In California, 958 new cases of the coronavirus were reported Wednesday, June 2, according to end-of-day totals on public health websites, bringing the total number of cases so far to 3,764,093.
There were 41 new deaths reported statewide Wednesday, for a total of 62,994 people who have died from COVID-19.
The state reported 32 more hospitalizations from the previous day, increasing the total hospitalizations of those infected with the coronavirus to 1,362.
According to the California Department of Public Health, 37.1 million vaccine doses have been administered in the state and 43% of residents are now fully vaccinated.
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins University, the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health, The Associated Press, reporting counties and news sources
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 50% of Kansans 18 and older have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, if you count adults who have at least one dose of vaccine, the number climbs to 59.9%.
Since Wednesday morning, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment says 6,051 Kansans got their first dose of vaccine and 5,058 got their second dose.
In all, the KDHE says 42.5% of Kansans of all ages have at least one dose in them, and 35.8% of Kansans have finished getting their COVID-19 vaccinations.
Im pleased at our states consistent progress in getting shots in arms but we still cant take our foot off the gas, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly said. Every Kansan must get vaccinated to protect our communities, our schools, and our economy from future outbreaks, and maintain our steady return to normal.
The Kansas Speedway is offering all Kansans of driving age the chance to take a couple of laps around the track as long as they get tested for the coronavirus or get vaccinated against COVID. The event is Friday and Saturday, June 4 and 5. Click here to learn more.
The KDHE says the coronavirus is responsible for four more deaths in the state, bringing the death toll to 5,084. There have also been 40 new hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 in the past two days.
Since Wednesday, 332 Kansans tested positive for the coronavirus, while 2,480 have tested negative.
The KDHE releases the vaccine and coronavirus updates each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Kansas County coronavirus cases updated: June 4, 2021Weekly doses updated June 2, 2021Sources:Kansas Department of Health and EnvironmentOklahoma State Department of Health
For more than 20 years, the husband and wife were stalwarts of their evangelical community: pastors who founded a small church in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where they led services and distributed food and clothing to the needy.
Now, the couple are pariahs. They have been blamed by the authorities for a major coronavirus outbreak, are facing a criminal investigation and have been held accountable on social media for a lockdown in their neighborhood and a ban on religious services nationwide.
The Protestant pastors, Phuong Van Tan and Vo Xuan Loan, who are hospitalized with Covid-19, are accused by city health officials of allowing parishioners to pray together without wearing masks, a violation of coronavirus protocols that officials say resulted in an outbreak in May linked to more than 200 cases.
Vietnam has prided itself on successfully containing the coronavirus since the pandemic began. As the countrys neighbors tallied their dead and imposed nationwide lockdowns, the Vietnamese government kept the virus at bay by relying on strict quarantine measures, diligent contact tracing and localized lockdowns.
The Communist nation has recorded 7,572 cases and just 48 deaths since January of last year, according to a New York Times database. By contrast, nearby Malaysia, which imposed a national lockdown on Tuesday, has recently recorded higher case numbers in a single day.
But the church cluster in Ho Chi Minh City, outbreaks at factories in the countrys north and the emergence of a troubling new variant all suggest that Vietnams luck may be running out. More than half of the countrys cases have occurred in the past month.
Vietnam is now officially entering the pandemic, Tran Van Phuc, a doctor who posts frequently about the virus, wrote on Facebook. The next 12 months will be the most difficult in controlling the number of infections so as not to overwhelm the health system and limit the number of deaths.
Dr. Phuc said the countrys low rate of vaccinations combined with the new outbreaks place Vietnam in the position that many countries faced early last year.
On Monday, the government ordered a two-week lockdown of the Go Vap District of Ho Chi Minh City, home to about 700,000 people and the neighborhood in which the couples church, Revival Ekklesia Mission, is located. Residents were ordered to stay home as much as they could, work from home if possible, avoid other people and wear masks in public. A smaller part of the city, Thanh Loc Ward in District 12, was placed under the same order.
Large gatherings have been banned across the city, Vietnams most populous, and the government said it planned to test its nine million inhabitants.
Health officials believe that the church cluster started with Ms. Loan, who traveled to Hanoi, the capital, in late April and began experiencing symptoms about two weeks later. They contend that churchgoers gathered in close quarters for their services, did not wear masks and did not report their illnesses.
Ms. Loan, her husband, Mr. Tan, and the couples son, daughter and son-in-law are all hospitalized with the virus.
These days, in our hospital beds, we grieve both physically and mentally about what is going on, Mr. Tan, 60, wrote in a Facebook post, in which he asked for forgiveness. On behalf of the entire church, my wife and I, as pastors, would like to sincerely apologize to all the community.
Reached at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, where she is being treated, Ms. Loan, 65, contradicted the official account of her illness. She believes she contracted the virus after her return from Hanoi and was not the source of the cluster.
June 3, 2021, 12:25 p.m. ET
She also denied that parishioners gathered without wearing masks. She said the church had received a donation of 2,000 masks that she distributed to church members and neighbors.
It is not true, she said. I am the one who always asked people from my church to wear a mask. I brought masks to all the people of the church and to people in the community.
Ms. Loan and Mr. Tan founded the Revival Ekklesia Mission in the 1990s after the government dissolved the evangelical church where they had belonged. Theirs is one of many such small churches in Vietnam, which historically were harassed by the Communist government. But the authorities have gradually become more tolerant of religion, and the church received a government license in 2005.
The church is also their home. Before the pandemic, services attracted up to 50 people, Ms. Loan said.
The cluster at the church coincided with outbreaks elsewhere in Vietnam and the discovery of a dangerous new variant of the virus that combines traits of variants found earlier in India (recently renamed the Delta variant) and in Britain (now known as Alpha).
