Heres what you need to know:Dr. Anthony S. Fauci on Meet the Press, today.Credit...NBC News
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Bidens chief medical adviser for Covid-19, said on Sunday that Americans may still be wearing masks outside their homes a year from now, even as he predicted the country would return to a significant degree of normality by fall.
I want it to keep going down to a baseline thats so low there is virtually no threat, Dr. Fauci said on the CNN program State of the Union, referring to the number of cases nationally that would make him comfortable enough to stop recommending universal masking. If you combine getting most of the people in the country vaccinated with getting the level of virus in the community very, very low, then I believe youre going to be able to say, for the most part, we dont necessarily have to wear masks.
Dr. Fauci appeared on a series of TV news programs on Sunday morning, where he was quizzed on the dangers of variants of the coronavirus, the schedule of the nations vaccine rollout and when vaccination would allow more students to return to schools.
On this last question, Dr. Fauci said on Fox News Sunday that he hoped high school students, far fewer of whom have gone back to classrooms compared with younger children, would be eligible for vaccination in the fall.
Thats why we are pushing on those studies, to get them vaccinated, he said of teenagers, who are currently the subject of clinical trials by Pfizer and Moderna. That will likely occur in the fall; I cant say its going to be on day one of when school starts in the fall term.
Vaccinations for younger children, however, likely will not be before the beginning of the first quarter of 2022, Dr. Fauci said.
On the hotly debated question of whether people should wait longer than the recommended three or four weeks to get a booster vaccine, or even skip the second dose, Dr. Fauci said on NBC Newss Meet the Press that it was prudent for people to stick to the prescribed schedule.
There are enough unknowns in that, particularly the durability of the protection, he said.
He added that while that new data suggesting people who have had Covid could get enough protection from one dose was really quite impressive, it might be complicated to document who has had the virus.
He also addressed the subject of the mutated variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa. In clinical trials involving the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in that country, patients who were inoculated were not protected from mild or moderate illness caused by the variant, known as B. 1.351. Dr. Fauci said on Fox News Sunday that while it is still rare in the United States, if it becomes more dominant, we may need a version of the vaccine thats effective specifically against it.
With the United States expected to surpass 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the coming days, Dr. Fauci told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that we havent seen anything even close to this for well over 100 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic, adding, People will be talking about this decades and decades and decades from now.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci expressed optimism on Sunday that vaccination sites around the country would quickly recover from delays in coronavirus vaccine inoculations caused by weather-related shipping delays last week, and administer all six million missed doses while still ramping up the number of new appointments.
We can play pretty good catch-up, Dr. Fauci, President Bidens chief medical adviser for Covid-19, said on the NBC show Meet the Press, noting that two million of the delayed doses had already been shipped. When you just, you know, put the foot to the accelerator and really push, well get it up to where we need to be by the middle of the week.
The rate of vaccinations in the United States, which had been accelerating after a chaotic start, fell last week after a winter storm blew through much of the country. About 1.52 million vaccine doses were being administered per day, according to a New York Times database. Although that is still above President Bidens target, it was the lowest rate since Feb. 8.
The country has been racing to vaccinate as many people as possible before more contagious and possibly deadlier variants of the coronavirus become dominant, and the figure had been well above the presidents goal of 1.5 million doses for several days. It peaked at 1.7 million on Feb. 16 before a brutal winter storm hit states from coast to coast. The bad weather delayed shipments of vaccine supplies from two hubs: a FedEx center in Memphis and a UPS site in Louisville, Ky.
More than 2,000 vaccine sites were in areas with power outages, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Many were not only forced to close but left relying on generators to keep doses at the ultracold temperatures they require to prevent them from spoiling.
Texas, where the frigid storm left millions without power and water for a time, has reopened inoculation sites. The state has been assigned almost 600,000 first doses of the vaccine for the coming week, according to the state health department, up from about 400,000 first doses for the week of Feb. 15.
The doses that were supposed to be delivered last week are still waiting to be shipped to Texas from out-of-state warehouses, state health officials said. The missed doses are expected to be delivered in the first half of this week.
On Sunday, Houstons mayor, Sylvester Turner, said on Face the Nation on CBS that vaccinations had resumed there and that a FEMA site would open Monday with the potential to administer shots to 6,000 people a day for the next six to eight weeks. He estimated the city could vaccinate more than 100,000 people in the coming week. The people are resilient, he said. Im very proud of the people in the city of Houston, how they have come together.
In Dallas, a major vaccination hub at Fair Park reopened Sunday, but sites in Austin remain closed. The mayor of neighboring Fort Worth, Betsy Price, also appeared on Face the Nation, and said that vaccinations would resume in her city on Monday or Tuesday.
Last weeks bottlenecks and delays came just as states have broadened vaccine access to more groups, despite a limited supply that is not growing enough to keep up.
New York City said on Saturday that it had fewer than 1,000 first Covid-19 doses on hand because of the weather-related shipment delays. Mayor Bill de Blasio said that New York City had delayed scheduling up to 35,000 first dose appointments because of the shortage.
At the same time, New York State is still scheduling appointments for new mass vaccination sites opening in Brooklyn and Queens on Wednesday in partnership with FEMA.
