January 4 coronavirus news

Rep. Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas, has tested positive for coronavirus, her office announced in a statement Monday.

Read the statement: 

Read more on the members of Congress who have tested positive for coronavirus or its antibodies here.

A health care worker receives the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at the Hartford Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut, on Monday, January 4.

Just over 15.4 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been distributed in the US, but only 4.5 million people have been given their first doses as of 9 a.m. on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

That’s just 337,000 more doses than were given out as of Saturday, according to the CDC.

US federal health officials have been trying to explain why so few vaccines have been given out, after repeated promises to have vaccinated 20 million people by the end of December. Earlier Monday, Operation Warp Speed chief scientific adviser Moncef Slaoui said “nothing has gone wrong,” even as he acknowledged delays. 

“We worked with the states to immunize. We agree that there is a lag. We’ll work with the states,” Slaoui told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” Officials have also revised their forecasts to say 20 million doses would be distributed by the end of 2020, but Monday’s numbers show the US is still nearly 5 million doses short of the distribution goal.

The CDC said 2.5 million doses have been distributed to long term care facilities and 365,294 people have been given vaccines in those facilities. The CDC said the reported numbers can take 72 hours to come in.

An ambulance at the Royal Free Hospital in London, on Monday, January 4.

UK Chief Medical Officers and the NHS England Medical Director have recommended that the national coronavirus alert level be moved from Level 4 to Level 5 in response to rising cases and growing pressure on the country’s National Health Service (NHS). 

“Following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre and in the light of the most recent data, the four UK Chief Medical Officers and NHS England Medical Director recommend that the UK Alert Level should move from Level 4 to Level 5,” UK Chief Medical Officers said in a statement on Monday. 

According to the statement, the spread of the “new more transmissible variant” has led to rising cases “almost everywhere” in the UK.

“We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days,” UK Chief Medical Officers said. 

The statement comes just hours ahead of a national address from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is expected to outline new measures the government will be taking to tackle the spread of the virus. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks before receiving his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health on December 22, 2020 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he wants to look at the data from vaccine clinical trials before giving an opinion whether it’s a good idea to give half-doses of the Moderna vaccine, he told CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen Monday.

Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said the FDA will meet this week to consider giving half-doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to people ages 18-55.

Slaoui told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta that earlier data showed that binding and neutralizing antibody responses were similar among participants under 55 who received either 100-microgram or 50-microgram doses.

While an FDA briefing document last month also references these “comparable” immune responses from Moderna’s Phase 2 study, the full data have not yet been published.

“He’s saying that the half dose for younger people is as good as the full dose, but I want to check that out myself before I start talking about it,” Fauci said. “I totally trust [Slaoui]. But I want to look at the data myself.”

Nurse Helen Cordova receives the second dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, January 4.

A nurse in California is one of the first to receive the second dose of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine Monday morning. 

Helen Cordova, an intensive care unit nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, was visibly exuberant under her mask as she sat in the patient’s chair. 

She said the second dose and getting closer to immunity is comforting.

Cordova said it is “mind-blowing” and “monumental” to receive the vaccination. She was reluctant to call herself a hero.

“I’m a nurse, a daughter, aunt, friend. Hero — it carries a big weight in my eyes,” she said but eschews the label. “This is what we went into the healthcare industry for,” she said humbly. She is thankful for the opportunity to be among the first to receive the vaccine. Cordova was with a group of nurses to receive the first group of Covid-19 patients, “so it was more of a coming full circle.”

Some more context: Last month, Cordova spoke to CNN’s Briana Keilar after she received the first dose and said she was hesitant about the vaccine but changed her mind after engaging credible sources. “I sought out information, I spoke to fellow co-workers, physicians, anyone that was an expert in the field within my access and tried to really get more information on the vaccine to make that decision,” she said.

A member of FDNY EMS receives a Covid-19 vaccine at the FDNY Fire Training Academy in New York on December 23.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he wants to see all first responders, educators and school staff to be vaccinated in the next few weeks of January, but reminded residents its contingent on eligibility criteria.

Beginning Monday, testing site workers, contact tracers, outpatient and ambulatory care providers, dentists, physical therapist, worker at specialized clinics and NYPD medical staff can be vaccinated, he said. 

In order to achieve the goal of 1 million vaccinations by the end of January the mayor said the city will need help, specifically “flexibility” from the state, “support” from the federal government and for manufacturers of the vaccine delivering on schedule.