Officials say the variant found in Vietnam, which does not have a Greek letter appellation, becomes transmissible soon after infection and spreads easily through the air. Four cases of the variant have been identified through genetic sequencing, health officials said. They believe it is already widespread in the country and is partly to blame for the surge in cases. The current outbreak has now spread to at least 30 of Vietnams municipalities and provinces.
The new variant has not been detected in the church cluster. But five patients connected to the church were found to have the Delta variant, which itself is highly transmissible.
Larger clusters have been found in factories in two provinces in northern Vietnam where manufacturing for international companies is concentrated. Health officials said crowded, poorly ventilated workplaces contributed to the viruss spread.
Perhaps because of the governments past success in containing the virus, it has been slow to acquire vaccines. With a population of about 97 million people, Vietnam has administered just over one million doses so far, according to a New York Times database, one of the lowest rates in the world.
In recent weeks, officials have redoubled their efforts to procure vaccines and have called on businesses, organizations and the public to contribute ideas and money to speed up the process of importing them.
Vietnams president, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, said on Sunday that he had written a letter to President Biden praising his effort to make vaccines more available globally and proposing that the two countries strengthen cooperation in the research and production of Covid-19 vaccines, the local news media reported.
With the surge in infections, an attendant wave of fear has gripped the country, and the court of public opinion has weighed in to blame and criticize the pastors on social media. There, users accused the couple of polluting the community and operating an infectious society. Others called for Ms. Loan to be jailed.
Some in the community, however, said the government was making scapegoats of the couple when it should have done more to prevent the surge by curtailing travel in April, when infections began edging up.
They are also just victims of the pandemic, said Thuan Dang, 33, who was employed by a tour company until restrictions on the arrival of foreign tourists left him jobless last year.
The pastors daughter, Phuong Tuong Vi, said in a post on Facebook that the events had been traumatic and the insults hurtful. She said that church members always complied with the regulations and that health officials still have not pinpointed where the cluster originated. Even so, she said, her parents face the loss of the church that they built.
At this very moment, the state has not found the source of the infection, she said, and we are both victims and criminals.
BOGOT, Colombia In Colombia, nearly five hundred people a day have died of the coronavirus over the last three weeks, the nations most dramatic daily death rates yet. Argentina is going through the worst moment since the pandemic began, according to its president. Scores are dying daily in Paraguay and Uruguay, which now have the highest reported fatality rates per person in the world.
The vaccines are coming too late, said Mara Victoria Castillo, whose 33-year-old husband, Juan David, died in May as he waited for the Colombian government to extend shots to his age group.
Deep into the second year of the pandemic, the world is dividing along a powerful, and painful, line: Those who have vaccines, and those who do not.
As rich nations like the United States prepare for a return to normalcy at least half of the populations there and in Britain and Israel have received at least one dose of a vaccine, sending cases plummeting some poorer nations, scrambling for shots and heaving under weary health systems and exhausted economies, are seeing their worst outbreaks since the start of the pandemic.
This is the case in Malaysia, Nepal and other nations in Asia. But in few places is the situation as bleak as South America, which has the highest rate of new infections in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay have all ranked in the top 10 in cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.
Social networks in Paraguay have become obituaries in motion: Rest in peace professor, reads one. My mother has died, reads another, my heart is broken into a million pieces. In Argentina, in-person classes in Buenos Aires province, the countrys most populous district, have largely been called off as officials scramble to control cases.
Ms. Castillo said the death of her husband, a father of three, had left her so disillusioned that she has come to believe the globes only solution is God.
Six weeks ago, Claudia Lpez, the mayor of Colombias capital, Bogot, told residents they should ready themselves for the worst two weeks of their lives. But instead of reaching a peak, followed by a fall, new cases and deaths have surged and then stayed there.
Some governments Argentina, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand and others have responded to the sharpening health crisis by putting new lockdowns in place. Others have given up on that strategy altogether. In late May, Ms. Lpez announced that the city would reopen on June 8, and that she was repealing nearly all movement restrictions related to the pandemic. All students should return to school that day, she added.
It sounds absolutely contradictory, from an epidemiological point of view, to have 97 percent ICU occupancy and to announce a reopening, she said, but from the point of view of the social, economic and political context, with deep institutional mistrust, unacceptable poverty, and unemployment that is especially affecting women and young people, it is necessary to do so.
In Colombia, rising virus cases and deaths have coincided with the largest explosion of social anger in the countrys recent history, bringing thousands of people to the streets to protest poverty exacerbated by the pandemic, among other issues, and prompting concern that the protest movement will spread throughout the region.
Experts say that the only way to stamp out the virus in these regions and the world is to rapidly increase vaccinations, which have raced ahead in the United States and Europe while lagging in many other countries around the world.
June 3, 2021, 12:25 p.m. ET
In North America, 60 vaccine doses have been administered for every 100 people, compared with 27 in South America and 21 in Asia, according to data from the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. In Africa, the rate is two doses per 100 people.
During a two-day trip to Costa Rica for meetings with Central American officials, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was asked repeatedly about American plans for vaccine distribution to the hard-hit region, where vaccination rates remain low.
In March, the Biden administration said it would send 2.5 million vaccine doses to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada as a loan. By April, Mexico said it had received 2.7 million.
In all, President Biden has committed to distributing 80 million vaccine doses overseas by the end of June.
Appearing on Tuesday with Costa Ricas president, Mr. Blinken provided no specifics, but said the Biden administration would announce sometime in the next week to two weeks its plans for the process by which we will distribute those vaccines, what the criteria are, how we will do it. He later said the announcement could come as early as Thursday.
About 11 billion shots are needed to vaccinate 70 percent of the worlds population, the rough threshold needed for herd immunity, according to researchers at Duke University, but only a fraction of that number has been manufactured so far.
