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No new Covid-19 cases were reported in New Zealand yesterday, a positive sign after Auckland – the country’s most populous city – went into lockdown because a family of three tested positive for the UK variant.
Authorities decided to mandate that most people in Auckland stay home for three days and test thousands of residents to ensure the contagious variant of the coronavirus was not spreading within the community.
More than 15,000 swabs were taken nationally Monday. None of the 5,818 processed came back positive, Director-General of Health Dr. Ashely Bloomfield said.
Bloomfield said officials are still investigating the source of transmission for the couple and their child. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday one of the trio works in a facility handling laundry for airlines, and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff told CNN that authorities believe the individual’s employment may be “the connection” to the virus.
Close contacts of the family, including colleagues of the father, did not test positive. Fourteen of 36 close contacts from the child’s high school tested positive.
More results are expected to continue to come in during the day Tuesday.
Colombia will begin its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on Wednesday, President Ivan Duque said on Monday.
Duque said during his daily televised address that the government had decided to move the vaccination schedule forward from Saturday. The campaign is beginning weeks after neighboring countries like Chile and Argentina started theirs.
Colombian health care workers will be the first to receive the vaccine.
Colombia received its first shipment of 50,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Monday.
Duque said the government had decided to kick-start the vaccination campaign in two small cities in rural Colombia, Monteria and Sincelejo, to signal that the vaccines are destined for the entire country.
Major cities like Bogotá, Medellin and Cali will begin to vaccinate residents on Thursday.
Veronica Machado, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Sincelejo University Hospital, will be the first Colombian to receive her first inoculation on Wednesday, Duque said.
Colombia’s Covid-19 outbreak is the second-worst in Latin America, according to a tally of confirmed cases by Johns Hopkins University.
To date, 2,198,549 cases and 57,786 deaths have been reported in Colombia, according to Johns Hopkins
Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is at the center of an escalating controversy over deaths in nursing homes, how they were counted and how they handled requests for that data.
Cuomo was lauded early in the outbreak for his forthright news conferences and passionate pleas for more medical equipment from the federal government. He published a book in October titled, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.”
Now, however, he’s facing bipartisan calls for an investigation and limitations on his executive powers after a top aide said the administration delayed the release of data on Covid-19 deaths of long-term care facility residents because of concerns about a potential federal investigation by the Trump administration, at a time when former President Donald Trump was personally threatening Cuomo.
At the heart of the matter is the question of whether New York could better have prevented the state’s nearly 46,000 deaths, the second-highest total of any US state so far, and whether the decision to discharge recovering residents from hospitals back to nursing homes increased infections among vulnerable elderly residents.
Here’s everything you need to know about the controversy:
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration provisionally approved the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
It is the second vaccine to receive such approval – regulators have already provisionally approved the Pfzier/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s office said Monday the country had received more than 142,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 80,000 of which will be released starting February 22. Approximately 50,000 will go to states and territories frontline quarantine and health workers, and 30,000 will go to aged care, disability care residents and health care workers.
Australia has secured 53.8 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Morrison’s office said in a statement.
Eight gorillas at the San Diego Zoo have made a full recovery after contracting Covid-19 last month, the zoo said.
The western lowland gorillas caught the West Coast variant of the coronavirus, zoo officials say, despite team members adhering to all recommended biosecurity precautions.
All eight gorillas at the zoo were secluded after the diagnosis, with some showing symptoms that included “mild coughing, congestion, nasal discharge and intermittent lethargy,” the zoo said in an online update.
Zoo officials credit the gorillas recuperation to “the highest standard of care” offered by the zoo’s veterinary team, wildlife care professionals, and a collaboration with a wide array of colleagues and partners.
San Diego Zoo has committed to sharing documentation of the coronavirus in its gorillas with hopes that it will help “provide important information regarding scientific understanding of the virus and its effects on great apes.”
The gorillas are now on view for visitors.
Three sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, the US Navy said in a statement.
Last year, the same aircraft carrier was home to a significant outbreak of the virus – more than 1,000 of the ship’s nearly 4,900-member crew who tested positive for the coronavirus.
A recent Department of Defense Inspector General investigation found the leadership of the USS Theodore Roosevelt failed to put in place measures to stop a Covid-19 outbreak on board the aircraft carrier and exacerbated a growing problem by releasing sailors too early from quarantine last year.
The Navy said Monday that this time, the ship is “following an aggressive mitigation strategy in accordance with Navy and CDC guidelines” and USS Theodore Roosevelt is underway and remains fully operational.
There have been at least 27,690,574 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 486,286 people have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally of cases.
So far today, Johns Hopkins University has reported 50,292 new cases and 950 new deaths.
At least 70,057,800 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 52,884,356 total doses of the vaccine have been administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
As Nevada rolls out its new approach to reopening dubbed “Nevada’s Roadmap to Recovery”, Las Vegas announced it is making vaccination appointments available for people over the age of 70 and utility workers starting Wednesday.
Utility workers eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine include those who are employed by providers of gas, power, water and sanitation services, according to a statement from Las Vegas City Council.
The free Covid-19 vaccinations will be provided in partnership with the Southern Nevada Health District and will be administered to the aforementioned groups from Wednesday through Friday at the Chuck Minker Sports Complex.
The clinic at the Chuck Minker Sports Complex will have a limit of administering 1,100 vaccine doses a day.
The National Governors Association wrote to President Biden on Monday requesting better coordination between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and states on vaccine distribution.
The bipartisan group of governors raised alarm with two areas of confusion: first, the numbers the agency publicly reports for vaccine distribution, and second, a recently-launched program where the federal government sends vaccines directly to pharmacies.
The group said the issues with public reporting of vaccine distribution has been ongoing “since last year” – the days of the Trump administration and has created “unnecessary confusion.” State officials have said the publicly reported numbers of vaccines allocated by the federal government differed from what was actually on the ground in their states. Both numbers differ from the actual vaccines health care providers have administered into arms.
The governors also wrote they are concerned that they don’t have visibility into some of the federal government’s distribution efforts within their states, and that in some cases, the federal government and the states are allocating vaccine to the same pharmacies.
CNN has reached out the to the White House for a response.
About 89% of children in the US live in a county considered a red zone with high levels of Covid-19 transmission under new school opening guidelines shared by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.
Red, or “high transmission,” communities are defined by the CDC as counties where there were at least 100 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people or a test positivity rate of at least 10% during the past seven days.
When the CDC guidance was released on Friday, closer to 99% of children lived in red zones, according to CNN’s analysis. The CDC says school districts should re-assess weekly, noting that transmission levels will change over time.
The CDC guidelines stress five key mitigation strategies:
It also recommends different strategies based on how much transmission there is in the surrounding community, and has a color-coded guide with areas of high transmission colored red; substantial transmission colored orange; moderate transmission coded yellow; and low transmission as blue.
If schools in “high transmission” communities cannot “strictly implement all mitigation strategies,” the CDC says all extracurricular activities should be virtual. Plus middle and high schools should stick with virtual learning in these red zones, and elementary schools should maximize physical distance through hybrid learning or reduced attendance.
About 115,000 children in the US live in a county considered “low” or “moderate transmission” where the CDC recommends K-12 schools open for full in-person instruction.
More on the analysis: The CNN analysis used the latest federal data on new case rates and test positivity rates, published Sunday by the US Department of Health and Human Services, to determine each county’s risk threshold according to CDC guidelines.
Population data is from the US Census Bureau’s five-year American Community Survey 2019 estimates.
California added 6,487 new Covid-19 cases Monday, the lowest daily increase since early November, according to state data, another sign the disastrous holiday surge continues to recede even as the state become the first in the nation to surpass 47,000 deaths.
While Mondays often reflect lower case numbers due to weekend reporting lags, California has seen a steady decline in new cases after peaking at the beginning of the year with several days over 50,000 additional cases.
Health officials also reported 200 additional deaths Monday, bringing California to 47,043 total fatalities. The daily average over the past two weeks is well over 400 deaths, another number declining significantly. At the beginning of February, California was averaging 542 deaths each day.
California’s positivity rate stands at 4.3% today, nearly 10 points lower than the 14% marked in early January, which was the highest since widespread testing began in the state.
Hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions have also fallen steadily over the past month. Currently about 9,300 of those infected with Covid-19 are receiving in-patient treatment with 2,650 of those in intensive care units.
Note: These numbers were released by the California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database, which is drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
West Virginia has fully vaccinated 140,540 residents, with a total of 391,186 doses administered in the state, Gov. Jim Justice announced Monday.
Justice said 250,646 residents have received their first dose.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources reported two deaths and 301 new cases of Covid-19 over the last 24 hours, Justice added. The state had a daily percent positivity rate of 5.19%, he said.
The governor celebrated that none of the state’s counties were marked “red,” the highest-alert tier. He also marked a decrease in long-term care facility outbreaks.
Justice reported that there were 43 inmate and 14 staff Covid-19 cases in the state’s correctional system, which included 24 in the Southern Regional Jail.
Note: These numbers were released by the state’s health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
Colombia received 50,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Monday, President Iván Duque announced.
It is the first batch of vaccine doses Colombia is scheduled to get from Pfizer/BioNTech.
Duque said the country may receive up to 1.6 million doses over the next 30 days, thanks to bilateral deals with Pfizer/BioNTech and Sinopharm, as well as vaccines provided by the Covax mechanism.
“This is a titanic effort from our nation,” Duque said.
