February 8 coronavirus news

British analysis does not suggest that the South African coronavirus variant is more transmissible than other variants, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said Monday.

Van-Tam’s analysis was based on “early data on modelling” the variant, he said. 

He contrasted the South Africa variant with what he referred to as the Kent variant – referred to internationally as the UK variant – which he said does have a transmissibility advantage. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans celebrate the Super Bowl victory outside Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on February 7.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said overall she is “very proud” of the level of compliance she has seen from people celebrating following Sunday night’s Super Bowl victory. 

During a news conference Monday morning, Castor said the majority of the tens of thousands of people who were out celebrating the Tampa Buccaneers win over the Kansas City Chiefs did it responsibly.

She says there were “very few incidents” of people violating the mask mandate. 

When asked about the Super Bowl celebrations outside the stadium being a super spreader event after video of gatherings showing large crowds of unmasked revelers surfaced, Castor said the majority of people she saw were wearing mask. She also said that it is up to people to exercise personal responsibility and keep wearing masks even during the upcoming celebrations expected. 

Castor says the city will definitely celebrate the Buccaneers momentous victory and are planning to do so in a safe manner. 

The mayor says they hope to have more definitive information on what those celebrations will look like finalized by Wednesday. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the White House is expecting the markups by House committees to President Biden’s Covid-19 relief package to “track closely with what the President has proposed,” but also expects there to be “adjustments to strengthen the bill and tweaks.” 

Psaki said: “We’re encouraged that both Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer are in full agreement about the need to move swiftly on the President’s proposal, and the committee markups we’ll see throughout the week are evidence of congress acting on that expeditiously.”

Some more context: House committees are aiming to finalize their legislative text and mark up their sections of the coronavirus relief bill by the end of the week, as the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump gets underway on Tuesday. The goal is for all the committees to pass their portions out of committees and send it to the Budget Committee by Feb. 16, where the larger bill can be packaged together, passed out of Budget and put on the floor the following week.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday that screening US travelers for Covid-19 could be helpful — but she did not expand upon whether there are plans to test domestic travelers.

“The more screening that we’re doing in places where people are gathering, I think the more asymptomatic disease we will be detecting – and certainly there is a lot of, there is more gathering that happens in airports,” Walensky said during a White House briefing.

Some more context: In an interview on “Axios on HBO” on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said “there’s an active conversation with the CDC right now” about requiring a negative Covid-19 test for passengers on domestic flights.

On Monday, White House officials continued to urge the public not to travel at this time.

“Now is not the time to be traveling if at all possible,” Andy Slavitt, the senior Biden White House adviser for Covid-19 Response, said during the briefing.

The US has ramped up its genome sequencing efforts to hunt for coronavirus variants, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Monday, but even more sequencing is needed. 

“Over the last three weeks or so we’ve increased our sequencing about tenfold,” Walensky said during a White House briefing on Monday.  

“So as we look more, we certainly anticipate we might find more,” Walensky said, adding that the CDC is collaborating with state labs, commercial labs and academic labs to make sure sampling from every state is included in the agency’s sequencing efforts. 

Scientists search for coronavirus mutations by taking samples of the virus from patients’ nasal swabs and analyzing their genetic sequences. Mutations are changes in the genetic code of a virus that naturally occur over time when an animal or person is infected — and such mutations can lead to the emergence of new variants.

“We anticipate that we’re probably going to be sequencing up to three to four more than we are already sequencing,” Walensky said. “I think once we have more sequencing that’s happening, we’ll have a better idea as to how many variants there are and what proportion are out there.”

Walensky said during the briefing that she was “reluctant” to provide an estimate of how many coronavirus variant cases there could be based on the current data.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teamed up in New York on Monday to introduce $2 billion in special Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to aid families who have not been able to afford proper funerals for their loved ones when they passed away as the result of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Each family can get reimbursed up to $7,000 for funeral expenses with $260 million of those funds being directly allocated to New Yorkers. These funds are retroactive and can apply to anyone who has lost a loved as the result of the pandemic from Jan. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020.

While this first set of funding is retroactive, both Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez are fighting to make these funds continue until the pandemic is over in the next set of funding to come from FEMA.

“Many of these families because of Covid don’t have money for a proper funeral and a proper burial. And that is just awful and inhumane” Schumer said when describing why the funding is necessary.  

Ocasio-Cortez made the issue personal by saying, “I lost my dad when I was about 18 years old. And the funeral expenses haunted and followed my family along with many other families in a similar position for years.” 

Later, asked if these funds would apply to undocumented families, Ocasio-Cortez said yes and explained why those communities should not be afraid to apply for these funds.

Schumer said Ocasio-Cortez brought this issue to his attention last April. These disaster relief funds are similar to the program FEMA created for families after Hurricane Sandy. 

The news conference took place in Queens, New York, an area hit especially hard by the pandemic, underscoring how communities of color, working class families and immigrant communities have been disproportionally affected.

