April 1 coronavirus news

Johnson & Johnson said Thursday it still expects to meet its commitments for the promised delivery of an additional 24 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in April, even after a quality problem at one of the company’s contract manufacturers.

The plant that had the problem, run by Baltimore-based Emergent BioSolutions, has not yet been authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration to make the vaccine and has not made any of the doses that are in the current vaccine rollout.

Emergent told CNN the problem affected a single batch of “bulk drug substance” used to make vaccine.

In an emailed statement to CNN, Emergent said its quality control systems caught the batch that “did not meet specifications and our rigorous quality standards” before it got any further. The company said it isolated the material and will now dispose of it.

It did not detail what the ingredient was or how important it was for any resulting vaccine.

Some background: The New York Times reported Wednesday that workers at Emergent accidentally mixed up some of the ingredients that would have gone into as many as 15 million potential doses of vaccine. But Emergent CEO Bob Kramer told CNBC there was not a mixup between vaccines being made at the plant.

“It wasn’t the case where an ingredient from one vaccine contaminated or impacted the other,” he said.

He would not confirm the estimate that the batch would have affected 15 million doses.

“Importantly, the quality control systems worked as designed to detect and isolate this single batch,” Emergent’s statement said. “Discarding a batch of bulk drug substance, while disappointing, does occasionally happen during vaccine manufacturing, which is a complex and multi-step biological process.”

Emergent added that it is confident the company will meet the FDA’s requirements for authorization to make this vaccine. Emergent is also working on Covid-19 vaccines made by other companies.

It’s still unclear when Emergent may get FDA authorization. Johnson & Johnson said it is continuing to work with the FDA and Emergent toward the authorization of the facility.

Keep reading.

A Connecticut resident receives a Covid-19 vaccine on March 14 in Stamford.

More than 100,000 Covid-19 vaccine appointments were made in Connecticut on Thursday — the first day of eligibility for residents ages 16 and older, Gov. Ned Lamont said at a news conference.

About 43% of residents age 16 and older have already been vaccinated, with 65% of those 45 and older. More than 1,250,457 first doses have been administered, with 733,931 residents being fully vaccinated, the governor said.

Lamont said vaccine supply would likely outstrip demand by late April, and that complications in supply from Johnson & Johnson were not expected to immediately impact vaccine roll-out.

More data: Connecticut reported at least 1,580 new Covid-19 cases and at least 14 deaths on Thursday.

Note: These numbers were released by the state’s health agency, and may not line up exactly in real-time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

People who have recovered from Covid-19 get as strong an immune response from just one dose of coronavirus vaccine as the general population gets after two doses, researchers reported Thursday. 

Their study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, lends support to earlier research that indicates vaccination boosts the effect of the immune response to natural infection.

“Overall, we found that individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 developed vaccine-induced antibody responses after a single dose of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) mRNA vaccine that were similar to antibody responses seen after a two-dose vaccination course administered to infection-naive individuals,” Dr. Susan Cheng of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

Cheng said the findings support the argument that people who know they have been infected can get by with just one dose of vaccine – potentially stretching the vaccine supply so more people can be vaccinated more quickly. 

“Overall, individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 developed an antibody response after a single vaccine dose that was comparable to that seen after a two-dose vaccination course administered to individuals without prior infections,” added pathologist Kimia Sobhani of Cedars-Sinai, who worked on the study also.

The team tested more than 1,000 health care workers in the Cedars-Sinai Health System who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. They measured their antibody levels before or up to three days after the first dose, seven to 21 days after the first dose, and within seven to 21 days after the second dose.

The 35 people who had recovered from coronavirus had similar immune responses after one dose as 228 people who had not and who had been given both doses of vaccine – at least for 21 days afterwards. The team did not test people for longer than three weeks.

The approach is not supported by federal health officials and other experts, who say the studies show people need two doses of vaccine for optimal protection, regardless of whether they have been infected.

