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About 40% of the United States population is considered “up to date” on Covid-19 vaccination, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Friday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is working to “pivot” its language around what it means to be fully vaccinated. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, offered this explanation of what “up to date” means in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday:
People who are “up-to-date” with their Covid-19 vaccinations include:
That means about 60% of the US population is not fully protected against Covid-19, as nearly 700,000 new infections are reported each day. Included in that are about 20 million children under the age of 5 who are not eligible to be vaccinated, about 6% of the total US population.
Note: CDC data on Covid-19 vaccinations are estimates. The agency notes that data on people who are fully vaccinated and those with a booster dose may be underestimated, while data on people with at least one dose may be overestimated.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections announced in a statement on Monday that it’s suspending in-person visitation at all correctional institutions from Jan. 27 through Feb. 28 due to a recent surge in Covid-19 throughout the Commonwealth.
“Staffing levels have been significantly impacted throughout the winter months by the same uptick in COVID-19 cases that our communities are experiencing,” Acting Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections George Little said.
Recreational and educational programs will not be impacted by this measure, the statement said, but some services could be modified to promote social distancing.
Little recognized the stress of suspending in-person visitations on incarcerated people, but he said that the temporary measure was taken to “ensure critical positions in our facilities remain staffed.”
A little more than 113,000 cases were reported in the Commonwealth last week according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboard.
New Jersey Covid-19 cases are down about two-thirds from where they stood two weeks ago, Gov. Phil Murphy said at a press briefing Monday.
The governor said that the state’s test positivity rate has decreased “dramatically,” to around 15%, much lower from when it was the mid-30s.
“No one should be complacent here, even though these numbers are trending very positively, and they are, they’re still higher than anything we had encountered even through last winter’s surge and the Delta variant surge from last summer,” Murphy said.
Overall, Murphy said hospitalizations are “dropping significantly over the past week,” but noted that these numbers are still higher than the state experienced in the past two surges.
There are currently 4,093 Covid-19 related hospitalizations across the state as of Sunday night, which is lower compared to 6,089 hospitalizations reported on Jan. 11, according to New Jersey’s Covid-19 dashboard.
The governor reminded New Jersey residents to get vaccinated and boosted and then shared that two new vaccination mega-sites opened in North Jersey, one in Bergen County and Passaic County.
Murphy emphasized the need for residents to get vaccinated and boosted, saying that “it’s a shirking of our collective responsibility” if you’re not getting vaccinated. He said not getting vaccinated is akin to drunk driving, “you’re not only putting yourself at risk, you’re putting other people at risk.”
Follow how many people have been vaccinated: Tracking Covid-19 vaccines in the US
A new lab study provides a “first glimpse” of the durability of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine booster, suggesting that antibodies against the Omicron variant remain robust four months after the third dose.
Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Pfizer and BioNTech looked at serum samples from vaccinated people and tested their neutralization of an older coronavirus strain and an engineered version of the Omicron variant. The preprint study was posted online Saturday and has not been peer-reviewed or published.
As in past studies, the study found that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was “not sufficient to elicit robust neutralization against Omicron.” But “three doses of vaccine increased the magnitude and breadth of neutralization against Omicron,” wrote Pei-Yong Shi and Xuping Xie and their co-authors.
“Additional real world effectiveness data and laboratory investigations will further inform the duration of protection, potential need for an additional dose at a later time, and whether an Omicron modified vaccine is required,” the authors said.
More on the study: Antibody levels decreased somewhat over time but persisted at four months. More research is needed to determine how much longer protection would last, since protection from the vaccines is known to wane over time as antibodies decline. The new study did not examine whether neutralization against Omicron continued beyond four months and did not consider T cells, which probably play an important role in protection against Covid-19. Two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may still induce protection against severe disease, Pfizer and BioNTech said in a statement.