Rep. Ron Wright, a Republican from Texas, has died, his congressional office announced in a statement Monday, saying that he had been admitted to the hospital after contracting Covid-19.

His congressional office announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19 on Jan. 21 with the congressman saying at the time in a statement, “I am experiencing minor symptoms, but overall, I feel okay and will continue working for the people of the 6th District from home this week.”

The statement on Monday noted that Wright has also battled cancer.

“Over the past few years, Congressman Wright had kept a rigorous work schedule on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and at home in Texas’ Congressional District 6 while being treated for cancer,” it said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would like to get high school’s back to inside classrooms sometime during this current school year. 

For middle schools — which will return to in-person learning later this month — “we had the pieces we needed, we had the testing capacity built out, we had the ability to build out the situation room,” he said. 

Both de Blasio and New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza stressed the effects of isolation that students, and teachers are feeling. 

Carranza said “the perverse nature of the isolation that the mayor spoke of for students, it’s real. And it’s really having an impact on students.”

Families and educators have expressed to him that students “are suffering,” and the “deep-seated desire” of officials to undo the harmful affects of isolation. 

“So at every conceivable opportunity when we can do this safely, and we can…we’re going to do it,” Carranza said.  

De Blasio reaffirmed the schools are “amongst the safest places in all of New York City” because of the city’s “gold standard” of health and safety measures.

He was responding to a question about how to ensure the safety of educators who are going back to classrooms before being fully vaccinated with two doses. 

New York City Schools Chancellor said air purifiers have been added in every middle school and the schools continue to work closely with the Department of Health’s Test and Trace Corps. 

A healthcare worker holds a vial of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on January 7 in Currie, Scotland.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged confidence in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and encouraged people to continue to come forward to receive it.

Speaking at a daily press briefing in Edinburgh Monday, Sturgeon said: “People should have confidence in the vaccine and I think the numbers of people coming forward, it suggests that people do.”

Her comments come a day after South Africa paused its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after early data from a study showed that it offered “minimal protection” against mild or moderate illness caused by the more contagious virus variant first identified there, known as B.1.351.

Sturgeon said five cases of the South African variant, as well as one “probable case” has been so far identified in Scotland, all with associations to travel: “That’s important because it means that while we monitor this carefully, right now, we have no evidence of community transmission in Scotland.”

Meanwhile, Sturgeon said “vaccine passports” should not be ruled out forever in the UK since proof of vaccination is already required for traveling to certain countries. It comes after the UK’s vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi rejected the idea on Sunday but said people would be able to seek proof of vaccination from their doctor if needed for travel to other countries.

“I’m not sure it would be right to rule them out forever, but certainly I think it’s premature to be thinking about them as a concept right now given some of the uncertainties that we still have around the vaccine, [such as] its impact on transmission,” Sturgeon said, also pointing to the “ethical questions” around fairness, after Zahawi said it would be “discriminatory.”

“Does that mean never ever ever? I don’t think it would be great to see that right now. But I don’t think it is something that is likely to become feasible or desirable in the immediate future,” she said.

House Democrats have asked the Biden administration to hand over long-sought documents from the Trump administration regarding its response to the coronavirus pandemic – renewing an investigation into what role alleged political interference by former officials may have played in the virus’ threat.

In letters obtained by CNN to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain and acting head of Health and Human Services Norris Cochran, House Majority Whip James Clyburn alleges the Trump administration “refused to cooperate” with inquiries from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis; that HHS blocked documents and witnesses related to the response to the virus; and that Trump officials “failed to fully comply with two subpoenas and at least 20 document requests” by the committee. 

Arguing that the committee needs the documents to continue its investigation, the South Carolina congressman also alleged that new documents obtained by the committee show the Trump administration took “efforts to suppress science during the pandemic.” The documents include an email by former HHS senior adviser Paul Alexander where the committee alleges he “pressured Food and Drug Administration officials to quickly approve emergency use of convalescent plasma and advised them to disregard concerns” from Dr. Anthony Fauci and National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.

The request is the latest example of House Democrats continuing to pursue investigations against former President Donald Trump and his officials after he has left office and comes a day before the Senate impeachment trial against Trump.

Clyburn requested both Biden administration officials submit documents from Jan. 1, 2020, to Inauguration Day to the committee by March 1, 2021 on “all organizational charts and staff lists” related to the White House’s coronavirus pandemic response, documents regarding “public health guidance, plans, or proposals” about the pandemic and weekly reports from the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

CNN has reached out to the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS and FDA for comment Monday. 

Clyburn also requested documents related to coronavirus testing, the number of coronavirus hospitalizations and infections in the US, coronavirus data collections, herd immunity strategy, coronavirus vaccines and treatments, efforts by political appointees or White House personnel “to review, revise, edit, delay, or prohibit publication of any Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report or other CDC reports” about the virus, “any adverse employment action taken or considered” against employees, officials or federal contractors related to the pandemic.

