May 24 coronavirus news

By James Griffiths, Meg Wagner, Melissa Macaya, Melissa Mahtani and Veronica Rocha, CNN

Updated 8:00 p.m. ET, May 24, 2021

3 Posts

Sort by

2:36 a.m. ET, May 24, 2021

Japan sees low uptake as vaccination drive ramps up in Tokyo and Osaka

From CNN's Chandler Thornton and Junko Ogura

Nurses wait to inoculate people with the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at the newly-opened mass vaccination centre in Tokyo, Japan on May 24. Carl Court/Getty Images

Japan has opened large-scale Covid-19 vaccination centers in Tokyo and Osaka with hopes to speed up its inoculation rollout.

The government said it aims to vaccinate up to 15,000 people per day. But on Monday, just 5,000 people were scheduled to receive shots at the Tokyo site and 2,500 at the Osaka facility.

The venues were set up by the central government and will administer Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine.

About 180 doctors and nurses from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces will work at the Tokyo site and 100 doctors and nurses will staff the Osaka venue.

Online reservations opened last week for people aged 65 and older in Tokyo and Osaka.

Senior citizens in the neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa, as well as Kyoto and Hyogo, can book from next Monday.

Fewer than 2% of Japan's 126 million population has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data compiled by CNN.

9:37 p.m. ET, May 23, 2021

The women possibly at higher risk for Covid-19 that no one is talking about

From CNN's Alessandria Masi

Last July, when her immediate family tested positive for Covid-19, Breanna Aguilar did not fit into any groups considered at higher risk for severe disease.

She is 31 years old, a pet sitter and former fitness teacher who once ran a half marathon. She was, by most measures, healthy.

When Aguilar got Covid-19 she lost her sense of taste, had mild fevers and muscle weakness. She could barely keep anything down yet gained about 30 pounds. Later, she developed pelvic pain, cystic acne, breast tenderness, headaches, brain fog and extreme fatigue.

It has been months since then, but she says the low energy, chronic pain and brain fog -- long-haul Covid-19 symptoms -- remain and she can't even go for a 15-minute walk without needing a break. She's also now dealing with insulin resistance and taking several medications to keep that and her hormone levels under some control. Her doctor told her she'll likely be dealing with this fallout of Covid-19 for the rest of her life.

More than a year into the pandemic, one study has found that some women are at higher risk for Covid-19 compared to others in their age and sex groups. These women, often young and otherwise healthy like Aguilar, have an underlying condition that isn't mentioned on any Covid-19 comorbidity list: polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS.

PCOS, which affect about 1 in 10 women of "childbearing age," is an imbalance of reproductive hormones that can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, high androgen levels and ovarian cysts. But it can also come with a host of other health problems, nearly all of which overlap Covid-19 comorbidities.

Read the full story:

The women possibly at higher risk for Covid-19 that no one is talking about

9:34 p.m. ET, May 23, 2021

New information on Wuhan researchers' illness furthers debate on pandemic origins

From CNN's Natasha Bertrand, Kylie Atwood, Katie Bo Williams and Zachary Cohen

A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms that could fuel further debate about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people briefed on the intelligence.

A State Department fact sheet released by the Trump administration in January said that the researchers had gotten sick in autumn 2019 but did not go as far as to say they had been hospitalized. China reported to the World Health Organization that the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in Wuhan on December 8, 2019.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the intelligence surrounding the earlier hospitalizations.

Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with, said the people briefed, and continues to have low confidence in its assessments of the virus' precise origins beyond the fact that it came from China. "At the end of the day, there is still nothing definitive," said one of the people who has seen the intelligence.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers during the Worldwide Threats Hearing last month that "the intelligence community does not know exactly where, when, or how Covid-19 virus was transmitted initially," an assessment that has not changed, said two of the people briefed on the intelligence.

The current intelligence reinforces the belief that the virus most likely originated naturally, from animal-human contact, the sources said. But that does not preclude the possibility that the virus was the result of an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute, where coronavirus research was being conducted on bats.

Read the full story: