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Los Angeles County officials gathered at SoFi Stadium Wednesday to discuss safety measures and protocols that will be in place at the Super Bowl on Feb. 13.
All Super Bowl attendees will be given KN95 masks, making it easier for fans to comply with county masking requirements, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said during a news conference.
Masks will also be available at all NFL events, including the Super Bowl Experience being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend. Attendees for the event will be able to take a free rapid antigen test onsite, according to Ferrer. They will also be given Covid-19 test kits to take home so they can take a test before gathering to watch the Super Bowl.
Proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test is required for entry at these events, Ferrer said.
More than 400 automated touchless hand sanitizing stations will be available for attendees at SoFi Stadium, SoFi Stadium Senior Advisor of Facilities Russ Simons said. Simons added that they will continue to work with the health department to follow Covid-19 safety protocols.
Simons emphasized that masks will be mandatory unless actively eating or drinking. Ambassadors will be onsite to remind attendees to keep their masks on at all times, he said.
New Zealand will start reopening its borders in phase later this month, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi announced on Thursday.
Vaccinated New Zealand citizens and visa holders can travel from Australia to New Zealand without managed quarantine starting on Feb. 27.
Two weeks later, on March 13, New Zealander citizens and visa holders in the rest of the world will be also able to return.
In July, the border will open to anyone from Australia.
Visitors from anywhere else in the world will be able to enter New Zealand by October.
Travelers will still be required to take a Covid-19 test and self-isolate for 10 days, but will no longer have to stay at government-managed isolation facilities.
Unvaccinated visitors will still be required to go through the managed isolation.
“This is a very carefully developed plan that replaces MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) for the vast majority of travelers while ensuring we maintain ongoing measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in our community from recent arrivals,” Hipkins said in a statement.
Here’s the latest data on vaccination efforts in the US, published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
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.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran on Wednesday said the country has passed the peak of the fifth wave of the pandemic.
He said that France passed the latest peak of intensive care unit admissions related to coronavirus roughly 10 days ago.
During the pandemic, Veran has typically given television appearances wearing a surgical mask but he spoke without wearing a mask Wednesday. When asked if it was a sign of an improvement in the health situation, he said, “That’s the sign I wanted to show tonight.” He also credited the good ventilation and social distancing in the studio for his decision.
Some context: France began easing Covid-19 restrictions on Wednesday.
All sports and cultural venues will now be allowed to operate both indoors and outdoors without any limit to the number of people that can attend, provided they wear a mask.
The outdoor mask mandate also ended on Wednesday and working from home will no longer be mandatory but recommended.
France has seen eight consecutive days of decreases in its number of new Covid-19 cases. The country recorded 315,363 cases on Feb. 2, down from its record 501,635 on Jan. 25, according to data from France’s public health agency.
Track global vaccinations here
The White House is ready to “hit the ground running” to vaccinate children age six months to five years old as soon as Pfizer receives emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine for this age group.
Pending the US Food and Drug Administration’s authorization and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation, Zients said the administration will be “ready” and will “hit the ground running” to vaccinate the approximately 18 million children under the age of five.
Since the vaccine is specially formulated for this younger age group, the administration is “working closely” with pediatricians, states, local health departments, doctors, and pharmacies to ensure the vaccine is available at “thousands of locations nationwide” once it is authorized and recommended, Zients said.
The US has secured “ample doses” and necessary needles and supplies to administer the shots, he added, and “following FDA authorization, we will immediately begin packing and shipping doses to states and healthcare providers” so it can be distributed to locations parents “know and trust.”
Zients acknowledged hesitancy among parents. A January Kaiser Family Foundation poll of a nationally representative sample of 162 parents released Tuesday found only 3 in 10 parents say they’ll get their child under five vaccinated against Covid-19 right away.
“We know many parents are eager to get their kids the protection of the vaccine. We know others have questions. So we’re working with our partners to ensure all parents have access to the facts and information they need to make the right decision,” Zients said.
While data on the benefits of boosting are clear, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday said that he isn’t sure why so many people have gotten vaccinated but have not received an additional dose.
