January 18 coronavirus news

Morocco reported its first case of the coronavirus?variant first detected in the UK and has restricted flights from four additional countries to contain its spread,?state-run news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse?(MAP) said Monday.??

The variant was detected at the Tangier-Med Port in a Moroccan national who had been in Ireland and arrived on a ship from Marseille, France, MAP reported, citing the kingdom’s Health Ministry.?

The infected person is not displaying symptoms and was placed in isolation in Casablanca, the ministry added. The patient and his contacts are being treated in accordance with the nation’s health protocols.

Flight ban: According to MAP, the?Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that Morocco will suspend flights from?Australia, Brazil, Ireland, and New Zealand from Tuesday, January 19, “after “the discovery of a suspicious case of coronavirus variant.”

The kingdom has now restricted travel from a total of seven countries because of concerns over the variant.??

Morocco?has reported 460,144 total Covid-19 cases,?according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In Africa, only South Africa has recorded more cases.

New Covid-19 cases in the United States have been trending down since hitting a peak last week, but experts say it’s too soon to be overly optimistic.?

The US recorded 1.5 million new Covid-19 cases in the past seven days, according to the most recent data from Johns Hopkins University, an 11% drop from the previous week. Cases declined in 35 states week-over-week, and 18 states saw a drop in the number of deaths.

But with a longer range view, last week’s apparent improvement falls much closer to average. Over the past month, the number of new Covid-19 cases recorded each day has ranged from nearly 101,000 to more than 302,000; over the past seven days, new cases averaged about 218,000 daily.?

It’s still too early in the vaccine rollout to see the effects on a national scale, Adalja told CNN, and new, potentially more contagious strains of the virus pose an added threat.?

“I wouldn’t let our guard down,” Adalja said. “Biologically speaking, nothing is changing.”

Track US cases:

Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

An independent panel has criticized China and the World Health Organization (WHO) for “early shortcomings” in the initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by WHO in May 2020, is co-chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

In an interim report released on January 18, the panel called for an overhaul of global health alert and response systems, saying the current system is “not fit for purpose.”

The report criticized WHO for not declaring an international public health emergency until January 30, 2020 saying that “early shortcomings” in the global and national response to Covid-19 may have contributed to the pandemic.

China was also criticized by the panel for “lost opportunities to apply basic public health measures at the earliest opportunity.”

At least 122 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in the United Kingdom have been found in 20 US states, according to data posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This includes at least:

The CDC says this does not represent the total number of cases circulating in the United States, but rather those that have been found by analyzing positive samples. The agency cautions that its numbers may not immediately match those of state and local health departments.?

While the variant, known as B.1.1.7, appears to spread more easily, there’s no evidence that it’s any more deadly or causes more severe disease, according to CDC. It has also been found in more than 50 countries.

In this April 14, 2020 file photo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wears a bandana over his face while speaking at a food shelf organized by The Campaign Against Hunger in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that the Covid-19 variant first identified in the UK is the biggest challenge facing New York City and called for a ban on travel from Britain.

Health experts say the new variant, also known as?B.1.1.7, is likely more contagious but not more deadly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?said last week the spread of B.1.1.7?could?accelerate the spread of the virus in the United States.

Mayor de Blasio said he’s against lifting coronavirus-related restrictions on travel into the US. In fact, he said he’s in favor of shutting down travel from the UK to the US.

“We just can’t take the chance.”

A dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is administered.

?A lot of vaccines that’s been held up in California while health officials check it out accounts for more than 330,000 doses allocated to 287 providers, a state health official said Monday.

Health officials in?California?are?telling medical providers across the state not to administer doses from?one?lot of?Moderna’s?coronavirus vaccine?while they?investigate?possible severe allergic reactions?last week in?a number of?people?after they got shots?at a community vaccination clinic.??

More than 330,000 doses from the lot were distributed to 287 providers across the?state?from?Jan. 5-12. Tens of thousands of doses may have already been administered, but the number of unused does is unknown, according to Darrel Ng, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health.??

CDPH said Sunday?that?fewer than 10 people at?a clinic in San Diego?who?received Covid-19 shots from the lot required medical attention over the span of 24 hours. The state said it was not aware of anyone?at any of the other 286 sites who had similar allergic reactions after receiving vaccine from the lot.??