A member of the medical staff arranges the phials and syringes to prepare the different doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Lyon, France on March 29.

Pfizer said Wednesday its vaccine can protect against Covid-19 for at least six months, but doctors can tell patients that protection will likely last longer, according to a family physician based in Orlando, Florida.

Burrowes noted that data is currently limited by the length of time since people were first vaccinated. It could turn out immunity could last well beyond the six-month figure that Pfizer has announced.

“My patients are asking me all the time, ‘Once I get the vaccine, how long am I immune for?’ And I didn’t have an answer for them,” Dr. Adrian Burrowes told Brooke Baldwin on CNN Newsroom.  

Researchers cannot yet say if people will need boosters of the shot, as people do every year for flu vaccine, or whether the shot will provide long-term protection, as measles vaccines do.

“It’s possible, certainly, that we would have to get recurrent shots for the coronavirus, and have a booster every year like we do with the flu vaccine, but right now focusing in on what we heard today about the efficacy of the vaccine and it lasting six months is great progress,” Burrowes said.

The contract manufacturer whose Baltimore facility suffered a quality control failure affecting Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine said its quality control systems “worked as designed” and caught and isolated a single bad batch of “drug substance.”

The company did not provide details of just where in the manufacturing process the quality control broke down and did not say precisely which vaccine ingredient was affected. The Baltimore-area plant makes vaccines for Johnson & Johnson, as well as other vaccine companies.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that a mix-up at the plant affected 15 million doses of vaccine.

The plant has not yet been authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration to make the vaccine, and the affected doses had not been shipped. The FDA inspects and authorizes all vaccine manufacturing facilities that supply product to the US.

“At Emergent, safety and quality are our top priorities. Our Bayview facility has been designed and validated to meet all current Good Manufacturing Practices,” the company said in its statement to CNN. “In addition, there are rigorous quality checks throughout our vaccine manufacturing processes, and through these checks a single batch of drug substance was identified that did not meet specifications and our rigorous quality standards. We isolated this batch and it will be disposed of properly.” 

Johnson & Johnson told CNN on Wednesday that it continues to work with the FDA and Emergent toward the authorization of the facility. Johnson & Johnson has sent additional experts in manufacturing and technical operations and quality to be on site at the facility to supervise and to support all manufacturing of their vaccine.

On Thursday Johnson & Johnson said that it does “expect to meet our commitments” with the promised delivery of an additional 24 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in April.

The company met its commitment to deliver 20 million doses in March. 

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) announced that it has been notified of what it says is the first case statewide of the P.1 variant which was first identified in Brazil

The case is a Bay County resident and was reported by the commercial lab Quest.

Contact tracing is currently underway.

“We are concerned about the discovery of another variant in Michigan,” Elizabeth Hertel, MDHHS director, said Thursday.

A nurse administers a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at Wayside Christian Mission on March 15 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Nearly 154 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC reported that 153,631,404 total doses have been administered, about 77% of the 200,496,635 doses delivered. 

That’s about 3.4 million more doses reported since yesterday, for a record-high seven-day average of about 2.9 million doses per day. The seven-day average has topped 2.5 million doses per day for more than a week.  

Thirty percent of the US population — about 99.6 million people — has received at least one dose of vaccine, and nearly 17% — about 56 million people — have been fully vaccinated. 

Note: Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported. 

Bottles of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson Janssen Covid-19 vaccine sit on March 25 in Los Angeles.

Brazil’s health regulatory agency Anvisa has approved Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

On March 19, Brazil’s health ministry signed a contract with Johnson & Johnson for the purchase of 38 million vaccine doses to be delivered between August and November of this year. 

Brazil has now authorized the use of at least four Covid-19 vaccines, others being Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca and CoronaVac. 