“I’m really not sure. You’re asking a good question. It’s almost a psychological, sociological question,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing in response to a question from Reuters’ Jeff Mason.
“That’s one of the reasons why we keep trying to put the data out, because as Dr. Walensky showed in her slide, the data are really stunningly obvious why a booster is really very important,” he said, referencing data presented by the CDC director showing a 97 times greater risk of death from Covid-19 in people who are unvaccinated versus those who are vaccinated and boosted.
“The only thing that we can do is to continue to come out with the data and to make sure the American public appreciates why it is so important for optimal protection to get boosted,” Fauci said.
People who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are 97 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than people who are vaccinated and boosted, according to data presented Wednesday by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
“Vaccination and booster doses substantially decrease the risk of death from Covid-19,” Walensky said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing while presenting data collected the week ending December 4.
Walensky also presented data from CDC’s COVID-NET surveillance system showing 54% of people hospitalized for Covid-19 over the age of 65 are unvaccinated, despite only 12% of people in this age group being unvaccinated overall. Just 8% of the patients hospitalized in this dataset were vaccinated and boosted. “These same trends are seen across all age groups,” she said.
Track US vaccinations here
In the United States, the risk of dying from Covid-19 is roughly twice as high for Black, Hispanic, and American Indian people than it is for White people, according to new data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC.)
Additionally, Black and Hispanic people in the US are 2.5 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than their White counterparts. The risk for American Indians is even greater, with a likelihood 3.2 times higher than that of White people.
According to the CDC, Asian people are at a lower risk than White people as it pertains to infection, hospitalization, and death.
Recent data shows that racial disparities have diminished regarding Covid-19, as one year ago Black, Hispanic, and American Indian were four times more likely to be hospitalized, and three times for likely to die, than White people.
“Race and ethnicity are risk markers for other underlying conditions that affect health, including socioeconomic status, access to health care, and exposure to the virus related to occupation, e.g., frontline, essential, and critical infrastructure workers,” according to the CDC.
For context, further details regarding race and the Covid-19 virus can be found within this chart published by the CDC.
The US Army announced Wednesday that it will begin to immediately separate soldiers from the service who refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19, unless the service member has an approved exemption or pending request.
The order from the Army Secretary applies to “Army Soldiers, reserve-component Soldiers serving on Title 10 active-duty, and cadets.”
The statement said that the Army has “not yet involuntarily separated any Soldiers solely for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”
It noted that as of Jan. 26, Army commanders have relieved a total of six regular Army leaders, including two battalion commanders, and issued 3,073 general officer written reprimands to soldiers for refusing the vaccination order.
An ensemble forecast from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday predicts more than 65,000 additional people could die from Covid-19 over the next four weeks. This is the second week that deaths are predicted to have a stable or uncertain trend after predicted increases since late December.
The CDC included projections that indicate the number of deaths will slowly rise for the first week and then decline for the remaining time.
The forecast predicts that there could be a total of 933,000 to 965,000 Covid-19 deaths reported by Feb. 26.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the coronavirus has killed 890,770 people in the United States.
The forecast could mean an average of 2,741 Covid-19 deaths a day, up from a current average of 2,530 per day, according to JHU data.
For the second week, hospitalizations are predicted to decrease, with 3,000 to 20,000 new confirmed Covid-19 hospital admissions likely reported on February 25.
There are currently 128,528 people hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services data.
The forecast for cases did not predict an increase or decrease, or give a predicted number of cases.
“Recent case forecasts have shown low reliability, with more reported cases than expected falling outside the forecast prediction intervals for 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-week ahead case forecasts. Therefore, case forecasts will continue to be collected and analyzed but will not be summarized until sustained improvements in performance are observed,” according to the CDC.
Norway announced on Tuesday it would be removing “many of the infection control measures” the country has lived with during the winter, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said.
Working from home will no longer be mandatory and the requirement for quarantine with be removed, with the exception of those who are infected.
The decision was implemented upon reflection of Omicron’s impact, which was determined to cause “less serious illness,” as well as the success of the vaccines in Norway, leading health authorities to say the country “can live with a lot of infection.”
“We can open up even if the infection grows quickly,” Støre said.