The new sites, at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and York College in Queens, are open to residents of only select ZIP codes and are intended to increase low vaccination rates in communities of color. Data released on Tuesday showed drastic disparities between vaccination rates in whiter areas of New York City compared with predominantly Black neighborhoods.
A person from a suburb east of New York City has been confirmed as the first New York resident to have been infected by a more contagious variant of the coronavirus that emerged in South Africa, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday.
Few other details were offered about the case, including specifically when it was confirmed or whether the individual who was infected, a resident of Nassau County on Long Island, had recently traveled. It was not the first case of the South Africa variant to be found in New York; Mr. Cuomo announced last Monday that the variant had been detected in a man from Connecticut who was hospitalized in New York City.
The variant, known as B.1.351, was originally identified in South Africa in December, and has since been found in dozens of other countries and at least nine states, including California, Texas and Virginia. The variant carries mutations that help it latch on more tightly to human cells and that may help the virus evade some antibodies.
Its emergence in New York, which officials had warned was inevitable, underscored the dangers posed by new variants that may be more infectious or resistant to vaccines, particularly as the states vaccination effort continues to be hampered by a limited supply of doses.
We are in a race right now between our ability to vaccinate and these variants which are actively trying to proliferate and we will only win that race if we stay smart and disciplined, Mr. Cuomo said in a statement on Sunday.
Two weeks ago, South Africa halted the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine after evidence emerged that it did not protect participants in a clinical trial from mild or moderate illness caused by the variant.
Scientists in South Africa have also said that the immunity acquired by people infected by earlier versions of the coronavirus did not appear to protect them from mild or moderate cases when reinfected by the South Africa variant.
The Food and Drug Administration is working on a plan to update vaccines if the variant surges in the United States.
But Mr. Cuomo on Sunday also offered reason for optimism, noting that the statewide rate of positive test results was less than 3 percent for the first time since November. He said that hospitalizations also continued to decline statewide.
The chief executive of the Indian pharmaceutical giant that dozens of countries are counting on to supply them with Covid-19 vaccines said on Sunday that their deliveries might be delayed because it had been directed to fill domestic needs ahead of export orders.
Dear countries & governments, the executive, Adar Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India, wrote in a tweet in which he warned of delays. I humbly request you to please be patient, he wrote, adding that his company had been directed to prioritize the huge needs of India and along with that balance the needs of the rest of the world. We are trying our best.
He did not say who had issued the directive, and the Serum Institute did not immediately return requests for comment.
India produces three-fifths of the worlds supply of all kinds of vaccines, and the countrys prime minister, Narendra Modi, has launched one of the worlds largest and most ambitious vaccination campaigns, aiming to inoculated Indias 1.3 billion people.
But even though the country already operates a huge immunization program, administering about 390 million shots against ailments like measles and tuberculosis in an average year, India is struggling to get Covid inoculations to the population. Less than 1 percent of Indians have been inoculated since mid-January. The pandemic has caused at least 10.9 million known coronavirus infections in India so far, more than in any other country except the United States.
The countrys regulators have approved two vaccines: one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and produced by the Serum Institute, and another still in trials developed by the National Institute of Virology with Bharat Biotech, a local pharmaceutical company that will make the doses.
The Serum Institute will also make doses of a vaccine developed by Novovax once it is approved.
Besides helping supply India and other clients, the company is expected to produce hundreds of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and more than a billion Novovax vaccines to be distributed through the global vaccination initiative Covax, which aims to ensure that 92 low- and middle-income countries receive vaccines at the same time as the worlds 98 richer countries. Covax did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Mr. Poonawallas alert that foreign countries would have to wait for vaccines.
Many developing countries want the AstraZeneca vaccine because it is much less expensive and much easier to store and transport than other Covid vaccines now in use. That also makes it suitable for Indias vast vaccination campaign, which must reach from the towering Himalayan mountains to South Indias dense jungles.
The Indian government has increasingly used the countrys vaccine manufacturing capacity as a currency for its international diplomacy, in competition with China, which has made doling out shots a central plank of its foreign relations. Last week, for example, India promised to donate 200,000 vaccine doses for United Nations peacekeepers around the world.
One year ago, when the coronavirus spread to the United States, few public health experts predicted its death toll would climb to such a terrible height.
At a White House briefing on March 31, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert in the country, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, who was coordinating the coronavirus response at the time, announced a stunning projection: Even with strict stay-at-home orders, the virus might kill as many as 240,000 Americans.
Less than a year later, the virus has killed more than twice that number. A nation numbed by misery and loss is confronting a number that still has the power to shock: 500,000.
No other country has counted so many deaths during the pandemic. More Americans have perished from Covid-19 than they did on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.
The milestone comes at a hopeful moment: New virus cases are down sharply, deaths are slowing and vaccines are steadily being administered.
But there is concern that new, more contagious variants of the virus could quickly undo the nations progress and lead to another spike. It will still take months to vaccinate the American public, and it may be months before the pandemic is contained.
The virus has reached every corner of America, devastating dense cities and rural counties alike. By now, about one in 670 Americans has died of it.
In New York City, more than 28,000 people have died of the virus or one in 295 people. In Los Angeles County, which has lost nearly 20,000 people to Covid-19, about one in 500 people has died of the virus. In Lamb County, Texas, where 13,000 people live scattered on a sprawling expanse of 1,000 square miles, one in 163 people has died of the virus.