CDPH?said it recommended pausing the entire lot “out of an extreme abundance of caution,”?noting that there are not immediate replacement doses in addition to what had already been ordered.?

San Diego County said 30,000?doses from the lot were pulled from?its?supply. On Monday, in a statement, Santa Clara County said 21,800 doses from the lot had been allocated to the county, and that none of them?had been administered.

California’s decision to?hold back?doses of?vaccine?carries?its own risks,?especially since allergic reactions can be monitored and treated and, in this case, they occurred at only one location, one expert said.

“There’s going to be another probably roughly 100,000 people that die over the next couple of months, and among those people could be those who are not getting this vaccine because of ‘an abundance of caution,’”Offit told CNN.

Signs warn travelers of Covid-19 in New York’s LaGuardia Airport on November 24, 2020 in New York City.

Before he leaves office Wednesday, a White House official confirms President Trump is expected to lift coronavirus-related travel restrictions imposed on?much of?Europe and Brazil?starting Jan. 26.

On Monday, the White House released the text of a new executive order, which states “the Secretary has advised me to remove the restrictions applicable to the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Federative Republic of?Brazil, while leaving in place the restrictions applicable to the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran.?I agree with the Secretary that this action is the best way to continue protecting Americans from COVID-19 while enabling travel to resume safely.”??

However, the incoming Biden administration says the order will not be implemented.

Incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted tonight, “With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel.”?

She added: “On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”?

The Trump order, which now seems dead on arrival, also states?that the restrictions will be lifted to coincide with a new policy that requires travelers from those nations to have a negative Covid test before being allowed to travel to the US, writing, “On January 12, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order, effective January 26, 2021, requiring proof of?a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of having recovered from COVID-19 for all air passengers arriving from a foreign country to the United States.?The Secretary has explained that this action will help to prevent air passengers from the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Federative Republic of Brazil from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 into the United States, as it is the Secretary’s understanding that the vast majority of persons entering the United States from these jurisdictions do so by air.”?

More than 398,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic started.

A third of people treated in hospital for coronavirus infection end up coming back, and more than one in 10 die later, British researchers report.

Many of those who end up back in the hospital have a variety of problems that indicate long-term damage to the heart, the kidneys, the liver and other organs, the researchers reported.

The team at Britain’s Office for National Statistics, University of Leicester and elsewhere studied data on nearly 48,000 people treated in hospitals up through August. They were followed for an average of 140 days, or just under five months.

“Nearly a third of people post COVID-19 hospital discharge were re-admitted and more than one in 10 died,” the team wrote in a preprint study – one not reviewed by a medical journal but posted online.

“Secondly, rates of post-discharge multi-organ dysfunction were elevated in individuals with COVID-19 compared with those in the matched control group,” they added. This suggested they had damage beyond their lungs. Diabetes and severe heart events such as heart attacks were especially common, the team wrote.

People 70 and older and ethnic minorities were especially vulnerable to this long-term damage, the researchers said.

The findings fit in with other studies that indicate many people who survive a bout of severe coronavirus end up with longer-term health conditions that can turn deadly, the researchers said.

A nurse administers a Covid-19 vaccine at Blackburn Cathedral on Monday, January 18, in Blackburn, England.?

More than four million people across the United Kingdom have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday.

“I’m very glad to report that as of midnight last night, we have now vaccinated 4,062,501 people across the United Kingdom and we’re currently vaccinating more than double the rate per person per day than any other country in Europe,” Hancock said.

Speaking at a Downing Street news conference, Hancock went on to say that the latest data shows the country has “vaccinated more than half of those over 80, as well as half of our elderly care home residents.”?

Hancock said there are 37,475 people in UK hospitals with Covid-19 — the highest number throughout the pandemic. He reiterated that someone is being admitted to hospital every 30 seconds.

In this Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021 file photo, a health care worker tends to a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic in San Jose, California.

California has become the first state in the nation to record more than three million Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

The number of Covid-19 cases in California has tripled in just the past two months.

Current data shows at least 3,005,830 cases and 33,623 deaths resulting from the virus that has plagued the nation and debilitated the economy.

More than a million of those cases are centralized in Los Angeles County, where about one in 10 people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus. Health officials speculate the actual number may be as high as one in three.

