 

In research posted online last week, Chinese scientists detected Delta viral loads that were about 1,260 times higher than earlier strains on initial positive tests. They compared 62 Delta cases with 63 cases from the early epidemic wave in 2020.

Moreover, the amount of time it took quarantined people to test positive for Covid-19 on PCR also shortened – from about six days with the earlier infections to four days with Delta.

Some context: Delta outbreaks in China have prompted some local governments to shorten the window for a negative test in order to travel from 72 hours to 48 hours. 

According to Public Health England, a number of analyses have shown Delta to be more transmissible, including lab studies that suggest “increased replication in biological systems that model human airway, and evidence of optimized furin cleavage” – a process that activates the virus’ entry into the human cell. The variant has also been observed to spread faster in real-world epidemiological studies. 

According to the World Health Organization, Delta is estimated to spread roughly 55% faster than the Alpha variant first identified in the UK, and roughly twice as fast as variants that do not rise to the level of “interest” or “concern.”

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said today that more than 90% of those who have recently tested positive or been admitted to the hospital are unvaccinated people. 

Reeves said the state is seeing a “slight uptick” in total Covid-19 cases since the first of July, but he’s doesn’t think the state is “headed to a third wave.”

He said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon that the best way to protect yourself from the Delta variant or any others is to get vaccinated. 

Reeves said that for those who choose not to get vaccinated, “I personally don’t think that’s a good choice.”  

A city run vaccination site stands in a Brooklyn neighborhood which is witnessing a rise in COVID-19 cases on July 13, in New York City.

More than 160 million people in the US are fully vaccinated, according to data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s more of the latest data on vaccination efforts in the US:

A healthcare worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a resident at the Jordan Valley Community Health Center in Springfield, Missouri, on June 29.

Many states that have policies in place prohibiting requirements for showing proof of Covid-19 vaccination status also have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, a CNN analysis finds.

As of June 22, at least 13 states have enacted laws that limit requirements for individuals to demonstrate their vaccination status or immunity against Covid-19 in general, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. 

Overall, 48% of people in the US are fully vaccinated, but among those 13 states that have enacted the laws, an average of only 41% of residents are fully vaccinated. 

Alabama and Arkansas, for instance, are the only states nationwide – other than Mississippi – to have fully vaccinated fewer than 35% of their residents. Average daily case rates in each state were among the 10 worst in the country last week. Iowa is the only one in the group to have vaccinated a larger share of residents than the US overall, with less than 49% of residents fully vaccinated.

At least another 21 states have introduced similar bills that are pending legislation, according to the NCSL, which has been tracking legislation related to coronavirus vaccines. 

In comparison, states that have not enacted or proposed legislation to ban proof of Covid-19 vaccination have fully vaccinated an average of about 50% of residents, above the national rate.

Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine lead the nation, each with more than 62% of their residents fully vaccinated. Each of these states reported among the 10 lowest case rates in the country last week, and none have proposed or enacted legislation banning proof of Covid-19 vaccination status.

If certain high- and middle-income countries proceed with booster doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, they’ll use up more than 800 million doses just in reaching people over 50, according to an internal analysis from the World Health Organization.

WHO officials expressed concern on Monday about countries planning to add a third dose to the mostly two-dose vaccine regimens. WHO fears they’ll use vaccines that other countries could be using to get first doses to people.

“If 11 high and upper middle income countries decide, some of them are large countries, that we will go for a booster for their populations or even subgroups, this will require an additional 800 million doses of vaccine,” she said, not naming any of the countries.

WHO confirmed the numbers from this analysis in an email to CNN on Wednesday.

“It is based on some internal analysis showing that if 11 (high and upper-middle income countries) decided to give boosters to people over 50 years, then it would need between 800 to 900 million doses and would further impact global supplies of vaccines,” a spokesperson said.

Cuba reported a record 51 Covid-19 related deaths on Wednesday, according to the country’s health ministry. The death toll in Cuba since the start of the pandemic is 1,659.

Additionally, the island added 6,080 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to 256,607.

After controlling the infection rate for much of the pandemic, in recent weeks Cuba has seen the number of cases and deaths spike. 

The record number of deaths reported Wednesday comes as the communist-run island faces growing political turbulence, after unprecedented anti-government protests shook the nation on Sunday, involving thousands of people taking to the streets across the country. Many Cubans have been critical of the government’s Covid-19 response and the deep economic toll the pandemic has had on the country.

Cuba has announced optimistic efficacy rates for their home-grown Covid-19 vaccines. However, as of Tuesday, out of Cuba’s population of 11.4 million, only 1,894,508 people have been fully vaccinated.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that pushing back against dangerous misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine is “literally a matter of life and death.

She confirmed that US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy will be speaking about a new report on misinformation at Thursday’s briefing, reported by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Kevin Liptak, and Jeff Zeleny earlier Wednesday.