The Biden administration has also said it will donate $4 billion to Covax, a World Health Organization program that will supply vaccines to countries in need.
The reasons for the surges vary across countries, but together they reflect the challenge of maintaining vigilance against a highly transmissible, airborne virus for long periods of time, balanced against economic and social considerations, said Claire Standley, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University.
Globally, new infections have declined from their peak of more than 800,000 recorded cases a day in late April. Still, half a million people are reported infected with the virus daily, and there were more infections in the first five months of this year than in all of 2020.
As the pandemic drags on, countries that have kept cases low for more than a year, such as Australia and Singapore, are seeing pockets of new infections that have prompted partial lockdowns and further delayed plans to reopen borders.
Global vaccine access has been woefully inequitable, with a handful of high-income countries dominating procurement agreements and receipt of initial batches, Dr. Standley said.
Many less-wealthy countries have not received the vaccines they were promised.
Among them is Vietnam, which in 2020 kept infections low through rigorous quarantining and contact tracing. The Vietnamese government has ordered vaccines from multiple providers but received doses only from the Covax global vaccine center and the Russian government.
Barely one million people, or 1 percent of Vietnams population, have received even one shot, and the country is now experiencing its worst outbreak yet: 4,000 cases in the past month, more than the total in the previous 16 months.
In South America, countries that imposed lockdown measures found that they did not function as well as in the United States and Europe at stopping the spread of the virus because many low-income day laborers had to continue to work, said Matthew Richmond, a sociologist at the London School of Economics. As new outbreaks emerge, the regions lack of investment in medical care, especially in rural areas, has put health systems at risk of collapse and delayed the rollout of vaccines, he said.
The combined effect of social inequality and weak state capacity have meant these countries have not been able to reduce transmission, treat those with severe symptoms or vaccinate populations at the same scale or speed as in the United States and Europe, Dr. Richmond said.
As the United States and Europe barrel at least, seemingly toward a summer in which vaccinated people are once again able to hug, travel and host dinner parties, a sort of vaccine apartheid could emerge in which rich countries shut off travel with nations where the virus remains endemic, Dr. Richmond said. But the newest outbreaks underscore that as long as the virus circulates widely, border closures could mean little. And new variants could emerge that are more resistant to vaccines.
The ongoing devastation being wreaked by Covid-19 in the global south should be reason enough for the rich countries to want to enable a quick and cheap global vaccine rollout, Dr. Richmond said. If its not, enlightened self-interest should lead them to the same conclusion.
Reporting was contributed by Michael Crowley in San Jos, Costa Rica; Santi Carneri in Asuncin, Paraguay; Daniel Politi in Buenos Aires; and Sofa Villamil in Bogot, Colombia.
Posted: Jun 3, 2021 / 11:36 AM EDT / Updated: Jun 3, 2021 / 12:36 PM EDT
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) For the first time since last year, Rhode Islands COVID-19 briefing will be held at the State House instead of at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
Gov. Dan McKee and the R.I. Department of Health are scheduled to hold their bi-weekly briefing at 1 p.m.
Watch the briefing live right here on WPRI.com and in the WPRI 12 news app.
McKee announced that COVID-19 briefings will now be held on a bi-weekly basis, along with bi-weekly briefings on issues unrelated to the pandemic.
The outdoor mask requirement for all Rhode Islanders, regardless of their vaccination status, was dropped on Wednesday by the governor.
The state also passed the milestone of over 550,000 people being fully vaccinated.
With more than half of Rhode Islands population now fully immunized, McKee announced at his last briefing that they would begin winding down operations at the mass vaccination sites in South Kingstown and Woonsocket.
McKee is expected to announce when the mass vaccination site at the Dunkin Donuts Center will begin ramping down at the briefing Thursday.
A school guidance timeline is also expected to be discussed.
The next COVID-19 briefing is scheduled for Thursday, June 17.
The latest:
Ontario students will not be returning to school for the remainder of this academic year, Premier Doug Ford confirmed Wednesday.
He said while many of the stakeholdershe consulted last week suggested reopening schools on a regional basis, he said the medical input he got could not guarantee that sending kids back to in-person learning wouldn't lead to thousands of new COVID-19 cases in the province. He said the focus instead would be to get kids outdoors.
"I want schools to hostin-person outdoor graduation events and other opportunities for you to meet with your friends and reconnect outside before the end of the year," he said.
"It is unequivocally a wrong decision," said Dr. Barry Pakesof the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health, following the announcement. Pakestold the CBC's Andrew Nichols thatschools have never been a primary source of virus transmission in the population.
WATCH | Pakes reacts toFord's decision:
Ford said he is also hopeful that the province might be able to enter Stage 1 of reopening before mid-June as currently planned, depending on what public health officials advise.
Ontariohealth officials on Wednesday reported 733 new cases of COVID-19 and 25 additional deaths. Hospitalizations in the province stood at 708, with 576 people in ICU due to COVID-19.
Ontario's stay-at-home order lifted Wednesday, but most other public health measures remain in place.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 1:10 p.m. ET
WATCH | Variant 1st seen in Indiaa 'major concern' for Canada, respirologist says:
As of 6p.m. ET on Wednesday, Canada had reported 1,385,279confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 29,277considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths stood at 25,612. More than24.5million vaccine doses havebeen administered so far across the country, with nearly 60 per cent of adults now immunized with at least one dose, according toCBC's vaccine tracker.
Nova Scotia entered the first phase of itsreopening plan on Wednesday, just hours beforeNewfoundland and Labrador residents learned the details of that province's plan to lift COVID-19 restrictions.