Over 33,000 Californians have died from Covid-19 and hospitals throughout the state remain overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients seeking treatment.

About 90% of the state remains under stay-at-home orders due in part to limited?intensive care unit capacity.

There’s more evidence that people develop broad, long-lasting immunity to coronavirus after an infection.?

A new study published Monday shows people’s bodies were producing a range of antibodies for six months after recovering from infection – and they were producing the B cells that, in turn, make these antibodies – something that promises even longer-lasting immunity.

It’s the latest in a batch of studies that show people’s bodies continue to produce immune responses after infection, which lowers the risk that people can get infected with the virus over and over again.?

The study, published in the journal Nature, also suggests that people produce a variety of antibodies that attack the virus from different angles. That’s good news for people worried about the emergence of new variants of the virus. Scientists are concerned that these mutations could help the virus evade either a natural immune response or a response elicited by vaccination.

The team took a close look at the blood of 87 people about six weeks after infection and then just over six months after infection.

They found, as have others, that there’s an initial spike in antibodies produces – one that dies away after a few months. But then the B-cells kick in and start making new antibodies. And not only that – they seem to make a new variety of antibodies that can act on even mutated virus.

It appears to be happening because little pieces of the virus stay in the body long after infection, helping prompt an ongoing immune response. They took samples from the intestines of some of their volunteers and found evidence these little bits – called antigens – were continuing to stimulate the immune response.

“The observation that memory B cell responses do not decay after 6.2 months, but instead continue to evolve, is strongly suggestive that individuals who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 could mount a rapid and effective response to the virus upon re-exposure,” the team lead by molecular immunologist Dr. Michel Nussenzweig at Rockefeller University in New York wrote.

Motorists wait in lines to take a coronavirus test in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium on January 4 in Los Angeles.

There have been at least?24,018,793?total?cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least?398,307?people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by?Johns Hopkins University.?

It took the United States 304 days to reach 12?million?Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.?It only took the nation 59 days to reach the second 12?million?cases.

Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines are prepared at the John Knox Village Continuing Care Retirement Community on January 6 in Pompano Beach, Florida.?

More than 40,000 individuals who received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose in Florida are overdue for their second dose, according to the latest report from the state’s health department.

Those who are overdue for their second shot account for about 5% of the nearly 916,000 people who have received their first Covid-19 vaccine shot in the state.

Both Covid-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States – Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – were authorized as a two-dose series. The second dose should be administered 21 days after the first dose for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and 28 days after for the Moderna vaccine. Last week, the CEO of BioNTech said there’s a risk of initial protection declining if the administration of a second dose is delayed.

The latest vaccine summary report from the Florida health department includes data through Saturday. “Overdue” individuals are defined as “those who have received their first dose and have passed the recommended timeframe to receive their second dose.” Data are provisional and subject to change.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday that people should stick with two full doses of vaccine, given the appropriate number of days apart.

Speaking at the Choose Healthy Life Black Clergy Conclave, Fauci maintained that the “proper, scientifically validated approach” for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines is to receive a full dose, followed 21 and 28 days later, respectively, by another full dose.

Fauci said an experiment evaluating different dosing regimens was recently carried out in people ages 18 to 55. The results showed that when a half dose was given followed by a booster half dose, the level of antibodies produced was comparable to if someone was given two full doses.

“Even though that’s interesting and it’s laboratory data, it is not backed up by a correlate of protection, which we may be able to do some time, but not now,” he said. “Bottom line, stick with full dose, followed by full dose.”

New York State reports?12,185 new positive Covid-19 cases with 153?new deaths and a positivity rate of 6.54%, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“Good news, we are seeing a decline in the Covid rates post-Christmas and New Year’s Eve surge,” Cuomo said during a news conference Monday.

The governor said, “a stressor on this entire situation is the federal government increased eligibility dramatically but never increased the amount of the dosages.”

Cuomo said he sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar Monday demanding an explanation for what he said was a false claim that vaccine doses held in reserves would be shipped to states. “The federal government is in control of the supply, they must increase the supply,” Cuomo said.?

Cuomo said he also sent a letter to the President of Pfizer asking if New York can buy vaccine doses directly from the drug company, which Cuomo believes would be a first. “My job as governor of New York is to pursue every avenue and that’s what I am doing,” Cuomo said.

