Covid News: New York and New Jersey Make Big Moves to Reopen – The New York Times

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Lets get back to life. This shutdown has caused all sorts of damage, damage that were not even aware of. Everybody points to the economic damage, and thats certain. Businesses closed, people lost their jobs, but theres all sorts of other damage that people are not yet understanding, I believe. What did it mean to keep children out of a school, out of school for a year? Effective this Wednesday, were going to adopt the C.D.C.s new guidance and regulations on masks and social distancing for vaccinated people. By the C.D.C. guidance, immunocompromised people, unvaccinated people should continue to wear a mask and social distance. But if you are vaccinated, you are safe. No masks, no social distancing. Were also going to follow the C.D.C.S guidelines that you will still need to wear a mask on public transportation, the subways, the buses, nursing homes, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, schools and health care facilities.

The governors of New York and New Jersey, both Democrats, took major steps on Monday toward fully reopening their states.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New York will lift several mask requirements beginning Wednesday, and Gov. Philip D. Murphy said that New Jerseys public school students will no longer have the option to learn remotely starting in September. But Mr. Murphy said in recent days that his state is not lifting his indoor mask mandate for vaccinated residents.

I dont want to get burned, he said at a news conference on Monday. I dont want to go back.

Mr. Cuomos announcement was in accordance with the new guidance for vaccinated people that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week. No masks, no social distancing, he said of the policy that will go into effect for vaccinated people on Wednesday.

Masks will still be required in nursing homes, schools, health care facilities and on public transit. Unvaccinated people should continue to wear a mask, he said in a news conference at Radio City Music Hall in Midtown Manhattan.

The move dovetails with the previously scheduled lifting of most capacity restrictions statewide at offices, museums, restaurants and stores on Wednesday. It was significant, however, given the longstanding restrictions imposed on one of the hardest hit cities in the United States. Illinois, Massachusetts and Ohio are among the states that are taking a similar approach to New York. On Monday, however, California said that it is keeping its rule to wear masks in all indoor settings outside of home for four weeks, until June 15.

In addition, New York Citys subway system returned to 24-hour service on Monday. There has been more than one year of overnight closings during the coronavirus pandemic to provide more time to clean and disinfect trains, stations and equipment. It was the longest planned shutdown since the subway opened in 1904.

As of Monday, 52 percent of New Yorkers had received at least one vaccine dose and 43 percent were fully inoculated.

Those in the most crowded public settings must continue to wear masks, Mr. Cuomo said, referring to students at school, public transit passengers and people in homeless shelters.

In New Jersey, some of the largest school districts have not yet reopened to all students, and many families continue to keep their children home.

New Jersey has recorded 1,263 cases of in-school transmission of the virus since schools began to reopen in September, according to the New Jersey Health Department. Less than 1 percent of the states K-12 students and teachers had a coronavirus case linked to in-school transmission, while the positivity rate among the general population was 11 percent.

New York is hosting upcoming N.B.A. playoff games inside Madison Square Garden and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where at least 50 percent of seating will be for vaccinated people, Mr. Cuomo said. Masks and social distancing will be required in the section for unvaccinated fans.

Mr. Cuomo said that the Tribeca Festival would return next month and its final night would be held at Radio City Music Hall with full capacity for vaccinated filmgoers and no masks required. The New York City Marathon will return in November at 60 percent capacity, or about 33,000 runners.

The guidance the C.D.C. issued on Thursday said that it was no longer necessary for fully vaccinated people to mask or maintain social distance in many settings. The change set off public confusion and drew objections from some local officials and labor unions, including the countrys largest union of registered nurses. A number of major U.S. retailers have already lifted mask requirements, essentially turning to an honor system that relies on unvaccinated people to keep their masks on in public.

Businesses in New York can still set individual policies and some will require masks. They do not have to do vaccination checks.

They can check, they can ask at the door, they can ask when you are seated at the table, or not, Mr. Cuomo said. There is no mandatory compliance the state is imposing on the private vendors.

The states health department is keeping its recommendation to wear masks indoors where the vaccination status of nearby people is not known. It applies to retail stores, food services, offices, gyms and fitness centers, amusement and family entertainment, hair salons, barber shops and other personal services, among others.

On Monday, CVS and Target said they would no longer require fully vaccinated shoppers to wear masks, except where its required by local laws.

Bryan Pietsch contributed reporting.

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We need to help fight the disease around the world to keep us safe here at home, and to do the right thing of helping other people. Its the right thing to do. Its the smart thing to do. Its the strong thing to do. In March, we shared over four million doses of our AstraZeneca vaccine with Canada and Mexico. At the end of April, we announced that we would provide another 60 million doses of our AstraZeneca vaccine overseas. Remember, this is the vaccine thats not authorized for use in the United States yet. So were going to be sending it to folks once the F.D.A.s reviewed this, and said its safe. This is all the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in the United States all of it will be sent to other countries. And today Im announcing they will also share U.S.-authorized vaccine doses of Pfizer and Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson, as they become available with the rest of the world as well. These are vaccinations and vaccines that are authorized to be put in arms of Americans and by the end of June, when we will have taken delivery of enough of such vaccines to protect everyone in the United States, the United States will share at least 20 million of those doses, that extra supply, with other countries. This means over the next six weeks, the United States of America will send 80 million doses overseas. Just as in World War II, America was the arsenal of democracy, in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic, our nation is going to be the arsenal of vaccines for the rest of the world. Well share these vaccines in the service of ending the pandemic everywhere, and we will not use our vaccines to secure favors from other countries. Well work with Covax, the international organization set up, and other partners to ensure that the vaccines are delivered in a way that is equitable and follows the science and the public health data.

President Biden, heeding widespread calls to step up his response to the pandemics surge abroad, said on Monday that his administration would send 20 million doses of federally authorized coronavirus vaccine overseas in June the first time he has pledged to give away doses that could be used in the United States.

The donation is another step toward what Mr. Biden promised would be an entirely new effort to increase vaccine supplies and vastly expand manufacturing capacity, most of it in the United States. He also put Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, in charge of developing a global strategy.

We know America will never be fully safe until the pandemic thats raging globally is under control, Mr. Biden said in a brief appearance at the White House. No oceans wide enough, no walls high enough, to keep us safe.

With new cases and deaths plummeting as vaccination rates rise in the United States, the epicenter of the crisis has moved to India and other nations. A growing and bipartisan chorus of diplomats, health experts and business leaders has been pushing the president to do more to end what the AIDS activist Asia Russell calls vaccine apartheid.

Mr. Biden said on Monday that 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all approved for domestic use would be sent abroad. That is in addition to the 60 million doses of AstraZenecas vaccine he pledged last month, though those doses are not approved for domestic use and cannot be released until regulators deem them safe.

Hes crossed the threshold into direct donations, said J. Stephen Morrison, a global health expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which teamed up with three other health institutes on Monday to release a plan to ramp up vaccine supply. Thats an important shift.

International health activists want far more.

Donating 80 million doses of vaccines without a plan to scale up production worldwide is like putting a Band-Aid on a machete wound, said Gregg Gonsalves, a longtime AIDS activist.

Those 80 million doses amounted to five times the number that any other country had donated, Mr. Biden said, noting that taking the lead in helping the world beat back the coronavirus was a chance to reassert American authority. And unlike Russia and China, which have sought to use their vaccines as an instrument of diplomacy, the United States will not expect any favors in return, the president said.

We want to lead the world with our values, with this demonstration of our innovation and ingenuity, and the fundamental decency of the American people, Mr. Biden said. Just as in World War II America was the arsenal of democracy, in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic our nations going to be the arsenal of vaccines for the rest of the world.

Mr. Bidens announcement came not long after a World Health Organization news conference at which the director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that countries with high vaccination rates had to do more to help countries that were being hit hard by the coronavirus, or the entire world would be imperiled.

A growing and bipartisan chorus of foreign policy experts, diplomats, global health advocates and prominent business leaders are pushing President Biden to take a more aggressive stance in combating the international coronavirus pandemic by scaling up vaccine manufacturing and exporting surplus doses.

In two open letters to the president, one released last week and the other early Monday, a string of prominent names urged Mr. Biden to do more.

