Our live coverage has ended for the day.
The cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo postponed their world-famous Carnaval parades by two months in light of “the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil and the need to, at this moment, preserve lives and put effort into expanding vaccination across the country,” according to a press release from the Rio de Janeiro city government.
São Paulo’s Carnaval parades had been scheduled for Feb. 25-26, while Rio de Janeiro’s were scheduled for Feb. 27-28. Both will now take place on the weekend of April 21.
Carnaval celebrations in the cities take place in two parts: organized parades of samba schools and themed street parties known as blocos. The street parties had already been canceled before Friday’s announcement.
The US Food and Drug Administration took action Friday to expand the use of the antiviral remdesivir for treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19.
Remdesivir, sold under the brand name Veklury, had received an emergency use authorization (EUA) in May 2020 for use in people hospitalized with severe Covid-19. In October 2020, the FDA approved the drug for anyone 12 and older who was hospitalized.
On Friday, the agency expanded the approval to include people 12 and older who test positive for Covid-19, are not in the hospital, have mild to moderate disease and are at high risk of severe illness. It also expanded the EUA to allow its use in children under 12 who meet the same criteria.
These patients can get remdesivir through an IV for three days.
“Today’s actions bolster the arsenal of therapeutics to treat Covid-19 and respond to the surge of the omicron variant,” Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a news release. “Today’s actions provide adults and pediatric patients, with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 who are at high risk of severe Covid-19, with a treatment option they could receive outside of a traditional inpatient hospital setting, including at skilled nursing facilities, home healthcare settings and outpatient facilities such as infusion centers.”
The agency noted that remdesivir is no substitution for vaccination to prevent severe Covid-19 illness and complications like hospitalization and death.
The NFL has told the remaining eight teams left in the playoffs in a Friday memo that Covid-19 protocols have been updated “to eliminate the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated players to determine testing cadence.”
The memo, which CNN obtained, said that effective immediately, any player or staff member who reports symptoms will be tested promptly. The memo also said that “targeted surveillance testing” will continue, which has been in effect since Dec. 18.
“This comprehensive, symptom-based approach to testing, reflects our recent experience with the Omicron variant and conforms to current public health recommendations and best practices employed in healthcare, and offers the best opportunity for identifying and treating cases promptly and avoiding spread within the facility,” the memo said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t updated its definition of “fully vaccinated” for Covid-19 because the recommendations are about “how well you are protected rather than a definition,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday.
The CDC is working to “pivot” its language, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing earlier in the day. Fauci said her remarks were about “keeping your vaccination for Covid up to date.”
“If I was not vaccinated at all and I got vaccinated tomorrow, two weeks to a month from now, I would be at my optimal degree of protection, and that would be ‘fully vaccinated.’ However, five months later, if I wanted to be up to date, to be optimally vaccinated, I’d want to get the booster,” Fauci added.
However, Fauci admitted that the terminology “is obviously confusing people. But one of the things that we’re talking about from a purely public health standpoint is how well you are protected, rather than what a definition is to get someone to be required or not required.”
Fauci also rejected any arguments that the CDC’s refusal to change the definition is about presenting the best vaccination numbers, as more than 63% of the US population is fully vaccinated while only a quarter has gotten booster doses.
“I can tell you categorically that that’s not the motivation for that. That’s not the reason,” Fauci said.
Follow how many people have been vaccinated: Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations in the US
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey filed a lawsuit against the US Treasury Department Friday, one week after the Biden administration warned the state it could be forced to give back some of its federal Covid relief funds.
The Treasury said Arizona was violating the terms of the grants by refusing to give them to schools with mask mandates.
The letter sent by Treasury to the state on Jan. 14 said the state’s refusal to make the $173 million in funding available to schools with mask mandates clashed with official health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“By discouraging families and school districts from following this guidance, the conditions referenced above undermine efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19,” Deputy Chief Compliance Officer Kathleen B. Victorino wrote.
More details: Arizona’s lawsuit argues that the American Rescue Plan does not specifically require the schools getting grants to follow CDC mask guidance, and therefore the Treasury Department does not have the authority to demand it.
“If Congress intended to give Treasury—which has absolutely no expertise in matters of public health—the authority to withhold or recoup tens of millions of dollars from States based on Treasury’s subjective assessment of whether a State program ‘undermines’ COVID-19 mitigation efforts, Congress needed to ‘speak clearly,’” said attorneys Anni Foster and Brett Johnson, representing the state.
