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Nikkei Asia is tracking the spread of the coronavirus that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
Cumulative global cases have reached 139,939,103, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The worldwide death toll has hit 2,999,020.
For more information about the spread of COVID-19 and the progress of vaccination around the world, please see our interactive charts and maps.
-- Global coronavirus tracker charts
-- Status of vaccinations around the world
-- World map of spreading mutated strains
-- Distribution, duration, safety: challenges emerge in vaccine race
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UPDATES CLOSED
Saturday, April 17 (Tokyo time)
11:00 a.m.China reports 15 new cases for Friday, up from 11 cases a day earlier. One of the new cases was a local infection reported in southwestern Yunnan province, which discovered a new cluster in late March in a city on the border with Myanmar.The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 19 from 31 cases a day earlier.
Friday, April 16
10:26 p.m.As India battles a massive second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, its government says the monthly production capacity of indigenously developed Covaxin vaccine is to be ramped up to nearly 100 million doses by September, from 10 million doses at present.
"The current production capacity will be doubled by May-June 2021 and then increased nearly 6-7 fold by July-August 2021,"the Ministry of Science and Technology saysin a statement.
1:33 p.m. India reports 217,353 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest-ever daily spike and the second straight day with over 200,000 cases. Fatalities jumped to 1,185, raising the total to 174,308. Cases are rising exponentially as a vicious second wave of the pandemic finds fertile grounds at a giant religious gathering of hundreds of thousands in the north and at mass election rallies in other regions.
11:41 a.m. South Korea's Huons Global will lead a consortium to produce 100 million doses of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine per month as Moscow ramps up production for supplies abroad. The announcement comes after South Korean biotech firm GL Rapha signed a deal with Russia's sovereign wealth fund late last year to make more than 150 million doses of Sputnik V per year. Huons said the consortium will begin producing sample batches in August and respond flexibly to supply demands from the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
11:06 a.m. Soaring exports helped China's gross domestic product grow a record 18.3% in the first quarter of 2021, rebounding from the 6.8% contraction in the same period last year at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, government data shows. China's GDP growth for January-March followed a 6.5% gain in the final quarter of 2020.
10:13 a.m. China reports 11 new mainland COVID-19 cases on Thursday, up from 10 on Wednesday. The National Health Commission said one of the new cases was a local infection in the southwestern Yunnan Province, where a new cluster was discovered in late March at a city on the border with Myanmar.
10:00 a.m. A fundraising event organized by the Gavi vaccine alliance and the United States secures more than $300 million worth of fresh funds and COVID-19 doses for the COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, USAID Acting Administrator Gloria Steele said on Thursday. "Investment in COVAX is a prerequisite for recovery. ... Ending the acute phase of the pandemic is currently the best economic decision for any country," Jose Manuel Barroso, chairman of the Gavi vaccine alliance, said after the three-hour event.
Nikkei has learned that Japan, the U.S. and European nations will take part in an online summit in June to discuss expanding free vaccines for developing countries.
5:20 a.m. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surpasses 34,000 for the first time, buoyed by strong economic data. The S&P 500 gains 1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq advances 1.3%.
4:20 a.m. People will "likely" require a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccination within 12 months of being fully vaccinated, Pfizer's CEO Albert Bourla tells CNBC.
"It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus," Bourla says during an event with CVS Health, adding the vaccines will be an important tool in the fight against highly contagious variants.
4:00 a.m. About 5,800 people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus have become infected anyway, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells CNN.
Some became seriously ill and 74 people died, the CDC says. It said 396 -- 7% -- of those who got infected after they were vaccinated required hospitalization.
"So far, about 5,800 breakthrough cases have been reported to CDC. To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in case demographics or vaccine characteristics," CNN quotes the CDC as saying via email.
Thursday, April 15
5:30 p.m. The Indian capital of Delhi imposes new coronavirus restrictions including a weekend curfew and the shutting of malls, gyms, spas and auditoriums to "break the chain of transmission" of the COVID-19 virus. The city, which has been under a nighttime curfew for over a week, reported more than 17,000 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily count since the onset of the pandemic last year.
5:10 p.m. Osaka, in western Japan, reports 1,208 new infections, up from 1,130 a day earlier and marking a new daily high for the third day in a row. New daily cases in Osaka have been higher than in Tokyo for the past 17 days.
4:03 p.m. Thailand reports 1,543 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the sharpest increase since the start of the pandemic and the fourth record rise this week. When asked whether lockdowns would be imposed, a senior health official said measures were being formulated based on case numbers in each area and would be proposed to the coronavirus taskforce for approval on Friday.
3:00 p.m. Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike asks non-Tokyo residents to avoid the capital unless they are doing essential work in a bid to halt surging infections. Koike also asked people to halt or postpone travel during the Golden Week holidays in late April to early May, while urging businesses in shopping areas to refrain from holding sales during the holidays. The capital has reported 729 cases on the day, up from 591 on Wednesday.
1:56 p.m. Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, says canceling the Olympics could be an option if the coronavirus spreads further, although a senior government official later told Nikkei that "it is impossible to cancel the Olympics."
1:14 p.m. India hits a single-day high of 200,739 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the country total to 14.1 million while deaths jumped by 1,038 to 173,123 -- the second straight day with over 1,000 fatalities. The country case total lags behind only the U.S., which has 31.4 million infections.
10:38 a.m. South Korea reports 698 cases, down from 731 the previous day, bringing the country total to 112,117 with 1,788 deaths. The Bank of Korea kept its key rate unchanged at 0.5% as the central bank expected uncertainties to remain high due to the pandemic.
10:00 a.m. Cambodia has decided to lock down the country's capital Phnom Penh for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak began. The decision was made after infections were confirmed across the capital earlier this week, which followed the first community outbreaks at a garment factory and a market. While infections had been among the lowest in the world, Cambodia now reports a total of over 4,800 infections with 35 deaths.
9:29 a.m. Mainland China reports 10 cases for Wednesday, down from 12 a day earlier. All new cases were imported infections from overseas.
7:46 a.m. Johnson & Johnson's vaccine remains in limbo as a U.S. health panel called for more data before making a decision on how and whether to resume use of the one-dose shot, putting off a vote for at least a week. The panel is reviewing six reported cases of rare brain blood clots in women who received the J&J vaccine.
4:14 a.m. Turkey reports 62,797 cases and 279 deaths for Wednesday, both single-day highs.
Wednesday, April 14
10:43 p.m. Denmark will halt use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, the country's heath authority confirms.
"The Danish Health Authority has decided to continue the vaccination against COVID-19 without the vaccine from AstraZeneca," it said in a statement.
