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People’s sense of smell and taste may not return for up to five months after Covid-19 infection, Canadian researchers reported Monday.
A team at the University of Quebec surveyed 813 health care workers who tested positive for Covid-19. They ranked their sense of smell and taste on scale from 0 to 10 and some were asked to perform an at-home test to further evaluate these senses.
During initial infection, more than 70% of those taking part in the survey reported losing their sense of smell and 65% reporting losing their sense of taste, the researchers said in preliminary results released by the American Academy of Neurology.
Five months later, when they used an at-home test, 17% of people said they still had loss of smell and 9% of people had persistent loss of taste, the researchers said.
“Our results show that an impaired sense of smell and taste may persist in a number of people with Covid-19,” Dr. Johannes Frasnelli of the University of Quebec, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
“This emphasizes the importance of following up with people who have been infected, and need further research to discover the extent of neurological problems associated with Covid-19.”
The findings of the study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting to be held from April 17 to 22.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a key Democratic swing vote, told CNN that he would try to amend the Covid-19 relief package with a federal minimum wage hike of $11 an hour, a move he argues will allow the party to get behind a compromise on one of the thorniest issues in the debate.
Manchin said that he would make that move if the Senate parliamentarian finds the wage hike within the rules of the budget process that Democrats are employing to advance the Covid relief package without Republican support. He would need 51 votes to succeed.
“I would amend it to $11,” he said. “$11 basically works for Americans and, we can do $11 in two years and be in a better position than they’re going to be with $15 in five years.”
Some context: The House Budget Committee voted 19 to 16 Monday to advance President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package. The committee will continue to hold votes on non-binding resolutions, but this is the official step triggering the legislation to go to the House floor for a vote later this week.
After that, the bill will got the Senate.
There, two Democratic moderates – Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – have made it clear they are not comfortable voting for a coronavirus relief bill that includes an increase in the minimum wage to $15 over five years.
President Biden warned Americans this evening not to allow Covid-19’s staggering death toll to lead to numbness, callousness or apathy.
“We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow,” said Biden, speaking from the White House as the US passed half a million Covid-19 deaths. “We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic or a blur or on the news.”
Biden said Americans now owe it to the dead to continue the fight against the virus and beat it.
“We must do so to honor the dead, but equally important care for the living, those who are left behind, the loved ones left behind, he said.
Biden then drew on his own life marked by the sudden deaths of two of his children and his first wife, saying he knew what it was like to suffer loss.
“I know all too well, I know what it’s like to not be there when it happens,” he said. “And I know what it’s like when you are there, holding their hands, the look in their eye when they slip away, that black hole in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it.”
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President Biden marked half a million Covid-19 deaths with a moment of silence and a candle lighting ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.
“Amazing Grace” played as the President and first lady stood with Vice President Kamala Harris and the second gentleman.
Before the ceremony, Biden talked about the human impact of the virus and tried to offer hope about what is to come.
President Biden urged the country to think about the people behind the statistic of more than 500,000 Covid-19 deaths, calling it a “truly grim, heartbreaking milestone” before a candle lighting ceremony at the White House on Monday.
“There’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary. They spanned generations. Born in America, immigrated to America, but just like that so many of them took their final breath alone in America,” Biden said an hour after the death toll passed half a million.
Biden said he keeps a card showing the number of Americans who have been infected or died from the virus in his pocket every day.
“Read the obituaries and remembrances. The son who called his mom every night. The father’s daughter who lit up his world. The best friend who’s always there… The nurse who made her patients want to live,” he said.
Watch here:
President Biden will hold a candle lighting ceremony at the White House to mark the US passing the grim milestone of 500,000 Covid-19 deaths on Monday.
The President is delivering remarks first. The ceremony will follow.
First lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will also be there.
On Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it is an opportunity for the President to use his “own voice and platform to take a moment to remember the people whose lives have been lost, the families who are still suffering.”