In its Jan. 14 letter, the Treasury Department gave Arizona 60 days to respond to its concerns before it would consider taking back the money.
Dr. Anthony Fauci clarified his remarks about the timeline for a Covid-19 vaccine for children under 5, saying, “we just don’t know.”
Fauci said he is not privy to the information that companies will submit to the FDA for emergency use authorization.
“I can’t give you a month, whether it’s February or March, April or whenever,” Fauci added. “We just don’t know and that’s just the reality.”
Every member of Team USA headed to the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing is vaccinated against Covid-19.
According to Jon Mason, senior director of communications for Team USA, 100% of the members are vaccinated and no exemptions were requested by the team.
Back in September: The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee mandated all athletes competing in Beijing for Team USA be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1, 2021, unless they obtained a medical or religious exemption.
This mandate also included all Team USA delegation members.
The expected team size will be 222 individuals; Mason told CNN there are plans to share the full and official roster on Jan. 24.
Mason said American athletes will begin arriving in Beijing on Jan. 28.
The games begin Feb. 3.
See how Beijing is implementing very strict measures to keep the Winter Olympics Covid-19 free:
Philadelphia is delaying enforcement of its vaccine mandate for city employees again, citing ongoing discussions with unions and arbitration with the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 over their contract, the city announced Friday.
The mandate, which was to go into effect on Jan. 14, was delayed last week until Jan. 21 as the city negotiates with the FOP and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22.
Two of the four unions previously agreed to the mandate, the AFSCME DC 33, which represents trash collectors, and AFSCME DC 47, which represents non-profit and higher education workers, the press release said.
A condition in the agreements with DC 33 and DC 47 is any eventual deal reached with the other labor unions including favorable terms must automatically be extended to their members—including any change to the city’s initial Jan. 14 deadline to get a first dose or submit a request for exemption, the press release said.
“We appreciate the mayor’s pivot after Local 22 IAFF meeting with Deputy Mayor Rich Lazer who listened and understood our public safety concerns as we are already understaffed. And especially in light of the recent tragic fire here that took so many precious lives,” said IAFF Local 22 President Mike Bresnan.
CNN has also reached out the union representing police.
The Catholic Diocese of Arlington has directed its schools across Northern Virginia, which include nearly 17,000 students, to follow the new governor’s executive order rescinding statewide mask mandates in public schools.
The Diocese said in a statement to CNN that its schools will implement the order signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin when it goes into effect on Monday, allowing parents to decide whether their child will wear a mask while in school.
Some context: The decision by the Diocese comes as some of Virginia’s largest public school systems have told parents they will continue to enforce mask mandates despite the governor’s order.
The superintendent of schools for the Diocese sent a message to pastors and school officials with updated guidance, writing:
“Diocesan direction to our schools is to continue following local public health guidance, without, however, violating the rights of parents as described in Executive Order 2,” Superintendent Joseph E. Vorbach III said in the message, “The health and safety of all students and staff in our schools, while maintaining in-person instruction, remains our top priority.”
The Diocese of Arlington includes seven cities and 21 counties.
Racial and ethnic disparities in Covid-19 vaccination coverage have improved since vaccinations started about a year ago, but disparities in booster coverage persist, data from the US Centers from Disease Control and Prevention showed.
The CDC published data on booster coverage by race and ethnicity only for the 65 and older population, a higher-risk group that became eligible to receive booster shots earlier than the broader population.
Overall, about 63.5% of seniors in this age group who are eligible to receive a booster have gotten one, according to CDC data. But that varies widely by race and ethnicity:
Seniors are eligible to receive a booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine if it’s been at least five months since they completed the initial series of Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, or at least two months since getting an initial Johnson & Johnson shot. Race and ethnicity is known for about 89% of vaccinations among seniors.
Here’s more on the latest data on vaccination efforts in the US, published Friday by the CDC:
Amtrak said Friday it is cutting 8% of departures over the next 10 weeks as “several hundred” employees are either sick with or exposed to Covid-19 and Omicron, even though 97% of employees are fully vaccinated.
“Given the recent roughly 25% reduction in customer demand now occurring because of the Omicron variant and typical season travel patterns, we expect minimal impacts to overall ridership because of these temporary changes,” Amtrak said.