5:10 p.m. Osaka reports 1,130 new infections, up from 1,099 a day earlier and posting a record number of new daily cases for the second day in a row. The western Japan prefecture has recently seen a surge in COVID-19 cases -- about double the numbers for Tokyo. Hyogo, neighboring prefecture, also registered a record high of 507 new cases.
3:10 p.m. Tokyo reports 591 new cases, up from 510 a day earlier, bringing the seven-day average of new infections in the capital to 497, 19.2% higher than a week ago.
2:30 p.m. India's infections hit a new daily high as crowds of pilgrims gather for a religious festival despite oxygen shortages and strict curbs in other areas. The country reported 184,372 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the county total to 13.9 million while deaths rose by 1,027 to 172,085.
2:00 p.m. Thailand reports 1,335 cases -- the biggest single-day rise since the start of the pandemic and the third record spike this week -- as the country struggles with a new wave of infections. The new cases bring the country total to 35,910 with deaths remaining at 97.
12:40 p.m. New Zealand has started administering COVID-19 vaccinations to athletes ahead of their departure for the Tokyo games, the country's Olympics chief says. "We're really satisfied the government was able to put us in that category of national significance, so that's now underway and athletes have been worked through according to when they might be departing," New Zealand Olympic Committee Chief Executive Kereyn Smith said. More than 200 athletes are expected to represent New Zealand at the July 23-Aug. 8 games.
10:44 a.m. With the Summer Olympics just 100 days away, Japan is rushing to put together effective COVID-19 countermeasures as the world casts a wary eye. Winning the trust of participating nations will be the utmost challenge in Japan's attempt to host a massive sporting event in the middle of a pandemic.
10:19 a.m. New infections in South Korea jump to 731 from 542 a day ago, marking a three-month high. The country's total infections have reached 111,419, with 1,782 deaths. Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said cluster infections are spreading through bars, churches and private tutoring institutions. But the country's job market is rebounding, adding 314,000 jobs in March from a year ago, led by strong exports and investment as well as a recovery in private consumption.
10:00 a.m. China reports 12 new cases for Tuesday, up from nine a day earlier. One of the new cases was a local infection reported in southwestern Yunnan Province, where a city on the border with Myanmar reported a cluster of infections in late March. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 12 from 18 a day earlier.
9:10 a.m. Japan's core private-sector machinery orders fell 8.5% in February from the previous month, government data shows. The orders, which exclude those for ships and from electricity utilities due to their volatility, totaled 769.8 billion yen ($7 billion), according to the Cabinet Office. They fell for the second straight month following a 4.5% drop in January.
4:00 a.m. India's state of Maharashtra, an economic powerhouse that is home to Mumbai, will impose restrictions on business and social activity for 15 days until April 30 to combat rising coronavirus infections.
The order from the chief minister affects all factories, except some involved in exports and essential products. Deliveries for online orders will also be restricted to essentials.
Tuesday, April 13
9:20 p.m. U.S. health officials have recommended a temporary halt in coronavirus vaccinations with the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab, following reports of recipients developing a blood clot disorder.
An advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to hold a meeting on Wednesday to review the six reported cases, and the Food and Drug Administration will conduct its own review of the findings, the agencies say.
6:30 p.m. Britain has offered all over-50s who have asked a first dose of vaccine and launched the Moderna shot in England, the government says, putting it on track to vaccinate all adults by the end of July. The government has offered at least one shot to priority cohorts 1 to 9, which include all adults over 50, the clinically vulnerable, and health and social care workers, ahead of a target to do so by Thursday.
5:00 p.m. India says it will fast-track emergency approvals for COVID-19 vaccines made overseas that have been granted emergency authorization in other countries, as infections surge. "The first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for seven days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunization program within the country," the health ministry said in a statement.
3:30 p.m. The Tokyo Olympics can host fans safely at up to 50% capacity, Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto says in an interview with Nikkei. Hashimoto brought up the capacity limit, citing efforts by Japan's professional baseball league to find a balance between attendance and safety. Olympic organizers have decided to exclude overseas fans from the games due to COVID-19 concerns.
3:17 p.m. Tokyo reports 510 new infections, up from 306 a day earlier. The seven-day average of new cases in the capital rose 24% from a week ago to 492.
1:19 p.m. India reports 161,736 new cases for the past 24 hours, slightly down from the record 168,912 of the previous day and marking the third straight day with over 150,000 infections, pushing the country's total to 13.69 million. Fatalities rose by 879 to 171,058.
1:05 p.m. Daily infections in Osaka Prefecture are set to top 1,000 for the first time, sources tell Nikkei. Osaka took quasi-emergency measures on April 5, asking restaurants and bars to close by 8 p.m., but the current wave of infections continues to surge. Highly contagious variants of the virus have been gaining ground, and health authorities worry the increasing number of cases is putting further stress on hospitals.
12:40 p.m. China's exports grew at a robust pace in March in another boost to the nation's economic recovery as global demand and countries' vaccination drives picked up. Import growth surged to its highest level in four years. Exports in dollar terms soared 30.6% in March from a year earlier, but at a slower pace from the record 154.9% growth in February. Imports increased 38.1% year-on-year last month, the most since February 2017.
11:25 a.m. Torchbearers for the Tokyo Olympics ran through an empty park in Osaka after the relay was re-routed from public roads due to a sharp rise in coronavirus infections. Runners carried the flame for about 200 meters each. The site was closed to the public.
10:30 a.m. A highly contagious variant of COVID-19 first identified in Britain does not cause more severe disease in hospitalized patients, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases on Monday. The strain, known as B.1.1.7, was identified in Britain late last year and has become the most common strain in the U.S.
10:20 a.m. Australia has no current plans to add Johnson & Johnson's one-dose coronavirus vaccine to its immunization drive, as it moves away from procuring vaccines under review over blood clots. J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines use an adenovirus, a harmless class of common-cold viruses, to introduce coronavirus proteins into cells and trigger an immune response. Both are under review by Europe's drug regulator after it found rare cases of blood clots among some adult vaccine recipients.
10:14 a.m. South Korea reports 542 cases, down from 587 a day ago, bringing the country total to 110,688 with 1,775 deaths. Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said the government will simplify the administrative process to supply more vaccines as early as possible.
9:30 a.m. China reports nine cases for Monday, down from 16 a day earlier. One of the new cases was reported in Yunnan Province, which is dealing with a cluster that emerged in Ruili city on the border with Myanmar. The number of asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, rose to 18 from 12 a day earlier.
