CDC warns of case enhance; FDA to overview J&J vaccine
An advisory committee voted unanimously Friday to suggest authorizing a COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson to be used in adults, paving the best way for an anticipated Meals and Drug Administration authorization inside the subsequent few days.
Johnson & Johnson agreed to offer 100 million doses of its single-shot vaccine within the U.S. June, together with 20 million the top of March. These doses will add to the 300 million doses Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna every have promised to ship the top of July.
The vaccine was proven to be 72% efficient in a U.S. trial wherein all ethnic, racial and age teams benefited about the identical, and was proven to be 85% efficient in stopping essentially the most extreme illness.
President Joe Biden referred to as Johnson & Johnson’s shot, which is anticipated to be licensed the FDA as quickly as Saturday, a “third, secure, efficient vaccine.”
In the meantime, the top of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned Friday a few “regarding” uptick in new COVID-19 instances in latest days, citing the unfold of virus variants.
Biden urged Individuals to not let their guards down.
“It isn’t the time to loosen up,” Biden mentioned. He added: “And for God’s sake, put on your masks.”
Additionally within the information:
►The federal authorities has agreed to purchase a 100,000 doses of a COVID-19 remedy Eli Lilly, the corporate introduced Friday. The drug, bamlanivimab, is a monoclonal antibody, which means it mimics one of many pure antibodies the immune system makes use of to combat off the virus. The FDA licensed the drug late final yr.
►The federal authorities has supported 441 neighborhood vaccination facilities within the U.S., together with 171 which have been staffed with federal personnel, mentioned Andy Slavitt, the White Home senior adviser for COVID-19 response. Two new federal vaccinations websites have been additionally introduced Friday, in Chicago and Greensboro, North Carolina.
►The Meals and Drug Administration will permit Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to be shipped and saved at freezers generally present in pharmacies slightly than the ultra-frigid ones initially required after knowledge from the corporate confirmed the vaccine stays secure for as much as two weeks in customary freezer temperatures. Thursday’s resolution will make it simpler to distribute and administer the vaccine.
►A U.S. congressional committee has requested Canada to reevaluate its ban on cruises, which prohibits ships from crusing in Canadian waters till March 2022. Canada, in the meantime, licensed AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in individuals 18 and over Friday.
►Ivory Coast has develop into the second nation on this planet to obtain a cargo of COVID-19 vaccines from the worldwide COVAX initiative. The first cargo was despatched to Ghana on Wednesday.
►A Senate official dominated Thursday {that a} $15 federal minimal wage provision can’t be added into the COVID-19 reduction package deal. Senate Democrats are utilizing reconciliation to approve the invoice, passing filibuster guidelines that require 60 votes, however reconciliation additionally triggers guidelines that require provisions of the invoice be tied on to the finances. The Home is poised to move the reduction package deal Friday.
►Two U.S. Navy warships within the Center East have been returning to port in Bahrain as they have been hit COVID-19 outbreaks, officers mentioned Friday. A dozen individuals on board the USS San Diego, which carries sailors and Marines, examined constructive for COVID-19 whereas “a number of” have been constructive on the USS Philippine Sea, mentioned Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the fifth Fleet.
📈 At the moment’s numbers: The U.S. has greater than 28.Four million confirmed coronavirus instances and 508,900 deaths, in response to Johns Hopkins College knowledge. The worldwide totals: Greater than 113.2 million instances and a couple of.5 million deaths. Greater than 94.3 million vaccine doses have been distributed within the U.S. and about 70.4 million have been administered, in response to the CDC.
📘 What we’re studying: Docs suggest sufferers schedule their mammogram earlier than receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, or area out the 2 appointments, after some girls have been mistaking swollen lymph nodes for breast lumps.
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Allegations of vaccine waste, theft investigated in Tennessee
Extra investigative findings from the state of Tennessee revealed Friday that COVID-19 vaccine may need been stolen in Shel County, kids are believed to have been inappropriately vaccinated and extra doses of COVID-19 have been wasted than was beforehand thought.
The state discovered of the kid vaccinations and the alleged theft weeks after the incidents occurred, State Well being Commissioner Lisa Piercey mentioned in a wide-ranging press convention Friday afternoon wherein she detailed to reporters quite a few situations of poor vaccine administration and referred to as the Shel County Well being Division a “low-accountability group.”
Piercey additionally described Shel County Mayor Lee Harris and county well being officers as sluggish to report the issues to authorities and missing candor in conversations with state officers.
The revelations have been the newest in a string of vaccine administration points in Shel County which have been made public this previous week.