Note: These?numbers?were released by?New York State Health Dept.?and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns?Hopkins?University and the Covid Tracking Project.??

Over the weekend, Virginia posted its highest two days of new Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Saturday, Virginia added 6,757 new cases and on Sunday, a staggering 9,914 cases, according to JHU.?The commonwealth is at its highest 7-day average of new cases, reporting roughly 5,778 new cases per day.?And new cases are rising — up 15% from last week.?

The Virginia Department of Health told CNN, “The case counts for?Sunday,?January?17, 2020 are a complete and accurate picture of the daily numbers,” and not due to a backlog or change of testing as happens occasionally when states report a higher than usual numbers.

Gov. Ralph Northam tweeted, “Virginia is seeing an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.”?He urged eligible residents to get vaccinated, “but until they are widely available, we ALL must continue to treat this virus like the dangerous threat that it is.”

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz speaks during a press conference on January 17.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has stressed that every week counts in terms of Covid-19 vaccinations and every day that the European regulator is able to decide faster on vaccine approval is a day “won” in Europe.

The approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine would offer Austria up to two million doses.?

Kurz added that there is no exact approval date yet.

“The British mutation of the virus is clearly more infectious, this poses us with enormous challenges,” he said, citing the lockdowns across Europe. On Sunday, Austria’s lockdown measures were extended to last until Feb. 8.?

Austria has so far reported 389,106 Covid-19 cases and 7,122 deaths, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Pakistan’s Drug Regulatory Authority has granted approval for the use of a vaccine developed by Sinopharm, a state-run Chinese firm.

In December last year Pakistan’s minister of science Fawad Chaudhry had announced that?the country would be purchasing 1.2 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinopharm?in early 2021.

China’s Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine has a 79.34% efficacy, higher than its Chinese competitor Sinovac.

The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have been regarded as potentially affordable and easily distributed vaccine candidates. Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the Chinese shots do not require expensive cold storage.

Head here to find out more about the latest on the rollout of Chinese vaccines.

A medical worker inoculates a doctor with a Covid-19 vaccine at Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad, India, on January 18.

India has vaccinated at least 381,305 people since its nationwide program started on Saturday, according to a press conference by the country’s Health Ministry on Monday.

On Monday alone, 148,266 people received injections.?India has given emergency approval to vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and a local pharmaceutical company, Bharat Biotech.?It is unclear the breakdown of drugs used in the vaccine program’s initial stage.

Health Ministry officials also reported 580 instances where people reported adverse events following immunization and that seven people were hospitalized.?

Two deaths have also been reported, but officials say evidence does not suggest it was caused by the vaccine.?

A 53-year-old man in northern Uttar Pradesh state died on Sunday morning, a day after receiving the vaccine. A post mortem report revealed the cause of death due to cardiopulmonary disease. In southern Karnataka state, a 43-year-old man passed away on Monday after receiving the vaccine on Saturday with the cause of death also linked to cardiopulmonary failure.

“These deaths are not related to the vaccination according to the post mortem report,”?health ministry officials stressed at a press conference on Monday.

A sworker distributes a COVID-19 testing kit at a testing site in Wilmington, Delaware on December 21, 2020.

More than half – 60% – of all Covid-19 cases in the United states have been reported since Election Day, according to a CNN analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

As of Monday morning, there are 23,937,331 Covid-19 cases in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.?Whereas, on the morning of Nov. 4 – the day after the US presidential election – there were a total of 9,573,836 cases.

A nurse prepares a shot of the vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech, at a hospital in S?o Paulo, Brazil, on Sunday.

Brazil’s government has said its nationwide coronavirus vaccination plan will start Monday afternoon.

The announcement was made earlier in the day by Brazilian Health Minister?Eduardo Pazuello from a S?o Paulo health ministry facility during a ceremony to deliver the Chinese-made Coronavac shot to state governors.

Coronavac was approved Sunday – along with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – by the country’s health regulator agency Anvisa. Pazuello had previously said on Sunday the national immunization plan would begin Wednesday. However, it was moved up at the request of state governors.

Brazil has currently recorded more than 8.4 million Covid-19 infections and almost 210,000 deaths. It trails only the United States and India in total coronavirus cases.

How the vaccine will be rolled out in Brazil:

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is pictured at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2020.