As the United States approaches the loss of half a million people to Covid-19, there are few events in history that adequately compare.
The 1918 influenza pandemic is estimated to have killed about 675,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when the countrys population was a third of what it is now. But it also happened at a time when influenza vaccines, antibiotics, mechanical ventilation and other medical tools did not exist yet.
Deaths from Covid-19 in the United States came faster as the pandemic went on. The first known death occurred in February, and by May 27, 100,000 people had died. It took four months for the nation to log another 100,000 deaths; the next, about three months; the next, just five weeks.
Though daily deaths are now slowing, about 1,900 deaths in America are being reported each day. As of Saturday evening, the toll had reached 497,221.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, has projected that the nation could reach more than 614,000 deaths by June 1. Factors like how well people adhere to guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing, plus the speed of vaccinations, could affect that estimate.
WASHINGTON President Bidens national security adviser on Sunday urged the World Health Organization to dig deeper and China to release raw data on the origins of the Covid-19 virus, casting doubt on a completeness of coming report from the health organization.
The only way to have a scientifically based investigation is to have access to all the data, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said on Face the Nation on CBS, calling for a credible, open, transparent international investigation led by the World Health Organization.
The W.H.O. sent a team of investigators, mostly scientists, to China for four weeks over January and February to investigate the origins of the virus. The team said after returning to the United States that Chinese scientists refused to give them access to patient records and other critical data. The investigators are already working on a preliminary report, but Mr. Sullivan said more research was needed. The W.H.O. still has more work to do to get to the bottom of exactly where this virus emerged, he said.
Toward the end of the show on which Mr. Sullivan aired his concerns, Matthew Pottinger, President Trumps former deputy national security adviser, made an appearance in which he continued to advance a discredited theory promoted by the previous administration and challenged by many scientists: that Covid-19 was the product of secret Chinese military experimentation in a lab in Wuhan, China.
While acknowledging some of the Trump administrations grave missteps, such as not advising the America public soon enough to wear masks and not doing enough collection and analysis about the how the virus was spreading and evolving genetically, Mr. Pottinger said China misled U.S. public health experts by not disclosing that the virus could spread silently, carried by people who did not show symptoms.
We were waiting to be fed information when the nature of that regime meant that we were not going to get that information, Mr. Pottinger said. They had a strong incentive to mislead their own public and the rest of the world about the nature of this virus.
During his appearance, Mr. Sullivan lamented a decision by the Trump administration to dismantle a special White House office that the Obama administration set up inside the National Security Council to detect and address pandemics. And Mr. Pottinger said that, based on the Covid-19 experience, the Centers for Disease Control should establish a new super body for pandemic preparedness and response, with the person in charge attached to the White House.
Both men said that the U.S. intelligence community should have played a greater role in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Sullivan said the Biden administration would be increasing its tools, its resources, its practices to focus on detecting, preventing and responding to pandemics.
Mr. Pottinger, a former Marine intelligence officer who resigned from the Trump administration after Trump supporters invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, said, I dont think that the intelligence community is going to be able to do more than that critical role of collecting and analyzing the information.
As new variants of the coronavirus spread rapidly, a number of European countries are moving to reintroduce border controls, chipping away at what was once the worlds largest area of free movement.
Fearing the highly contagious and possibly more lethal new variants first identified in Britain and South Africa, both Germany and Belgium introduced new border restrictions this week, adding to steps taken by other countries.
The European Union sees free movement as a fundamental pillar of the continents deepening integration, but after a decade in which first terrorism and then the migration crisis tested that commitment, countries easy resort to border controls is placing it under new pressure.
The European Commission, the E.U. executive branch, has tried to pull countries back from limiting free movement since last March, after most imposed restrictions at the onset of the crisis.
Last spring we had 17 different member states that had introduced border measures and the lessons we learned at the time is that it did not stop the virus but it disrupted incredibly the single market and caused enormous problems, the commissions president, Ursula von der Leyen, told the news media last week. The virus taught us that closing borders does not stop it.
But Ms. von der Leyens remarks triggered a pushback from Germany.
We are fighting the mutated virus on the border with the Czech Republic and Austria, the German interior minister, Horst Seehofer, told the tabloid newspaper Bild. The commission should support us and not put spokespeople in our wheels with cheap advice, he snapped.
One factor that may help keep borders open is the vast and instant economic impact now felt from even minor closures.
Since Sunday, the only people allowed to enter Germany from the Czech Republic or the Tyrol region of Austria, where instances of the coronavirus variant that originated in Britain are rising, are those who are German, living in Germany, carrying freight or working in essential jobs in Germany. All have to register and show a negative coronavirus test result before entry.
But thousands of people in Austria and the Czech Republic commute daily to jobs in Germany, and after the new checks came into force, long lines began to form. By the end of the week, business groups were writing desperate letters asking Germany to ease or lift the restrictions.
From afar, the graphic on the front page of Sundays New York Times looks like a blur of gray, a cloudy gradient that slowly descends into a block of solid ink. Up close, it shows something much darker: close to 500,000 individual dots, each representing a life lost in the United States to the coronavirus.
Half of the front page was dedicated to the graphic. The prominent real estate conveyed the significance of this moment in the pandemic and the totality of the devastation.