Sites are being expanded to increase capacity, officials said. The mayor announced two new pop-up clinics, five new NYC Health + Hospitals vaccination sites and three new NYC vaccine hubs to be propped up this weekend. The three hubs will be at educational buildings in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.

The first New York City healthcare workers to receive the vaccine will receive their second dose this week, NYC Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said. He reiterated the need for expanded eligibility guidelines and said the city would like to begin vaccinating its seniors mainly those over 75 years of age.

The United States has seen an average of 1 death related to Covid-19 every 33 seconds over the past week, according to a CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

There were 18,462 deaths reported over the past week – from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3 – an average of more than 2,600 deaths per day.

December was the country’s deadliest month of the pandemic: 77,572 deaths total, or just more than 2,500 deaths per day on average.

In comparison, the month of November saw about 36,964 deaths; April saw 60,738; May saw 41,703.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is pictured at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on December 30.

Most of mainland Scotland will be subject to stay-at-home orders starting at midnight Tuesday local time, according to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Sturgeon announced the order to the Scottish Parliament Monday afternoon saying it will be “similar to the lockdown of March this year.”

The stay-at-home order will apply to all parts of Scotland that are in Level 4, which includes most of the mainland. Most of the Scottish islands will remain in Level 3, she said.

The order will impose a “legal requirement” on Scottish residents “to stay at home except for essential purpose,” including caring responsibilities, essential shopping, essential exercise and being part of an extended household. 

Unlike the previous spring lockdown, there will be no limit on the frequency of outdoor exercise.

From Tuesday, a maximum of two adults from two households may meet outdoors.

No one may travel into or out of Scotland unless it is for an essential purpose. Places of worship have also closed except for broadcasting purposes. 

Schools will remain closed until February 1 with Sturgeon calling this the “most difficult decision to take.” Sturgeon stressed that the level of community transmission is “too high” for them to reopen. During this period Scottish students will continue with remote learning. Vulnerable children and the children of front-line workers will be excepted from this rule. 

All Scottish residents must work from home unless they are absolutely unable to do so. The order will come into law from Tuesday and will stay in place for the full of January with Sturgeon saying she could not rule out the measures being extended or altered. 

Sturgeon said that the stay-at-home order was prompted by a surge in the country’s positivity and hospitalization rate.

“In the week from the 23rd to the 30th of December, the 7-day incidence of cases per 100,000 population increased by 65% from 136 per 100,225 per 100,000” she said.

Regarding hospitalizations she added that she expected the latest numbers “to show that nationally, the total number of COVID patients in hospital is now close to the April peak.”

Experts “estimate that we are possibly about four weeks behind the position in London, and the southeast of England” Sturgeon said.

“We have an opportunity in Scotland to avert the situation here deteriorating, to that extent, but we must act quickly.”

Sturgeon concluded that “it is essential that we further limit interaction between different households to stem the spread and bring the situation back under control.”

Residents wait in line to receive Covid-19 vaccinations at the King's Point retirement home in Delray Beach, Florida, on December 30.

White House vaccine chief Moncef Slaoui told CNN he agrees there is a lag in vaccinations across the US.

More than 4.2 million people had been given the first dose of coronavirus vaccines as of Monday morning and 13 million doses had been distributed, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Covid Data Tracker. But the US needs to go faster. The federal government had repeatedly promised 20 million people would have received their first shots by the end of the year.

Slaoui said he is optimistic that the vaccinations will ramp up and emphasized the role of states in accelerate these immunization efforts or ask the federal government for help.

“It’s been two and a half weeks, almost three weeks, and indeed it has been slower than planned,” he said. “[States] will do better, and they will ask us for help. We are inviting them to ask them for help and we help them.”

“We have ambitious objectives and if we don’t meet them, we take accountability and we’ll work to find solutions rather than describe the problem,” he added.

Watch the interview:

The European regulator has moved up its meetings to discuss possible approval for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine from Wednesday to Monday, a European Medicines Agency (EMA) spokesperson told CNN.

The meeting of the agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) is currently underway and its meeting scheduled for Wednesday remains in the calendar in case a decision is not reached today.

New York state surpassed 1 million Covid-19 infections over the weekend, according to state and Johns Hopkins University data, becoming the fourth state to do so.

Saturday the state hit the grim milestone, and as of Sunday, it reported 1,017,153 total infections to date since the pandemic began.

Most New Year’s Days, Rosa Cerna would be celebrating the birthdays of her dad and uncle – brothers born exactly one year apart. This year, she mourned them both at a cemetery in Simi Valley, California.