The distribution of the vaccine was set to begin on Saturday, but officials say they may begin rolling it out a few days earlier.
Colombia has reported at least 2,195,039 Coronavirus cases and 57,605 deaths so far, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Vaccine advisers say they’re keeping a close eye on the emergence of new variations of the coronavirus.
Researchers reported Sunday that they identified seven troubling new coronavirus variants circulating in the US – all affecting the same portion of the virus’ spike protein, near a region that may affect virulence.
These new variants bear watching, Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Maryland Medical School, told CNN Monday.
Chen is also a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
He said this doesn’t necessarily mean that vaccines won’t work against new variants.
“It’s not like an on and off switch, where if we see variations, all of a sudden the vaccine just does not work at all,” he said. “It’s more like a gradation. We’re seeing that the mRNA-based vaccines have that 95% efficacy, but the more variants that we see, mutations on the face of the spike protein, we can see the efficacies decrease.”
He said the US will want to closely monitor these variants.
“We certainly want to preserve the full efficacy of these vaccines by preventing more variant viruses, but again, these vaccines are effective and they continue to be useful,” he said.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine was listed by the World Health Organization for emergency use on Monday, meaning that it can be rolled out globally through COVAX.
Tedros explained that the “two versions” are the same vaccine being manufactured by two different producers – AstraZeneca-SKBio and the Serum Institute of India. They require separate reviews and approvals, as they are being made in different production plants.
Emergency use listing assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for the vaccines to be part of the COVAX supply, as well as allowing countries to expedite their own regulatory approval, according to a WHO news release, also on Monday.
For the two AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines, WHO assessed the quality, safety and efficacy data, risk management plans and programmatic suitability in less than four weeks. On Feb. 8, the vaccine was reviewed by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), who recommended the vaccine for all groups age 18 and above.
SAGE recommended use of the vaccine for all people ages 18 and older, and that the two doses are administered eight to 12 weeks apart. Their interim recommendations say that it has an efficacy of 63.09% against symptomatic infection.
Along with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, these are the second and third vaccines to receive emergency use listing by WHO, Tedros said. Experts say they could have a major global impact because they cost less and are more easily distributed, since they do not have ultra-cold chain requirements.
The Illinois Department of Public Health Monday reported 41 new Covid-19 related deaths, bringing the total number of lives lost in the state since the pandemic began to 20,002, according to a statement from the department.
The department reported 1,420 new cases of Covid-19 and a 3.5% positivity rate. There are 1,789 people hospitalized with Covid-19, 389 patients in the ICU and 184 on ventilators.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the state of Illinois since health department began tracking data, according to the statement.
The biotechnology company Novavax told CNN on Monday that its scientists are testing a new version of its Covid-19 vaccine in the lab that specifically targets the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa.
As part of this research, the scientists are hoping to determine whether the new vaccine would serve as a booster shot to the original vaccine that has already been developed, or as a bivalent vaccine administered on its own, meaning it would target two strains of the coronavirus, both the original and the variant first identified in South Africa.
Once lab testing is complete, the new vaccine could move to clinical trials – but a timeline is still in the works and the research is still very early.
In a previous announcement in January, the company said, “Novavax initiated development of new constructs against the emerging strains in early January and expects to select ideal candidates for a booster and/or combination bivalent vaccine for the new strains in the coming days. The company plans to initiate clinical testing of these new vaccines in the second quarter of this year.”
The biotechnology company Novavax told CNN on Monday that it expects to announce this week that its PREVENT-19 trial has reached full enrollment.
The trial will include about 30,000 adults across 115 locations in the US and Mexico to test whether the company’s investigational vaccine prevents Covid-19 disease.
Novavax announced in January that early results from a Phase 3 trial in the UK show its coronavirus vaccine has an efficacy of 89.3%.
As the US trial for Novavax’s coronavirus vaccine reaches full enrollment, the company told CNN on Monday that its vaccine is still on track to possibly receive authorization for emergency use in the US by summer.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for patience and warned the “threat from this virus remains very real” despite the UK reaching its target of giving 15 million people a first dose of the vaccine by Feb. 15.
Speaking during a Downing Street news conference on Monday, Johnson said he would be setting out a roadmap out of lockdown next week but “we want this lockdown to be the last.” He said he wants the progress to be “cautious and irreversible.”
He said the level of infection remains very high and there are still more people in hospitals with Covid-19 than at the peak last April. “So this moment is a huge step forward but it’s only a first step,” Johnson cautioned.
The government’s next target is to offer vaccines to its top nine priority groups — including everyone over the age of 50 — by the end of April.
There have been at least 27,645,547 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 485,414 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
So far today, Johns Hopkins University has reported 5,265 new cases and 78 new deaths.
At least 70,057,800 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 52,884,356 total doses of the vaccine have been administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