As countries across the world roll out millions of coronavirus vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) gave a frank warning about the fairness of the global situation.

“The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure” in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday, adding that “the promise of equitable access is at serious risk.”

“Ultimately, these actions will only prolong the pandemic, the restrictions needed to contain it, and human and economic suffering,” Tedros

The WHO chief added that “vaccine equity is not just a moral imperative, it is a strategic and economic imperative,” and called for a fairer vaccine distribution across the world.

As many people postpone necessary medical care due to the pandemic, medical professionals are worried that their patients will get sick or even die from other causes.

Some 25% of Americans said that they or someone in their household had delayed medical care in the past month due to coronavirus, according to a December?Kaiser Family Foundation study. An earlier?report?from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 41% of Americans delayed medical care, including 12% who postponed urgent or emergency care.

CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health,?says she “certainly understand why some people have postponed their medical appointments” but expressed concern that patients are forgoing care for ongoing medical issues.

“It’s important for people to check in with their doctors’ offices,” she says.??

Wen advises that when making decisions about postponing appointments, consider if it could be done virtually or if that’s not an option, can you combine multiple visits to reduce overall risk.

Head here to find out more about which appointments could be delayed and which you really should try and attend, as well as what precautions are worth considering.

Related article Don't delay medical appointments -- advice from Dr. Wen

A stall sells coffee and food on a quiet street with closed shops in Soho, central London, on January 15.

Pandemic restrictions could be lifted from March in the United Kingdom once the most vulnerable are protected with a Covid-19 vaccine, according to a government minister.

The reopening of the country will be “gradual, it will be probably through the tiered system,”?and likely two to three weeks after the middle of February target for vaccinating the “top four cohorts” of vulnerable people, the vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC on Monday.?

The government plans to administer the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine by February 15 to about 15 million people across the UK, including care home residents, health and social care workers, and older people.

“If we take the mid-February target – two weeks after that you get your protection pretty much for the Pfizer/BioNTech [vaccine], three weeks for the Oxford/AstraZeneca, [then] you are protected,” Zahawi said.

Iran reported 5,806 new coronavirus infections on Monday, adding to the country’s case count of more than 1.3 million. It also recorded 83 new fatalities, bringing the current total death toll to 56,886.

Iran is the Middle East country hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of total cases and deaths.

The new numbers were announced by Iran’s Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadaat Lari in a news conference on state TV. The health ministry said 4,348 patients are currently hospitalized in intensive care units.

The Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz has quarantined two hotels and temporarily closed all ski schools to curb the outbreak of a coronavirus variant in the area.

The Swiss canton of Grisons ordered all people in the area to wear a mask in a statement after it registered the emergence of cases Sunday evening. The canton’s health department did not specify which variant had appeared.

It added that mass testing of the population in the upmarket ski resort would take place on Tuesday.

Many European Alpine destinations were shuttered over the recent festive season. However, Switzerland took a different approach. The government banned public events and limited private gatherings in early December but allowed each local cantonal authority?to authortize if ski resorts could open provided Covid-19 measures were put in place.

See how Verbier, Switzerland, is staying open amid pandemic:

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Britain's Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, Nadhim Zahawi, is seen in London, on December 2, 2020

Around the clock, seven-days-a-week Covid-19 vaccinations will be piloted in London hospitals by end of the month, the UK’s vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said Monday.?

Speaking to British broadcaster Sky News, Zahawi said he would look to expand the 24/7 scheme to other parts of the country after that.

Zahawi admitted that there could be issues with distribution of the Pfizer/BioTech shot due to its complicated composition, which could delay supply to the UK.?

“Any new manufacturing process has challenges at the outset, it is lumpy, it begins to stabilize and get better and better week in, week out,” the minister said, adding that he is confident that they will meet their target in mid-February for the “top four cohorts” of more vulnerable people.

As of Saturday, the UK had administered a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to at least 3,857,266 people, according to the government’s dashboard.

On Monday,?England began expanding the next phase of its vaccination campaign to offer doses to people age 70 and older and those considered clinically extremely vulnerable to the virus.

France is expanding its vaccination campaign Monday to allow anyone over the age of 75 to be inoculated. Previously, only residents of nursing homes and medical staff aged 50 and over were eligible to receive a vaccine.?

The new phase of the nationwide push comes as the country’s coronavirus death toll surpassed 70,000 over the weekend.