One day before taking office, Biden, Harris and their spouses held a somber ceremony on the National Mall to commemorate the 400,000 lives lost to Covid-19.
“To heal we must remember,” Biden said at the time.
Only 18% of US counties have coronavirus spread that is at the low to moderate level needed for safest return to in-person school, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday.
The CDC has recommended that schools in so-called red zones with high levels of virus transmission only reopen for in-person classes if they can maintain all five recommended mitigation measures – universal use of masks, social distancing, handwashing, enhanced disinfection and ventilation, and contact tracing.
“For the 60% of counties that remain in the red zone, the counties with high transmission, we encourage at least the K-5 students to return to school in hybrid or reduced in-person attendance, and for middle and high schools virtually only unless they can strictly implement mitigation measures than halve these cases,” she added.
“Schools that are already open should continue to provide in-person instruction, as long as cases are low, and they strictly use mitigation measures to keep them low.”
In response to emerging coronavirus variants, Pfizer is initiating a study to investigate the effectiveness of a third-dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, the company said Monday.
“We have seen no real-world evidence to date that suggest a significant reduction in protection provided by our current vaccine. However, we are preparing to respond quickly and initiating a study to investigate the effectiveness of a third-dose booster of our current vaccine in trial participants who have already received 2 doses,” John Young, the company’s chief business officer, said in written testimony ahead of a House subcommittee hearing.
Young said Pfizer is also “discussing clinical study designs” with the US Food and Drug Administration to “investigate the safety and immunogenicity of an updated vaccine” that involves a change to its vaccine to target an emerging variant.
On Tuesday, Young and executives from four other Covid-19 vaccine makers are scheduled to testify at a House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ordered flags at the US Capitol, “be flown at half-staff due to the passing of 500,000 Americans from COVID-19,” according to a statement from her spokesperson Drew Hammill.
This comes as more than 64 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky touted encouraging numbers in declining new cases, deaths, and hospital admissions, but also offered a note of caution, saying there is still work that needs to be done.
At least a half a million people have died from Covid-19 in the United States since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
There have been at least 500,071 total deaths and 28,174,133 total Covid-19 cases in the US, Johns Hopkins data shows.
With over 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, that means about one in every 660 people in the US has died from the virus.
Johns Hopkins recorded the first death from Covid-19 on Feb. 29, 2020 in Washington state. Later in the spring, two earlier deaths in California were posthumously confirmed to be from Covid-19.
Four other countries in the world have reported over 100,000 total Covid-19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged on Monday that the country is at a “crossroads” with the US prepared to pass the threshold of 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, while there are also promising vaccine developments and a decline in deaths per day.
He said the US economy is now “chomping at the bit to rebuild the prosperity we lost last year,” and credited the bipartisan Covid relief legislation passed last year in Congress for getting the country to this pivotal moment, while slamming the relief package the Democrats are preparing to pass through without Republican support as not meeting the needs of the moment.
The Kentucky Republican said “the partisan legislation Democrats are preparing to ram through looks like something you’d pass to blunt another year of shutdown,” accusing Democrats of being “stuck back in April 2020” with their approach.
McConnell criticized Democrats for going “heavy on non-Covid related liberal wish list items” in their relief bill, but “light on practical solution to get kids back in school, workers safely back on the job, and help the American people reclaim their lives.”
He went on to say if the Biden administration was interested in practical solutions, “they’d find the same kind of bipartisan support that every historic Covid-19 package has received so far.”
Nearly 53 million children – about 72% of the US population under the age of 18 — live in a county considered a red zone with high levels of Covid-19 transmission under school reopening guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.
As case rates continue to drop around the country, fewer counties are considered red zones. Last week, more than 65.3 million children lived in red zones, marking a 29% improvement week-over-week.
Red — or “high transmission” — communities are defined by the CDC as counties where there were at least 100 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people or a test positivity rate of at least 10% during the past seven days.