Lazaro Gamio and Lauren Leatherby, both graphics editors at The Times, plotted out the points so they stretched chronologically down a long scroll, from the first reported U.S. death nearly a year ago to the current toll of often thousands of casualties per day.
The front page has been used to visualize the breadth of the pandemic before. When Covid deaths in the United States reached 100,000 last May, the page was filled with names of those who died. And as that number approached 200,000, the lead photograph on the page showed the yard of an artist in Texas, who filled his lawn with a small flag for every life lost to the virus in his state.
But unlike the previous approaches, Sundays graphic depicts all of the fatalities. I think part of this technique, which is good, is that it overwhelms you because it should, Mr. Gamio said.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the Graphics desk has been working on what editors internally call the State of the Virus, an effort to provide visuals that capture the defining moments of this story. The goal of this particular visualization was to add context to a fluctuating death count: April 2020 felt like the sky was falling, Mr. Gamio said, but this winter has been markedly worse.
There is just a certain numbness, I think, that is normal human nature when this has been going on for so long, but weve tried to just keep reminding people of whats still going on, Ms. Leatherby said. And I think something striking about this particular piece that we were trying to drive home is just the sheer speed at which it was all happening.
The House version of President Bidens coronavirus relief plan would add $1.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this weekend.
That figure is in line with Mr. Bidens calls for a $1.9 trillion package, and it reflects Democrats determination to hold the line on the presidents calls to go big on stimulus despite pressure from Republicans and some liberal economists to scale back the plan, warning of possible inflation stemming from increased federal borrowing.
The legislation would fund measures to combat the pandemic, provide billions of dollars for schools and small businesses, temporarily bolster unemployment benefits, aid state and local governments, and deliver a round of $1,400 direct payments to individuals.
Most of the money is projected to hit the economy over the next year. The budget office estimated that about $1.6 trillion in new spending would occur this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and in the 2022 fiscal year, which begins in October.
The rest of the money will be spent more gradually, the budget office said. Much of the delayed spending comes in the category of education.
Canadians might be known internationally as nice, apologetic and fair-minded. But a very different Canadian persona has been exposed by a year of pandemic: one that shames people for contracting and potentially spreading the virus.
People are calling out not just authority figures like politicians and doctors for breaking the rules, but also their own relatives and neighbors.
Snitch lines set up across Canada have been flooded with tips about people suspected of breaking quarantine, businesses flouting public health restrictions, and out-of-towners siders with unfamiliar license plates who are seen in town and might be bringing the virus with them.
Facebook groups are full of stories of people being labeled potential vectors and are then refused service, disinvited from family gatherings, and reported to the police and public health authorities.
Experts worry that fear of being treated that way may be driving cases underground, delaying reports of Covid-19 symptoms and making people avoid getting tested.
This is impacting our ability to contain the virus, said Dr. Ryan Sommers, one of eight public health doctors in Nova Scotia who published a letter beseeching residents in the small Atlantic province to stop shaming one another.
Nova Scotia has one of the lowest coronavirus rates in the country, with just 12 active cases as of Feb. 16. But Dr. Sommers said vigilance has turned into hypervigilance. .
We want to create a social norm where people will be supportive and caring and compassionate, Dr. Sommers said. Social media can be more virulent than the virus itself.
In the countrys four eastern provinces, which have enforced self-isolation rules for anyone entering the region, the shaming is not just online, said Robert Huish, an associate professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who is conducting a study of coronavirus stigma. Its intimate, particularly in small communities, where community cohesion quickly flips to become community surveillance.
Some say the fear of stigma has become worse than the fear of contracting the virus.
Historically, stigma and shaming have faithfully trailed pandemics, said David Barnes, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the history of infectious diseases and epidemics. During the plague years in Europe, Jewish people were made into convenient scapegoats. When cholera afflicted Britain in the 19th century, working-class Irish people were blamed, Mr. Barnes said.
Most recently, gay men and Haitians were stigmatized during the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
LONDON The British government declared Sunday that every adult in the country should get a first coronavirus vaccine shot by July 31, at least a month earlier than its previous target, as it prepared to set out a cautious plan to ease the U.K.s lockdown.
The previous aim was for all adults to get a jab by September. The new target also calls for everyone 50 and over and those with an underlying health condition to get their first of two vaccine shots by April 15, rather than the previous date of May 1.
The makers of the two vaccines that Britain is using, Pfizer PFE, -0.35% and AstraZeneca AZN, -1.77%, have both experienced supply problems in Europe. But U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Sunday that we now think that we have the supplies to speed up the vaccination campaign.
The early success of Britains vaccination effort is welcome good news for a country that has had more than 120,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe. More than 17.5 million people, a third of U.K. adults, have had at lease one vaccine shot since inoculations began on Dec. 8.
Britain is delaying giving second vaccine doses until 12 weeks after the first, rather than three to four weeks, in order to give more people partial protection quickly. The approach has been criticized in some countries and by Pfizer, which says it does not have any data to support the interval but it is backed by the U.K. governments scientific advisers.
News of the new vaccine targets came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Sunday with senior ministers to finalize a road map out of the national lockdown. He plans to announce details in Parliament on Monday.
Faced with a dominant virus variant that scientists say is both more transmissible and more deadly than the original virus, Britain has spent much of the winter under a tight lockdown. Bars, restaurants, gyms, schools, hair salons and all nonessential shops have been closed; grocery stories, pharmacies and takeout food venues are still open.