Immune cells called T cells can play a key role in maintaining protection against Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths when new variants arise, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, immunity has often been measured by the presence of antibodies in the blood. Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system to help fight infections. But immune systems are much more than just antibodies. They involve many players, including B cells and T cells, which are involved in the effort to fight off the coronavirus or any other pathogen.
During a White House briefing on Friday, Fauci said:
Fauci added that “the other limb of the immune response is the T cell limb,” which, in some respects, helps the B cells make antibodies but also has a function of its own, including immune memory function.
Antibodies — made by B cells with help from T cells — primarily prevent initial infection, Fauci said. T cells generally prevent the progression of an infection.
New Covid-19 hospital admissions across the country have started to decline over the past week, a promising sign that total hospitalizations will follow, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Average daily hospital admissions peaked Saturday with 22,080 new admissions, according to the HHS. Since then, the seven-day average of new admissions of patients with a confirmed case of Covid-19 has dropped about 4% to 21,220 new admissions per day.
Similar trends hold when tracking patients admitted with both confirmed and suspected cases of Covid-19 and for new pediatric admissions.
Covid-19 hospitalizations have dropped about 11% in the Northeast after reaching a peak a week ago, according to HHS data.
A Texas federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine mandate for federal employees, dealing another blow to President Biden’s campaign to increase the country’s lackluster vaccination rate.
Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown called the mandate an overstep of presidential authority and cited the recent Supreme Court decision to strike down a separate administration mandate that had applied to private sector workers.
The Justice Department immediately appealed the decision to a circuit court.
The federal worker mandate, which applied to some 3.5 million workers, required full vaccination by the end of November, although the administration said it would first counsel employees who resisted vaccination rather than discipline or fire them. On Dec. 9, 2021, the Office of Management and Budget said that the federal workforce was 97.2% compliant with the mandate — a figure that includes people who had a pending or approved exemption.
A Nevada-based group called Feds for Medical Freedom filed the lawsuit in December. The group says they include 6,000 members who are employees or contractors for “nearly every federal agency.”
In his ruling, Brown, an appointee of former President Trump, wrote that “the court understands that the disciplining of at least some non-compliant employees is now imminent.”
At a briefing Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House was confident in its legal authority.
The Fugees have announced they are canceling their eagerly awaited 25th anniversary tour because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel announced the cancellation on social media on Friday.
“The continued Covid pandemic has made touring conditions difficult, and we want to make sure we keep our fans and ourselves healthy and safe,” the statement read. “An idea sparked to honor and celebrate this 25th anniversary of ‘The Score’ but we see now it may not currently be our time for revisiting this past work.”
Their tour was originally announced in September and kicked off with a small pop-up show held in New York City.
The rest of the tour was supposed to commence in November at United Center in Chicago, with planned stops in Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Paris, London and more before it was postponed until 2022.
Now it’s canceled all together.
Stafford County Public Schools has become the latest Virginia public school system to enforce a universal mask mandate in defiance on an executive order signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The school district, which sits about an hour north of Richmond, approved the mask mandate with no parental opt-out option for all students, staff and visitors during an emergency meeting Thursday night.
“We will continue to remind students to wear masks as expected,” Superintendent Thomas W. Taylor said in a letter to parents:
Youngkin, who was inaugurated Saturday, signed an executive order on his first day in office allowing parents and guardians to “elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the child’s school or educational program.”
Parents in Chesapeake County filed a lawsuit asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to block the order earlier in the week, CNN previously reported. By Thursday, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyare filed a motion asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to block that petition.
“We are aware that the Governor’s Executive Order #2 is presently being challenged in the Virginia Supreme Court. Should the Virginia Supreme Court uphold the Governor’s Executive Order, the School Board will again convene to discuss this issue further,” Taylor said.
There are more than 29,000 students enrolled in the 33 schools within the SCPS system, according to their website.
“We understand that this decision is frustrating for some families,” Taylor said.
While masking is mandatory on buses and in school buildings, parents and guardians can request an exemption for their child by contacting their child’s principal, the superintendent noted.
Some of the commonwealth’s largest school systems, including Fairfax County Public Schools and Prince Williams County Public Schools, have also told parents that they will continue to enforce a mask mandates on their campuses.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working to “pivot” its language around what it means to be fully vaccinated, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing Friday. But Walensky stopped short of saying the definition of fully vaccinated needs to change, instead focusing on what it means to be “up-to-date” on Covid-19 vaccinations.
Fully vaccinated people who are eligible to receive a booster dose of vaccine but still are not boosted are not considered “up-to-date” on their vaccinations, Walensky said.