5:00 a.m. India has approved Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the Russian Direct Investment Fund says. India overtook Brazil to become the nation with the second-highest number of infections after the U.S. as it battles a second wave. India has administered 105 million doses among a population of 1.4 billion.
Monday, April 12
7:52 p.m. People who have been vaccinated in Hong Kong will be able to form "vaccination bubbles" and gather in larger numbers, Chief Executive Carrie Lam says. The city has made progress toward establishing a travel bubble with Singapore, she also says, adding that further details will be announced soon.
6:00 p.m. Five South Korean companies have launched clinical trials for their coronavirus vaccines, aiming to enter the third phase of trials in the second half of this year, the health ministry says. The five are SK Bioscience, EuBiologics, Cellid, Genexine and GeneOne Life Science. The government plans to provide 68.7 billion won ($61.1 million) to support the companies' vaccine development.
3:30 p.m. Tokyo reports 306 cases, down from 421 a day earlier but up from 363 a week ago. Tokyo, along with Kyoto and Okinawa prefectures, enhanced its responses to the pandemic on Monday, asking restaurants and bars to close by 8 p.m. and limiting attendance at large events to 5,000 under what is regarded as a quasi-state of emergency. The steps will last through May 5 for Kyoto and Okinawa, and May 11 for Tokyo.
2:00 p.m. Thailand reports 985 cases, marking a daily high for the second straight day, as the country deals with a third wave of infections and a highly contagious variant. Thailand has now recorded 33,610 cases while deaths stayed unchanged at 97.
1:42 p.m. India records another daily record with 168,912 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the country total to over 13.5 million and overtaking Brazil to become the world's second-most affected nation. Fatalities jumped by 904 to 170,179. The nation's capital of Delhi is seeing a fourth wave of infections with officials urging residents to stay home. By mid-March, cases in the city had dropped to less than 200 per day, but the latest single-day count shows 10,732 infections, the capital's biggest daily spike.
11:55 a.m. China's top disease control official said the country is considering mixing vaccines as a way of boosting efficacy, according to Reuters. Data shows Chinese vaccines lag behind others including Pfizer and Moderna in terms of efficacy. Giving people doses of different vaccines is one way to improve vaccines that "don't have very high rates of protection," said Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, without specifying whether he was referring to foreign or domestic vaccines. "Inoculation using vaccines of different technical lines is being considered," Gao told a conference in the Chinese city of Chengdu on Saturday.
10:40 a.m. South Korea reports 587 cases, down from 614 a day ago, bringing the country total to 110,146 with 1,770 deaths. President Moon Jae-in will host an emergency meeting with health-related ministers at 2 p.m. to discuss how to control rising cases and stabilize vaccine supplies. It is the first time in four months that Moon will convene such a meeting.
9:50 a.m. China reports 16 cases for Sunday, up from 10 a day earlier. Of the new cases, 14 were imported infections from overseas while two were from the southwest province of Yunan. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 12 from 22 a day earlier.
9:30 a.m. Japan starts vaccinating elderly people, the second group to be inoculated following health care workers, as concern over a fourth wave of infections grows. The government plans to secure enough Pfizer shots for roughly 36 million people aged 65 or older and deliver them to municipalities by late June.
8:30 a.m. The governors of Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa enhance their response to the pandemic amid surging infections less than a month after Japan lifted a second state of emergency. The measures include asking restaurants and bars in densely populated areas to close by 8 p.m. and limiting attendance at large events to 5,000 -- similar to those under the state of emergency -- and will last through May 5 for Kyoto and Okinawa, and May 11 for Tokyo.
8:27 a.m. Australia has abandoned a goal to vaccinate nearly all its population by the end of 2021 following advice that people under the age of 50 receive Pfizer's vaccine rather than AstraZeneca's. Australia, which had banked on AstraZeneca for the majority of its shots, had no plans for completing its vaccination program, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a Facebook post on Sunday.
3:50 a.m. China's failure to provide access to global health experts made the pandemic worse than it had to be, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday, and it was important to "get to the bottom" of the origin of the coronavirus. China did not give access to international experts or share information in real time to provide true transparency, Blinken said in an interview with American broadcaster NBC. As a result, the virus "got out of hand faster and with, I think, much more egregious results than it might otherwise," Blinken said.
Sunday, April 11
10:34 p.m. The director of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday that currently available vaccines "don't have very high rates of protection" and that China is formally considering mixing vaccines. Data shows Chinese vaccines lag behind others including Pfizer and Moderna in terms of efficacy, but require less stringent temperature controls during storage.
6:36 p.m. Thailand reports 967 cases, its biggest daily jump, but no new deaths as the country deals with a third wave of infections and a highly contagious variant.
4:27 p.m. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has approved placing the capital region and four adjacent provinces under a less restrictive community quarantine status from April 12, according to his spokesman. Metro Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Cavite, which have been in a strict lockdown, will be under Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine status until April 30, spokesman Harry Roque says.
3:59 p.m. Cases in India surge to a record of 152,879 as the country battles a second wave of infections by pushing for faster vaccinations, with some states considering tougher restrictions to slow the virus spread.
2:13 p.m. South Korea says it will move ahead with a second-quarter vaccination drive starting Monday after deciding to continue AstraZeneca's vaccine for all eligible people at least 30 years of age.
Saturday, April 10
7:07 p.m. Thailand plans to install 10,000 field-hospital beds in Bangkok, a health official says, as the country strains to cope with a third wave of COVID-19 infections.
At least a dozen hospitals in the capital say they had stopped testing for the coronavirus as of Friday due to a lack of kits or capacity. Hospitals are reluctant to test because they must admit people if they test positive, authorities say.
Meanwhile, the country reports 789 new cases and one death, taking the total number of infections to 31,658, with 97 deaths.
2:20 p.m. India reports a record 145,384 new COVID-19 cases and the highest number of deaths in more than five months, as it grapples with an overwhelming second-wave of infections that has forced the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, to impose a weekend lockdown. Deaths rose by 794 to 168,436, health ministry data shows. India's overall case load has swelled to 13.21 million, the third-highest globally, behind the United States and Brazil.
10:22 a.m. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech ask U.S. regulators to allow the emergency use of their vaccine among 12- to 15-year-olds. The vaccine is currently authorized for emergency use in the United States for people aged 16 and up.
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To catch up on earlier developments, see the last edition of latest updates.
And unlike the original strain of the novel coronavirus, the more contagious B.1.1.7 strain is hitting young people particularly hard.
"(Covid-19) cases and emergency room visits are up," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We are seeing these increases in younger adults, most of whom have not yet been vaccinated."
Now doctors say many young people are suffering Covid-19 complications they didn't expect.