Despite the current optimistic mood, the country’s health ministry has maintained some measures as a cautionary approach, saying Norway “cannot let go completely”.
“But let there be no doubt: We are entering a new phase of the pandemic. We will live with a lot of infection. We can live with a lot of infection,” Støre added.
The prime minister reiterated the need for the country to “find the right balance” in order to ”live much more normally.”
Some of the measures health authorities are keeping include the “general recommendation to keep a distance of one meter” and the use of “face masks in shops, public transport and the like, when it is not possible to keep your distance.”
In the week of Jan. 24-30, new global Covid-19 deaths increased by 9% over the week before, with over 59,000 new deaths reported, according to the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological update published Tuesday.
Of the six WHO regions, three reported increases in deaths: the South-East Asia Region with 41%, the Eastern Mediterranean Region with 32%, and the Region of the Americas with 16%. The European and Western Pacific Regions both reported numbers similar to the week before. Only the African Region reported a decrease at 7%.
Overall, as of Jan. 30, over 5.6 million deaths have been reported across the world.
The number of cases reported across the world remained similar to the week before, with over 22 new million cases being reported.
There were increases in three regions: Western Pacific (37%), Eastern Mediterranean (24%) and European (7%). The African Region reported a number similar to the week before. The Region of the Americas and the South-East Asia Region both reported decreases of 20% and 8%, respectively.
The US also reported the highest number of new cases, followed by France, India, Brazil and Germany.
There have been over 370 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 reported across the world as of Jan. 30.
France has entered the first phase of easing Covid-19 restrictions, as the country witnesses a stabilization of the Omicron wave.
As of Wednesday, all sports and cultural venues will be allowed to operate both indoors and outdoors without any limit to the number of people that can attend, provided they wear masks.
The outdoor mask mandate also ends on Wednesday and working from home will no longer be mandatory but recommended.
In a second phase, starting Feb. 16, nightclubs can reopen their doors to the public. Concerts will be allowed again, as will the consumption of alcohol while standing in bars, as well as food and beverages on trains, in cinemas, and sports stadiums.
The relaxation of Covid-19 measures comes as France is still witnessing a high number of daily Covid-19 infections, about 322,000 cases on average a day in the past week, but with a stabilization of intensive care unit cases.
“Things seem to be stabilizing,” said Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the country’s Scientific Council, before the French Senate on Tuesday.
But Delfraissy warned that the situation was still serious in some regions of France where “the peak of the wave has not passed yet.”
Tonga reported three new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday as the country goes into lockdown, Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said in a press conference, according to CNN affiliate Radio New Zealand.
The positive cases were detected in a woman and her two children.
Tonga suffered devastation after a massive underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami on Jan. 15, and aid continues to flow in for recovery efforts.
On Tuesday, the Pacific island said it had detected two positive cases among frontline workers at a port in the capital Nuku’alofa. The recent cases are the first to be reported since November 2021, when an imported case was detected in a traveler from New Zealand.
On Wednesday, the country entered a lockdown starting 6 p.m. local time, which will be reviewed every 48 hours, the prime minister said.
Tonga was one of only a small number of countries not to report a single Covid infection, having closed its borders in March 2020. In November 2021, a traveler flying from New Zealand tested positive but was picked up in the country’s quarantine hotel system.
CNN’s Helen Regan contributed to this post.
The Beijing Olympics Committee has identified 32 new Covid-19 cases among Olympic athletes and personnel as of Tuesday, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
Of the 32 cases, 15 were found among new airport arrivals and 17 involved people already inside the “closed-loop” system, which separates Olympic staff, stakeholders, and athletes from the public.
Nine cases in total involved athletes or team officials, six of which were already inside the “closed loop.”
Since the official “closed-loop” system began on Jan. 23, 232 Olympics-related personnel and stakeholders have tested positive; 76 of those cases have involved athletes or team officials.
A total of 531,968 Covid-19 tests have been administered inside the “closed loop” since Jan. 23, and 9,866 people have arrived in Beijing according to the Committee.
The Olympics kick off on Feb. 4 with the Opening Ceremony and will run through Feb. 20.