The first step in Nova Scotia reopens schools in most of the province and allows retail stores to operate at 25 per cent capacity and restaurant patios to reopen at maximum capacity. Schools in the Halifax and Sydney areas are set to open their doors on Thursday.
The province reported 17 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and two additional deaths.The province has also confirmed its first case of a rare blood-clotting condition known as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia a man in his 40s who received his first dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in early May.
Officials say he developed symptoms about two weeks after vaccination and is recovering after receiving treatment.
Nova Scotia's five-step plan is based on vaccination rates and other healthindicators, including case numbers and hospitalizations, but a spokesperson for hotel operators is urging the government to add a "little bit of clarity" around timelines.
The shift in Nova Scotia came just hours beforehealth officials inNewfoundland and Labradoroutlined their plan for reopening.
Newfoundland and Labrador which will move through a multi-phase reopening plan tentatively set to begin with a transition period onJune 15reported 17 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
New Brunswickhealth officials reported 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.The province had140 active reported cases of the infection with seven patients in hospital, including two in intensive care, officials said.
There were no new cases reported onPrince Edward Islandon Wednesday.
In Quebec, health officials reported 288 new cases of COVID-19 and five additional deaths on Wednesday.
Across the North, there were no new cases reported inNunavut, YukonortheNorthwest Territorieson Wednesday.
The Northwest Territories saidvisitors fromYukon are now exempt from its isolation requirements.
Northwest Territories residents and non-residents need to submit an exemption request to the public health office.Travellers applying for the exception must have been in Yukon or the Northwest Territories for at least 14 days.
InManitoba, where dozens of critical care patients have been transferred out of province for treatment, health officials on Wednesday reported 267new cases of COVID-19 and sixadditional deaths.
Alberta has also offered to help ease some of the stress on Manitoba's health-care system, and said it will take up to10 patientsat ICUs in Edmonton or Calgary.Forty-six patients have alreadybeen sent to Ontario and Saskatchewan.
Manitoba Health announced Wednesday that a 30-year-old man from the province who had been treated in an Ontario ICU since May 20 died of COVID-19.
Saskatchewan,meanwhile, reported 130new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday and one additional death. The update came one day after Premier Scott Moe said that the province's mandatory mask order could be lifted as early asJuly 11.
Health officials inAlbertareported four deaths and 410new cases onWednesday, nearly double the case number from the previous day. The government isfacing questionsabout a dinner attended by Premier Jason Kenney and three of his ministers, which appeared to break public health guidelines.
British Columbiahealth officials reported four deaths and 194 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the second day in a row the province has recordedfewer than 200.
-From CBC News and The Canadian Press, last updated at 7 p.m. ET
As ofWednesday evening, more than171.5million cases of COVID-19 had been reported around the world, according to a database from Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 3.6million.
In theAmericas,U.S. President Joe Biden announced a "month of action" to urge more Americans to get vaccinated before the July 4 holiday, including an early summer sprint of incentives and a slew of new steps to ease barriers and make getting shots more appealing to those who haven't received them.
Biden is closing in on his goal of getting 70 per centof adults at least partially vaccinated by Independence Day essential to his aim of returning the nation to something approaching a pre-pandemic sense of normalcy this summer.
In theAsia-Pacificregion,50 days out from the Olympics,COVID-19 case numbers are still high and hospitals remain under strain despite a state of emergency inJapan. The country is also one of the least vaccinated in the world.
Still,Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga remains determined to host the Summer Games, already postponed for a year, and has extended the current emergency until June 20, a month before the Games are to start.
Taiwan reported a rise in domestic infections after six days of falls, and unveiled details of a mass vaccination plan that aims to eventually cover 1.7 million people a week.
In theMiddle East,Israel's Health Ministry said it found the small number of heart inflammation cases observed mainly in young men who received Pfizer's vaccine in Israel were likely linked to their vaccination.
InAfrica,Egypt aims to vaccinate 40 per centof its population against coronavirus by the end of 2021, the prime minister said in a televised address on Wednesday. By the end of Wednesday, 2.5 million people will have been vaccinated from a total of sixmillion people who signed up on the government's registration platform, Mostafa Madbouly said.
In Europe,French President Emmanuel Macron is moving up the COVID-19 vaccination schedule, saying youths aged12 to 18 can get inoculations starting June 15. The announcement came just three days after 18-year olds began getting vaccinated.
Spain's government and regional authorities have agreed to allow some bars and night clubs to reopen, 10 months after they closed nationwide.Health Minister Carolina Darias says low-risk regions could open their bars until 2 a.m. with 50 per centof indoor capacity, while bars in high-risk areas will remain closed.
-From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 9:45p.m. ET
(Washington, DC) The Districts reported data for Tuesday, June 1, 2021 includes 11 new positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall positive case total to 49,011.
The District reported that one additional resident lost his life due to COVID-19.
Tragically, 1,135 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.
Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.
Below is a summary of the Districts current ReOpening Metrics.
Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.
Patient Gender
Total Positive Cases
%
Female
%
Male
%
Unknown
%
All
49,011*
100
25,516
100
23,304
100
191
100
Unknown
64
<1
20
<1
39
<1
5
3
0-18
6,314
13
3,130
12
3,159
14
25
13
19-30
13,202
27
7,234
28
5,905
25
63
33
31-40
9,710
20
4,994
20
4,676
20
40
21
41-50
6,277
13
3,167
13
3,094
13
16
8
51-60
5,796
12
2,856
11
2,922
13
18
10
61-70
4,182
9
2,099
8
2,073
9
10
5
71-80
2,104
4
1,138
5
961
4
5
3
The UNs health agency said on Thursday that it detected a surge of coronavirus cases late last month in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
An exponential rise in the spread of Sars-CoV-2 virus has been recorded in Kinshasa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a weekly report.
The rise mirrored a clear deterioration in the wider province of Kinshasa, it said.