Visiting the graves of the brothers who died of Covid-19, Cerna said she is angry that her 73-year-old father had so much more life to live and that the death of two important men in her life could have been prevented if more people had taken it seriously, she told CNN.

As Cerna grieved this weekend, President Donald Trump questioned the number of cases and deaths in the US in a tweet, using the term “Fake News.”

Read more:

Rosa Cerna visits the graves of her dad and uncle who both died of Covid-19.

Related article She lost her dad and uncle to coronavirus. Trump's claim that the virus is exaggerated is an insult, she says

Jean Rottner is pictured in Mulhouse, France, in June 2020.

The head of France’s “Great East” region has described the perceived slow rate of the Covid-19 vaccinations in the country as “a state scandal.”

Speaking to TV channel France 2 on Monday, Jean Rottner underlined the “big suffering” in his area, and said he wanted regions to “take over” the rollout from the national government.

According to the latest data made available by the French health agency on January 1, 516 people have been vaccinated in the country. The first shot was administered in France on December 27.

At the beginning of December, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said that 1 million people would able vaccinated by the end of January.

The “Great East” region has been particularly hard hit by France’s second wave of Covid-19. It is one of the 15 administrative areas in France where the government has imposed a 6 p.m. curfew in an effort to curb cases.

Regarding the speed of the rollout, Rottner added that this was “bulls**t.”

“We need to accelerate, we are at war … Today, we need to vaccinate everywhere we can, with the means that are at our disposal,” he said.

The controversy over the vaccine rollout has prompted French government officials to try and improve the process.

In Emmanuel Macron’s New Year’s Eve address the French President said he “would not let, for wrong reasons, an unjustified slowness settle.” Health minister Olivier Véran has also announced an accelerated timetable for vaccinations.

Our global coronavirus nightmare is entering its second year, and we’re hanging on the best we can.

Our lives have been turned upside down, the economy is sputtering and more than 1.8 million people have died – 350,000 of them in the US, more than any other country in the world.

As a nation, the US is exhausted. American hospitals and health care workers are overwhelmed. The grief and trauma are piling up. The vaccine rollout is behind schedule, a new strain of the virus has emerged and experts fear a post-holiday explosion of new cases and hospitalizations.

The next few months will likely be dark and painful. But there’s a promise of light on the horizon. With two vaccines approved in the US and more on the way, there’s hope for a gradual return to normalcy – whatever that looks like in a post-pandemic world.

Read more:

HOUSTON, TX - NOVEMBER 26: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, 2020 in Houston, Texas. According to reports, Texas has reached over 1,220,000 cases, including over 21,500 deaths. (Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

Related article We're entering year two of the pandemic. Here's what happens next

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to staff during a visit to London's Chase Farm Hospital on January 4, during the rollout of the newly approved AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that there was “no question” that his government will need to take tougher measures to tackle a surge in coronavirus cases.

Earlier on Monday, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4 that the UK’s tier system is “no longer strong enough” to suppress the spread of the new coronavirus variant.

Hancock defended the UK government’s delay in imposing further measures saying they “had shown [previously] we are prepared to move incredibly quickly, within 24 hours if we think that is necessary.”

With three quarters of England’s population currently under the strictest Tier 4 measures, Johnson said what the government had “been waiting for is to see the impact of the Tier 4 measures on the virus.” 

Adding that this impact was “still unclear,” Johnson said that based on recent numbers further measures would likely be taken.

The UK case numbers have surpassed 50,000 for six straight days over the course of the past week, with 54,990 new cases recorded Sunday.

There seems to be a light at the end of the long, harrowing pandemic tunnel as Covid-19 vaccines are approved.

As the physical risks are better managed with vaccines, however, what will likely still remain is the indelible impact of the pandemic weighing on the collective psyche.

Based on the mental struggles endured by so many this year, burnout, trouble with sleep and eating disorders are just some of the issues that mental health professionals anticipate coming to the fore in 2021.

Read more:

Related article Mental health is one of the biggest pandemic issues we'll face in 2021

Pupils arrive at Manor Park School and Nursery in Knutsford, England, as some schools reopen on January 4 following the holiday break.

British teachers’ unions are calling for a “pause” in the reopening of schools as some reopened in England this morning.

Students in the UK were due to return from the Christmas break on Monday. But less than a week ago, the government announced the return to class would be delayed by two weeks for almost all high schoolers and some primary (elementary) school children. Learning will move online instead.

In some areas primary schools remain open, a decision which has prompted union criticism.

The unions also called for school staff who continue to work to be given priority access to vaccination. 