Over recent weeks, Brazil announced it has signed contracts for the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines from Russia (Sputnik V), India (Covaxin) and the US (Moderna). However, Anvisa rejected on Wednesday India’s Covaxin due to technical information related to the “Good Manufacturing Practices of the laboratory.”

Currently, the only Covid-19 vaccines being administered in Brazil are AstraZeneca doses locally produced by the Brazilian Fiocruz Institute, and CoronaVac doses produced by the Butantan research institute in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks during a press conference in Annapolis, Maryland, on April 1.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday announced that every resident who wants a Covid-19 vaccine can now pre-register for an appointment at a mass vaccination site. 

“Though we are now opening pre-registration to all Marylanders, individuals who are currently eligible under phase one and phase two, but have still not yet been vaccinated, will continue to be prioritized,” said Hogan at a briefing Thursday.  

“As of this week 75% of all Marylanders over the age of 65 have been vaccinated,” he said. Hogan said the remaining 25% have not been in contact with health officials or don’t want the vaccine.

The governor also announced that beginning Friday the state’s Eastern Shore mass vaccination site in Salisbury will open with no appointment necessary, there will be a “walk-up line for any eligible Marylander,” he said. 

On Thursday, “the first federal mobile vaccination units in the nation, arrived at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Reisterstown,” the governor said. 

“In the coming days, these 32-foot trailers will be fanning out across the state,” said Hogan. 

The mobile units will “help us get more shots into arms in remote areas and zip codes that rank high on the CDC social vulnerability index,” the governor said. 

Charles Gischlar, deputy director for Maryland’s Department of Health, told CNN the mobile units have a soft launch tentatively set to begin on Saturday and are expected to be fully operational on Tuesday.  

A pharmacist prepares the Pfizer vaccine at a pop-up vaccination clinic in Chinatown on March 26 in New York City.

The protection offered by the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines is likely to last longer than six months and may even last years, vaccine experts told CNN. 

Pfizer/BioNTech said earlier Thursday that its ongoing clinical trial showed its vaccine protected volunteers from the virus for at least six months. Protection was more than 91% against symptomatic disease, the company said.

Plus, in South Africa, no one who got the vaccine had symptomatic disease and the trial was ongoing when a worrying variant of the virus called B.1.351 was circulating.

“Hopefully the protection might last years but we won’t know until we know,” he added.

Dr. Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied mRNA vaccines like Pfizer’s and Moderna’s for years, says the strong protection after six months means the vaccines are likely to protect people for even longer – years, possibly.

 “The vaccine elicits such high levels of antibodies that even when confronted with a variant … there’s still meaningful protection,” Hensley told CNN.

“These mRNA vaccines – it really seems the level of antibodies they elicit are so high, they are persistent. And the combination of having very high levels of antibodies and persistent levels of protection are the recipe for a very long level of protection against these variants,” Hensley added. “I would not be surprised if this is a vaccine that we only get once.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that protection from these vaccines is likely to last longer than six months.

Studies of people’s immune responses after being vaccinated show they produce high levels of antibodies and then, after a few weeks, the body produces immune cells, known as B cells, that continue to produce fresh protective antibodies, Fauci noted. That makes for lasting immune protection.

“You never know how much longer because you can’t predict out that far,” Fauci added. “It’s not going to be like six months and three days. It’s going to continue out longer. That’s what you mean when you say six months and likely longer.”

Some more background: Both Pfizer and Moderna use a technology called messenger RNA or mRNA delivery as the basis of their vaccines. The approach has been tested against other viruses and studies in animals and people show they stimulate a strong and broad immune response.

The companies have received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer says it will now seek full approval. As part of the process, they both must continue their clinical trials for two years and will continue to report safety and efficacy data as they get it.

Editor’s Note: It’s not known how much longer Pfizer’s vaccine works right now because the data doesn’t go back further than six months. Pfizer’s trial began on July 27, and the data released Thursday looks at how the participants in the study faired six months after their second dose.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said the state is seeing an “uptick in new cases” despite the race to vaccinate. 