The government has stressed that economic and social reopenings will be slow and cautious, with nonessential shopping or outdoor socializing unlikely before April. Many children will go back to school beginning on March 8 and nursing home residents will be able to have one visitor from the same date.
Johnsons Conservative government has been accused of reopening the country too quickly after the first lockdown in the spring. The number of new confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all declining in February but remain high, and Johnson says his reopening road map will follow data, not dates.
But he is under pressure from some Conservative lawmakers, who argue that restrictions should be lifted quickly to revive an economy that has been hammered by three lockdowns in the last year.
John Edmunds, a member of the governments scientific advisory group, said British hospitals are still treating almost 20,000 coronavirus patients, half the January peak but almost as much as the height of the first surge last spring.
If we eased off very rapidly now, we would get another surge in hospitalizations and deaths, he told the BBC.
Edmunds said there is added uncertainty because of new virus variants, including one identified in South Africa that may be more resistant to current vaccines.
Hancock told Sky News that the government would take a cautious but irreversible approach to reopening the economy.
Despite the success of Europes fastest vaccination campaign, the U.K. government has been accused of failing to protect disabled people, who are among the most at-risk from coronavirus.
The Office for National Statistics has found that 60% of people who died with coronavirus in England in 2020 had a physical or mental disability. But many disabled people, apart from those with severe or profound learning disabilities, have not been put in a priority group for vaccination.
Jo Whiley, a well-known BBC radio DJ, on Sunday highlighted the plight of her 53-year-old sister Frances, who has a learning disability. Whiley said her sister contracted the coronavirus in an outbreak at her care home, whose residents had not been vaccinated.
Whiley said her sister had finally been offered a shot of vaccine but it came too late.
She was actually called in for her vaccine last night. My mum got a message to say that she could get vaccinated, but its too late, shes fighting for her life in the hospital, Whiley told the BBC. It couldnt be crueller.
Nationally, the vaccination rates among whites is more than three times higher than the rate for Hispanics and twice as high as the rate for Blacks, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization focusing on national health issues. In Ohio, 11% of whites have been vaccinated, compared to 5% for Blacks and 4% for Hispanics, the foundation said.
Some people of color have been hesitant to get the vaccine because they dont have enough information, according to the Kaiser report. Reluctance for some also stems from mistrust of medical profession in light of historical examples of Blacks being used in medical experiments without their consent.
But millions of people across the country have gotten the coronavirus vaccine, and theres ample evidence that its safe, DeWine said Sunday. His administration has planned virtual townhall meetings at which medical professionals, community leaders and others will take questions and address myths about the vaccine. The townhalls will be aimed at people of color as well as rural Ohioans, who also traditionally are underserved.
Jenny and Stan Staggs of Germantown got their first shots at the clinic. Jenny Staggs was infected with the coronavirus, and although she was not hospitalized, it was serous enough that she feared for her life. Her husband Stan Staggs said he managed to not to get infected, although several people at his work have been infected.
The couple said they were relieved to get their shots, and theyre are grateful they didnt have to travel far to get it.
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WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) The falling numbers of COVID-19 patients needing hospital care have not gone unnoticed and neither has the fast-evolving strategy for inoculating those needing protection the most.
If youre like Michael Towsley of West Springfield, youre feeling optimistic about the situation.
I think were doing really great. There seems to be a renewed optimism, with shots going into peoples arms. People getting the vaccine, the rates going down. I think people are hopeful and theyre starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Towsley said.
When youre on the front lines, like West Springfields chief of operations, Carly Damossi, youre sensitive to notice shifting trends, like unmistakable evidence that the Pandemic response is accelerating in a positive direction.
Its nice to see the numbers changing, we need something to look forward to, so looking forward going back to school, getting out into the community, outdoor activities, weve tried our best on the local side, Domassi told 22News.
And its becoming a contagious kind of optimism, hopeful signs passed on from one person to the next.
As she waited to be tested for COVID-19 Sunday afternoon, Nancy Santinello has also been affected by the shifting sentiments.
Im feeling pretty hopeful, you know, youve got to stay positive, hopefully not that its going to be over, but hopefully were back to somewhat normal soon, Santinello said.
Hopefully, in the days ahead there will be further developments in Massachusetts and across America to build on Michael Towsleys observation that were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Health-worker unions in Europe say thousands of their members refuse to take one of the three Covid-19 vaccines available in the region because of concerns over efficacy and reports of side effects, the latest setback for the continents slow vaccine rollout.
Organizations representing health professionals across Europe said this week that doctors and nurses shouldnt be forced to take the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC because it was shown to offer less robust protection against Covid-19 than the other two currently authorized in the European Union. They also expressed concern over reports that the AstraZeneca vaccine appeared to cause stronger reactions in recipients.
Hospitals said hundreds of health professionals scheduled to get the vaccines hadnt shown up for their appointments in recent days while many who had got the shot were calling in sick after reporting painful headaches, fever and other symptoms.
Politicians and scientists insisted this week that the AstraZeneca shot had been proven to work safely and that not using it would undermine the fight against the pandemic in Europe. The vaccine showed efficacy of around 62% in late-stage clinical trial results reported last year. Further data suggested the overall effectiveness was around 70%, if doses were spaced out longer. That compared with over 90% effectiveness in trials of competing vaccines. However, trials of all authorized vaccines, including AstraZenecas, found that they offered 100% protection from severe illness, hospitalizations and death.