A DRC health ministry official confirmed: The third wave of Covid-19 is already there its the Indian (Delta) and South African (Beta) variants.
This wave could be deadlier than the previous ones, the official said, blaming lax adherence to social distancing and face masks.
The WHO said the mortality rate across the country was unchanged at 2.5%, but noted concern about the presence of the Delta variant in Kinshasa.
Prof Jean-Marie Kayembe, a member of DRCs anti-coronavirus taskforce, told the UNs Radio Okapi that the region was in the third [wave] at the moment a conclusion, he said, that stemmed from rising numbers of cases and saturation of healthcare centres.
Kinshasa has a population of about 15 million people, many of whom live in poor, crowded conditions. So far, the city and DRC itself have been relatively spared from the impact of coronavirus compared with South Africa the worst-hit country in Africa and states in other continents.
However, the daily national figures have risen from several dozen cases in past weeks to 243 on Thursday. As of Wednesday, the DRC had recorded 32,176 confirmed cases of the disease, of which 789 were fatal.
The capital accounted for 22,348 of these cases, many of them concentrated in the wealthy district of Gombe, home to prosperous Congolese and travelling expatriates.
Thirty-two legislators and several aides to President Flix Tshisekedi are among those who have died.
Vermont and Hawaii passed the 80% threshold for one vaccine shot.
June 2, 2021, 9:46 PM
5 min read
A dozen states passed a major vaccine milestone Wednesday as more than 70% of their adult populations have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose, according to health data.
The situation, however, contrasts with a handful of states, most of which are in the South, that have not broken the halfway mark with their adult residents.
A majority of the states that have broken the 70% threshold for first doses among adults are in the Northeast, such as Massachusetts, 78.7%; Connecticut, 75.6%; Maine, 74.3%; and New Jersey, 74.1%., according to the latest health data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More states and territories are on the way to crossing this mark, including New York, 68.1%; Virginia, 67.5%; Washington state, 69.5%; and Washington D.C, 68.4%., the CDC data showed.
A member of the Maryland National Guard administers a Moderna coronavirus vaccine at CASA de Maryland's Wheaton Welcome Center on May 21, 2021, in Wheaton, Md.
Other parts of the country, however, are struggling to reach 50% of adults at least partially vaccinated.
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming still have less than 50% of their adult population vaccinated with at least one COVID vaccine dose as of Wednesday, according to the CDC.
Nationwide, more than 162 million Americans over the age of 18, roughly 62.9% of the total adult population, have one vaccine dose, according to the CDC. More than 133 million American adults, roughly 52% of the entire adult population, are fully vaccinated, the CDC data showed.
Residents line up next to a cardboard cutout of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci for coronavirus disease vaccines at a clinic in Chelsea, Mass., May 21, 2021.
States have been scrambling to increase vaccine demand, which has waned over the last couple of weeks. First dose administrations reached a peak seven-day average of 3.3 million doses administered on April 11, but that average dropped to 1.1 million on May 28, according to the CDC data.
Some states have given out incentives to increase their vaccination numbers including lotteries with million-dollar jackpots, free college scholarships for teen residents and even free beers.
The rise in vaccines has been linked to a drastic decline in cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the country, health officials said. At the beginning of April, the seven-day average for new cases reported was around 65,000, but that average has steadily dropped over the last few weeks and is now at 15,622, according to the CDC.
Recent data may have been impacted by the Memorial Day holiday, according to officials.
Anyone who needs help finding an appointment for a free COVID-19 vaccine can log onto vaccines.gov.
Heres what you need to know:A vaccination site at Brent Central Mosque in London in early April.Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times
A new and potentially more contagious variant of the coronavirus has begun to outpace other versions of the virus in Britain, putting pressure on the government to shorten peoples wait for second doses of vaccines and illustrating the risks of a faltering global immunization drive.
The new variant, which has become dominant in India since first being detected there in December, may be responsible in part for a virus wave across South Asia.
Efforts to understand the variant picked up once it began spreading in Britain, one of at least 49 countries where it is present. Scientists there are sequencing half of all coronavirus cases.
The preliminary results out of Britain, drawn from a few thousand cases of the variant, contained both good and bad news, scientists said.
The variant, known by evolutionary biologists as B.1.617.2, is highly likely to be more transmissible than the variant behind Britains devastating wintertime surge, government scientists have said.
Helpfully for Britain and other wealthy nations, the variant has emerged at a less dire moment of the pandemic. More than four out of every five people in England above age 65 have been given both doses of a coronavirus vaccine, driving down hospitalizations and deaths.
And a new study by Public Health England offered reassuring signs that fully vaccinated people were well protected from the variant.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offered 88 percent protection against the variant first sampled in India, only a slight drop from the 93 percent protection given against the variant from Britain, Public Health England said. The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine was 60 percent effective against the variant from India, compared with 66 percent against the one first seen in Britain.
Because people in Britain started receiving AstraZenecas vaccine later than Pfizers, they have been followed for a shorter period, meaning that the effectiveness figures for that vaccine may underestimate the true numbers, scientists said. Other studies in England have shown little to no difference between the effectiveness of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.
For now, a rise in cases of the variant from India has not caused an overall surge in the virus in Britain. And not all scientists are convinced that the variant is as contagious as feared. The true test will be whether it surges in other countries, especially those unlike Britain that are grappling with high case counts of other variants, Andrew Rambaut, a professor of molecular evolution at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, wrote on Twitter.
In Britain, part of its rapid growth may have to do with the particular places it was first introduced. Bolton, in northwestern England, where the new variant is most advanced, is a highly deprived area with tightly packed housing that could be hastening its spread, scientists said.