People over 75 were able to book appointments last week which caused the government’s website to crash due to high demand.?Over one million appointments for the first and second dose of the vaccine were made, about half a million people, according to France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran.?

Over the weekend, French officials sought to quell concerns over vaccine delivery delays after Pfizer said on Friday it was temporarily reducing shipments from a vaccine facility in Puurs, Belgium, in order to scale up manufacturing.

The company said that in order to increase capacity and produce two billion Covid-19 vaccine doses in 2021, changes were needed to the process and facility, and additional regulatory approvals will be required.?France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune told France Info Sunday he did not expect the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine delivery delays to seriously impact France as they have the stockpiles they need to continue their rollout as planned.?

New restrictions

Meanwhile, the country has implemented a slew of new measures in recent days as it continues to battle the pandemic. On Monday, new travel restrictions went into effect for people moving from non-EU countries to France. Travelers now need to present a negative PCR test before arrival and self-isolate for seven days in the country.

On Saturday a nationwide?curfew?from 6pm-6am was imposed for at least 15 days in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus.?The curfew?was?already in place in some of the hardest-hit regions.

France has been criticized for its slow vaccine rollout.?So far 422,000 people have been vaccinated, according to the country’s health ministry.?The goal is to vaccinate 1 million people?and have between 500 and 600 vaccination centers by the end of January.?

People visit the Disneyland amusement park in Shanghai, China, on May 11, 2020.

Disney’s popular Shanghai resort has dismissed allegations that the theme park is denying Uyghur guests entry in the name of Covid prevention, amid growing international criticisms on China’s alleged human rights abuses against its Muslim minorities.

Shanghai Disney Resort said in a statement Monday that reports about its discriminatory admission policy were “completely false,” after screenshots taken from a third-party tour package vendor’s online platform were widely shared on social media.

The posts purportedly showed a “special reminder” from Shanghai Disneyland that it had temporarily halted admitting Uyghur guests – along with other overseas visitors without a mainland Chinese ID – due to “epidemic control and prevention needs.”

“Shanghai Disney Resort is operating normally with enhanced health and safety measures in place. We welcome all guests who have purchased a valid park ticket or pass, hold a Shanghai Disneyland Reservation QR Code and a green Health QR Code, and pass the temperature screening located at the resort entrances.”

The company added that it had launched an investigation into the unofficial platform.

President Moon Jae-in speaks during a news conference at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, on January 18.

President Moon Jae-in said he believes that South Korea will have “herd immunity” from Covid-19 by November, thanks to upcoming vaccination plans.

Moon said the global COVAX initiative vaccine will likely be the first coronavirus shot in South Korea and that it may arrive in the country earlier than planned.

Korea’s Disease Control Agency Director Jeong Eun-kyeong?said the plan is to begin the vaccine rollout?for patients in critical condition before moving to regular citizens in the third quarter. The vaccine will be administered for free for both Korean citizens and foreigners residing in the country.

President Moon said by November, the second round of vaccinations will form complete herd immunity.

Vaccination plans will be announced at the end of the month, Jeong added.

South Korea has reported 72,729 Covid-19 cases and 1,264 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.

An Israeli senior citizen receives her second Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at the Maccabi Health Services drive-in vaccination center, in the northern coastal city of Haifa on January 11.

Two young men work side-by-side in a butcher’s shop. They live in the same teeming and densely packed town. One is fortunate – he’s eligible to get an Israeli Covid-19 vaccination. The other isn’t.

Both are Palestinian residents of Kafr ‘Aqab, a finger of territory that under Israeli law is part of greater Jerusalem, but under international law is considered illegally annexed territory, following its capture from Jordan in 1967.

It’s also walled off from Jerusalem by Israel’s gigantic concrete security wall. Jewish Israelis rarely come here, except in uniform to conduct military raids.

Mahmoud Oudeh, like thousands of other residents of the town, has a Palestinian identity document. His friend Anan abu Aishe has an Israeli ID, which defines him as a permanent resident of east Jerusalem. This entitles him to join Israel’s world-leading vaccination campaign, which is on course to meet the government’s target of inoculating the entire country by the end of March.

But at least 4.5 million Palestinians living on the West Bank and in Gaza are being left behind. So far none have had the injections, and most are unlikely to get them any time soon – because there is no Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the Palestinian territories.