Currently, people 12 and older in the United States who received an mRNA vaccine are recommended to get a booster dose five months after their primary series; adults who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are recommended to get a booster two months after their initial shot. Israel is offering some vulnerable groups a fourth booster shot, but it’s not clear what’s next for vaccines and boosters in the United States.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday added 15 destinations to its highest-risk category for travel, including Costa Rica, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.
A country is labeled as “Level 4: Covid-19 Very High” risk by the agency when more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents are registered in the past 28 days. Last week, the CDC added 22 destinations to that level.
The CDC now lists dozens of countries as Level 4 on its site and many others at lower risk levels.
See the full list here.
The Biden administration says it will not be enforcing the federal employee vaccine mandate amid ongoing litigation, after a Texas federal judge on Friday blocked the enforcement of the vaccine mandate for government employees.
“Safer Federal Workforce Task Force guidance on other Federal agency safety protocols based on vaccination status—including guidance on protocols related to masking, distancing, travel, testing, and quarantine – remains in effect,” according to the website.
This comes after 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.
“For months, the federal government has been implementing its vaccination requirement. It is doing so with no disruptions to operations and in a way that increased vaccination rates,” a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to CNN Monday.
The OMB spokesperson noted that more than 98% of the federal workforce is in compliance with the vaccine mandate, and more than 93% of federal employees are vaccinated with at least one dose.
State Sen. Richard Pan, who represents the Sacramento area and is a pediatrician, says he wants to get rid of the personal belief exemption for student Covid-19 vaccinations in California.
Pan’s proposed legislation builds on SB 277, which eliminated the personal belief exemption for all other childhood vaccinations and became law in 2015. “After passage of SB 277, vaccination rates dramatically increased for childhood diseases such as measles,” according to a release from Pan’s office.
Last September, the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) board passed a mandate requiring all staff and eligible students to be vaccinated. That mandate would have gone into effect today for high school age students, said SDUSD Board Member Richard Barrera.
“We were not able to move forward with that policy because it’s being held up in the courts,” Barrera lamented. “We disagree with the interpretation of the lower court that a local school district does not have the authority to implement a vaccine mandate. But the judge in our case was very clear that the state legislature does have the authority to require a student vaccine mandate throughout California.”
In response to the proposed legislation, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Interim Superintendent Megan Reilly said, “This consistency in health standards will help ensure all of us in the school community are doing our part to keep community transmissions low, ensure a safe school environment for our most vulnerable student populations.”
The LAUSD and SDUSD are the state’s two largest school districts and educate nearly 720,000 students combined.
CNN’s Cheri Mossburg contributed reporting to this post.
Some Americans across the country have started receiving their free Covid-19 at-home rapid tests, six days after the Biden administration launched the website.
Gourjoine Wade of San Antonio, Texas, told CNN that he ordered the tests on Tuesday, the first day that covidtests.gov went live to take orders.
Wade said he ordered the tests because he wants to have them on hand and ready for when they are needed.
“It’s another tool in the toolbox of keeping me, my family, and our community safe,” he told CNN.
Tempe, Arizona, resident Brian Jorgensen also ordered on Jan. 18, and received his USPS package this morning.
He ordered them because at the time, he was symptomatic for Covid-19, and only had older tests on hand. Although Jorgensen said he feels fine now, he said he is still glad he has the free rapid tests.
“There are others around me who still haven’t shown any sign of having it, so I wanted to be prepared,” he said. “It sounds to me like reinfection is a very real possibility with this virus.”
Los Angeles resident Ellen Aprill received her tests over the weekend after ordering them on Jan. 18. A friend emailed her the link to the website saying they were available to order.
Aprill said these tests will be helpful for her job — she’s a law professor and will need a negative rapid test to get back on campus. Additionally, Aprill said she wanted to make sure she was able to test to protect her mother, who is 100 years old.
Here’s how you can request your at-home Covid-19 test for free:
The impact of the Omicron variant of coronavirus on the US restaurant industry is alarming, says the National Restaurant Association. About 88% of restaurants experienced a decline in demand in recent weeks due to Omicron, a new survey by the National Restaurant Association revealed Monday. About 76% of restaurant operators report that business is worse than it was just three months ago.