In December, the committee subpoenaed then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar and then-CDC Director Robert Redfield for documents related to their investigation into alleged political interference. They warned the Trump administration officials that they had until Dec. 30 to produce all the emails and communications related to the publication of a series of scientific reports. The committee first requested the documents in September, and Democrats said then they hit a roadblock with HHS and CDC in getting the documents and interviews needed complete their work.  

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said middle schoolers in grades 6 to 8 who have opted for in person learning will return to classrooms on Feb. 25.

Teachers and staff will return a day before on Feb. 24, to prepare.

De Blasio said teachers returning to work in person will be prioritized for vaccine access over the mid-winter recess from Feb. 12 through 21.

NYC Department of Education Chancellor Richard Carranza said she was “thrilled” to announce the return. She explained the Department of Education is hiring additional staff to support its situation, adding teams to conduct weekly testing in middle schools and continued weekly testing in elementary schools.

It’s the first time tens of thousands of middle school students will set foot inside classrooms since November.

With the addition of middle school students, NYC’s public school system, the country’s largest, will have up to 250,000 of its students (about a quarter) back in classrooms by the end of the month.

Delta Air Lines says it will keep blocking middle seats through April, an extension of a pandemic policy shed by other airlines. 

Delta’s policy will now expire April 30. It was set to expire at the end of next month.

Delta maintains it is the only US airline to keep blocking middle seats on its flights. JetBlue began filling every seat last month, Southwest stopped capping capacity last December, while American and United airlines did so last summer.

In a news release, Delta says it made the decision so “customers can confidently plan and book their spring travel.” You may still find empty seats on other airlines, as TSA figures show air travel demand remains depressed.

New York City is nearing 1 million total doses of Covid-19 vaccines administered, having administered 997,844 so far – more than the population of Austin Texas, the mayor said.

Citi-Field, the stadium for the MLB Mets, will open as a vaccination site Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. A special effort there will focus on taxi and limousine commission licenses and food delivery workers, and half will be reserved for Queens residents, he said.

Vials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are packaged on the production line at the Serum Institute in Pune, India, on January 22.

Due to uncertainty over the effect the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has on hospitalizations, Abdool Karim, head of South Africa’s Covid-19 Advisory Board, said the country is pausing the wide spread rollout of the vaccine in favor of a “stepped approach” –– giving shots to 100,000 people to study its impact on severe disease and hospitalization. 

However, he said the country would consider switching to other vaccines if there appears to be no effect on hospitalization rates. “If we find that the hospitalizations are substantially more than we anticipated, then we would have to stop, take stock of where we are and perhaps switch to other vaccines,” Karim said. 

Late Sunday, South African health officials said they’re pausing the country’s rollout of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine after a study showed it offered reduced protection from the Covid-19 variant first identified there.

Early data released Sunday suggest two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the variant first identified in South Africa.

The full study, which has not been released, included about 2,000 volunteers who were an average of 31 years old; about half received the vaccine and half received a placebo, which does nothing.

Karim noted that the study, which focused on young people, had a potentially wide range of effect. He noted the study overall found the vaccine to be 22% effective, however there were times it showed to be as high as 60% effective. 

“What the study has created is some uncertainty about the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine. So it’s more about what the uncertainty is, rather than what [the study] actually shows,” Karim said. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a media briefing on February 3, in London.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “very confident” in all the vaccines the UK is currently using to combat the coronavirus. 

His comments come a day after South Africa paused its rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after early data from a study showed that it offered “minimal protection” against mild or moderate illness caused by the more contagious virus variant first identified there, known as B.1.351.

The UK is currently administering the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines. According to the government’s dashboard more than 12 million people have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the UK.

Johnson said the government will continue to “study” the results and effectiveness of the vaccine rollout and will be “looking at the ways in which the population is starting to respond to the vaccines” ahead of setting out a strategy for the country to exit lockdown on Feb. 22.

When asked about the UK’s border controls, Johnson responded that despite having “amongst the toughest border controls of anywhere in the world”, border controls are “most effective” when you’ve got the infection rate down in your country.” 

“We’ve greatly reduced the rate of infection from the peak where it was a few weeks ago but it’s still extremely high. And for border controls, to make that final difference so that you can isolate new variants as they come in, you need to have infections really much lower so you can track them as they spread,” he continued. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be relying very much on border controls, as we get the rates of infection down overall, stopping it coming in, tracking the people who have a new variants,” Johnson added.

The UK had an R rate of 0.7 to 1, as of government data released on Friday. 

The R is the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.

South Africa’s decision to pause a mass rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine after a study showed it offered reduced protection from the South African variant is “just a temporary delay” and includes a new rollout strategy, the head of South Africa’s Covid-19 advisory committee said Monday.

“This is just a temporarily delay, but the way in which we’re going to roll it out is going to be different in that we’re taking a two-step approach,” epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim told told the Times Radio.

During a briefing on Sunday, Karim said that “if the vaccine shows not to be effective in reducing hospitalizations then we would need to offer those individuals another effective vaccine - either a booster of that vaccine … or to give them another vaccine. So we can still proceed with our rollout but we need to do it… wisely by taking a stepped approach.”