So, if Anan gets the vaccine and continues alongside his friend, slicing and selling meat from the goat and cow carcasses swinging from hooks in the shop, he says he’d feel guilty.

According to United Nations experts, a policy of immunization that differentiates between those with Israeli IDs, and those without, is “unacceptable.”

The UN expert report says that Israel is the occupying power in and over Gaza and the West Bank, and has been since 1967, and is thereby ultimately responsible for the healthcare of those living under occupation.

According to the experts’ report, published by the UN’s Office High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel should extend its vaccination campaign to all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

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A Palestinian man gets vaccinated against the coronavirus at Clalit Health Services in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on January 12, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Vaccination rates highlight stark differences between Israelis and Palestinians -- amid row over responsibility

Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy speaks at a news conference in Sydney, on November 5, 2020

Australia’s Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy said it is likely tight border restrictions will be in place for most of this year.

Australia has been widely successful at containing the Covid-19 outbreak and has implemented some of the toughest border restrictions since the outbreak began.?

The country, with a population of 25 million people, has reported more than 28,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including 909 deaths.

A man enters a mobile testing station to undergo a coronavirus test in Hong Kong, on January 17.

Hong Kong recorded 107 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, the highest number of infections it has identified since December 19, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said during a Monday news conference.?

Among the new cases, 102 were locally transmitted, of which 42 were deemed untraceable, said Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, the head of CHP’s Communicable Disease Branch. The patients ranged from 2 months old to 94 years old.?

About half of the untraceable cases – or 20 patients – are residents of the Yau Tsim Mong district, where a cluster of infections has recently been reported, she said.?

The government will issue compulsory testing notices for residents living in seven more buildings in the district to curb the outbreak, Chuang said. Over the weekend, residents of 22 buildings were required to submit a Covid-19 test sample.

A so-called Covid-19 “superspreader” who traveled around northeastern China has been linked to 102 confirmed infections, according to Chinese officials.

The individual, who worked as a salesman promoting health products to the elderly, had traveled from his home province of Heilongjiang to neighboring Jilin province, bringing the virus with him.

Authorities claim he unknowingly spread the virus among elderly residents for several days before he was tracked down by health officials as a close contact of a confirmed case.

A?superspreading event occurs when an individual infects a large number of people, because of a higher viral load in their droplets, or other factors such as behaviors and timing.

The apparent superspreading event in Jilin occurred as China is battling its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, which has seen hundreds of cases reported and tens of millions of people placed under lockdown in its northern provinces.

It also demonstrated the extent and speed of contact tracing and screening by Chinese health authorities, which have played a crucial role in taming local outbreaks.

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Related article Covid-19 'superspreader' in northeast China linked to 102 infections

A general view shows the Erika-Hess ice stadium which serves as the second vaccination center against the novel coronavirus in Berlin, Germany on January 14.

Germany has administered coronavirus vaccine doses to at least 1,048,160 people, according to the country’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute.

There had been concerns over the speed of the vaccine rollout in Germany, with Health Minister Jens Spahn asking the population for “patience” in early January.

To date, there have been 2,040,659 confirmed cases of the virus in Germany, with another 7,141 added on Sunday, according to the institute’s dashboard.

Another 214 fatalities were also recorded Sunday, bringing the country’s death toll to 46,633.

Nine people linked to the Australian Open tennis tournament – including one unnamed player – have so far tested positive for Covid-19, according to Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday.?

Speaking at a news conference, Andrews announced four new cases connected with the tournament, saying?“they are all safely tucked away in quarantine.”

Andrews defended the decision to impose strict quarantine measures on the competitors, saying “the virus doesn’t treat you specially, so neither do we”, amid claims from some players that they were not made fully aware of quarantine rules ahead of the start of the grand slam event in Melbourne on February 8.

Among those who have been diagnosed with the virus are a coach, a member of the traveling broadcast team and crew who were working on board the flights which brought the tennis players to Melbourne.

How many players are affected? Seventy-two tennis players are in quarantine as a result of being close contacts on charter flights of people who have tested positive.?

The players are required to quarantine for two weeks and will not be able to leave their hotel rooms for the 14-day period, until they are medically cleared. They are not eligible to practice.

Tournament director Craig Tiley confirmed on Sunday that the Australian Open will go ahead next month.