And it's time to ditch the belief that only older adults or people with pre-existing conditions are at risk of severe Covid-19.
Why B.1.1.7 is more contagious
Viruses mutate all the time, and most mutations aren't very important. But if the mutations are significant, they can lead to dangerous new variants of a virus.
"The B.1.1.7 variant has mutations that allow it to bind more" to cells, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.
"Think of this mutation as making the virus stickier."
Coronavirus latches onto cells with its spike proteins -- the spikes surrounding the surface of the virus.
With the original strain of the novel coronavirus, "you need a certain inoculum -- a certain amount of virus -- in order for the infection to basically stick," Reiner said.
"So these new variants, particularly the UK variant, seem to be stickier. So the notion is that it's more contagious, so to speak, because potentially you don't need as much of an inoculum to get sick."
What this means in real life: "You can be in a place and maybe have a briefer exposure or have a smaller exposure -- more casual exposure -- and then get infected," Reiner said.
And because B.1.1.7 is stickier, "you may indeed have a higher viral load."
"If you have a higher number of viral particles in your respiratory tract, then it's going to be easier to spread it to other people," Ranney said.
That's another reason why it's so important for young adults to get vaccinated.
More young people are being hospitalized with Covid-19
B.1.1.7 cases have now been reported in all 50 states, the CDC said.
"What we're seeing in a bunch of places now is sick, young people -- hospitalized young people. Whereas earlier on in the pandemic, it was primarily older people," Reiner said.
"The reason for this might be as simple as the older population in this country has either been exposed to this virus, killed by the virus, or now vaccinated against the virus."
"The unvaccinated -- those are the people who are getting infected -- we're seeing a large number of young people, and they're the ones we're seeing in hospitals now."
In March, New Jersey saw a 31% jump in Covid-19 hospitalizations among young adults ages 20 to 29, the state health commissioner said. And the 40-49 age group saw a 48% increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations.
Ranney said she's also noticed a stark change in who's getting hospitalized.
"Looking at the week of December 26 or January 2, age 65-plus would be, say, 3,000 (hospitalizations). And then everything else together is 3,000. More than 50% were age 65-plus."
But by March 27, "it was about one-third (ages) 18 to 49 ... about one-third ages 50 to 64, and then about one-third 65-plus," Ranney said.
As an emergency room doctor, Ranney said she regularly sees young, previously healthy patients struggling with coronavirus.
"I see at least a few people on every ER shift that I work who are there because they are having persistent trouble breathing or other side effects as a result of Covid-19," she said.
Ranney said she generally defines "young people" as those under 50. But "no matter which age cutoff you use, right now, we're seeing more B.1.1.7 than the older variants."
"We're certainly seeing it more in 20s and 30s as well," she said. "And people in their 20s and 30s are less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to be out and about."
The vast majority of positive coronavirus tests don't go through genomic sequencing to figure out whether it's B.1.1.7 or another strain. But as genomic sequencing increases nationwide, health experts say there's no doubt B.1.1.7 is fueling more hospitalizations among young people.
Dr. Justin Skrzynski is a Covid hospitalist -- or specialist in the care of Covid-19 patients -- at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak in Michigan. He said the facility sends a portion of its coronavirus samples to the state for DNA analysis.
"Right now, the regular Covid test we do -- that's still just showing Covid (or) no Covid," Skrzynski said.
"But we do send a lot of those out to the state, and we are seeing something like 40% of our patients now (with) B.1.1.7."
Reiner said he thinks both human behavior and the "stickiness" of B.1.1.7 are leading to more Covid-19 hospitalizations among young people.
"It may be simply because of just (more young people) getting infected ... and perhaps the inoculum (viral load) is higher," he said.
Sometimes, young people can be victims of their own strong immune systems.
As B.1.1.7 keeps spreading, it's possible the number of young people with cytokine storms will increase, Reiner said.
As more young people get infected, doctors are worried they'll see more of a disturbing trend they've noticed for months -- long-term complications.
"I cannot tell you how many people I've taken care of in the ER who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s, who are never sick enough to end up in the ER with Covid, but who now have long-lasting respiratory difficulties," Ranney said.
"Or they have persistent loss of taste and smell, and they're losing weight because there's no joy from eating. Or they have that kind of brain fog that we hear about with long Covid. And it's not universal. It's not every person who gets Covid who's going to get that. But there is the reality that this disease is not benign -- regardless of whether they get hospitalized or in the ICU," she said.
"So I think there's this false sense of both 'I'm immune to it just because I'm young,' and 'Even if I catch it, I'll be fine.' You may be lucky. And that may be true, that if you catch it, you'll be fine. But there's also a chance that you won't."
Reiner said some long-haul symptoms in young people have lasted roughly a year now -- "debilitating symptoms that have come in the aftermath of their coronavirus infection," he said.
"So what I would say to young people is that Covid-19 doesn't have to kill you to wreck your life."
Health experts say it's critical to keep practicing Covid-19 safety precautions until many more people get vaccinated. Yet some states have ditched mask mandates or reopened bars to full capacity just as B.1.1.7 was spreading rapidly.
"They're the people going out to the bars. They're the people meeting for brunch. The older people in this country have been hunkered down for a year because they've been worried about dying from this virus. Young people in this country haven't worried so much about dying from this virus. And there's a lot of pandemic fatigue."
Reiner said he understands many businesses have been devastated and need to fully reopen once it's safe to.
"But easing the mask mandate makes zero sense," he said. "There is no economic hardship, and there's no personal hardship to require a person to wear a mask when they're out in public."
Ranney said young people may misinterpret the lifting of safety mandates.
"When you hear that ... as a regular person who's not following the day-to-day (data), you think, 'Well, my governor wouldn't open it if it's not safe,'" she said. "So I think there is that mixed message."
"Absolutely, we are seeing a higher number of kids test positive for B.1.1.7 than we have seen for the other virus types," Ranney said.
"It's not necessarily that kids are more susceptible to B.1.1.7. But it's just that they're more likely to be exposed to it both because they're out and about, and because this version is more transmissible."
While classroom learning is relatively safe when the right safety precautions are taken, health officials say after-school activities -- such as youth sports and other extracurriculars -- are causing more children to get Covid-19.
The good news about B.1.1.7: We don't need a new playbook to fight it. But we do have to follow the existing playbook closely to snuff out this highly contagious variant.
"Even though it is more transmissible, every piece of data that we have supports that we can still stop it using the same techniques that we have used for other variants," Ranney said.
"So it's still about masks and physical distancing and ventilation and vaccines. And our current vaccines -- and this is really critical -- the current vaccines work really well against B.1.1.7."