– Corinne S. Kennedy and Samuel Hardiman, Memphis Industrial Attraction
Circumstances in nursing houses drop 89%
New federal knowledge presents a glimmer of hope in what has been the darkest and deadliest nook of the pandemic. The variety of COVID-19 instances and deaths at America’s nursing houses have dropped considerably since December as hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses have been shot into the arms of residents and employees.
The weekly price of COVID-19 instances at nursing houses plummeted 89% from early December way of the second week of February. By comparability, the nationwide case price dropped 58% and stays greater than figures reported earlier than late October.
The dramatic drop in instances at nursing houses, the place almost 130,000 residents and employees have died because the virus emerged within the U.S., raises optimism for brighter days forward at nursing houses and in communities general as extra Individuals get vaccinated, specialists say.
– Ken Alltucker and Jayme Fraser
CDC director warns about ‘regarding’ case enhance
After a a number of week decline in COVID-19 instances and hospitalizations, Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned Friday a few “regarding” uptick in instances over the newest days.
The latest seven day common of every day new instances was over 66,000 and better than the typical on Wednesday, Walensky mentioned citing CDC knowledge.
The height in early January was the best seen within the pandemic, and although present averages are decrease, they’re nonetheless excessive, Walensky mentioned. “Issues are tenuous. Now isn’t the time to loosen up restrictions,” she mentioned, pointing to the unfold of recent variants of the coronavirus.
“We could now be seeing the start results of those variants in the newest knowledge,” she added.
NYC colleges chancellor, who misplaced 11 relations to COVID-19, resigns
Richard Carranza, New York Metropolis’s Colleges chancellor, mentioned Friday he was stepping down from his function, citing the necessity for time to grieve his 11 relations and shut associates who died from COVID-19.
“I really feel that I can take that point now due to the place that we’re in and the work that now we have accomplished collectively,” he mentioned.
Town’s colleges have largely been heralded for its reopening through the COVID-19 pandemic, and Carranza mentioned the system reopened safely for youngsters of important employees, distributed over half one million digital gadgets for distant studying, and delivered 80 hundreds of thousands meals to its college students.
“We have now stabilized the system in a method nobody thought doable,” he added. “The sunshine, my fellow New Yorkers, is really on the finish of the tunnel.”
Carranza will likely be succeeded Bronx Govt Superintendent Meisha Ross Porter, who will develop into the primary Black girl to steer the nation’s largest college district.
Mass shootings hit document excessive in pandemic yr. Can vaccines convey peace in 2021?
Mass shootings jumped almost 50% in 2020, due largely to a pandemic yr rife with crippling unemployment, violent protests and idle youth. With COVID-19 instances falling and vaccines rolling out, some criminologists hope a rebounding financial system and reopened colleges will drive down these numbers in 2021.
Early outcomes are promising, says Mark Bryant, founding father of the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun incident traits. Within the first seven weeks of this yr, there have been 63 mass shootings — outlined as 4 or extra individuals injured or killed in a single incident — which if continued would present a drop from 2020, he mentioned.
“I’m hoping final yr proves to be the anomaly,” Bryant mentioned. “The stresses brought on final yr, from jobs to sickness, weren’t simply an city factor or a rural factor. We noticed bumps in cities in Louisiana and Mississippi, in addition to in Chicago and Philadelphia.”
– Marco della Cava and Mike Stucka
Queen Elizabeth urges vaccines as UK to prioritize individuals 40 and over subsequent
Folks ages 40 and over will be subsequent in line for the vaccine within the U.Okay., the nation’s public well being officers mentioned. The BBC reported that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation opted for an age-based rollout to stop a slowdown from a “extra complicated” occupation-based one.
In the meantime, Queen Elizabeth urged the general public to get vaccinated, saying the method was fast and painless. “Effectively, when you’ve had the vaccine you will have a sense of, you already know, you’re protected, which is, I feel, crucial,” the Queen mentioned Friday.
The 94-year-old monarch mentioned she understood some is likely to be hesitant however that “they ought to consider different individuals slightly than themselves.”
‘We have now to combat this collectively as one,’ Joe Biden tells state governors
When Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee butted heads with Donald Trump final yr over the prior administration’s dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic, the then-president referred to as Inslee a snake.
“I should be one,” the governor mentioned on Thursday with a chuckle when requested how issues have modified below President Joe Biden. “However I’m a well-cared-for snake.”
In the course of the Nationwide Governors Affiliation’s winter assembly, held nearly Thursday, Biden referred to as states the “laboratories of democracy” in a nod to their independence. However he emphasised that a nationwide strategy is required on the pandemic and different points as a result of “so a lot of our challenges don’t cease at our border of our states.”
“We have now to combat this collectively as one,” Biden instructed the governors.
– Maureen Groppe and Courtney Subramanian
Contributing: Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY; The Related Press