He stressed the reason for this approach is because “we don’t really know the answer on severe disease.”

Early data released Sunday suggests two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the variant first identified in South Africa.

Karim further explained on Monday that South Africa will only carry out a mass rollout of the vaccine once they are “confident” that it reduces hospitalization in 100,000 individuals infected with the variant first identified in the country.

South Africa’s vaccination program has been delayed by about two to three weeks, Karim added, saying that’s how long they expect it will take for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to arrive in the country.

“With every vaccine that we are going to roll out, we can think of it as a two-step process – it’s a stepped introduction of each vaccine,” Karim explained.

However, the country is also contending with its current million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine expiring in April.

The vaccine should have a six month expiry date, a Department of Health official said at a briefing Sunday – when the pause was announced – but the Oxford/AstraZeneca doses that South Africa received earlier this month from the Serum Institute of India “came through with an expiry date of April which we only identified on arrival.”

Dr. Anban Pillay from the Department of Health said that the department is awaiting a response after asking the Serum Institute “for an extension on the date, if that’s possible, or an exchange of the stocks.”

During the Sunday briefing, South Africa’s Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize said that for the next four weeks, the Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines will be available to health workers and that they would look into the Oxford/AstraZeneca expiry date issue, saying that there should be “no wastage.”

French Health Minister Olivier Veran receives a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Group in Melun, on February 8.

The French Minister of Health received the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday.

Minister Olivier Véran, who is 40, posted a picture of himself getting vaccinated with the words “vaccinated” to his Twitter account on Monday. He was vaccinated while visiting a hospital in Melun, a suburb southeast of Paris.

In a nod to Véran’s inoculation, the Ministry of Health said in a press release on Monday that “the vaccination campaign continues in France and since this Saturday, February 6, 2021, people under the age of 65, including health and social professionals, can be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.”

Speaking to reporters outside the hospital where he was vaccinated, Véran recommended that health workers in France who are eligible for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine get the shot, saying that it “protects against at least 99% of the strains that circulate today in our country.”

“Given the level of scientific and medical information that I have – and that Europe has – at least 99% of the viruses circulating today on our territory do not correspond to a South African variant and which the AstraZeneca vaccine allows to protect against almost all viruses that are in circulation. “

The Health Minister was making reference to a study released by a South African university on Sunday that showed that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offered reduced protection from the South African variant.

The French Health Ministry told CNN that Véran, who is a neurologist, was authorized to get vaccinated as he is a medical doctor.

Véran said on Monday that he accepted the invitation from the hospital’s director to receive the first injection of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine there, as he had “always said that as soon as I am part of the target for vaccine indications, I will be protected.”

France has hit some road bumps in the vaccination process so far, with a total of 2,130,000 doses administered so far, according to the French Health Authority.

On Monday, Iran reported 7,321 new daily coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 1,473,756.

Iran’s Health Minister Saeed Namaki said vaccinations will begin in the country on Tuesday. He said nurses and doctors working in intensive care units will be among the first inoculated, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The new coronavirus case numbers were announced by Iran’s Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadaat Lari in a news conference on state TV.

The country also reported 67 new deaths from Covid-19 bringing the country’s death toll to 58,536.

The health ministry said 3,778 patients are hospitalized in ICU.

Iran is the Middle East country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic in total cases and deaths.

Health workers receive a delivery of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at University Clinico Hospital in Zaragoza, Spain, on February 8.

Spain received the first delivery of Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines over the weekend, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

196,800 doses of the vaccine were received over the weekend and distribution to the autonomous regions is due to begin Monday, it said.

Active health and social health workers – who were not previously included in the priority vaccination groups – will be the first to receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

On Friday, Spain announced the AstraZeneca vaccine will only be used to vaccinate people between the ages of 18 and 55.

Spain expects to receive a total of 1,810,575 Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine doses this month, according to the statement.

The country expects to distribute a total of more than 4 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Spain has recorded 2,941,990 total cases and 61,386 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

A member of a mobile vaccination team prepares doses of the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine in Tübingen, Germany on February 5.

More than 3 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in Germany so far, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country’s main public health authority.

In total, 3,269,110 doses have been given, with the majority of them administered as a first shot.

The RKI said on Monday that:

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said everyone in the country would be offered a coronavirus vaccine by September 21 and announced the formation of a national vaccination plan. 

“There is a national vaccination strategy, this strategy will now also include a national vaccination plan, and according to this plan we will predict delivery dates to the best of our knowledge,” Merkel said.

Federal and state governments will convene on Wednesday for a Covid-19 strategy meeting to discuss that national vaccination plan further, she said.

Amid a backlash over the pace of the country’s vaccine rollout program, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on January 28 that the federal government expects the country to face shortages in its supply of the coronavirus vaccine for at least another 10 weeks.

Police monitor demonstrators protesting against Covid-19 lockdown and curfew measures in Tilburg, Netherlands, on February 5.