In just the last few weeks, 51% restaurants have reduced hours and 34% closed on days they would normally be open, the survey finds. This is on top of the losses that restaurants are still trying to recoup from the last two years. About 74% of operators say their restaurant is less profitable than it was before the pandemic, the survey found.
In a letter to Congress Monday, the National Restaurant Association highlighted the need to replenish the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) in the upcoming legislation package. The fund ran out of money last year – awarding grants to just a third of those restaurant operators that applied.
The National Restaurant Association estimates that $43 billion in additional funds would aid the 177,000 eligible restaurant operators who applied for the fund last year did not receive money. The group also estimates it would save 1.6 million jobs currently at risk.
“New data from our 10th COVID-19 Operators Survey show that restaurant recovery is paralyzed and nowhere near complete,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs at the National Restaurant Association in the letter. “The restaurant industry is at an inflection point,” he added.
The RRF saved more than 900,000 jobs and helped 96% of the 101,000 restaurants that received funding to stay in business, according to the survey. Yet, it shows, 46% of restaurant operators who applied but did not receive funding said it is unlikely they will be able to survive if they do not receive a RRF grant.
A bipartisan bill to replenish the fund is being crafted by Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, which would also include additional aide for other small businesses. There is no timeline on when it will be introduced.
The National Restaurant Association Research Group conducted the COVID-19 Restaurant Impact Survey of 4,200 restaurant operators from Jan.16-18. This is the group’s tenth Covid-19 Operators Survey.
The first free N95 masks from the government have begun arriving at US pharmacies, with more on the way. The Biden administration is trying to ramp up access to high-quality masks amid the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19 and announced last week that 400 million N95 masks will be provided.
Masks are set up for distribution at some grocery stores in the Midwest, with more expected at Southeastern grocers stores later this week. Distribution to pharmacies and community health centers is also planned. The masks are arriving with accompanying flyers and signage in English and Spanish from the US Department of Health and Human Services, which paid for the masks.
More details: Some of the first masks arrived in the Midwest on Friday, including at Hy-Vee grocery stores in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Meijer stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin. Masks will also begin arriving at Southeastern Grocers locations as early this Friday, according to a Biden administration official, and will be available at Fresco y Más, Harveys Supermarket and Winn-Dixie in-store pharmacies.
The first 100 community health centers participating in the rollout of the federal government’s free N95 mask program will also start this week, National Association of Community Health Centers spokesperson Amy Simmons Farber wrote in an email to CNN.
“Each individual health center will need time to develop a distribution plan and notification process for patients. If you are a patient, check with your local health center’s web site for announcements,” she wrote. “Try to avoid overwhelming call centers for now.”
Last week, the federal government launched its website for ordering free at-home Covid tests.
Seven school boards in Virginia are challenging Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates, which goes into effect today.
The school boards of Alexandria City, Arlington County, Richmond City, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Hampton City and Prince William County filed a lawsuit with the Circuit Court for the County of Arlington.
“We are disappointed that these school boards are ignoring parent’s rights,” Youngkin’s spokesperson Macaulay Porter said in a statement. “The governor and attorney general are in coordination and are committed to aggressively defending parents’ fundamental right to make decisions with regard to their child’s upbringing, education and care, as the legal process plays out.”
The school boards said the legal action, which represents more than 350,000 students across the commonwealth, “defends the right of school boards to enact policy at the local level, including policies that protect the health and well-being of all students and staff.”
The Catholic Diocese of Arlington, meanwhile, instructed schools in Virginia to follow the governor’s executive order prohibiting schools from enforcing mandatory mask mandates.
“The governor’s executive order is clear on the right of parents not to have their child be subject to a mask mandate,” Catholic Diocese of Arlington spokesperson Amber Roseboom said in a statement. The diocese stretches across 21 counties, and has more than 17,000 students enrolled in its schools.