Over 1.3 million people in the state are currently fully vaccinated the governor said, including more than 80% of people over the age of 75. About 2.3 million first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered, he added.

“We’ve been a nation leader over the past several weeks, outperforming almost every state in the country,” Baker said of vaccine administration. Over $20 million has been invested into the 20 hardest-hit Covid-19 communities in Massachusetts, “to reduce barriers to vaccination and to promote equity,” he explained. 

The state is on course to receive 100,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine next week, according to Marylou Sudders, the state’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. “That (potentially) will be 100,000 fully vaccinated individuals next week,” Sudders explained. 

However, the state is reporting 2,252 new cases of Covid-19 and a 2.53% positivity rate, according to the state’s Covid-19 dashboard. 

There are 36 new deaths, according to the data. 

Massachusetts currently has 690 patients hospitalized with Covid-19. 169 of those patients are in intensive cate, and 93 patients are on ventilators, the dashboard shows. 

In total, the state has 598,177 cases of Covid-19, and a statewide death toll of 16,844 deaths. 

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 US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

An empty Bicentenario Park during lockdown in Santiago, Chile, on Monday, March 29, 2021. 

Authorities in Chile announced beginning next Monday the country’s borders will be closed for the entire month of April for both citizens and foreign residents. 

A special permit can be requested in the event of an extraordinary situation. 

The entry of non-resident foreigners in the country is prohibited for 30 days, with the exception of those who are not on the World Health Organization list of community transmission.

Chile’s national curfew schedule was updated. Starting next Monday the curfew will begin from 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. local time, according to authorities.

On Thursday, Chile’s Ministry of Health reported at least 7,830 new coronavirus cases, the highest since the start of pandemic. This brings the total number of cases in the country to at least 1,003,406. The ministry said at least 193 new deaths have been recorded, bringing the total number of deaths from Covid-19 to at least 23,328. 

Bolivia will close its border with Brazil starting on Friday for seven days to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infections, according to Bolivian President Luis Arce. Authorities are worried about the spread of variants in Brazil, in particular, because of geographical proximity. 

Additional measures will be in place in border towns where the circulation of variants has been confirmed, Arce said in a series of tweets Thursday on his official account. Other border closures will also be considered, he said. 

Bolivia’s national coronavirus mitigation measures are extended through April 30, Arce said. The regulations allow local governments to set operation hours for shops, social events and other activities. 

The country has so far recorded a total of at least 272,411 coronavirus cases and 12,257 deaths, according to the latest numbers released by the health ministry. 

Thursday’s opening day baseball game between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals has been postponed due to Covid-19 issues.

Major League Baseball said the game was called off because of ongoing contact tracing involving members of the Nationals organization.

On Wednesday, Nationals manager Mike Rizzo told reporters an unnamed player on the team had tested positive for Covid-19, and due to subsequent contact tracing four other players and one staff member were placed in quarantine. 

The postponed game was originally scheduled to start at 7:09 p.m. ET at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. The league said the game will not be rescheduled for Friday “out of an abundance of caution.”

Per MLB’s health and safety protocols for the 2021 season, the player who tested positive will be required to isolate for a minimum of 10 days, receive appropriate care and monitoring from the club medical staff, and be cleared by baseball’s joint Covid-19 committee and the individual’s team physician, following a mandatory cardiac evaluation and a determination that the individual no longer presents a risk of infection to others.

The Nationals are next scheduled to play on April 3 against the Mets. 

People ride bikes as they visit Governors Island on July 15, 2020 in New York City.

New York City’s Governors Island – home to parks and free art displays in the city — will reopen on May 1, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday during his daily press briefing.

Patrons of Governor’s Island can visit “to enjoy open space and car-free natural surroundings, unmatched views of New York Harbor and surrounding skylines, historic settings, dozens of free public art exhibitions, cultural programs and activities, and diverse selection of food and beverage vendors,” according to its website. 