If schools in “high transmission” communities cannot “strictly implement” five key mitigation strategies identified by the CDC, the agency recommends virtual learning for middle and high schools and hybrid learning or reduced attendance for elementary schools to maximize physical distancing.
Nearly 4 million children in the US live in a county considered “low” or “moderate transmission,” where the CDC recommends K-12 schools open for full in-person instruction, significantly more than a week ago. Among those counties are Honolulu, Portland’s Multnomah County and Louisiana’s Lafayette Parish.
On Monday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that about 60% of schools are in a red zone, which tracks with CNN’s analysis. However, federal records show that dozens of counties in Texas that were red zones last week reported no new Covid-19 cases over the past seven days.
The CNN analysis used the latest federal data on new case rates and test positivity rates, published Sunday by the US Department of Health and Human Services, to determine each county’s risk threshold according to CDC guidelines. Population data is from the US Census Bureau’s five-Year American Community Survey 2019 estimates.
A study published Monday that showed teachers and not students were the probable source of several school-related Covid-19 outbreaks demonstrates the need to scale up vaccination efforts, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday.
But Walensky did not say teachers need to go to the front of the line for vaccines. Instead, she said, schools need to work harder to make sure teachers, staff and students wear masks properly and maintain social distancing as possible.
“The two main reasons for the spread of Covid-19 in these schools were inadequate physical distancing and mask adherence in the schools. Physical distancing of at least six feet was not possible because of the high number of students in class, as well as because of classroom layouts,” Walensky told a White House coronavirus briefing.
“The findings also highlight the importance of scaling up vaccination efforts across the country, including the continued need to prioritize teachers and other school staff for vaccination as part of the frontline essential workers, consistent with the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” she added.
There’s also need for better testing and contact tracing, she said.
Lowering the spread of the virus in communities is the best way to keep it out of schools, Walensky added.
At the beginning of today’s Covid-19 briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky touted encouraging numbers in declining new cases, deaths, and hospital admissions, but also offered a note of caution.
“We continue to see trends head in the right direction, but cases, hospital admissions, and deaths remain at very high levels,” Walensky said.
New cases, according to Walensky, have declined steadily for five weeks, with the current seven-day average down 74% from its peak on January 11. Today’s seven-day average, Walensky said, is now at 66,000 cases per day and is comparable to last summer’s peak.
As far as new hospital admissions go, today’s seven-day average of 6,500 marks a 60% decline from a peak on January 9 and is the lowest rate of new hospital admissions since last fall.
At 1,900 deaths per day, the seven-day average of deaths is down 39% from the prior seven-day average, making it the lowest that number has been since the beginning of December.
Still, Walensky noted, “This seven-day average is counterbalanced by the stark reality that this week, we will surpass one half million Covid-19 deaths in the United States, a truly tragic reminder of the enormity of this pandemic, and the loss it has afflicted on our personal lives and our communities.”
“While the pandemic is heading in the right direction there is still much work to do,” she added.
Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House Covid-19 response team, said that all backlogged doses of coronavirus vaccines that were delayed due to winter weather last week will be delivered by mid-week.
Slavitt said once the weather began to improve, there was “an all-out, around-the-clock effort from our teams and partners” to get back on track with vaccine shipments.
However, Slavitt cautioned that getting the vaccines delivered is just the first step, and it will still take some time for vaccine distribution sites to catch up.
“We encourage vaccination sites to follow that same lead of those who are working extended hours to catch up on deliveries by scheduling more appointments to vaccinate the anxious public as quickly as possible,” Slavitt said.
He noted that Texas’ seven-day average of administered Covid-19 doses decreased by 31% in the past week due to winter weather impacts.
The House Budget Committee voted 19 to 16 Monday to advance President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package. The committee will continue to hold votes on non-binding resolutions, but this is the official step triggering the legislation to go to the House floor for a vote later this week.