A spokesman for AstraZeneca, which developed its vaccine with the University of Oxford, said: Our vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries across four continents. There have been no confirmed serious adverse events associated with vaccination, the spokesman said.
AUSTIN, Texas -- The number of deaths in Texas due to the illness caused by the coronavirus increased by more than 200 on Saturday while the number of people hospitalized with the virus declined, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
There were an additional 227 COVID-19 deaths, more than 4,900 new cases and 7,535 hospitalizations, a decline of 222 people hospitalized, the department reported.
Texas has had more than 2.5 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, and more than 42,000 deaths due to COVID-19, the third highest death count in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
Pope Francis and Italys president mark new annual day to honor doctors, nurses and other health care workers
Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California are embroiled in political woes from the pandemic
Powdering sleeping beautys nose: Virus eases Louvre works
Airlines plan to ask passengers for contact-tracing details
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Follow all of APs pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
LOS ANGELES -- A skateboarding world champion is among five people prosecutors in Southern California have charged with organizing parties that were possible superspreader events amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Los Angeles Times reports Nyjah Huston, a four-time world skateboarding champion, and Edward Essa, the owner of a home in the Fairfax District, held a party last month with at least 40 people that was shut down by police after receiving a complaint.
Huston and Essa were both charged with creating a nuisance, a misdemeanor.
Neither could be reached for comment.
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OKLAHOMA CITY -- More than 681,000 Oklahomans have now received the coronavirus vaccine, including more than 204,000 who have received both required doses, according to an Oklahoma State Department of Health report.
The state ranked 12th in the nation on Saturday with 14.3% of the population having received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control, and the state health department has scheduled vaccination clinics during the weekend to replace those canceled because of a winter storm.
There have been a reported 418,318 total virus cases and 4,155 deaths due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, since the pandemic began, increases of 973 cases and 23 deaths since Friday, according to the health department.
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JERUSALEM -- Israel unveiled a plan on Saturday to allow people who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend cultural events, fly abroad and go to health clubs and restaurants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the plan at a news conference on Saturday night, saying those who have been vaccinated will be able to download the green badge in the coming days.
The green badge is gradually opening up the country, Netanyahu said.
Israel has conducted the worlds speediest vaccine campaign over the past month and a half, inoculating nearly half of its 9.3 million people. But with the coronavirus still spreading rapidly among the unvaccinated, the country only recently began emerging from a two-month lockdown.
On Sunday, retail stores, shopping malls, gyms, some middle school grades and other public services for limited crowd sizes are set to start back up.
Netanyahu said the government could not keep unvaccinated residents from places like medical clinics, pharmacies and supermarkets. But he said other services would be allowed only for those who have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Israels main international airport, for instance, remains closed to nearly all air traffic because of concerns of foreign variants of the virus entering the country.
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PODGORICA, Montenegro Tiny Montenegro has launched vaccinations against the coronavirus with doses of Russias Sputnik V vaccines that were donated by neighboring Serbia.
Health authorities said the first person to receive a shot on Saturday was a 66-year-old resident of a care home in the coastal town of Risan. Two doctors working at the same nursing home came next.
A nation of some 620,000 people, Montenegro has reported more than 70,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 939 known deaths.
Montenegrin authorities say they plan to acquire supplies of Chinas Sinopharm vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
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MEXICO CITY The official leading Mexicos response to the pandemic says he has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Assistant Health Secretary Hugo Lpez-Gatell tweeted Saturday that he had light COVID-19 symptoms on Friday night and an antigen test came out positive. He was awaiting the results of a PCR test, which takes longer to process and is generally more accurate..
Ill be working from home, Lpez-Gatell said, adding that he was involved in Mexicos vaccination program.
Some 200,000 doses of Chinas Sinovac vaccine arrived in Mexico from Hong Kong on Saturday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter. A total of 10 million Sinovac vaccines are expected.
Mexico has approved several other coronavirus vaccines and has administered 1.5 million shots so far.
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HONOLULU -- The Hawaii Department of Health says it has temporarily extended the window incoming travelers have to get a pre-arrival coronavirus test that comes back negative.
The state says travelers can now take the tests up to 96 hours before their scheduled flights instead of 72 hours because of winter storms that have ravaged the continental U.S.
The tests still have to be conducted by a state-approved provider.
Hawaii News Now reports the extension will be in effect through Sunday.
Alternatively, visitors can quarantine for 10 days after arriving in Hawaii.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska public health officials say 3,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine will arrive later than expected because of a winter storm that has ravaged the continental U.S.
The states immunization program manager, Matt Bobo, said some vaccine appointments may be postponed until next week.
The doses were supposed to reach 21 different providers.
Another state vaccine official says the delay occurred at a somewhat fortuitous time a part of the month for which the state had already anticipated a smaller vaccine shipment.
State officials say they have been communicating with officials at the White House and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control about the delay.
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LAS VEGAS -- Before the coronavirus pandemic, tourist-dependent Nevada had a notorious attraction: It was the only place in America where someone could legally pay for sex. These days, even in the state known for sin, the business is taboo.