“Certainly the push back against disinformation that is, you know, literally a matter of life and death, is something that is going to be a continued focus of this administration,” Psaki said.

Some context: This comes as CNN reported White House officials are devising ways to fight the spread of dangerous falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines, administration officials told CNN, as Republicans and their media allies ramp up their vocal skepticism about vaccines. Biden himself could soon take on some of the corrosive messages emanating from the right, officials said, as the administration’s vaccination efforts hit a wall just as the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus rips across the country.

CNN spoke with five people in the administration who described the White House’s efforts to fight back against the misinformation swirling about Covid-19 vaccines.

Psaki suggested that any decision to regulate or hold to account a social media platform “would certainly be a policy decision,” and declined to preview any changes on the matter. 

She said there was no plan as of now for the President to meet with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Legislative leaders are seeking answers from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee regarding his decision to fire the state’s top vaccination expert in the middle of a pandemic. 

Dr. Michelle Fiscus said she was fired after sharing a decades-old state policy about some teenagers being able to receive vaccinations without parental consent. 

During a virtual meeting with state legislative members on Wednesday, Tennessee’s Senate Caucus Chairwoman Raumesh Akbari said the state’s top leadership decision to fire Fiscus has put the state in a more dangerous position.

Akbari said she is concerned that the lack of leadership is going to have a downward effect on hospitals, healthcare workers, and schools in the fall. 

State Senator Jeff Yarbro said the firing of Fiscus is going to set the state’s efforts back and is calling on the governor to make sure that the Department of Health is providing accurate information and keeping the people of Tennessee safe.

Read more about this here.

Local health officials in the United States aren’t just concerned about the Covid-19 risks for people who are unvaccinated, but also the risks for a “significant” number of people who are partially vaccinated — especially those who are overdue for their second dose or skipped their second-dose appointments.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines are administered as two doses, 21 and 28 days apart, respectively. Studies have shown that the Covid-19 vaccines are much more effective against the Delta variant after completion of the two-dose series. Those who have received one dose should still follow Covid-19 mitigation steps, such as wearing masks, until they are fully vaccinated.

About 185 million people in the US have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine so far but some 160 million people are fully vaccinated, as of Tuesday, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means about 25 million people who have received at least one dose are only partially vaccinated. 

“It’s a significant number,” Lori Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Wednesday. 

Not all of those people have missed their second dose — they may be in the waiting period between doses. But the CDC reported last month that about 1 in 10 people eligible to receive their second dose had not done so. As of June 16, about 88% of those eligible to receive their second dose had completed their two-dose series, down from 92% earlier in the year, according to the CDC.

Public health officials worry about those who skipped their second dose appointments and are still not fully protected against Covid-19; Freeman said this was discussed on a call Tuesday between local health officials and the White House.

The White House press briefing had a special guest on Wednesday, pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo, who is in town to meet with President Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci and record videos to encourage young people to get vaccinated. 

“She traversed red lights and stop signs to see us,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters as she kicked off the briefing, a nod to Rodrigo’s song “Drivers License.”

Psaki thanked Rodrigo for “elevating the important issue” of encouraging young people to get vaccinated.

Rodrigo, 18, took the podium with brief remarks.

She said she was “beyond honored and humbled” and thanked the White House for helping her spread the message of the importance of vaccines.

“It’s important to have conversations with friends and family members, encouraging all communities to get vaccinated, and actually get to a vaccination site, which you can do more easily than ever before,” she said, nodding to vaccines.gov.

Rodrigo’s trip to the White House comes as the White House is finding new ways to ramp up outreach to young people on vaccinations as youth vaccination rates continue to lag significantly behind the American general population.

The latest CDC data reflects how dire the vaccination rate for young people is as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads and cases rise nationwide. Only a quarter of children ages 12-15 are fully vaccinated, less than any other eligible group. That group became eligible to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine two months ago.

As of Tuesday, 33.5% of Americans age 12 to 15 have received at least one dose of vaccine, with 24.9% fully vaccinated, per data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forty-five and a half percent of Americans 16 to 17 have received at least one dose, with 37.1% fully vaccinated. And 50.5% of Americans 18 to 24 have had at least one dose, with 41.6% fully vaccinated, all of these younger groups far behind the national average of 48.1% fully vaccinated.

Rodrigo, Psaki later said, will be meeting with Biden and Fauci “later this afternoon.”

She didn’t have information on when the videos would post.

Rodrigo “offered to come” to increase awareness of vaccines, Psaki said, and pressed the importance of her voice in this conversation.

“We need to meet people where we are, and speaking to young people, people who are under the age of 18. Many of them, as we’ve seen across the country, are huge Olivia Rodrigo fans,” Psaki said.

She added that hearing from Rodrigo that getting vaccinated is a way to keep yourself safe, meet with friends and safely attend concerts “is an important part of what we’re trying to do here, so she’s playing an important role in that.” 