But here's the catch: The longer a virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to develop new mutations. And if the mutations are significant, they can lead to more problematic variants -- including some that might evade vaccine protection.
"To me, this is a warning sign. This is a shot across the bow of what could happen," Ranney said.
B.1.1.7 "does spread more easily. It is increasing the number of cases. We're seeing some increases in hospitalizations, probably due to the B.1.1.7 spread. But the vaccines work against it," she said.
The WestVirginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of April 17, 2021, there have been2,602,762 totalconfirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 148,517 total casesand 2,780 total deaths.
DHHR hasconfirmed the deaths of a 91-year old male from RaleighCounty, an 81-year old male from Wood County, and an 87-year old female fromHampshire County.
We must use all of the tools in our toolboxto stop the spread of COVID-19, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Thisincludes vaccination, testing, mask wearing, social distancing, and good hygiene.Our deepest sympathy is extended to these families for their profound loss.
CASES PERCOUNTY: Barbour (1,344), Berkeley(11,541), Boone (1,867), Braxton (861), Brooke (2,118), Cabell (8,606), Calhoun(271), Clay (453), Doddridge (545), Fayette (3,253), Gilmer (734), Grant(1,240), Greenbrier (2,607), Hampshire (1,702), Hancock (2,705), Hardy (1,434),Harrison (5,391), Jackson (1,906), Jefferson (4,327), Kanawha (14,027), Lewis(1,137), Lincoln (1,396), Logan (3,001), Marion (4,135), Marshall (3,269),Mason (1,932), McDowell (1,478), Mercer (4,557), Mineral (2,760), Mingo(2,416), Monongalia (8,940), Monroe (1,067), Morgan (1,086), Nicholas (1,499),Ohio (4,030), Pendleton (686), Pleasants (830), Pocahontas (640), Preston(2,805), Putnam (4,806), Raleigh (6,105), Randolph (2,493), Ritchie (658),Roane (579), Summers (756), Taylor (1,197), Tucker (523), Tyler (670), Upshur(1,816), Wayne (2,815), Webster (455), Wetzel (1,188), Wirt (380), Wood(7,573), Wyoming (1,907).
Delays may be experienced with the reportingof information from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillancecontinues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those testedin a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state asan individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested. Such is the case ofPleasants and Tucker counties in this report.
West Virginians may pre-register for their COVID-19vaccination at vaccinate.wv.gov. The COVID-19 dashboard located at www.coronavirus.wv.gov shows the total number of vaccines administered.Please see the vaccine summary tab for more detailed information.
Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Boone, Clay, Jefferson,Lewis, Nicholas, and Putnam counties and tomorrow in Boone, Doddridge, andNicholas counties:
Boone County
1:00PM 4:00 PM, Boone County Health Department, 213 Kenmore Dr., Danville, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
Clay County
8:00 AM 10:30 AM, Maysel Park, CountyRoute 13/4, Maysel, WV
Jefferson County10:00AM 2:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV
10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Shepherd UniversityWellness Center Parking Lot, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV
Lewis County
12:00 PM 5:00 PM, Stonewall Jackson Home Oxygen Therapy, 456 MarketPlace, Suite A, Weston, WV
Nicholas County
10:00AM 2:00 PM, St. Lukes United Methodist Church, 18001 West Webster Road,Craigsville, WV (pre-registration:https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
Putnam County
9:00 AM 4:00 PM, Liberty Square, 613 Putnam Village, Hurricane, WV (pre-registration: bit.ly/pchd-covid)
April 18
Boone County
1:00PM 4:00 PM, Boone County Health Department, 213 Kenmore Dr., Danville, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
Doddridge County
10:00 AM 5:00 PM, Doddridge County Park, 1252 Snowbird Road, West Union,WV
Nicholas County
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Richwood City Hall, 6 White Avenue, Richwood, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
Formore free COVID-19 testing opportunities across the state, please visit https://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspx.
Researchers did not find an association in people who had gout.
Information on the risk of death from COVID-19 in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or gout is limited; a recent study from the United Kingdom sought to examine whether gout and RA are risk factors for COVID-19 diagnosis or death.
Researchers used data from for UK Biobank, which contains the records of about half a million participants; recruitment began in 2006 with planned follow-up for at least 30 years. The analysis included those who had a positive SARS-CoV2 test result and/or an International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision code for confirmed COVID-19 or probable COVID-19 as well as a variety of methods to determine RA or gout: self-reported gout, hospital codes for gout, self-reported RA, hospital codes for RA, and hospital records of either illness.
They created and analyzed 3 case-controlled datasets:
Multivariable-adjusted analysis showed that RA, but not gout, was associated with COVID19 diagnosis in analysis A.
Neither RA nor gout was associated with risk of death in the group diagnosed with COVID19 in analysis B.
However, in analysis C, RA was associated with risk of death related to COVID19, independent of comorbidities and other measured risk factors (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.23.0). Gout was not associated with death related to COVID19 in the same UK Biobank analysis (OR 1.2; 95% CI, 0.81.7).
The study had a number of limitations, which the researchers hope could be overcome in future, larger studies. For one thing, the influence of RA therapies was not known. In addition UK Biobank registrants are middle-aged, white Europeans and so can't be generalized to other ethnic groups or in individuals younger than 50. There is also no information on recovery status, so it is possible that the cohort in analysis B may have had unidentified COVID-19 deaths later.
Reference
Topless RK, Phipps-Green A, Leask M, et al. Gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and the risk of death related to coronavirus disease 2019: An analysis of the UK Biobank. ACR Open Rheumatol. Published online April 15, 2021. doi: 10.1002/acr2.11252.
Scott Cohen was on a ventilator struggling for his life with Covid-19 last April when his brothers pleaded with Plainview Hospital on Long Island to infuse him with the blood plasma of a recovered patient.
The experimental treatment was hard to get but was gaining attention at a time when doctors had little else. After an online petition drew 18,000 signatures, the hospital gave Mr. Cohen, a retired Nassau County medic, an infusion of the pale yellow stuff that some called liquid gold.
In those terrifying early months of the pandemic, the idea that antibody-rich plasma could save lives took on a life of its own before there was evidence that it worked. The Trump administration, buoyed by proponents at elite medical institutions, seized on plasma as a good-news story at a time when there werent many others. It awarded more than $800 million to entities involved in its collection and administration, and put Dr. Anthony S. Faucis face on billboards promoting the treatment.
A coalition of companies and nonprofit groups, including the Mayo Clinic, Red Cross and Microsoft, mobilized to urge donations from people who had recovered from Covid-19, enlisting celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, the actor known as the Rock. Volunteers, some dressed in superhero capes, showed up to blood banks in droves.