Police in the Netherlands said Monday that they issued 6,959 fines last week for those breaking the rules of the country’s national 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. curfew. 

It’s a drop from the 10,810 curfew fines that Dutch police issued the previous week.

Violating the national curfew, which was designed to reduce social interaction and thus the spread of coronavirus, comes at a cost of 95 euros (approximately US $114).

It’s been in effect since January 23.

Last week, the Dutch government extended the nation’s lockdown until at least March 2, and said that it will also consider extending the curfew before it expires on February 10.

Police also say that they also issued 8,139 fines last week related to other coronavirus regulations, for example for not wearing a mask.

That is also down from the previous week, when 12,938 fines were issued.

A visitor observes a panda at the Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, on February 8.

Austria lifted its round the clock stay at home order on Monday, with the national curfew moved back to nighttime hours only.

The stay at home order now only applies from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time (from 2 p.m. ET), according to Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Schools, shops and museums are allowed to open again, but under tight measures. A FFP2 or N95 mask has to be worn in all shops, and a 20 square meter distance (215 square feet) must be available to each customer. Hairdressers are also allowed to reopen.

But restaurants will remain closed in the Alpine republic. The government said that it will review whether to possibly open up restaurants up in March in the next weeks.

Contact sports, like soccer, remain off limits, however the slopes are open – with restrictions.

FFP2/N95 masks must be worn when when using outdoor ski lifts, while gondolas or closed lifts only allowed to take half of their usual capacity.

Austria has registered 423,839 cases of the coronavirus so far, with 8,012 deaths.

1,317 new cases were reported on Sunday, according to data from the Ministry of Interior.

A previous headline incorrectly stated that ski resorts were reopened on Monday. The slopes had reopened prior to the announcement.

New localized “red zones” have been imposed in areas across Italy after the new variants were identified in them.

Red zone restrictions – which prohibit people from leaving their houses except for work or health reasons – went into effect on Monday in municipalities in the province of Perugia and six municipalities in the province of Terni, which are located in the central Italian region of Umbria.

They will be in place until February 21, the regional government of Umbria said on Saturday.

The UK and Brazilian Covid-19 variants were detected on a sample of 44 cases recently analyzed by the Italian Health Institute, the local government said on Saturday.

The Italian Health Institute’s report said it “induces to believe” that the presence of the variants contributed to a rise in positive cases in the provinces of Perugia and Terni.

On Sunday, the Tuscan town of Chiusi, located near the border of Umbria, also became a red zone after the South African and Brazilian variants were detected within the community, according to the town’s mayor. On Friday, Juri Bettollini said that the restrictions will last a week and that mass, voluntary testing will be carried out in the town from Monday.

The Northern autonomous province of Bolzano (South Tyrol) has also been placed under a red zone on Monday, a measure that will be in effect until February 28, according to the local government.

The Bolzano government said in a statement on Saturday that they had made the decision after the first case of the UK variant was detected in the province.

Red zone restrictions were also imposed on Saturday to three other municipalities in the region of Abruzzo.

Most Italian regions are currently in “yellow zones,” the lightest of a three-tier system of restrictions. 

The remaining regions of Umbria, as well as Sicily and Puglia, are currently in the “orange zone,” where people are prohibited from leaving their town and their region – except for work or health reasons – and bars and restaurants are only offering delivery and take-away services.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is administered at a mass vaccination center in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, on January 11.

Over 140 people in the UK are infected with the South African variant, but it’s not the most dominant strain in the country, the UK Junior Health Minister said on Monday.

Speaking on the BBC Breakfast program, Edward Argar, the UK Minister of State at the Department of Health, said that 147 people have been infected with the variant first identified in South Africa, known as B.1351.

Argar told Sky News that the dominant coronavirus strains in the UK are not the South African variant and that the measure that South Africa is taking in pausing their rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine — after a study showed that it offered reduced protection from the South African variant – was a temporary measure.

Argar said there was no evidence the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was not effective in preventing severe illness or death.

The study, released by South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand on Sunday, showed that two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine provide limited protection against mild or moderate cases of the South African variant.

There is “still some hope” that the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine could perform in people infected with the variant first identified in South Africa who are at risk of severe disease, Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand said on Monday.

Early data from South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand released on Sunday suggested that two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provide only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the B.1.351 variant.

Madhi added that “extrapolating” from results seen with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine – which is also a viral vector vaccine –  there was “still some hope” that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could perform “as well” in different age groups at risk of severe disease.

“Now these two vaccines use a similar sort of technology,” Madhi explained.

“They use them very, very similar in terms of the immunogenicity so I think extrapolating from that, there’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age group demographic that are at risk of severe disease,” he said.

Results from trials in South Africa showed Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine reduced severe disease by 89%, Madhi said.

He also said that researchers should know with more certainty “pretty soon.” 

On Sunday, South African health officials said they were pausing the country’s rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after the study showed it offered reduced protection from the Covid-19 variant first identified there.