The first letter came from top executives including Suzanne Clark, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; former ambassadors including John Negroponte, envoy to Iraq and the United Nations under President George W. Bush; and a former defense secretary, William Cohen, who served President Bill Clinton.

The world has come to rely upon U.S. leadership at times of great strife, Ms. Clark, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Negroponte and the others wrote, adding: Today we have a generational opportunity to mobilize vaccine efforts around the world. Our friends and allies will not forget easily if we sit on surplus stockpiles of the most proven vaccines as their citizens suffer and die.

The second letter, organized by four global health institutes and signed by experts including Mark McClellan, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Mr. Bush, called on Mr. Biden to, among other things, name a global coronavirus coordinator and commit to sharing Covid-19 vaccine doses immediately.

Mr. Biden has promised he would restore America as a leader in global health, and the letters indicate that a broad array of leaders in multiple sectors believe he has not gone far enough.

The Biden administration has already committed $4 billion to Covax, the effort by the World Health Organization to get vaccines into the arms of people in disadvantaged nations; pledged to work with Australia, India and Japan to bolster global vaccine supply; and has said it would send 60 million doses of the American supply of AstraZeneca vaccine for global deployment.

On Monday Mr. Biden announced that the U.S. would send an additional 20 million doses of authorized vaccines abroad in June.

We need to help fight the disease around the world to keep us safe here at home, Mr. Biden said.

Those 80 million doses amounted to five times the number that any other country had donated, Mr. Biden said, noting that taking the lead in helping the world beat back the coronavirus was a chance to reassert American authority.

We want to lead the world with our values, with this demonstration of our innovation and ingenuity and the fundamental decency of the American people, Mr. Biden said. Just as in World War II America was the arsenal of democracy, in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic our nations going to be the arsenal of vaccines for the rest of the world.

To further broaden global supply, Mr. Biden recently announced he would support waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines.

But J. Stephen Morrison, a global health expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who helped organize Mondays letter, said suspending intellectual property rights would not help without White House leadership. The world is now in great need of high-level engagement that up to now has been conspicuously absent, his letter said.

The pharmaceutical industry opposes waiving the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as TRIPS, and the letter from the business leaders and ambassadors argued that such a waiver would make little difference and could do harm.

Global health activists, who are strongly in favor of the waiver, said they nonetheless welcomed the business approach. They see clear parallels to their work fighting the global AIDS epidemic.

It shows an unprecedented willingness of pharma and its allies in the private sector to admit what all of us having been saying for months, the private sector alone cannot and will not ensure global vaccine access, James Krellenstein, a founder of PrEP4All, a nonprofit aimed at ensuring universal access to H.I.V. prevention and treatment, wrote in an email message.

It really shifts the burden to the Biden administration, Mr. Krellenstein wrote, adding, When will they act?

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the second-in-command at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the last six years, is leaving the agency, the second time this month that a top official has abruptly announced plans to depart.

Dr. Schuchat, a low-key career C.D.C. scientist, joined the agency as a young epidemiologist in 1988 and eventually helped lead its responses to a number of public health emergencies, including the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009. Deeply respected within the agency, she nonetheless was criticized along with other top officials there at times last year for not pushing back harder at least publicly against pressure from the Trump White House to downplay the coronavirus pandemic.

News of her departure, first reported by Politico, comes as the C.D.C. is facing fresh scrutiny for advising last week that fully vaccinated people could stop wearing masks in most settings. Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C.s new director, said the guidance was based on research showing that few vaccinated people become infected with or transmit the coronavirus, and that the vaccines appear to be effective against all known variants of the virus.

But the new guidance has caused widespread confusion, as well as concern about whether unvaccinated people would continue wearing masks when no proof of immunization is required.

Dr. Walensky said in a statement that Dr. Schuchat, the C.D.C.s principal deputy director, would leave this summer. I have enormous gratitude for Dr. Schuchats leadership and contributions over three decades, and during this very challenging period for our country, the statement said. I am especially thankful for her invaluable counsel, assistance and support in my transition into this role.

I will remain forever grateful that our paths crossed, even for just a short while, she added.

The announcement came less than two weeks after another top C.D.C. official, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, resigned after many years and roles at the agency, including as its initial lead in responding to the coronavirus.

But while Dr. Messonnier, 55, left to take a job as an executive director at the Skoll Foundation, a philanthropic organization in Palo Alto, Calif., Dr. Schuchat, 61, said she is retiring.

One longtime C.D.C. official, who requested anonymity to discuss personnel issues, said that Dr. Schuchats resignation did not immediately appear to result from any internal disagreement and that she seemed ready after 33 years to step back. But the announcement came as a surprise to many who work there.

In a statement of her own on Monday, Dr. Schuchat who was reported to be the model for Kate Winslets disease detective character in the 2011 movie Contagion said she would be leaving for a retirement that I hope will allow more time for creative passions.

I will be leaving with the greatest respect and confidence in C.D.C.s leadership and staff, and the important work we do, Dr. Schuchat said. I could not be more optimistic about the future of our agency and the prospects for our public health system.

States in the U.S. Northeast, after experiencing spikes in coronavirus infections earlier this year, are reporting significant drops in cases and hospitalizations.

Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island have all reported many fewer cases in recent weeks as more people receive vaccinations. New York and New Jersey have also seen steady declines in cases after struggling to contain the virus earlier this spring.

Reported cases across the United States reached a high in January, and then, as vaccinations accelerated, fell through February and most of March. A much smaller overall surge peaked in mid-April, but has dropped about 32 percent over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations and deaths are also ticking down, even as the pace of vaccinations has slowed in recent weeks.

In Rhode Island, confirmed cases have dropped 48 percent and hospitalizations have dropped 23 percent in the past two weeks. State officials attribute the fall in cases to increased vaccinations.

Its the vaccinations, Gov. Daniel McKee of Rhode Island said, adding that the vaccinations are really our focus right now.

The state announced on Friday that it would adopt the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions new guidelines eliminating most mask requirements for fully vaccinated people starting on Tuesday. Although Mr. McKee expressed concerns that unvaccinated people might stop wearing masks too, he said he hoped the C.D.C.s new guidance would encourage more people to get vaccinated and that it was not a pass for people who have not been vaccinated.

State officials are still worried about the threat of more contagious variants of the virus, he said. And even though Rhode Islands vaccination campaign is ahead of most states, Mr. McKee said that convincing people who were hesitant was still a challenge. About 57 percent of Rhode Islands population has received at least one dose, and 46 percent have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times vaccine tracker.

In Pennsylvania, reported cases have dropped 44 percent and hospitalizations have dropped 28 percent in the past two weeks. Cases in the state started to rise in mid-March and continued to climb for weeks before reversing course in late April.

Alison Beam, Pennsylvanias acting secretary of health, said the states vaccination effort had made great strides, which had led to the decreases. About 55 percent of the states population has received at least one shot, and 39 percent have been fully inoculated.

One of our greatest hesitancy strategies is making it really convenient for folks and weve been able to do that by spreading out the vaccine to more of our provider networks more recently because the supply has increased as well, Ms. Beam said.

With the pace of vaccinations falling, the Biden administration has been focused on door-to-door and person-by-person efforts. The Department of Health and Human Services recently started a Covid-19 community corps, a loose group of volunteers, corporations, advocacy groups and local organizations working to vaccinate Americans who may prefer to get their shots by or around people they know.

Ms. Beam cautioned, however, that coronavirus testing had also decreased in the state and she urged people to continue getting tested if they showed symptoms.

Although reported cases are continuing to drop nationwide, public health experts warn that the United States will have to continue aggressively vaccinating its population over the next few months. It is possible that the virus could surge again more widely in fall and winter, when viruses like the flu are typically dominant.

That would be a terrible shame because that will include serious cases and deaths, and thats preventable, said Dr. Sten Vermund, the dean of the Yale School of Public Health.

Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, said on Monday that it would move the experimental Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with GlaxoSmithKline into a late-stage trial after the shot produced strong immune responses in volunteers in a midstage study.

The findings are encouraging for a vaccine that has fallen behind in development and has so far disappointed those expecting that it would be crucial in combating the pandemic. If the vaccine can become available in the last three months of this year, as its developers hope, it could still play a central role as a booster shot as well as an initial inoculation in the developing world, where the pace of vaccination is lagging.