Local officials in eight areas of the country where the variant has been found to be spreading criticized the government on Tuesday for not doing more to publicize new, stricter guidelines on social distancing in those areas. The recommendations, which are not legally binding, also discourage travel into and out of the areas, which include towns in north and central England.
Local lawmakers said many residents were unaware of the new guidance, which comes ahead of a holiday weekend during which people would typically travel domestically.
*Peru reclassified many deaths
New York City will no longer have a remote schooling option come fall, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday, a major step toward fully reopening the nations largest school system and a crucial marker in the citys economic recovery after more than a year of disruptions caused by the pandemic.
The announcement represents the single most important decision the city was facing on school reopening, and means that all students and staff members will be back in buildings full time. Many parents will also be able to return to work without supervising their childrens online classes, which could prompt the revitalization of entire industries and neighborhoods.
You cant have a full recovery without full-strength schools, Mr. de Blasio said during an appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe.
New York is one of the first big cities in the country to remove the option of remote learning altogether for the next school year. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that he expected all schools in the state to reopen full-time in the fall.
As virus cases drop across the country, and with no uniform federal guidance on the issue, officials in each state are weighing their options.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced last week that the state would no longer have remote classes come fall. Leaders in Massachusetts and Illinois, along with San Antonio, have said there will be extremely limited remote options.
Education officials in Florida have indicated they will significantly reduce or even eliminate online classes next school year. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has said districts will have to offer in-person classes this fall, but can also provide remote instruction. Houston, one of the largest districts in the country, will keep a remote option for fall, as will Philadelphia.
While Mr. de Blasios announcement eliminated the largest logistical obstacle to fully reopening the school system, he still has to convince hesitant families and staff that its safe for schools to return to normal.
This school year, the majority of the citys roughly one million students about 600,000 stayed home for classes. A disproportionate number of the families who chose online learning were nonwhite, a reflection of the harsh health outcomes suffered by Black and Latino families in particular when the city became a global epicenter of the virus last spring.
The mayor also said that teachers and school staff members, who have been eligible for the vaccine since January, will no longer be granted medical waivers to work from home. Nearly a third of city teachers are working remotely, which has forced some schools to offer only online learning, even from school buildings. Some parents who chose remote learning said they did so to avoid the unpredictability of hybrid learning. Their issues will be mostly resolved by the elimination of remote classes.
Last summer, Mr. de Blasio battled with the citys powerful teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, over reopening. But now, that union, and the citys principal union, are on board with the citys plan.
There is no substitute for in-person instruction, Michael Mulgrew, the U.F.T.s president, said in a statement. New York City educators want their students physically in front of them.
Still, many families are still concerned about the virus. Though reopened classrooms have been relatively safe since last fall, with very low positive test rates and few outbreaks in schools, the pandemic has revealed a profound lack of trust between many families of color in particular and the city school system.
The citys school system is currently planning for masks to be required in school buildings, Ms. Porter said. Schools would also follow the C.D.C.s social-distancing protocol, which currently recommends elementary school students remain at least 3 feet apart in classrooms. Both those policies could change by the fall. Children 12 and older recently became eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. And Pfizer and BioNTech plan in September to submit requests for authorization of the vaccine in children ages 2 to 11.
The data has been unbelievably clear, Mr. de Blasio explained on Monday. Vaccination has worked ahead of schedule; its had even more impact than we thought it would.
As the coronavirus pandemic ebbs in the United States and vaccines become available for teenagers, school systems are facing the difficult choice of whether to continue offering a remote learning option in the fall.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City took a stance on Monday, saying that the city will drop remote learning in its public schools, the move may have added to the pressure on other school systems to do the same.
Some families remain fearful of returning their children to classrooms, and others have become accustomed to new child care and work routines built around remote schooling, and are loath to make major changes.
But it is increasingly clear that school closures have exacted an academic and emotional toll on millions of American students, while preventing some parents from working outside the home.
Several states have already indicated that they will restrict remote learning. In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, has said families in his state will no longer have the option of sending their children to school virtually in the fall. Illinois plans to strictly limit online learning to students who are not eligible for a vaccine and are under quarantine orders.
Connecticut has said it will not require districts to offer virtual learning next fall. Massachusetts has said that parents will be able to opt for remote participation only in limited circumstances.
In California, which lagged behind the rest of the nation in returning to in-person schooling this spring, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would compel districts to offer traditional school in the fall, while also offering remote learning for families who want it. Some lawmakers there have proposed an alternative approach that would cap the number of students enrolled in virtual options.
It is a major staffing challenge for districts to simultaneously offer both traditional and online classes. Before the pandemic, teachers unions were typically harsh critics of virtual learning, which they called inherently inferior. But with some teachers still hesitant to return to full classrooms, even post-vaccination, many unions have said parents should continue to have the choice to opt out of in-person learning.
Some teachers, parent groups and civil rights organizations have also argued that families of color are the least confident that their children will be safe in school buildings, and thus should not be pushed to return before they are ready.
As the 2020-2021 school year draws to a close, about one-third of American elementary and secondary students attend schools that are not yet offering five days a week of in-person learning. Those school districts are mainly in areas with more liberal state and local governments and powerful teachers unions.
Disputes among administrators, teachers and parents groups over when and how to reopen schools have led to messy, protracted public battles in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.
Governors, mayors and school boards around the country almost all now say that traditional in-person teaching schedules will be available in the fall, but there is still limited clarity on what rights parents will have to decline to return their children to classrooms. Many districts and states have yet to announce what their approach will be.
Among urban districts, the superintendent in San Antonio, Pedro Martinez, has said he will greatly restrict access to remote learning next school year, in part because many teenagers from low-income families have taken on work hours that are incompatible with full-time learning, a trend he wants to tamp down. The Philadelphia and Houston schools have said they will continue offering virtual options.