Legal brothels have been shuttered for nearly a year, leaving sex workers to offer less-lucrative alternatives like online dates or nonsexual escort services.
While the business of legal bordellos may seem incompatible with social distancing, sex workers and brothel owners say they should be allowed to reopen with protective measures like other close-contact industries, including massage therapy and dental services.
A state task force that makes recommendations on coronavirus restrictions hasnt responded to pleas from brothel owners seeking a way to reopen.
Gov. Steve Sisolak recently said brothels, along with other adult entertainment like nightclubs and strip clubs, would stay closed at least through May 1. After that, the state may let counties decide whether to allow those businesses to open, as long as COVID-19 infections arent surging.
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PHOENIX -- Enrollment at U.S. community colleges dropped 0% from fall 2019 to fall 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Thats according to The National Student Clearinghouse, which says community colleges were hit the hardest among all types of colleges in terms of enrollment drops.
Four-year universities in the U.S. fared better than many had expected, seeing only slight enrollment decreases.
There are myriad reasons for the community college downturn. Fewer freshmen are enrolling and some are delaying college until campuses fully reopen.
But the pandemic has also taken a heavy toll on older adult students. Many lost jobs or have no time for their own schooling as they supervise their childrens online classes.
More Americans typically turn to community college education amid economic downturns, seeking to learn new job skills or change careers. But education experts say the pandemic seems to have upended usual trends.
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PHOENIX Arizonas Maricopa County plans to close two of its six regional COVID-19 vaccination sites in coming weeks as public health officials put increased emphasis on smaller sites and events to give more shots.
The countys site in north Phoenix, operated by Honor Health, will last operate on Feb. 28. and the site run by Dignity Health in Chandler will close in early March.
Officials say current appointments will be honored at both locations. Arizona on Saturday reported 2,047 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases and 59 deaths, increasing the states pandemic totals to 806,163 cases and 15,480 deaths.
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LONDON - The British government has announced a small step out of lockdown -- allowing nursing home residents to have a single friend or family member visit them indoors.
Residents and their visitors will be able to hold hands, but not hug. The change takes effect March 8. For months, nursing home residents have only been able to see loved ones outdoors or through screens.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will announce a road map out of lockdown on Monday. The government has stressed that reopening will be slow and cautious, with store reopenings or outdoor socializing unlikely before April, though children will go back to school from March 8.
Johnsons Conservative government has been accused of reopening the country too quickly after the first lockdown in the spring. Britain has had about 120,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe.
The new measures apply in England. In other parts of the U.K., nursing home visiting rules vary, with Scottish residents able to have two visitors from March 8.
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HELSINKI Denmark has temporarily closed some border crossing points with Germany and stepped up checks at others due to a spike in COVID-19 cases and a rise in virus variants in the the northern German town of Flensburg, just off the Danish border.
The Danish justice ministry said late Friday that an increasing number of infections and virus mutations have been detected in Flensburg, just some seven kilometers (4 miles) from the border with Denmark.
The Danish justice ministry said officials police will significantly intensify border controls at the Danish-German border. Local authorities in Germany said Saturday on Flensburgs webpage that the towns coronavirus incidence rate was running at 193 per 100,000 people.
Dozens of cases of mutated coronavirus, mostly the variant first detected in Britain, have been detected in Flensburg, a town with some 90,000 inhabitants, in the past days.
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UNITED NATIONS Britain has circulated a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council demanding that all warring parties immediately institute a sustained humanitarian pause to enable people in conflict areas to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The proposed resolution reiterates the councils demand last July 1 for a general and immediate cessation of hostilities in major conflicts from Syria and Yemen to Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan and Somalia, an appeal first made by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on March 23, 2020, to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
The draft, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, emphasizes the need for solidarity, equity, and efficacy and invites donation of vaccine doses from developed economies to low- and middle-income countries and other countries in need, including through the COVAX Facility, an ambitious World Health Organization project to buy and deliver coronavirus vaccines for the worlds poorest people.
The British draft stresses that equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines, certified as safe and efficacious, is essential to end the pandemic.
It would recognize the role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good for health in preventing, containing, and stopping transmission, in order to bring the pandemic to an end.
The draft follows up on British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raabs appeal to the 15-member Security Council on Wednesday to adopt a resolution calling for local cease-fires in conflict zones to allow the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.
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MEXICO CITY Mexico says it will get its first shipment of the Chinese Coronavac vaccine Saturday and by Monday will receive its first lot of the Russian Sputnik V shot. Both shipments are expected to consist of about 200,000 doses.
Health officials say the first shipments of the Chinese and Russian vaccines will be used in low-income neighborhoods of Mexico City or its suburbs.
Mexico is currently using the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines and has applied almost 1.6 million doses of those.
The country will now be faced with the logistical challenge of handling four different vaccines, all of which require two doses. In addition, the Sputnik first shot is different from the second and is not interchangeable.
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LOS ANGELES -- The University of Southern California expects to reopen campuses this fall, joining the states major public universities in planning to resume on-campus life curtailed by COVID-19.
USC President Carol Folt issued an online letter Friday that said she is cautiously optimistic because virus cases are down and vaccinations are ramping up. USC and other universities nationwide were forced to switch to online learning last March.
Both the University of California and California State University systems also have said they plan to reopen their campuses this fall if conditions permit.