More background: Youngkin was inaugurated Jan. 15 and signed the executive order on his first day that allows parents and guardians to “elect for their children” whether to wear masks. On Jan. 19, a group of parents of public school students in Chesapeake, Virginia, sued over the executive order.
The CDC recommends “universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of their vaccination status or the area’s transmission rates.” But mask-related measures have sparked controversy around the U.S.
In Los Angeles, students and staff are now required to wear non-cloth masks that have a nose wire, including while participating in athletic activities. In Georgia, public school teachers who test positive for Covid-19 no longer have to isolate before returning to school if they are asymptomatic and wear a mask.
Watch a Virginia parent express fear at Gov. Youngkin banning mask mandates in schools:
Russia has reported record daily Covid-19 infections for four consecutive days, figures from the country’s coronavirus response center showed on Monday.
Officials reported 65,109 new coronavirus cases registered across the country in the past 24 hours, up from 63,205 new cases on Sunday.
Despite the worsening Covid-19 situation in the country, the Kremlin said there is no talk of lockdown.
“Nobody is discussing any lockdowns. We see the dynamics,” the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Saturday that he hopes Covid-19 vaccines will become a yearly occurrence, rather than a booster every four to five months.
“I think this will be not a good scenario,” Bourla said of frequent boosters. “What I’m hoping that we will have, it is a vaccine that we will have to do once a year like we do for many other things.”
“At once a year, it is easier to convince people to do it, it is easier for people to remember. From a public health perspective, it is an ideal situation,” he continued. “We are looking to see if we can create a vaccine that covers Omicron and doesn’t forget the other variants and that could be a solution unless if something completely different comes out.”
Fully vaccinated travelers arriving in England from abroad will no longer be required to take Covid-19 tests, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday.
Johnson did not confirm when the rule change would take effect, but told reporters the move would show that England was “open for business, open for travelers,” ahead of an expected update on travel in the House of Commons from the transport secretary.
The move comes amid a loosening of other Covid-19 measures which were in place over the winter period to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.
Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, the World Health Organization regional director for Europe, said he hopes that the emergency phase of the Covid-19 pandemic can end this year, and that the Omicron variant offers “plausible hope for stabilization and normalization,” although new variants could still emerge.
Kluge noted that two years ago today, France reported the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the region, and that while the region should be proud of how far it has come, “that did not come without unacceptable human cost.”
He also urged more work on global vaccine equity.
“If 2021 was the year of vaccine production, 2022 must be the year of vaccine equity in the European Region and beyond. Too many people who need the vaccine remain unvaccinated. This is helping to drive transmission, prolonging the pandemic and increasing the likelihood of new variants.”
While “it is almost a given” that new variants will emerge and return, the lessons learned about containing spread and preventing transmission could help move past “pandemic-era, population-wide lockdowns or similar measures.”
The Beijing Olympic Committee and Chinese authorities have lowered the threshold for producing a negative Covid-19 test for participants arriving to participate in the upcoming Winter Olympics, according to a statement issued Sunday by Beijing 2022.
The threshold for the Cycle Threshold (CT) value, which provides information on how much viral genetic material is in a sample, has been lowered from 40 to 35, according to Beijing 2022. This makes it easier for participants to produce a negative test as generally, higher CT values indicate reduced infectiousness.
Also, effective immediately for airport testing and screening testing, participants whose PCR results have a CT value greater than or equal to 35 will be managed in the same way as a close contact for seven days and will not generate any close contacts. Previously, if a person had a CT value of 35-40 and was symptomatic, that person would be transferred to a hospital; if asymptomatic, that person would be transferred to an isolation facility.
Additionally, if the positive participant spends 10 days or more in isolation, then the participant can be released if they are not displaying any Covid-19 symptoms and the PCR results have a CT value of greater than or equal to 35 for the past three days, Beijing 2022 said. Previously, a person needed two negative tests prior to re-entering the closed loop.
Lastly, the time period for which a person is deemed a close contact is reduced from 14 days to seven days, the statement read. During that period, testing will be carried out twice daily, according to Beijing 2022.