The vaccine hit a major setback in December, when its developers announced that it did not appear to work well in older adults and that they would have to delay plans to test it in a Phase 3 trial, the crucial test that will assess the vaccines effectiveness.

But the companies modified the vaccine and in February began testing it in a Phase 2 study that included more than 700 volunteers in the United States and Honduras between 18 and 95 years old. Sanofi said the vaccine did not raise any safety concerns and produced a strong immune response across age groups, a finding suggesting it has been successfully tweaked.

Sanofi announced the findings in a statement and said it plans to soon publish the results in a medical journal.

Sanofi and GSK are much more experienced in vaccine development than a number of their rivals that have already won authorization. The two companies used a more established approach than those deployed in other, more swiftly developed Covid vaccines. Their shot is based on viral proteins produced with engineered viruses that grow inside insect cells. GSK is supplying the Sanofi vaccine with an adjuvant, an ingredient used in many vaccines meant to boost the immune response.

Sanofi and GSKs vaccine was one of six selected for funding from Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administrations effort to accelerate vaccine development. Last summer, the federal government agreed to give the companies $2.1 billion to develop and manufacture the vaccine, in exchange for 100 million doses once the shot was ready.

Sanofi also has supply deals with the European Union and Canada. It has also agreed to supply 200 million doses to Covax, the program to deliver vaccines to middle- and lower-income countries that has been struggling with a shortfall in expected doses. Sanofi has also announced plans to help manufacture the authorized vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

Sanofi said its Phase 3 trial of its vaccine would begin in the coming weeks and enroll more than 35,000 adult volunteers around the world. It will test two formulations of the vaccine, one aimed at preventing the original strain of the virus and the other aimed at the B.1.351 variant first seen in South Africa that some vaccines appear to be less effective against.

Su-Peing Ng, Sanofis global head of medical for vaccines, told journalists on Monday that the company expected it to be operationally quite challenging to enroll unvaccinated participants in the Phase 3 trial as vaccination coverage increases in many nations. Still, she said, vaccine doses were still scarce in many parts of the world, pointing to Latin America and Asia as places where the company may look to enroll volunteers.

The company said that soon after starting the Phase 3 trial it planned to assess whether its vaccine could boost immune responses in people who had been vaccinated months before with authorized vaccines. Those booster studies are expected to enroll volunteers in well-vaccinated parts of the world, including the United States and Europe.

Sanofi and GSK said last year they were preparing to be able to make 1 billion doses annually. Thomas Triomphe, Sanofis global head of vaccines, said on Monday that the companys production this year, if its vaccine were shown to work, would depend on the worlds needs.

The vaccine, he said, has potential to be a booster of choice for many nations and many different platforms.

CAPE TOWN Facing a resurgent coronavirus and plagued by delays with vaccine supply, South Africa began the second phase of its public vaccination campaign on Monday, opening appointments for people aged 60 or older.

Only about 500,000 people in the country have been vaccinated to date, and most doses have gone to health care workers in a trial involving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. South Africa is aiming to open vaccinations for people aged 40 or older in July, followed by the rest of the adult population in November.

South Africa has obtained nearly a million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and anticipates receiving around 4.5 million doses by the end of June.

The country has also ordered 3 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but only plans to begin using these in the public rollout following a verification process by international regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Its going to change my life, said Zola Bisholo, who was hospitalized with Covid-19 in January, after receiving her first shot of the Pfizer vaccine at a government hospital in the Cape Town suburb of Brooklyn.

With more than 55,000 deaths and some 1.6 million confirmed cases, South Africa has been hit harder by the pandemic than any other nation in Africa. Its most recent wave of infections, in December and January, was driven by a more contagious virus variant, known as B.1.351.

The government has set a goal to vaccinate 5 million people by the end of June, South Africas health minister, Zweli Mkhize, said Sunday. Just over 4,000 people were scheduled to receive vaccines on Monday.

The expanded eligibility comes at a critical phase: South Africa is experiencing a sustained rise in cases, and officials have warned of a third wave in the coming weeks, as the southern hemisphere heads into winter.

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Covid News: New York and New Jersey Make Big Moves to Reopen - The New York Times