Ukraine will begin the first phase of its Covid-19 vaccination program this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday on his official Twitter account.

Doctors, members of the military and National Guard will be among the first in line for shots, Zelensky said. “The program covers at least half of the population of Ukraine during 2021 and early 2022,” he added.

Last week, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine will be receiving an initial shipment of 117,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine under the COVAX program.

Speaking in a Cabinet meeting on February 3, Shmyhal said that from February to early March, “much larger deliveries are expected.”

Ukraine has reported nearly 1.3 million Covid-19 cases and almost 25,000 deaths from the disease, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Dr. Peter Hotez, founding dean of the Baylor College of Medicine National School of Tropical Medicine, speaks during a House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 5, 2020.

While a recent dip in Covid-19 infections may seem encouraging, experts warn now is not the time for Americans to let their guard down.

That’s largely because of new variants circulating in the US, putting the country once again in the “eye of the hurricane,” according to one expert.

Nearly 700 cases of Covid-19 variants first spotted in the UK, South Africa and Brazil have been reported in the US so far, according to data updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vast majority of those cases are the B.1.1.7 strain, which was first detected in the UK and has now been spotted in at least 33 states. Experts say the highly contagious variant will likely soon become dominant in the US, and a new study found significant community transmission may already be occurring.

Vaccination drive: More than 31 million Americans have so far received at least their first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, according to CDC data, as officials work to ramp up vaccinations across the country. More than 9 million people have so far received both doses of a vaccine, according to the data.

And a third vaccine could be on its way to the US market soon: Johnson & Johnson asked the Food and Drug Administration for an emergency use authorization of its vaccine last week.

Read the full story:

A COVID technician with Cataldo Ambulance tests patients during free COVID testing in Danvers on Jan. 6. 4142867001p Dan Covidtesting5ds

Related article Despite dip in Covid-19 cases, expert says US is in the 'eye of the hurricane' as variants spread

The South Korean capital of Seoul will start testing pet dogs and cats for Covid-19 if their owners test positive and the animals themselves are symptomatic, according to the city’s top health official Park Yoo-mi.

Park said the city’s animal sample collection team will visit the home of quarantined Covid-19 patient to test the pets.

The testing is being done out of an abundance of caution – Covid-19 pet-to-human infection has not been reported since the pandemic began. Any dogs or cats testing positive will be required to quarantine for 14 days.

South Korea reported its first case of an animal Covid-19 infection after a household cat tested positive for the virus on January 21, according to the country’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA.)

Play has begun at the Australian Open in Melbourne, tennis’ first grand slam of the year – and fans are there to take in the action.

The start of the event was delayed three weeks due to Covid-19, but spectators came out in force today for the first day of the tournament – many relishing the fact that they are some of the few people on the planet able to attend live sports during the pandemic.

A view of Court 3 is seen during day one of the 2021 Australian Open, on February 8.

Authorities are allowing fans to attend because regional authorities have been able to bring the local coronavirus epidemic under control thanks to strict public health measures.

Australia’s government quickly closed its borders in March at the start of the pandemic, banning non-residents from entering the country, and put in place mandatory hotel quarantine of 14 days for incoming travelers.

Socially distanced spectators watch a match on Court 3.

When Melbourne, where the Open is being held, had a coronavirus outbreak in mid-2020, Victoria’s government put the entire state into mandatory lockdown for almost four months, one of the longest measures of its kind in the world.

Things are a bit more lax now. At Melbourne Park, it’s only mandatory to wear a mask indoors at the event, but many milling around outside were also seen with face coverings.

Attendees are seen practicing social distancing.

A health worker prepares a syringe to inoculate a volunteer with the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine during its trial at the Clinical Studies Center in Lima, Peru on December 9, 2020.

Peru plans to start vaccinating healthcare workers this week after receiving its first shipment of the coronavirus vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm, President Francisco Sagasti said Sunday.

Sagasti said 300,000 doses of the vaccine arrived in the coastal city of Callao aboard an Air France plane. The rest of the country’s 1 million-dose order is scheduled to arrive on February 14.  

In a message posted to his Twitter account, Sagasti thanked Peru’s civil society along with the country’s public and private sector for making “this achievement possible.”  

The United States reported 86,928 new Covid-19 infections and 1,268 additional virus-related fatalities on Sunday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The national tally now stands at 27,006,413 coronavirus cases and 463,470 deaths.

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

Vaccines: At least 59,307,800 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 41,210,937 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

See CNN’s live tracker here.

A traveler wearing a protective mask walks toward Beijing Capital International Airport ahead of the Lunar New Year in Beijing, on February 2.

Normally at this time of year, hundreds of millions of Chinese people would be packing highways, trains and planes on homebound trips to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their family.

But this year, the largest annual human migration on Earth has been put on hold, following the Chinese government’s call to avoid “nonessential” trips during the holiday period to prevent a resurgence of the coronavirus.

That is a lot to ask: The Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival in China, is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar – the equivalent of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve combined.