At least 72 positive Covid-19 cases have been registered in China among personnel related to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and all of them are non-athletes, according to another statement from the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympics on Sunday.
The locked-down Chinese city of Xi’an is beginning to lift some of its Covid-19 restrictions starting Monday, local authorities announced in a statement published online.
The Covid-19 risk-level for the whole city will be reduced to low level, according to the Xi’an city government. All shopping malls, supermarkets and stores will resume their business, while tourist attractions, theaters and other public venues will reopen with regulations.
Public transportation, including taxis, buses, subways and ride-sharing services will also be fully resumed, the authorities said. People can also leave the city with just a green QR code that is obtained by filling out a health questionnaire.
The city went into a strict lockdown on Dec. 23 on its estimated 13 million residents. Xi’an reported a total 2,053 locally transmitted cases in this round of surge, the city’s municipal government announced on Saturday.
The lockdown in Xi’an is the second longest lockdown among all megacities in China. The city of Wuhan had the longest, which had its second-year anniversary of its lockdown on Sunday.
Six new Covid-19 cases have been confirmed among personnel related to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to a statement from the Beijing Olympics Committee on Monday.
Of the new cases, four were new arrivals who tested positive at Chinese customs before entering the closed loop on Sunday. The other two were Olympics-related personnel already inside the closed loop.
Of the four positive cases found among arrivals at customs, one was an athlete or an official, and three others were Olympics-related personnel, the statement read.
The committee also said a total of 35 people have tested positive inside the close loop since Jan. 4, and 43 tested positive at customs since Jan. 4.
So far, 529 international athletes and officials and 376 Olympics-related personnel have arrived in Beijing. Health authorities have conducted 38,441 tests on those inside the close loop, including Chinese and foreign personnel, according to the committee.
So far, there have been 3,220 total arrivals including athletes, officials and media, according to the official “My 2022” app for accredited staff.
In their latest effort to contain the spread of Covid-19 before the Olympics, Beijing authorities have ordered people who have purchased fever and cough medicine within the past 14 days to get tested for the virus within 72 hours, disrupting people’s travel plans ahead of next week’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Those who fail to get tested will be prevented from traveling, visiting restaurants or going to public places using the city’s health app, which is required to enter restaurants, public spaces, and for public transportation and taxis.
To purchase these medicines in person or online, customers will also be required to take a Covid-19 test within three days and register their information with the pharmacy, in addition to the required health app.
The policy has already sparked backlash on Chinese social media with users complaining the measures are preventing them from traveling ahead of next week’s Lunar New Year holiday and has resulted in long Covid-19 lines.
On Monday, Beijing reported nine new locally transmitted cases, including seven symptomatic cases and two asymptomatic cases, municipal authorities announced Monday. All infections were found in the southwestern Fengtai district, where mass testing began Sunday.
Thirteen buildings in the district were put into lockdown, banning residents from leaving their homes for at least 21 days. Another six neighborhoods are also being “strictly controlled,” barring residents from leaving the neighborhoods for at least 14 days, officials announced Monday.
With less than two weeks to go until the start of the Winter Olympics, the city has reported a total of 52 local infections in recent weeks, of which 46 are the Delta variant.
Starting today, students and staff in the nation’s second largest school district will be required to wear non-cloth masks that have a nose wire, including while participating in athletic activities, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced.
Schools will provide surgical style masks for students and employees who need them and they can only be removed while eating and drinking, according to an LAUSD news release.
Weekly testing for all students and staff, regardless of vaccination status, will continue at least through February. Those identified as close contacts will be allowed to remain on campus as long as they are asymptomatic and participate in weekly testing.
“In-school cases rates dropped 7% since our baseline testing and current rates of students and staff are half of those in the general community due to the safety measures in place,” said Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly in a news release. “We continue to be diligent and agile in creating the safest learning environments,” she said of the adjustment in Covid-19 protocols.