One Democrat, Lloyd Doggett, joined Republicans in voting against the relief package. CNN has reached out to Doggett’s office to learn more.
The package includes:
The more than 590-page bill marks the first major piece of legislation to be advanced under the Biden administration and is the first opportunity for congressional Democrats to legislate with control of all three branches of government.
What comes next: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a narrow margin to pass the bill later this week, unable to lose more than five votes. Buoying the bill’s chances is the fact many members on both the moderate and progressive side do not have an appetite to torpedo the Biden administration’s first major ask.
The task in the Senate could be more difficult as two Democratic moderates – Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – have made it clear they are not comfortable voting for a coronavirus relief bill that includes an increase in the minimum wage to $15 over five years.
The provision, which was in the House bill, may not survive a budget process that requires every section of the bill to meet a strict set of rules. Lawmakers may learn as soon as Tuesday evening whether or not the provision is allowed under reconciliation, the process that allows Democrats to pass their bill with just 51 votes.
Florida has reported more than 30,000 residents deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to state data.
The state has reported 1,872,923 cases and 30,065 deaths among residents since the start of the pandemic. An additional 530 non-residents have also died, state officials say.
Florida currently ranks fourth in the nation for cases and deaths behind California, New York and Texas, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University, The Covid Tracking Project and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores is urging the Biden administration to more fully supply pharmacies with Covid-19 vaccine, saying demand for vaccines is “stratospheric.”
In a letter sent to the White House and obtained by CNN, the association said only 1 million of 73 million total Covid-19 doses distributed throughout the nation to date were part of the soft launch of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program on Feb. 11.
The program was established as a collaboration between the federal government and 21 national pharmacy networks to increase access to Covid-19 vaccines.
The Biden administration recently announced doses allocated to the program would double.
Anderson said public demand for Covid-19 vaccine appointments at pharmacies has been “stratospheric,” with reports of some pharmacies receiving 1,000 attempts at online appointments for every one appointment made available by a dose of vaccine.
“Acknowledging existing supply limitations, we urge a re-balancing of vaccine allocation to mitigate the situation and allow this critical program to be more fully jumpstarted as anticipated in the National Strategy,” Anderson wrote.
In the letter, the association said many people who are most vulnerable and at-risk to Covid-19 use pharmacies as a primary point to access healthcare. The association said many pharmacies stand ready to launch mobile Covid-19 vaccination clinics into communities of targeted populations.
“We ask the Administration to fully leverage this program because it is designed to maximize the vaccination capacity of the nation’s extensive pharmacy network while holding pharmacies accountable through program performance metrics,” Anderson told the White House officials in his letter.
The nation’s Covid-19 vaccine supply is still limited. States have also been requesting more doses of vaccine.
Top US public health officials backed the World Health Organization’s call for more attention to equitable distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine during a WHO briefing Monday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the United States should not only focus on equitable production and distribution of vaccines domestically, but should also prioritize global accessibility to vaccines.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, also urged countries to share resources to help ensure vaccine accessibility in developing countries.
“It’s encouraging to see how many vaccines are being used worldwide, and to know that more are on their way, but just like one player on a football team cannot win the game alone, we cannot beat this pandemic one country at a time,” she said.
Some more context: President Biden on Friday unveiled a $4 billion US commitment to COVAX, the global effort to provide vaccines to poor countries. The plan includes a $2 billion contribution to the fund and a commitment to spending another $2 billion contingent on contributions from other countries.
Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, declined to comment on whether the Biden administration will follow other G7 leaders who committed to sharing vaccine doses with poorer countries.
More than 64 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC reported that 64,177,474 total doses have been administered – about 85% of the 75,205,940 doses delivered. That’s about 1.1 million more administered doses reported since yesterday.
About 13% of the US population — more than 44.1 million people — have now received at least one dose of vaccine, and nearly 6% of the population – about 19.4 million people —have been fully vaccinated with two doses, CDC data shows.
Note: Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.