For many Chinese who left their hometowns for better job opportunities in big cities, it is the only chance they may get to see their families this year. Parents who left children behind in villages so they could work may face another 12 months without them.

To discourage people from traveling, China’s National Health Commission has imposed new rules that require people returning to rural areas to produce a negative Covid-19 test taken within the previous seven days, and to spend 14 days in “home observation” upon arrival.

Some local governments have added their own, stricter rules: For example, in some places, returnees need to spend two weeks in a government-approved quarantine hotel, instead of remaining under observation at home with their families.

The new restrictions have provoked fury on social media, with some questioning the government’s policy at a time when many people had hoped to go home.

Read the full story:

This year, there was no first day travel rush for the 40-day Spring Festival.

Related article Heartbreak and anger as China discourages travel for Lunar New Year

A quarantine hotel worker in the Australian city of Melbourne tested positive for Covid-19, according to Victoria State’s health department.

The employee worked at the Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport and tested positive for the virus on Sunday, a news release from the department said.

Authorities did not indicate whether the quarantine hotel was connected to any of the Australian Open players or staff.

This comes after a single Covid-19 case at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne forced organizers of the Australian Open to quarantine 507 players, officials and support staff, just four days before the start of the tennis tournament. The Open began Monday after all players returned negative Covid-19 results.

A medical staff member takes a throat swab sample for nucleic acid detection in Xinle City, China, on February 5.

China recorded zero new locally-transmitted Covid-19 cases from Sunday, according to the country’s National Health Commission (NHC.) This is the first time since December 16 the country saw no new local cases.

The NHC reported 14 new total cases from Sunday, all of which were imported.

Some context: Last month, China saw a rise in locally-transmitted cases from an outbreak in Hebei province.

Following the outbreak, China imposed some of the toughest restrictions in the province since the country largely contained the spread of the coronavirus in March, with mass testing and lockdown measures to suppress the outbreak.

Naomi Osaka of Japan plays a forehand in her women's singles first round match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia during day one of the 2021 Australian Open, on February 8.

Thousands of tennis fans descended on Melbourne Park to watch stars including Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams kick off the Australian Open on Monday, after a three-week postponement and high drama over the quarantine of players.

Spectators came out in force on an unusually overcast and chilly summer morning, relishing in the fact that they are some of the few people on the planet able to attend live sports during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is only mandatory to wear a mask indoors at the event, but many milling around outside were also seen with face coverings.

Many sporting events around the world have been forced to either postpone or suspend competitions due to the virus and enact strict limits on attendance or ban fans altogether.

The Australian Open organizers expect up to 400,000 fans to attend the tournament this year in a socially distanced manner, around half the number that were at last year’s competition.

The presence of fans at Melbourne Park wouldn’t have been possible if Australia hadn’t brought its local coronavirus epidemic under control in 2020 with strict public health measures. Australia’s government quickly closed its borders in March at the start of the pandemic, banning non-residents from entering the country, and put in place mandatory hotel quarantine of 14 days for incoming travelers.

Read the full story:

Spectators walk into Melbourne Park ahead of the first round matches at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021.(AP Photo/Andy Brownbill)

Related article After weeks of drama and setbacks, the Australian Open kicks off

A person tested positive for Covid-19 two days after being released from 14 days of hotel quarantine in Australia’s New South Wales, according to state health officials.

NSW Health said there is no indication the person was infected in the “hotel quarantine setting” and said preliminary investigations indicate the virus was likely acquired overseas.

NSW recorded no new local Covid-19 cases two new imported cases from Sunday.

The state has recorded 4,934 cases since the start of the pandemic.

There have been at least 27,004,715 total cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 463,437 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

 JHU recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on January 21, 2020:

Another 20 countries have reported over 1 million total Covid-19 cases, according to JHU: 

This post was updated to reflect JHU’s latest tally.

South African health officials said Sunday they’re pausing the country’s rollout of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine after a study showed it offered reduced protection from the Covid-19 variant first identified there.

During a briefing on Sunday, South Africa Minister of Health Dr. Zweli Mkhize said the hold would be temporary while scientists figure out how to most effectively deploy the AstraZeneca vaccine. Mkhize said South Africa will move forward with the deployment of vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.

Early data released Sunday suggest two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the variant first identified in South Africa.

The study, which has not been released, included about 2,000 volunteers who were an average of 31 years old; about half received the vaccine and half received a placebo, which does nothing.

Viral neutralization against the B.1.351 variant was “substantially reduced” when compared to the earlier coronavirus strain, researchers said in a news release. The vaccine’s efficacy against severe Covid-19, hospitalization and death were not assessed.

Details of the study by researchers from South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand and others, as well as from the University of Oxford, were shared in a press release. The results have been submitted for peer-review and a preprint will be released soon, Oxford said.

AstraZeneca’s response: In a statement on Sunday, an AstraZeneca spokesperson said the company is “working closely with the South African Ministry of Health on how best to support the evaluation against severe disease of the B.1.351 variant, and start to bring this vaccine to the South African people should it prove to be successful.”