For the first time, there will be ferries serving two locations in Brooklyn, de Blasio added.

New York City has administered 4,134,399 vaccine doses total, de Blasio said.

There are 3,491 new reported cases of Covid-19 on a seven-day average and a 6.64% positivity rate for Covid-19 citywide on a seven-day rolling average, marking an increase in both metrics from the day prior. The city reports 194 people were admitted to NYC hospitals for suspected Covid-19 with a confirmed positivity of 59.8% and a hospitalization rate of 3.84 per 100,000 people, de Blasio said.

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 US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

People march during a Stop Asian Hate rally in downtown Detroit, Michigan on March 27, 2021.

It’s not just on the streets, and it’s not just in America. Asians around the world are experiencing increased discrimination since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and many of them say this is happening at work.

If you identify as Asian and have recently experienced racial discrimination in a work setting, we want to hear from you.

We are looking for submissions from audiences all around the world, wherever you may be.

What have your experiences been over the past year? Have you been harassed, verbally or physically assaulted, targeted, or excluded at work or while looking for work? Do you believe this is in connection with the pandemic?

A health worker vaccinates an elderly person with the Biontech-Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at a temporary vaccination clinic in a church in Sollentuna, north of Stockholm on March 2, 2021.

Sweden expects to offer a Covid-19 vaccine to all adults by Aug. 15, two months later than hoped due to a shortfall of shots, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) told CNN on Thursday.

In a statement to CNN, SALAR blamed vaccine manufacturers who have delivered less vaccines than originally agreed and have reduced their delivery forecasts. 

The statement added it would produce forecasts every 14 days to clarify if the goal can be achieved. 

“Our common goal remains to urgently offer the population a vaccine against Covid-19. The revised agreement will provide as many people as possible with protection as quickly as possible,” Minister of social affairs Lena Hallengren said.

An Egyptian medical worker administers a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on March 4, 2021 in Cairo on the first day of vaccination in Egypt.

Egypt received 854,400 dozes of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine early Thursday morning, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population and World Health Organization (WHO). 

The doses were shipped via the COVAX program – an alliance co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO, with the aim of manufacturing and distributing equitable access of Covid-19 vaccines t every country in the world.

According to the ministry the first segment of the population to receive the vaccine will be health workers, the elderly and people with chronic diseases. 

Dr. Hala Zayed, Minister of Health and Population, expressed her gratitude to the World Health Organization and UNICEF for their continued support to Egypt in containing the Coronavirus pandemic.

With a population of little more than 103 million people, Egypt reported 699 new cases of Covid-19 infections and 39 related Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of people infected with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic to 202,131 and a total of 11,995 related Covid-19 deaths, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population numbers. 

A pharmacist prepares the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in New York on March 26.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday new data on Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine is encouraging but doesn’t mean the company’s vaccine is better than the other Covid-19 vaccines authorized for use in the US.

Earlier Thursday, Pfizer announced that ongoing Phase 3 clinical trials of its vaccine confirmed that protection against Covid-19 lasts at least six months after the second dose. 

The vaccine also appeared to be fully effective against the virus variant first identified in South Africa, B.1.351.

He said that Pfizer had done the study, and it looked really good. He noted he “would not be surprised at all” if Moderna and other vaccine companies got similar results if they did the same thing.

Travelers are at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, on March 26.

March was the busiest month for air travel since the coronavirus cratered the industry nearly a year ago, according to new data from the Transportation Security Administration.

The TSA recorded screening just more than 38 million people last month.  

In all, the agency saw more than a million travelers in 26 of 31 days in March.

The agency screened 1.28 million people on Wednesday, marking three full weeks of more than 1 million screenings.  

Despite the pandemic-era highs, March 2021 is about half, or 53%, of the volume TSA saw in March 2019. In March 2020, screening numbers dropped off as the coronavirus spread.