There has been an ongoing debate around reopening schools as the UK battles a deadly new wave of the coronavirus, with new daily infection numbers topping 50,000 for six days straight.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson conceded schools may need to close indefinitely.

A health care worker prepares a vial for a swab sample at a Covid-19 test site in San Marcos, California, on January 2. San Diego County officials have confirmed that a virus variant first found in the UK has been detected in a patient there.

A new variant of coronavirus first discovered in the UK, also known as B.1.1.7, is present in at least 37 countries as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to CNN’s count.

Experts say that while the variant appears to be more transmissible than other Covid-19 strains, there is no evidence it is deadlier or causes more severe disease.

Test results are expected this week from labs that are studying whether the variant might pose a challenge to coronavirus vaccines, according to a World Health Organization official. 

The UK variant is separate from another one first identified in South Africa.

The 37 countries are: United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United States (including cases in Florida, California and Colorado) and Vietnam.

Police officers close the access road to the ski resort in Winterberg, Germany, on January 3.

German police struggled to keep day-trippers off ski slopes in several regions over the weekend, despite a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. 

Authorities in the Winterberg resort near Düsseldorf said thousands of people traveled to the winter resort despite closed ski slopes and police efforts to blockade roads.

Over the weekend German police registered 182 violations of a law requiring face masks be worn, 99 violations of social distancing rules and one breach of the ban on alcohol consumption in public places, according to a police statement.

Authorities in the Eifel region also announced the closure of slopes to avoid breaches of Covid-19 regulations. Police in the Harz region asked people via Twitter on Sunday to avoid traveling there. 

Despite the lockdown, December was Germany’s deadliest month in the coronavirus pandemic – with a nearly threefold increase in the number of deaths since November, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country’s disease and control center.  

Between December 2, 2020 and January 1, 2021 16,718 people died from Covid-19, compared to November when 6,155 deaths were recorded, according to the RKI. 

Germany’s health care system has come under strain and hospitals in some areas are increasingly coming close to their limits.

On Tuesday, German chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with the 16 heads of the country’s federal states to discuss whether the current lockdown in place until January 10 should be extended. 

Some regional leaders, including Bavaria’s state premier Markus Söder, have already come forward calling for an extended lockdown until at least the end of January. 

On Sunday, Söder warned that infection numbers are still too high.

Health workers at Helsinki University Hospital receive the first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine in Helsinki, Finland on December 27, 2020.

Finland’s health minister has said delivery of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses to the country has been “considerably slower than expected,” according to public broadcaster YLE. 

The first batch of vaccines which reached Finland around Christmas only contained around 10,000 of the total expected 100-300,000 thousand doses, YLE reported, with an additional batch of 40,000 arriving last Wednesday.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is currently the only vaccine authorized by the European Medicines Agency for use in EU countries. The Moderna shot and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are both expected to be authorized soon.

Finland had Europe’s lowest average of infections and deaths per capita in recent months, Johns Hopkins data shows.

The country has managed to contain local outbreaks while sticking to some of the most relaxed restrictions on the continent. 

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday that he is “incredibly worried about the South African variant” of the novel coronavirus and described it as “even more of a problem” than the new UK strain.

The UK has already restricted flights from South Africa and mandated anyone traveling from there to quarantine on arrival.

Vaccine questions: Meanwhile, a leading Oxford scientist has said there was a “big question mark” around the effectiveness of current vaccines on the South African variant.

“My gut feeling is the vaccine will be still effective against the Kent strain,” Sir John Bell told Times Radio, adding “I don’t know about the South African strain, there’s a big question mark about that.”

The UK variant is believed to have originated in southeast England. British scientists say the pattern of mutations makes it more easily transmitted, although it does not appear to cause more severe disease.

“The mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein,” Bell added.

A health worker is seen opening a deep freezer during a nationwide dry run for Covid-19 vaccinations at the health care center at Darya Ganj in New Delhi, India on January 2.

India is embarking on one of the world’s most ambitious mass immunization programs ever undertaken, after regulators approved the country’s first two Covid-19 vaccines for restricted emergency use.

Indian drug regulators on Sunday gave the go ahead for two coronavirus vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and the other conceived locally by Bharat Biotech and a government-run institute. 

Both vaccines will be administered in two doses and stored at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit).

The approval is a crucial step in India’s effort to contain its coronavirus outbreak, which has infected more than 10 million people, trailing only the United States in total caseload.