The statement said the company believes its vaccine will still protect against severe disease from the new B.1.351 variant, particularly when the dosing interval is eight to 12 weeks.

In a previous statement, the company said it is working with Oxford University to adapt the vaccine against the B.1.351 variant so “it is ready for Autumn delivery should it be needed.”

Read more:

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020 file photo, a volunteer receives an injection at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, as part of Africa's first participation in a COVID-19 vaccine trial developed at the University of Oxford in Britain in conjunction with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. On Friday, Oct. 23, 2020, AstraZeneca Inc. announced that the Food and Drug Administration is letting it resume testing of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the U.S. (Siphiwe Sibeko/Pool via AP)

Related article South Africa pauses AstraZeneca vaccine rollout after study shows it offers less protection against variant

The World Health Organization’s independent panel on vaccinations will meet on Monday to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine and studies assessing how effective it is against the virus variant first identified in South Africa, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19, said on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday. 

A spokesperson for AstraZeneca told CNN on Saturday that a small trial found the company’s Covid-19 vaccine provides limited protection against mild disease in cases caused by the B.1.351 variant. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed or published.

When asked if she was concerned about AstraZeneca’s vaccine and the variant, Van Kerkhove told CBS’s Margaret Brennan that there were a number of studies underway to look at immune responses. 

There are “some preliminary studies suggesting reduced efficacy. But again, those studies aren’t fully published yet,” Van Kerkhove said.

She added that it’s critical to have more than one safe and effective vaccine: “We cannot rely on only one product.”

Early data suggest two doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provide “minimal protection” against mild and moderate infection from the variant first identified in South Africa, the University of Oxford said Sunday. 

Viral neutralization against the B.1.351 variant was “substantially reduced” when compared to the earlier coronavirus strain, according to a news release Sunday from the University of Oxford. The study, which has not been released, included about 2,000 volunteers who were an average of 31 years old; about half received the vaccine and half received a placebo, which does nothing. The vaccine’s efficacy against severe Covid-19, hospitalization and death were not assessed.

Details of the study by researchers from South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand and others and the University of Oxford were shared in a press release. The results have been submitted for peer-review and a preprint will be released soon, Oxford said. 

Adapting the vaccine: After the study was reported Saturday by the Financial Times, AstraZeneca said in a statement it believes the vaccine could provide protection against severe disease, and said it has started to adapt the vaccine against the variant “so that it is ready for Autumn delivery should it be needed.”

In the Oxford statement, Shabir Madhi, a professor of vaccinology at University of Witwatersrand who led the study, noted recent data in South Africa from Janssen, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine arm, found some protection against moderate and severe Covid-19 disease with a similar vaccine. 

“These findings recalibrate thinking about how to approach the pandemic virus and shift the focus from the goal of herd immunity against transmission to the protection of all at risk individuals in population against severe disease,” Madhi said. 

A new study finds that cases of a more contagious coronavirus variant are rapidly increasing in the United States, and significant community transmission may already be occurring.

Although the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the UK is currently at a relatively low frequency in the US, the paper says it’s doubling every week and a half, similar to what was observed in other countries. The report estimates this variant is 35-45% more transmissible than strains that appeared earlier in the US, and it’s doubling about every 10 days in the country.

Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modeling predicted the B.1.1.7 variant could become the predominant strain in the United States by March. It estimates the virus is about 50% more transmissible.

In addition to groups of cases in California, Florida and Georgia, many B.1.1.7 cases in the US did not report recent international travel, the report said, suggesting “significant community transmission of the B.1.1.7 variant is already ongoing across the U.S.”

Read the full story:

This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. Note the spikes that adorn the outer surface of the virus, which impart the look of a corona surrounding the virion, when viewed electron microscopically.

Related article More contagious coronavirus variant identified in UK is spreading rapidly throughout the US, study says

House Democratic leaders will unveil legislation Monday that would give millions of families at least $3,000 per child, advancing a key provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package.

Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Richard Neal, who is leading the crafting of the legislation for the stimulus package, will introduce the enhanced Child Tax Credit bill, according to a committee spokesperson.

CNN obtained a copy of the 22-page bill. The Washington Post first reported on it.

The legislation would provide $3,600 per child under the age of six and $3,000 per child age six through 17 for a single year. The full benefit is available to single parents earning up to $75,000 annually and for couples earning up to $150,000. Payments would phase out after those thresholds.

Families can receive the Child Tax Credit payments on a monthly basis, which advocates say will make it easier to pay their obligations compared to getting a lump sum at tax time.

If this particular legislation is passed by Congress, the payments would begin in July for one year.

Another big change: The credit would become fully refundable for the year. Some 27 million children currently live in low-income families who receive a partial or no tax credit because they earn too little, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

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Snow covers the ground on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Monday, February 1, 2021.

Related article Democrats to unveil $3,000 child benefit as part of Biden relief package