Mr. Cohen, who later recovered, was one of them. He went on to donate his own plasma 11 times.
But by the end of the year, good evidence for convalescent plasma had not materialized, prompting many prestigious medical centers to quietly abandon it. By February, with cases and hospitalizations dropping, demand dipped below what blood banks had stockpiled. In March, the New York Blood Center called Mr. Cohen to cancel his 12th appointment. It didnt need any more plasma.
A year ago, when Americans were dying of Covid at an alarming rate, the federal government made a big bet on plasma. No one knew if the treatment would work, but it seemed biologically plausible and safe, and there wasnt much else to try. All told, more than 722,000 units of plasma were distributed to hospitals thanks to the federal program, which ends this month.
The governments bet did not result in a blockbuster treatment for Covid-19, or even a decent one. But it did give the country a real-time education in the pitfalls of testing a medical treatment in the middle of an emergency. Medical science is messy and slow. And when a treatment fails, which is often, it can be difficult for its strongest proponents to let it go.
Because the government gave plasma to so many patients outside of a controlled clinical trial, it took a long time to measure its effectiveness. Eventually, studies did emerge to suggest that under the right conditions, plasma might help. But enough evidence has now accumulated to show that the countrys broad, costly plasma campaign had little effect, especially in people whose disease was advanced enough to land them in the hospital.
In interviews, three federal health officials Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Peter Marks, a top F.D.A. regulator; and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, a clinical director at the National Institutes of Health acknowledged that the evidence for plasma was limited.
The data are just not that strong, and it makes it makes it hard, I think, to be enthusiastic about seeing it continue to be used, Dr. Lane said. The N.I.H. recently halted an outpatient trial of plasma because of a lack of benefit.
Doctors have used the antibodies of recovered patients as treatments for more than a century, for diseases including diphtheria, the 1918 flu and Ebola.
So when patients began falling ill with the new coronavirus last year, doctors around the world turned to the old standby.
In the United States, two hospitals Mount Sinai in New York City and Houston Methodist in Texas administered the first plasma units to Covid-19 patients within hours of each other on March 28.
Dr. Nicole M. Bouvier, an infectious-disease doctor who helped set up Mount Sinais plasma program, said the hospital had tried the experimental treatment because blood transfusions carry a relatively low risk of harm. With a new virus spreading quickly, and no approved treatments, nature is a much better manufacturer than we are, she said.
As Mount Sinai prepared to infuse patients with plasma, Diana Berrent, a photographer, was recovering from Covid-19 at her home in Port Washington, N.Y. Friends began sending her Mount Sinais call for donors.
I had no idea what plasma was I havent taken a science class since high school, Ms. Berrent recalled. But as she researched its history in previous disease outbreaks, she became fixated on how she could help.
She formed a Facebook group of Covid-19 survivors that grew to more than 160,000 members and eventually became a health advocacy organization, Survivor Corps. She livestreamed her own donation sessions to the Facebook group, which in turn prompted more donations.
People were flying places to go donate plasma to each other, she said. It was really a beautiful thing to see.
Around the same time, Chaim Lebovits, a shoe wholesaler from Monsey, N.Y., in hard-hit Rockland County, was spreading the word about plasma within his Orthodox Jewish community. Mr. Lebovits called several rabbis he knew, and before long, thousands of Orthodox Jewish people were getting tested for coronavirus antibodies and showing up to donate. Coordinating it all was exhausting.
April, Mr. Lebovits recalled with a laugh, was like 20 decades.
Two developments that month further accelerated plasmas use. With the help of $66 million in federal funding, the F.D.A. tapped the Mayo Clinic to run an expanded access program for hospitals across the country. And the government agreed to cover the administrative costs of collecting plasma, signing deals with the American Red Cross and Americas Blood Centers.
The news releases announcing those deals got none of the flashy media attention that the billion-dollar contracts for Covid-19 vaccines did when they arrived later in the summer. And the government did not disclose how much it would be investing.
That investment turned out to be significant. According to contract records, the U.S. government has paid $647 million to the American Red Cross and Americas Blood Centers since last April.
The convalescent plasma program was intended to meet an urgent need for a potential therapy early in the pandemic, a health department spokeswoman said in a statement. When these contracts began, treatments werent available for hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
April 17, 2021, 6:20 p.m. ET
As spring turned to summer, the Trump administration seized on plasma as it had with the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as a promising solution. In July, the administration announced an $8 million advertising campaign imploring Americans to donate their plasma and help save lives. The blitz included promotional radio spots and billboards featuring Dr. Fauci and Dr. Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner.
A coalition to organize the collection of plasma was beginning to take shape, connecting researchers, federal officials, activists like Ms. Berrent and Mr. Lebovits, and major corporations like Microsoft and Anthem on regular calls that have continued to this day. Nonprofit blood banks and for-profit plasma collection companies also joined the collaboration, named the Fight Is In Us.
The group also included the Mitre Corporation, a little-known nonprofit organization that had received a $37 million government grant to promote plasma donation around the country.
The participants sometimes had conflicting interests. While the blood banks were collecting plasma to be immediately infused in hospitalized patients, the for-profit companies needed plasma donations to develop their own blood-based treatment for Covid-19. Donations at those companies own centers had also dropped off after national lockdowns.
They dont all exactly get along, Peter Lee, the corporate vice president of research and incubations at Microsoft, said at a virtual scientific forum in March organized by Scripps Research.
Microsoft was recruited to develop a locator tool, embedded on the groups website, for potential donors. But the company took on a broader role as a neutral intermediary, Dr. Lee said.
The company also provided access to its advertising agency, which created the look and feel for the Fight Is In Us campaign, which included video testimonials from celebrities.
In August, the F.D.A. authorized plasma for emergency use under pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who had chastised federal scientists for moving too slowly.
At a news conference, Dr. Hahn, the agencys commissioner, substantially exaggerated the data, although he later corrected his remarks following criticism from the scientific community.
In a recent interview, he said that Mr. Trumps involvement in the plasma authorization had made the topic polarizing.
Any discussion one could have about the science and medicine behind it didnt happen, because it became a political issue as opposed to a medical and scientific one, Dr. Hahn said.
The authorization did away with the Mayo Clinic system and opened access to even more hospitals. As Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths skyrocketed in the fall and winter, use of plasma did, too, according to national usage data provided by the Blood Centers of America. By January of this year, when the United States was averaging more than 130,000 hospitalizations a day, hospitals were administering 25,000 units of plasma per week.