The country of 1.35 billion is planning to inoculate 300 million frontline workers, elderly and vulnerable people by August, and preparations have been months in the making.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, is producing the AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine locally, having taken on a huge risk to manufacture the vaccine months before approval from regulators.

But the vaccines, locally branded Covishield, won’t be available to other countries until March or April, as the Indian government has restricted them for export.

Read the full story:

A Health official takes part in dry run or a mock drill for Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine at a Urban Community Health Centre in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India on 02 January 2021. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Related article India embarks on one of the world's most ambitious vaccine rollouts

Employees clean and disinfect a train at Hua Lamphong Central Railway Station in Bangkok on January 4.

Thailand reported its largest daily increase in new Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic on Monday, according to figures from the Department of Disease Control. 

The country reported 745 new Covid-19 cases, bringing its total to 8,439. Most of the new cases – 577 – involve migrant workers.

One additional fatality was also reported, bringing the total death toll in the country to 65.

Thailand has seen enviably low numbers of Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began. The country saw a surge in cases in March and April last year but the figures then dropped down to single or low double digits for several months before starting to pick up again in mid-December. 

Restrictions imposed: To contain the spread of the virus, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has banned restaurants from offering dine-in services from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., starting Tuesday.

On Sunday, the Thai government labelled Bangkok and 27 other provinces as “red zones,” meaning that schools and entertainment venues are closed and large gatherings and are banned in those areas.

Brian Pinker, 82, receives the Oxford University/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from nurse Sam Foster at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, England, on Monday, January 4.

The first patient in the UK has received the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine. 

Brian William Pinker, 82, received the shot early Monday morning at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.

Pinker said he first knew on Saturday that he was going to get vaccinated and was told he would be the very first patient. “Took me long enough to be a star,” he said. 

The AstraZeneca vaccine rollout began today in the UK and the country’s health secretary described it as a “real pivotal moment” as Covid-19 cases continue to rise in parts of the country.

Chief Nurse Sam Foster, who administered the vaccine, said: “It was a real privilege to be able to deliver the first Oxford vaccine at the Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a few hundred meters from where it was developed.”

Pinker is a retired maintenance manager who has been having dialysis for kidney disease at the hospital. Others should get vaccinated too because “it is a no brainer,” he said.

“The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year.”

The NHS is the first health service in the world to deploy the AstraZeneca vaccine and it’s the only one approved that can be stored at fridge temperatures. The first vaccinations will be delivered at a small number of hospitals for the first few days for surveillance purposes, as is standard practice, before the bulk of supplies are sent to more GP-led services later in the week, NHS England said in a statement.

The United Kingdom is starting its rollout of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine today and the country’s health secretary described it as a “real pivotal moment.”

“The very positive news this morning of the Oxford vaccine starting to be rolled out – that’s a triumph of British science that we’ve managed to get to where we are,” Matt Hancock told Sky News Monday morning. 

The vaccine comes at a crucial time in Britain and Hancock said that the number of Covid-19 cases was sharply rising in parts of the country.

“Some of the Tier 3 areas are seeing sharp rises in cases, and each week we look at all of the areas of the country to check that they are in the right position in terms of the tiers. But, it is a very difficult situation in terms of the growth of the virus,” he said.

A vial of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca is checked as doses arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England on January 2.

South Korea will expedite the vaccine approval process for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, according to the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. 

AstraZeneca has filed for approval of its vaccine, which could take only 40 days. Normal vaccine approval takes 180 days, according to the ministry.

Separately, a quality assurance permit approval will also be expedited to be completed within 20 days – the full approval is expected to come in February.

AstraZeneca is producing the vaccine in South Korea at local firm SK BioScience, the ministry said.

The ministry said it’s preparing cold-chain storage and logistical methods to deliver the vaccines.

Doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are logged by a technical officer after they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath on January 2 in West Sussex, United Kingdom.

The first people to receive the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine will be inoculated Monday as the NHS expands Covid-19 vaccination programs across the United Kingdom, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

The NHS is the first health service in the world to deploy the AstraZeneca shot and it’s the only approved vaccine that can be stored at fridge temperatures, the department said in a statement.

The government has secured access to 100 million doses of the vaccine for the whole of the UK, crown dependencies and overseas territories. More than half a million doses are available from Monday, and the Health Department said tens of millions more will be delivered in the coming weeks and months.

More than 730 vaccination sites have been established across the UK with hundreds more set to open this week.

More than a million people in the UK have been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the statement said.

Japan may enter a state of emergency this week as the country grapples with soaring coronavirus cases, a number of which have been linked to a new, potentially more infectious variant. 