“Not every 18-year-old uses her time to come do this so we appreciate her willingness to,” Psaki said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio underscored the importance of vaccinating New Yorkers against Covid-19 at a news conference Wednesday, as the Delta variant continues to account for a larger proportion of the city’s total Covid-19 cases.

“One, vaccinate the unvaccinated, two, defeat the Delta variant. That’s the ballgame,” de Blasio said.

The Delta variant accounts for about 26% of tested cases over the past four weeks, according to city health data.

Their comments come as newly released data from the city health department show that Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths so far this year were overwhelmingly among those who were not fully vaccinated.

Between Jan. 1 and June 15, the proportion of New Yorkers who were not fully vaccinated among the city’s Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths was 98.9%, 98.4%, and 98.9% respectively, the data shows. 

White House officials are devising ways to fight the spread of dangerous falsehoods about Covid-19 vaccines, administration officials told CNN, as Republicans and their media allies ramp up their vocal skepticism about vaccines.

President Biden himself could soon take on some of the corrosive messages emanating from the right, officials said, as the administration’s vaccination efforts hit a wall just as the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus rips across the country. CNN spoke with five people in the administration who described the White House’s efforts to fight back against the misinformation swirling about Covid-19 vaccines.

And this week US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy will make a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room to talk about how the level of misinformation is now an urgent public health issue, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Officials are wary of taking steps that could alienate Republicans further and generate more skepticism of vaccines that health experts uniformly say is safe. And Biden has acknowledged openly that neither he nor his administration is the best positioned to convince Republicans to get the shot, pointing instead to local physicians, pharmacists or clergy members as more trusted messengers.

A senior administration official said a decision had been made to take a harder edge against the disinformation, with plans in the coming days to call out Republican elected officials and specific social media platforms.

“We are seeing the impact of the disinformation,” a senior administration official said, who acknowledged the difficult balance the West Wing was trying to strike by injecting the President into the fray.

Read more about this here.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives an update on relaxing coronavirus restrictions on July 5 in London.

The United Kingdom has recorded more than 40,000 daily Covid-19 cases for the first time since January, government figures showed Wednesday.

A total of 42,302 new cases were recorded in the latest 24 hour period, along with 49 Covid-related deaths. The last time daily cases were this high was in the height of the second wave in mid-January.

The rise comes as England is preparing to lift all remaining restrictions on social contact on Monday.

It also comes after fears that events related to the Euro 2020 football tournament were fueling infections. A Scottish study at the end of June found nearly 1,300 new coronavirus cases in Scotland were linked to travel to England for Euro 2020 soccer-related events. And on July 1, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare said Covid-19 cases in Finland had nearly doubled over the space of a week, “largely due to football fans returning from Russia” after Euro 2020 Championship games. The final of Euro2020 was held at Wembley Stadium, in London, on Sunday.

The UK’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Monday there could be 100,000 cases a day by the end of the summer but the UK is on track to beat its vaccination targets. The UK is betting on its successful vaccine rollout to keep hospitalizations and death rates low. 

On Wednesday, the government announced more than two in three adults in the UK have now received both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine – hitting its July 19 target almost a week early.

A total of 81,192,857 doses have been administered in the UK, with 46,037,090 people receiving a first dose (87.4%) and 35,155,767 people receiving both doses (66.7%).

“Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant. The analysis shows the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92% effective against hospitalisation after two doses,” the Department of Health press release said.

An ensemble forecast published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects the number of new daily Covid-19 hospitalizations will likely increase over the next four weeks.

There will likely be 2,100 to 11,000 new confirmed Covid-19 hospital admissions on Aug. 9, the forecast says. US Department of Health and Human Services data show hospitalizations have been on a steady decline since late April. 

The ensemble forecasts project that newly reported Covid-19 cases and deaths will likely remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the next four weeks.

The forecast predicts a total of 611,000 to 619,000 Covid-19 deaths will be reported in the United States by Aug. 7, 2021. 

The previous ensemble forecast, published July 7, projected up to 616,000 Covid-19 deaths by July 31. 

A police vehicle patrols through Old Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 12, the day after protests against food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis. 

Cuba reported a record 51 Covid-19 related deaths on Wednesday, according to the country’s health ministry. The death toll in Cuba since the start of the pandemic is 1,659.

Additionally, the island added 6,080 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases to 256,607

After controlling the infection rate for much of the pandemic, in recent weeks Cuba has seen the number of cases and deaths spike. 

The record number of deaths reported Wednesday comes as the communist-run island faces growing political turbulence, after unprecedented anti-government protests shook the nation on Sunday, involving thousands of people taking to the streets across the country. Many Cubans have been critical of the government’s Covid-19 response and the deep economic toll the pandemic has had on the country.

Cuba has announced optimistic efficacy rates for their home-grown Covid-19 vaccines. However, as of Tuesday, out of Cuba’s population of 11.4 million, only 1,894,508 people have been fully vaccinated.