The superintendent of the nations fourth-largest district, Miami-Dade, has said he hopes to welcome back 100 percent of students to in-person learning in the fall, but that students will retain the option to enroll instead in an online academy that predates the pandemic.
Children 12 and older recently became eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech plan in September to submit requests for authorization of the vaccine in children ages 2 to 11.
Vaccine passports will not be at play in the state of Alabama.
On Monday, the states governor, Kay Ivey, signed into law legislation that bans government institutions, along with schools and private businesses, from refusing goods, services or admission to people because of their immunization status.
The law, which goes into immediate effect, says that state and local governments may not issue vaccine or immunization passports, vaccine or immunization passes or any other standardized documentation for the purpose of certifying the immunization status of an individual.
Under the law, educational institutions can still require students to prove their vaccination status, but only for specific vaccines that were required as of Jan. 1 and if the institution gives an exemption for students with a medical condition or religious belief that is contrary to vaccination.
More than 400 college campuses are requiring students to be inoculated with a Covid-19 vaccine before enrolling this fall semester, with most of the mandates coming from states that voted for President Biden.
In a statement on Monday, Ms. Ivey said that although she had received the coronavirus vaccine and was glad for the peace of mind it brings, people should not be required to be inoculated.
I am supportive of a voluntary vaccine, and by signing this bill into law, I am only further solidifying that conviction, Ms. Ivey wrote.
In the United States, vaccine passports are not mandatory but allow people to easily prove that they are vaccinated. The passports have become a cultural flash point as the shots become more accessible. In Alabama, almost 29 percent of the states population is fully vaccinated, about 10 percent less than the U.S. average, as of Monday, according to a New York Times database.
Republican governors in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Montana and Texas have denounced the use of vaccine passports and have issued executive orders similar to Alabamas new law. On Tuesday, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed an executive order that prohibits state agencies from implementing a vaccine passport program or requiring proof that people have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Vaccination is a personal decision between each citizen and a medical professional not state government, Mr. Kemp wrote on Twitter in response to the order.
In March, New York State introduced the Excelsior Pass, a digital version of a vaccine passport, which allows residents to show businesses and venues that they have proof of vaccination or that they have received a negative virus test.
At the federal level, the Biden administration has said the government will not issue a digital system that tracks peoples coronavirus vaccination status.
The government is not now nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in April. There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.
Children who get sick from the rare but serious Covid-related inflammatory syndrome may surmount their most significant symptoms within six months, but they may still have muscle weakness and emotional difficulties at that time, a new small study suggests.
Published in the journal Lancet Child and Adolescent Health on Monday, the study appears to be the first detailed look at the health status of children six months after they were hospitalized with the condition, called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C. The syndrome typically emerges two weeks to six weeks after a coronavirus infection, often quite a mild one. MIS-C can result in hospitalizations for children with severe symptoms involving the heart and several other organs.
A major question has been whether children who survive MIS-C will end up with lasting organ damage or other health problems. The new study, which looked at 46 children under 18 who were admitted to a London hospital for MIS-C (it has a different name and abbreviation, PIMS-TS, in Britain), suggests that many of the most serious problems can resolve with time.
To be honest, I think we all didnt know what to expect, said Dr. Justin Penner, a pediatric infectious disease physician at the hospital involved in the study, Great Ormond Street Hospital. We didnt know which body systems would require assistance or become a problem one month, three months, six months down the line.
The children in the study were hospitalized between April 4 and Sept. 1, 2020, part of the first wave of the inflammatory syndrome. They all had systemic inflammation, and most had symptoms involving multiple organ systems, such as the heart, kidneys or circulatory system. Forty-five had gastrointestinal symptoms, and 24 had neurological symptoms like confusion, memory problems, hallucinations, headaches or problems with balance or muscle control.
Sixteen of the children were placed on ventilators, 22 needed medication to help their hearts pump more effectively and 40 were treated with immunotherapies like intravenous immunoglobulin. All survived.
Six months after they were discharged from the hospital, one child still had systemic inflammation, two had heart abnormalities and six had gastrointestinal symptoms. All but one were able to resume school, either virtually or in person.
Still, 18 were experiencing muscle weakness and fatigue, scoring in the bottom 3 percent for their age and sex on the six-minute walking test, a standard test of endurance and aerobic capacity. And 15 were experiencing emotional difficulties like anxiety or severe mood changes, according to questionnaires answered by either the parents or the children.
India on Monday became the third country to surpass 300,000 known deaths from the coronavirus, joining Brazil and the United States.
By Monday morning, a recorded 303,720 people in India had died with the virus, a number that experts say is likely to be a vast undercount, and 222,315 new daily cases were reported, according to the Indian Health Ministry.
While Indias official total of 26.8 million infections is second only to that of the United States, which has recorded more than 33 million, experts have cautioned that Indias figures severely undercount new infections and deaths because of a lack of testing and other resources in the vast country of 1.4 billion people.
Amid the steadily growing number of deaths nationally, the country has struggled to scale up its vaccination campaign. But in New Delhi, numbers of new cases have dropped in recent days, six weeks after a devastating surge, and officials are considering relaxing coronavirus restrictions.
Even so, the vaccination campaign in New Delhi has struggled. The public schools and stadiums in the capital, where thousands have been waiting in lines for hours for a shot, were shuttered on Sunday as the city ran out of doses.
That abrupt suspension to the inoculation campaign in the capital came just three weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modis government had expanded Indias vaccination program to people ages 18 to 44.
Arvind Kejriwal, Delhis top elected official, said in an online news conference on Saturday that he had written a letter to Mr. Modi pleading for the central government to increase its quota for the city of 20 million. Weeks of lockdown in the capital have helped quell the outbreak somewhat, but potentially dangerous new variants of the virus are circulating widely.