Speaking at a new year news conference Monday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said an emergency declaration was being considered, and would apply to Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa.

The governors of all four regions have all urged Suga to do so already, as cases rise. 

Suga did not say when the government would make a decision, or what restrictions could be enacted. Japan’s first state of emergency, declared last spring, relatively early in the pandemic, lasted more than a month, and saw schools and non-essential businesses closed.

Japanese authorities are currently limited in their powers to punish those who breach restrictions, even in a state of emergency, something Suga’s government is reportedly planning to change to enable local governments to force compliance.

Read the full story:

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga holds his first press conference of the new year at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on January 4, 2021.

Related article Japan poised for state of emergency as Covid-19 cases soar

Members of the military practice loading and unloading a stretcher into an ambulance at Maindy Barracks on December 23, 2020 in Cardiff, Wales.

Over 5,000 armed forces personnel have been deployed in support of the UK’s Covid-19 response, in the “biggest homeland operation in peacetime,” the British Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Monday.

Members of the military are working on “70 different tasks ranging from schools testing to the rollout of vaccines,” the statement said.

According to the Ministry of Defence website, the military has responded to 275 requests for assistance by civil authorities in the UK between March 18 and December 31, 2020.

People wearing face masks walk by taped public sports facilities at a park in Seoul, South Korea on January 3.

South Korea reported 1,020 Covid-19 cases on Sunday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Monday. 

Of those, 985 were local cases and 35 imported.

The majority of new cases – 685 – were found in the Seoul metropolitan area, according to KDCA.

South Korea’s total number of cases now stands at 64,264. There were also 19 deaths reported on Sunday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 981.

The United States reported 210,479 new Covid-19 cases and 1,394 deaths on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The latest figures bring the totals in the US to 20,636,663 infections and at least 351,580 fatalities.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

At least 13,071,925 vaccine doses have been distributed in the country and at least 4,225,756 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But around the US, hospitals are racing to keep up with surges of Covid-19 patients at numbers they have not seen at any other time in the pandemic.

On Sunday, the country reported 125,544 current Covid-19 hospitalizations, setting a new record, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The number has exceeded 100,000 for more than a month.

Health experts worry what will happen to those numbers if infections continue to spread.

Read more about the situation in the US:

FULLERTON, CA - DECEMBER 25: Registered Nurse Joan Pung, works with a covid positive patients room inside the ICU at Providence St. Jude Medical Center Christmas Day on Friday, Dec. 25, 2020 in Fullerton, CA. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Related article For more than a month, US hospitals have had more than 100,000 coronavirus patients every day

Health workers spray disinfectant inside the Pyongyang Department Store No. 1 prior to opening for business in Pyongyang, North Korea on December 28, 2020.

Strengthening disease prevention measures is a top priority for North Korea in the new year, the country’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an article Monday. 

Earlier, the paper announced that North Korea’s 8th ruling Workers’ Party congress will be held in early January and that delegates had started to gather in the capital Pyongyang in December.

The North Korean government has maintained that there have not been any positive cases of Covid-19 detected in the country, a claim widely questioned by experts.

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on January 4.

Covid-19 vaccinations will begin in Japan in late February, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference on Monday.

According to Suga, frontline medical workers and the elderly would be the first groups to receive the vaccinations.

The government has moved the timeline forward as Japan grapples with the latest Covid-19 outbreak.

Possible state of emergency: Suga said that he would consider declaring a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures – Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa – after an appeal from their governors on Saturday.

Olympics to go ahead: Suga also reiterated the government’s intention to hold the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer on schedule. 

The Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to begin on July 23. A government minister had said the country would introduce a tracking system for overseas travelers to stem the virus’ spread. 

New cases: On Monday, Japan’s Ministry of Health reported 3,150 new Covid-19 infections and 51 deaths for Sunday. The total number of confirmed cases now stands at 244,559, including 3,612 fatalities.

A security guard takes the temperature of a customer at a shopping precinct in Sydney, Australia on January 3.

The Australian state of New South Wales reported zero locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in the 24 hours prior to 8 p.m. local time on Sunday, the Ministry of Health announced. 

This marks the first time that it has reported no local cases over a 24-hour period since December 15, the ministry said. 

However, two cases were detected on Sunday after 8 p.m. and will be included in the next day’s count.

More Covid-19 cases are expected to emerge in Berala, a western suburb of Sydney, in the coming days amid a recent cluster. 

The ministry also urged anyone who visited a local liquor retailer or supermarket in Berala to undergo testing and self-isolate until they receive a negative result. 