Many community hospitals serving lower-income patients, with few other options and plasma readily available, embraced the treatment. At the Integris Health system in Oklahoma, giving patients two units of plasma became standard practice between November and January.
Dr. David Chansolme, the systems medical director of infection prevention, acknowledged that studies of plasma had showed it was more miss than hit, but he said his hospitals last year lacked the resources of bigger institutions, including access to the antiviral drug remdesivir. Doctors with a flood of patients many of them Hispanic and from rural communities were desperate to treat them with anything they could that was safe, Dr. Chansolme said.
By the fall, accumulating evidence was showing that plasma was not the miracle that some early boosters had believed it to be. In September, the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended that plasma not be used in hospitalized patients outside of a clinical trial. (On Wednesday, the society restricted its advice further, saying plasma should not be used at all in hospitalized patients.) In January, a highly anticipated trial in Britain was halted early because there was not strong evidence of a benefit in hospitalized patients.
In February, the F.D.A. narrowed the authorization for plasma so that it applied only to people who were early in the course of their disease or who couldnt make their own antibodies.
Dr. Marks, the F.D.A. regulator, said that in retrospect, scientists had been too slow to adapt to those recommendations. They had known from previous disease outbreaks that plasma treatment is likely to work best when given early, and when it contained high levels of antibodies, he said.
Somehow we didnt really take that as seriously as perhaps we should have, he said. If there was a lesson in this, its that history actually can teach you something.
Today, several medical centers have largely stopped giving plasma to patients. At Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, researchers found that many hospitalized patients were already producing their own antibodies, so plasma treatments would be superfluous. The Cleveland Clinic no longer routinely administers plasma because of a lack of convincing evidence of efficacy, according to Dr. Simon Mucha, a critical care physician.
And earlier this year, Mount Sinai stopped giving plasma to patients outside of a clinical trial. Dr. Bouvier said that she had tracked the scientific literature and that there had been a sort of piling on of studies that showed no benefit.
Thats what science is its a process of abandoning your old hypotheses in favor of a better hypothesis, she said. Many initially promising drugs fail in clinical trials. Thats just the way the cookie crumbles.
Some scientists are calling on the F.D.A. to rescind plasmas emergency authorization. Dr. Luciana Borio, the acting chief scientist at the agency under President Barack Obama, said that disregarding the usual scientific standards in an emergency what she called pandemic exceptionalism had drained valuable time and attention from discovering other treatments.
Pandemic exceptionalism is something we learned from prior emergencies that leads to serious unintended consequences, she said, referring to the ways countries leaned on inadequate studies during the Ebola outbreak. With plasma, she said, the agency forgot lessons from past emergencies.
While scant evidence shows that plasma will help curb the pandemic, a dedicated clutch of researchers at prominent medical institutions continue to focus on the narrow circumstances in which it might work.
Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an immunologist at Johns Hopkins University, said many of the trials had not succeeded because they tested plasma on very sick patients. If theyre treated early, the results of the trials are all consistent, he said.
A clinical trial in Argentina found that giving plasma early to older people reduced the progression of Covid-19. And an analysis of the Mayo Clinic program found that patients who were given plasma with a high concentration of antibodies fared better than those who did not receive the treatment. Still, in March, the N.I.H. halted a trial of plasma in people who were not yet severely ill with Covid-19 because the agency said it was unlikely to help.
With most of the medical community acknowledging plasmas limited benefit, even the Fight Is In Us has begun to shift its focus. For months, a clinical research page about convalescent plasma was dominated by favorable studies and news releases, omitting major articles concluding that plasma showed little benefit.
Now, the website has been redesigned to more broadly promote not only plasma, but also testing, vaccines and other treatments like monoclonal antibodies, which are synthesized in a lab and thought to be a more potent version of plasma. Its clinical research page also includes more negative studies about plasma.
Nevertheless, the Fight Is In Us is still running Facebook ads, paid for by the federal government, telling Covid-19 survivors that Theres a hero inside you and Keep up the fight. The ads urge them to donate their plasma, even though most blood banks have stopped collecting it.
Two of plasmas early boosters, Mr. Lebovits and Ms. Berrent, have also turned their attention to monoclonal antibodies. As he had done with plasma last spring, Mr. Lebovits helped increase acceptance of monoclonals in the Orthodox Jewish community, setting up an informational hotline, running ads in Orthodox newspapers, and creating rapid testing sites that doubled as infusion centers. Coordinating with federal officials, Mr. Lebovits has since shared his strategies with leaders in the Hispanic community in El Paso and San Diego.
And Ms. Berrent has been working with a division of the insurer UnitedHealth to match the right patients people with underlying health conditions or who are over 65 to that treatment.
Im a believer in plasma for a lot of substantive reasons, but if word came back tomorrow that jelly beans worked better, wed be promoting jelly beans, she said. We are here to save lives.
Tony Johnson is chair of the Chinook Indian Nation, a federally unrecognized tribe. He stands on a Willapa Bay, Wash., beach, where he got married and not far from where his ancestors lived. Eilis O'Neill/KUOW hide caption
Tony Johnson is chair of the Chinook Indian Nation, a federally unrecognized tribe. He stands on a Willapa Bay, Wash., beach, where he got married and not far from where his ancestors lived.
The Chinook Indian Nation has about 3,000 members who mostly live near the mouth of the Columbia River in southwest Washington. But they're not on the list of federally recognized tribes so they get nothing from the Indian Health Service.
"We have all the problems of Indian Country, but no means of dealing with it," Chinook chair Tony Johnson says. Without recognition, they get no reservation, no housing allowance, no clinics.
And, during the pandemic, no federal recognition has meant no testing supplies or vaccine allocations.
"So we rely on our neighboring tribes," Johnson says, "which means that people are traveling an hour or two or three to be able to access vaccinations, testing and other resources."
The nearby Shoalwater Bay Tribe, for example, gave Johnson his COVID-19 vaccine.
The Indian Health Service has been lauded for the success of its vaccination campaign. But not every Native American got to be part of that. Tribes that aren't recognized by the U.S. government have received none of the resources directed to Indian Country to help them survive the pandemic.
More than 200 tribes do not have federal recognition, affecting tens of thousands of tribal members. The U.S. government officially recognizes 574 tribes.
Over the past year, unemployment spiked in southwest Washington, and, with it, addiction problems, Johnson says. But the Chinook receive no federal funds for drug and alcohol programs.
And, without their own clinic, many Chinook members forego medical care rather than travel hours to see a doctor, Johnson says.