“What we really are working to do is pivot the language to make sure that everybody is as up-to-date with their Covid-19 vaccines as they personally could be, should be, based on when they got their last vaccine. So importantly, right now, we’re pivoting our language,” Walensky told reporters.
More background: Three new studies from the CDC released Friday highlighted the importance of getting a booster shot to provide the best protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant.
It was the first real-life data to examine the effect boosters against Omicron, which now accounts for more than 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States. The studies raised the question of whether people with just two vaccine doses should still be considered fully vaccinated.
“I think we have to redefine fully vaccinated as three doses,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime CDC vaccine adviser who was not involved with the studies.
CNN’s John Bonifield and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.
Hear why one doctor wants the CDC to change the “fully vaccinated” definition:
Some of the free at-home Covid-19 tests that Americans ordered online through the federal government started shipping Thursday, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters during a briefing on Friday.
Zients said that as quickly as the at-home tests are delivered by manufacturers, the White House will get the tests to households that have placed orders.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort,” he said, adding that demand has been “high” and there have been millions of completed orders through the website.
Pressed specifically by multiple reporters, including CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, on how many households had ordered tests so far, Zients declined to say.
He said that a more specific number of how many orders have been placed will be reported publicly once the data is pulled together.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services confirms it is investigating “numerous complaints” about labs and testing sites associated with the Center for Covid Control, the agency confirmed to CNN Friday.
“CMS is actively investigating numerous complaints about multiple laboratories and testing sites associated with the Center for COVID Control,” Fleisher said, adding that CMS “continues our investigations and will take compliance and enforcement actions as appropriate.”
CMS conducted onsite complaint surveys at multiple testing sites and the main lab used by CCC – the Doctors Clinical Laboratory – in November and December, according to a CMS spokesperson.
“CMS identified non-compliance and is waiting on an allegation of compliance from the laboratory to address the deficiencies cited,” the CMS spokesperson said.
More background: Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced he is suing the Center for Covid Control and its associated clinical lab, claiming they failed to deliver Covid-19 test results or delivered untimely or falsified test results.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, said the Minnesota Department of Health received complaints after people were tested for Covid-19 at pop-up testing sites around the state operated by the Center for Covid Control.
CCC announced last week it would pause operations from Jan. 14 to 22 because “unusually high patient demand has stressed staffing resources, as has been widely reported, in a subset of our locations, affecting our usual customer service standards and diagnostic goals.”
On Thursday, CCC announced on its website that all locations are, instead, closed until further notice.
CNN has reached out to CCC and Doctors Clinical Laboratory for comment about the lawsuit.
-CNN’s Chris Boyette contributed to this post
The World Health Organization’s vaccine advisory group, SAGE, updated recommendations of use for the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to now include children down to the age of 5, with a reduced dosage being given to those between 5 and 11 years old, Alejandro Cravioto, chair of SAGE, said on Friday. Previously SAGE made no recommendation on vaccinating this younger age group.
SAGE met Wednesday to discuss updated recommendations on the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
“For the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, SAGE reviewed new evidence regarding age of administration,” said Cravioto during a news briefing. “We have updated the interim recommendations of this product to extend the age indication down to five years, with a reduced dosage for those 5 to 11 years.”
The SAGE Pfizer/BioNTech recommendations say that the intended use of the vaccine is for persons age 5 and up, with a recommended schedule of two doses, 30 micrograms for those age 12 and up and 10 micrograms for 5- to 11-year-olds, given four to eight weeks apart.
Cravioto noted that this age group is in the lowest priority use group for vaccination in WHO’s vaccination roadmap, except children with comorbidities who are in the high priority group.
Pfizer vaccine boosters for all ages were also addressed. Previously, WHO recommended additional vaccine doses only to those who were immunocompromised. The latest update is the strongest recommendation on boosters the agency has made.
“SAGE has updated the interim recommendation for the use of booster doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, emphasizing the need to start with the highest priority use groups, such as older adults and health workers, four to six months after the completion of the primary series,” Cravioto said, adding that the objective of the booster is to restore vaccine effectiveness of the primary series, which has shown to decline over time.
The interim recommendations from SAGE say that if more than six months have passed since first series completion, boosters should be given to those in the highest priority groups as soon as possible. Once there is high booster dose coverage in these high priority groups, then boosters for lower priority groups could be considered, they said.