On Saturday, police broke up a crowd of more than 600 people at a wedding reception in western Sydney, the state government said, fining the venue operator $5,000 Australian dollars ($3,850).

Current restrictions allow for 150 guests at weddings in New South Wales.

Residents fill out consent forms before receiving their Covid-19 vaccinations at a temporary vaccination site in Beijing, China on January 2.

China’s capital Beijing has vaccinated more than 73,500 people since a targeted vaccination program began on January 1, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.

The vaccination program covers nine specific groups of people, such as customs officers in charge of handling imported cold-chain food products and port workers responsible for loading and transporting goods, the report said.

More than 220 vaccination sites have been set up across the city, it added. All people targeted in the program are expected to receive vaccinations by mid-January, and no one has so far reported severe adverse effects.

Last Thursday, China’s National Medical Products Administration approved the homegrown Sinopharm vaccine for public use.

In December, China set a goal to inoculate 50 million people with Covid-19 vaccines ahead of February’s Lunar New Year Celebrations, according to Tao Lina, a vaccination expert formerly with the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, citing the government’s mass vaccination rollout plan. 

According to CNN’s count, a new variant of coronavirus first discovered in the UK – also known as B.1.1.7 – has been confirmed in people in at least 37 countries, as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

Experts say that while the variant appears to be more transmissible than other strains, there is no evidence that it’s deadlier or causes more severe disease.

The countries are as follows:

Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla.

India has restricted the export of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine produced by the country’s largest vaccine manufacturer, Serum Institute of India (SII), until at least March, the head of the company said Sunday.

Indian regulators granted the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured in India by SII, emergency authorization on Sunday on the condition that the Indian government would be the sole buyer.

He added that he hoped the restriction on exporting the vaccine would be eased in March or April. 

SII is ramping up vaccine production and Poonawalla said that the manufacturer aims to provide 50 million doses by the end of January.

The restrictions could mean lower income countries would wait longer for a vaccine.

In September, SII pledged to manufacture and deliver 200 million doses for COVAX – a WHO vaccine alliance set up to ensure fair access to Covid-19 vaccines. 

The export of vaccines for the initiative to “low-and middle-income countries” will not begin until the restrictions ease. 

Doses of the vaccine will be sold to the Indian government for $2.74 per shot, at $13.70 to the private market, and $3 to $5 per dose to the export market.

Some context: India has reported the second most coronavirus cases in the world, trailing only the United States.

The first phase of its vaccination plan covers 300 million people – almost as many as the entire US population. India conducted a nationwide Covid-19 vaccine drill on Saturday ahead of plans for mass vaccinations, India’s state-run broadcaster Doordarshan reported.

Even though coronavirus vaccines are being rolled out, 2021 is still going to be tough, a top WHO official said Sunday.

The first part of the year will be difficult because in many countries, people did not heed advice to stay home over the holidays.

“We’re in for a bit of a rough start to 2021,” Van Kerkhove said, noting that “movement and the behavior of people” over Christmas and New Year’s “are going to make the first three months of 2021 quite difficult in terms of increased transmission, hospitalizations, and deaths.”

She added that the vaccines won’t be a quick fix.

Van Kerkhove noted that people will still need to wear masks, practice social distancing, and avoid crowds well into the year.

Return to normalcy: The United States and other countries seeing Covid-19 surges could get back to normal – or something resembling normal – in the summer or fall, Van Kerkhove said.

She noted that while some countries in the Americas and Europe are seeing surges, Australia, New Zealand, and some other nations in Asia and Africa have had more success at controlling the spread of the virus.

She said those countries have been more successful at testing for the virus, isolating sick people, contact tracing, quarantining people who’ve been exposed, and persuading people to work and shop from home.

A nurse unpacks a box of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccines at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center in Boston, Massachusetts on December 24, 2020.

The US Food and Drug Administration will meet this week to consider giving half-doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to people aged 18 to 55.

The move could make the vaccine available to twice as many people in this age group, according to Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser of Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s vaccine program.

Slaoui told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta that the decision to cut the current 100-microgram dose in half, with another half-dose 28 days later, ultimately rests in the hands of the FDA.

Earlier data showed that binding and neutralizing antibody responses were similar among participants under 55 who received either 100-microgram or 50-microgram doses, Slaoui said. While an FDA briefing document last month also references these “comparable” immune responses from Moderna’s phase 2 study, the full data have not yet been published.

Slaoui said he’s “not sure it holds for Pfizer,” whose dose contains 30 micrograms. But that’s a conversation that has yet to happen, he added.