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina President Alberto Fernndez asked Argentinas health minister to resign after a well-known local journalist said he had been given a coronavirus vaccination preferentially after requesting one from the minister, a government official said Friday.
The president instructed his chief of staff to request the resignation of health minister Gins Gonzlez Garca, who is in charge of the governments COVID-19 strategy, said the official, who was not authorized to release the information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. He did not say who would replace Gonzlez Garca as health minister.
The scandal erupted when journalist Horacio Verbitsky, whose stories and columns on a website and on the radio are seen as pro-government, said he called the minister to request a vaccinination and Gonzlez Garca summoned him to the Health Ministry where he received a Sputnik V vaccine shot Thursday.
Tennis Australia's president has been booed during the presentation ceremony at the Australian Open after mentioning the COVID-19 vaccine and the Victorian government.
Jayne Hrdlicka was making her speech following Novak Djokovic's win in the men's singles final at Melbourne Park when the crowd became restless.
The Serbian player had just won his ninth Australian Open and 18th grand slam.
When Ms Hrdklicka spoke about vaccines, the crowd unleashed a chorus of boos
"With vaccinations on the way, rolling out in many countries around the world, it's now a time for optimism and hope for the future," she said, before pausing to let the crowd settle.
Ms Hrdlicka then thanked the state government, saying: "Without you we could not have done this."
This led to another chorus of boos.
Ms Hrdlicka finished her speech by thanking fans, and calling those in attendance a "very opinionated group of people".
Coronavirus restrictions have been a common talking point during the Australian Open, with more than 70 players forced into hard quarantine after positive tests were recorded on charter flights bringing players and officials into the country.
Crowds were also kept away from Melbourne Park during a five-day lockdown due to a COVID-19 outbreak at a quarantine hotel.
Djokovic has also been a polarising figure during the coronavirus pandemic.
While many countries were experiencing lockdowns and a surge in infections, Djokovic hosted an exhibition tour which was played in Serbia and Croatia.
The tour drew criticism, especially from fellow tour player Nick Kyrgios.
Djokovic tested positive for COVID-19 following the tour.
He also came under fire for writing a letter, referred to in some quarters as a 'list of demands', asking for the easing of some of the quarantine restrictions placed on players in Australia.
The table below compares the most recent week of key data to the weekly averages for the last four weeks.
Defining Confirmed and Probable Cases and Deaths
COVID-19 cases and deaths are categorized as probable or confirmed.
Learn more about these case definitions.
Cases are defined differently based on the type of test used to detect COVID-19.
Molecular tests, such as PCR tests, are the most reliable way to test for COVID-19. Someone who tests positive for the virus with a molecular test is classified as a confirmed case. These tests look for genetic material from the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Unless otherwise specified, data on test counts, test rates and percent positivity only reflects molecular testing.
Antigen tests are faster than molecular tests but can be less accurate. These tests look for proteins on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Someone who tests positive with an antigen test is classified as a probable case.
Antibody tests check the blood for signs that you have had the virus in the past. An antibody test may not be accurate for someone with active or recent infection. Someone who tests positive with only an antibody test and not a diagnostic test is not classified as a probable or confirmed case.
These data show the percent of people given a molecular test who tested positive, by ZIP code, for the most recent seven days of available data. The borough comparison charts include data by ZIP code from the past three months.
The data also show the rate of people given a molecular test during the most recent seven days. A neighborhood is considered to have adequate testing when at least 260 residents per 100,000 have been tested in the past week. This metric of adequate testing may change depending on future testing data.
The charts below show the daily number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths over the past three months citywide and for each borough. This data includes both confirmed and probable cases and deaths, based on molecular and antigen testing, respectively. Due to delays in reporting, which can take as long as a week, recent data are incomplete.
This chart show the number of people tested by molecular tests and antigen tests.
These charts show percent positivity and test rate for molecular tests.
These charts show people who visited the emergency department with clinical signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19 illness (including flu-like illnesses and pneumonia) during the past three months, and those who were then admitted to the hospital. While some of these people did not have a positive molecular or antigen test, these charts can be an early warning sign for community transmission of COVID-19.
About the Data: All of the data on these pages were collected by the NYC Health Department. Data will be updated daily but are preliminary and subject to change.
Reporting Lag Time: Our data are published with a three-day lag, meaning that the most recent data in today's update are from three days before.
This lag is due to the standard delays (up to several days) in reporting to the Health Department a new test, case, hospitalization or death. Given the delay, our counts of what has happened in the most recent few days are artificially small. We delay publishing these data until more reports have come in and the data are more complete.
Health Inequities in Data: Differences in health outcomes among racial and ethnic groups are due to long-term structural racism, not biological or personal traits.
Structural racism centuries of racist policies and discriminatory practices across institutions, including government agencies, and society prevents communities of color from accessing vital resources (such as health care, housing and food) and opportunities (such as employment and education), and negatively affects overall health and well-being. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on New Yorkers of color highlights how these inequities negatively influence health outcomes.
Review how we are working to address inequities during this public health emergency (PDF).
Visit ny.gov/vaccine to get the facts on the COVID-19 Vaccine in New York.; The new COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker Dashboard will update New Yorkers on the distribution of the vaccine including the number of doses received by the state, a breakdown of first or second doses, and the number of persons vaccinated with the first and second doses in each region.