The city needs eight million doses per month to vaccinate all adults in three months. Instead, it received 1.6 million doses in May, and is set to receive only 800,000 in June, Mr. Kejriwal said. At that rate, it would take two and a half years to vaccinate all the adults in the capital, he said.
By then, no one knows how many waves will arrive and how many deaths will occur, Mr. Kejriwal said.
India has fully vaccinated around 43 million people which amounts to just 3 percent of its population. While the pace of infection has slowed in Indias two largest cities Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai the disease is still spreading quickly in rural areas with limited hospital capacity.
Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, Arlington National Cemetery and more than 150 national veterans cemeteries across the United States will drop many of the restrictions they imposed during the coronavirus pandemic and will allow vaccinated visitors to gather in large groups at graves without wearing masks.
Last Memorial Day, with the country in the grips of the first wave of coronavirus cases, Arlington, the national cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. shut down or modified many of its hallowed traditions. No more than 10 family members could attend each funeral; the soldiers of the Armys Old Guard wore masks; and the folded flag usually presented by hand to the family was instead laid on a table next to the grave. Arlington closed the Tomb of the Unknowns to visitors, though the Armys watch on the tomb continued uninterrupted.
Ceremonies were suspended at the National Cemetery Administrations sites across the country in 2020. So while the perfect rows of white headstones were hosting an elevated number of veterans funerals because of the pandemics toll, the burials often happened with no bugle sounding Taps, no rifle salute and because of travel restrictions, no family in attendance.
This Memorial Day will still be pared down in comparison with years past, with no plans for big events at the national cemeteries, cemetery officials said, but they welcomed the loosening of restrictions that would allow more visitors. They said the traditional graveside ceremonies are being gradually restored as conditions allow.
With the number of new cases dropping and the number of vaccinated people climbing in the United States, Arlington National Cemetery reopened its Metro stop on Sunday; its visitor center will reopen on Thursday; and the Tomb of the Unknowns is once again welcoming visitors. Thousands of veterans and relatives typically gather at the cemetery to honor the dead on Memorial Day.
Masks will still be required for everyone indoors, and unvaccinated visitors will have to wear masks both indoors and out.
We are very happy families and visitors are able to have a full visitors experience to honor, remember and explore, said Karen Durham-Aguilera, executive director of Arlington National Cemetery.
By promoting free Uber rides to vaccination sites and new features for vaccinated dating app users, the Biden administration is trying aggressively to entice young technophiles to get shots in their arms. On Monday, the White House unveiled its latest strategy to reach young adults, by turning President Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci over to several young YouTube influencers.
So Ive heard rumors about, you know, of course, a vaccine passport, when you need to confirm whether you have the vaccine or not to travel or to go to concerts, et cetera, Manny Gutierrez, a YouTube beauty star known as Manny MUA, asked the president in a YouTube video posted by the White House on Monday. Do you feel like thats going to be something thats going to be implemented more?
These rumors of vaccine passports, I think it just plays to paranoia, Mr. Biden said as Dr. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, looked on with his hands clasped.
Totally, Manny said.
Mr. Biden and Dr. Fauci, who filmed the interviews from the Blue Room of the White House last week, also answered questions from Nathaniel Peterson (known as Coyote) and Mark Vins, who are the pair behind the YouTube nature show Brave Wilderness, and Jackie Aina, a YouTube star and makeup artist who pushes the beauty industry to include people with dark skin tones.
There was a reason Mr. Biden fielded questions from makeup artists and the nature enthusiasts, some serious and some not. (His desert-island beauty product choice? Sunscreen.) Their three accounts have a combined 27 million followers, many of whom are in the exact demographic the White House is trying to reach as it focuses on reaching younger adults in their late teens and early 20s, many of whom became eligible for vaccination last month.
That group is crucial to Mr. Bidens goal of at least partly vaccinating 70 percent of adults before July 4. More than 60 percent of adults have received at least one shot, according to a New York Times database, but healthy young adults or young invincibles are traditionally hard to reach. Members of Generation Z in particular, recent polling shows, are more reluctant to get vaccinated immediately than people who are older than them.
It was a reluctance that the YouTubers have addressed with their own followers. In a video labeled I COLLABED WITH PRESIDENT BIDEN! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! posted to his own account, Manny MUA said that getting vaccinated was a personal choice.
You can do whatever you guys want, he says in the video, but I am pro-vaccine.
Later, he stepped back and commented on the experience on Twitter: A man in full makeup and lashes got to interview the president . progress.
Stephen Colberts late-night talk show will return to filming in front of a studio audience on June 14, CBS said on Monday.
About 400 audience members will be allowed in the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in Manhattan, provided they can show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus, such as through the Excelsior Pass issued by New York State or an original physical vaccination card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There will be no capacity restrictions, and masks will be optional.
CBS said that staff and crew members will be tested for the virus before starting work and will be screened daily for symptoms, monitored by a Covid-19 compliance officer. The network said the plan comports with New York State guidelines.
The shows changes will come just a few months before Broadway shows are expected to return, and about a month after baseball stadiums in New York began designating separate seating sections for people who have been vaccinated and those who have not.
Last week Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo relaxed the states capacity restrictions, allowing businesses to serve as many patrons as they like as long as there is enough space for people to adequately socially distance. He also ended the mask mandate for vaccinated people indoors and outdoors, though individual businesses are allowed to have stricter mask policies.
The pandemic put a stop to many late-night talk shows for a time in mid-March 2020, when New York and Los Angeles, where many of them are produced, introduced strict social distancing and quarantine guidelines.
Since then, the shows have had to get creative, interviewing guests by video conference and filming in empty studios or from the hosts homes, with family members sometimes serving on the crew.