CNN has reached out to Moderna and Pfizer for comment. The US government previously secured 200 million doses each of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to more than double the number of coronavirus genomes sequenced to watch for new mutations in the US over the next two weeks, a top official said Sunday.

The United States is now sequencing about 3,000 samples a week and the CDC hopes to more than double that to about 6,500 per week, according to Dr. Gregory Armstrong, director of the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

Scientists sequence the genome – the entire genetic map of the virus – to find mutations that could affect how the virus spreads.

British scientists found a new variant of the virus was spreading there and say the pattern of mutations makes it more easily transmitted, although it does not appear to cause more severe disease.

It’s now been found in at least 37 countries, including in the US, where cases have been identified in California, Colorado and Florida.

“It’s important that we monitor the virus and that we be able to pick up these trends that have implications for public health and clinical medicine,” Armstrong told CNN.

Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly described who is sequencing 3,000 coronavirus samples a week. 

Read the full story:

Shirley, N.Y.: Nurse practitioner Deborah Beauplan administers a COVID-19 swab test at a drive-thru testing site set up for Suffolk County employees and their families at Smith Point Park in Shirley, New York on December 19, 2020.

Related article CDC hopes to double the number of coronavirus samples checked for new mutations

Test results are expected this week from labs that are studying whether a variant of the coronavirus first identified in Britain might pose a challenge to Covid-19 vaccines, according to a World Health Organization official.

Scientists in the UK and elsewhere have taken blood from people who have been vaccinated. They are testing those samples to see if the antibodies created by the vaccine protect against the new strain, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for coronavirus response.

They’re also taking blood from people who have been infected with the new variant to see how well the vaccine works against it, Van Kerkhove said.

Pfizer and Moderna, the makers of the two vaccines authorized in the US, are working to see if the vaccine is effective against different variants of the virus.

On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the immune response from the vaccines was “very likely” to protect against the new variant.

The UK variant has 17 mutations, an unusually high number.

Scientists are also doing tests to assess the vaccine’s efficacy against a variant found in South Africa that has 22 mutations, Van Kerkhove said.

The United States reported 125,544 Covid-19 hospitalizations on Sunday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

This is the 33rd consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations. 

The highest hospitalization numbers according to CTP data are: 

US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams on Sunday said he has “no reason to doubt” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 death toll, contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim that the agency has “exaggerated” its numbers.

“From a public health perspective, I have no reason to doubt those numbers,” Adams told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” when asked about Trump’s claim.

Earlier Sunday, Trump claimed on Twitter that the number of cases and deaths of the “China Virus is far exaggerated” because of the CDC’s “ridiculous method of determination” compared to other countries, which “report, purposely, very inaccurately and low.”

“‘When in doubt, call it Covid,’” Trump wrote in a tweet.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, also pushed back against the President’s claim on Sunday when asked about it, telling ABC News that “the deaths are real deaths.”

“In many areas of the country, the hospital beds are stretched. People are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel who are exhausted right now,” Fauci said. “That’s real. that’s not fake. That’s real.”

CNN reported In September that the CDC had to double down against rumors suggesting that coronavirus deaths have been greatly exaggerated, with the agency’s top expert on mortality saying people are misinterpreting standard death certificate language.

California reported Sunday that 45,352 people newly tested positive for Covid-19, continuing a surge that has pushed hospitals and their exhausted staff to the brink.

Around the United States, hospitals are racing to keep up with surges of Covid-19 patients at numbers they have not seen at any other time in the pandemic.

Overall, at least 125,000 people nationwide were in the hospital with coronavirus on Sunday, marking more than a month that the number of hospitalizations has exceeded 100,000, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Emergency room officials in California said hospitals are treating an unprecedented number of coronavirus patients, including some health care workers.

At Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, 44 employees in the emergency department tested positive for the virus between December 27 and January 1, according to Irene Chavez, senior vice president and area manager.

Chavez said in a separate statement that the medical center is investigating whether an inflatable, air-powered costume may have played a role in the spread.

Chavez said in the statement that air-powered costumes will no longer be allowed at the facility.

Military support: In Southern California, design and construction experts from the US Army Corps of Engineers have been deployed to the Los Angeles area to “evaluate and where necessary upgrade oxygen delivery systems” at about a half dozen hospitals.

One area hospital converted administrative offices and break rooms into treatment areas for their coronavirus patients, said Col. Julie Balten, commander of the Los Angeles District for the Corps of Engineers.