As a result, he says, though no local tribal members died of COVID-19, several died because of COVID-19 some of addiction, and others of untreated chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
"We have lost folks in the community over the last year that would not have been lost were Chinook to have been a federally recognized community," he says. "And that is unbearable."
Recognized v. unrecognized
Many tribes are federally recognized because, at some point, they signed a treaty agreeing to give up their land. For complicated reasons, the Chinook Nation isn't recognized even though they did, at one point, sign a treaty.
"It was an accident of history that left some off the list and included others," says John Norwood, of the National Congress of American Indians. He works on federal recognition issues.
He says gaining federal recognition now can be nearly impossible, regardless of a tribe's history. On paper, it's one thing.
"The regulations as they stood appeared to be just fine," he says.
But how they're used is a different story.
"The problem was their interpretation and application became more stringent, less transparent, very inconsistent, oftentimes punitive," he explains.
Another Western Washington tribe the U.S. government refuses to recognize is the Snohomish. They're the namesake of the county north of Seattle.
"We will continue to be here as long as the mountains still exist and the rivers run through the forest out into the sea," says the Snohomish Tribe's chair, Mike Evans.
He says, today, the tribe has about 1,500 enrolled members, but "we don't have a clinic, we don't have the vaccines to distribute, and there's no money to deal with that."
And, without federal recognition, there won't be any money in the future either.
The most recent COVID-19 relief package included more than $31 billion for the tribes on the federal government's list. It's the largest financial aid to Indian Country ever. And that's in addition to funds earmarked for tribes in the prior two relief bills.
Tony Johnson, chair of the Chinook Nation, says officially recognized tribes used those funds for unemployment relief, food programs, and infrastructure projects.
"The once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-generation infusions of funds will be having impact on those communities generations to come," Johnson says. "It's heartbreaking that my own Chinook Indian Nation doesn't have access to some portion of those resources."
Today, the US government announced a new initiative in the next phase of fighting the pandemic: investing $1.7 billion in genomic sequencing efforts that will help identify COVID-19 variants.
"Our ability to spot variants as they emerge and spread is vital, particularly as we aim to get aheadof dangerous variants before they emerge, as they are in the Midwest right now," Andy Slavitt, a senior White House pandemic adviser, said today during a COVID-19 briefing.
Slavitt said vaccination is still the main tool to end the pandemic, and he encouraged all Americans to get the vaccine beginning Monday, when more states will make those 16 and older eligible.
But genetic sequencing will enable the country to quickly identify new variants of the virus, more accurately locate hot spots of variant activity, and aid in the development of booster vaccines, which will target circulating variants.
"Despite having world-class researchers and dedicated state and local public health leaders, when we arrived, the US was sequencing only a small fragment of what other countries were," Slavitt said. "This hampered our ability to find and react to these new variants.
Laboratories will receive $1 billion to strengthen sequencing programs, $400 million will go to the Centers of Excellence in Genomic Epidemiology, and $300 million will go to developing a national bioinformatics infrastructure.
All of the money is coming from the American Rescue Plan, Slavitt said.
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, said during the briefing that the new 7-day average of daily cases is 69,000. Just 4 weeks ago, that number was 53,000.
More troubling, she said, was that today marked the third day in a row of increasing death counts.
The country reported 74,289 new COVID-19 cases yesterdayand 887 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. In total, the nation has confirmed 31,556,889 cases, including 565,096 fatalities.
According to the Washington Post, 38 states have reported an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the past week, with a national total of more than 47,000.
The Upper Midwest, from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, is seeing the most dramatic spike in virus activity.
Michigan remains the biggest hot spot in the country, as it has been for the last 4 weeks. Michigan's largest hospital system said it has more than 800 patients being treated for COVID-19, up from 500 2 weeks ago. Beaumont Health's medical director of infection prevention told the Associated Press it's "just like a runaway train right now."
Beaumont Health said its eight hospitals had just 128 COVID-19 patients at the end of February. Only 25% of Michigan's population is vaccinated, and state officials warn that the benefits of vaccination won't be seen for weeks.
Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of Pfizer, said yesterday a third dose of the company's mRNA vaccine, the first approved for use in the United States, will likely be needed within a year. Bourla also said that COVID-19 vaccines may become an annual event, similar to the seasonal flu vaccine.
So far, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson have data showing 6 months of protection against the virus.
Today, Walensky said the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the independent group of vaccine experts that advises the CDC, will meet next Apr 23 to discuss how to move forward with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is on pause after being tied to six cases of blood clots, one deadly.
Johnson & Johnson privately reached out to other COVID-19 vaccine makers to ask them to join an effort to study the risks of blood clots and speak with one voice about safety, but Pfizer and Moderna declined, the Wall Street Journal reports.Astra Zeneca, whose coronavirus vaccine has also been tied to rare clotting events in Europe, agreed to study the phenomenon.
Both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are adenovirus-based vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA-based and have not been connected to an increased risk of blood clots.
Posted: Apr 17, 2021 / 06:20 PM EDT / Updated: Apr 17, 2021 / 06:20 PM EDT
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) The Monroe County Department of Health reported 298 new COVID-19 cases in the county Saturday, and no new deaths.
The 7-day rolling average positivity rate for Monroe County is 3.4%, and the 7-day rolling average of new cases is 249 per day. 207 people in the Finger Lakes region are hospitalized with the virus 55 of them are in the ICU.
Heres a breakdown of the new cases by age:
You can see more details from the Monroe County COVID-19 dashboard here. Information about the vaccine can be found here.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) 200 new total COVID-19 cases were reported by theState Department of Healthon Saturday while one new death was reported.
According to the latest update, there are 96 current hospitalizations, down from Friday (106). Total hospitalizations are at 7,204.
One new death was reported by the Department of Health on Saturday. The death was one woman in the 40-49 age range in Dewey county.
Active cases are now at 2,210, up from Friday (2,201).
The states total case count is now at 121,056, up from Friday (120,856).
Total recovered cases are now at 116,893, up from Friday (116,703).
Total persons who tested negative is now at 336,856, from Friday (335,339).
There were 1,717 new persons tested in the data reported Saturday for a new persons-tested positivity rate of 11.64%.
The latest seven-day all test positivity rate reported by the DOH is 8.7%. The latest one-day PCR test positivity rate is 8.1%.
According to the DOH, 273,516 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered with 16,288 doses of the Janssen vaccine and 238,251 of the Moderna vaccine given out to a total number of 314,649 persons.
There have been 100,162 persons who have completed two doses of Moderna and 113,204 who have received two doses of Pfizer, according to the DOH.
As of Saturday, 52% of the population in South Dakota has received at least one dose while 38.44% have completed the vaccination series.