Read more about the tennis players in quarantine:

A spectator takes a photo of the AO Logo during the 2020 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 28, 2020.

Related article Australian Open: Quarantining tennis players voice 'unequal practice' frustrations

An Indian government school teacher notes down details to give a hand sanitizer to a fellow teacher who has been assigned to take a survey at a residential neighborhood in New Delhi, India on June 27.

Every morning, teacher Vikas Kumar texts video lessons to his students before going to his second job as an untrained, frontline coronavirus worker.

The 27-year-old normally teaches physical education but, like thousands of other government teachers in New Delhi, he was deployed to the pandemic frontline when the?virus started spreading in India?last March.

Since June, Kumar has filled a number of roles alongside his teaching duties. First, he said he distributed ration kits to the poor, then he was assigned to conduct door-to-door surveys of neighbors of confirmed Covid cases. In that role, which involved taking residents’ temperatures, Kumar says he contracted the virus and was ill in July for 17 days.

In 2020, at least 28,000 teachers were deployed to Covid-19 roles, according to two teachers’ associations in New Delhi. At least 35 teachers have died from Covid-19 during the pandemic, and hundreds more fell ill, they said. CNN reached out to the Delhi Ministry of Health to verify these numbers and received no response.

Several teachers in the Indian capital told CNN they were given no training and are juggling their coronavirus duties with their normal teaching roles. Those working for the municipal corporations, which are the local-level governing civic bodies in Delhi, say they haven’t been given enough personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield them from the virus. Others say they haven’t been paid their normal salaries for months.

Teachers who do not report for their assignments can be threatened with action under the Delhi Disaster Management Act, according to Sant Ram, an elected member of the Government School Teachers’ Association (GSTA).

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A teacher records a video while her colleague conducts an online class for their students in New Delhi on September 22.

Related article New Delhi's teachers are being sent to the Covid frontlines, some without training, PPE or even pay

Vials of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine.

California’s State Epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan recommended pausing the administration of Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna’s lot 041L20A in a statement on Sunday, due to possible allergic reactions.

“A higher-than-usual number of possible allergic reactions were reported with a specific lot of Moderna vaccine administered at one community vaccination clinic,” Pan said. “Fewer than 10 individuals required medical attention over the span of 24 hours.”

According to the statement from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), all of the individuals appeared to be experiencing a “possible severe allergic reaction” during the standard observation period, something the?CDC says?some people have experienced after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine.

More than 330,000 doses from the lot have been distributed to 287 providers across California and shipments arrived in the state between January 5 and 12, according to CDPH.

A healthcare worker from the Medical University of South Carolina holds a bio-hazard bag at a Covid-19 test site in Charleston, South Carolina on January 13.

The United States reported 174,513 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases nationwide to at least?23,933,368, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Another 1,723 virus-related fatalities were also recorded on Sunday, according to JHU. At least 397,574 people have died from Covid-19 in the US during the pandemic.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.?

Vaccines: At least?31,161,075?vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 12,279,180?shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Track US cases:

A view of a street in Havana, Cuba, on January 11.

Cuba reported a record of 650 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

The Caribbean island nation also recorded four new deaths Sunday.

Cuba’s total number of Covid-19 cases as of Sunday stands at 18,151.?The country has also recorded a total of 170 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to official data.

An employee works on the production line of CoronaVac, Sinovac Biotech's vaccine against Covid-19, at the Butantan biomedical production center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 14.

Mass public vaccination programs using a?Chinese coronavirus vaccine?are underway across Indonesia and Turkey, where tens of millions of people are expected to receive doses of the CoronaVac shot made by Beijing-based company Sinovac.

On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo was shown receiving the country’s first CoronaVac shot, after the government authorized it for emergency use. While on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he had also received the vaccine.

But the rollouts come despite a growing number of questions over the effectiveness of the shot, which last week was revealed to have an efficacy rate of just 50.38% in late-stage trials in Brazil – significantly lower than earlier results showed. That rate only barely crosses the 50% efficacy threshold as set by the World Health Organization, and is far lower than the 78% previously announced to much fanfare in China earlier this month.

The apparent discrepancy has led to concern among some scientists, and shaken international confidence in Chinese-made vaccines.

The Brazilian results suggest CoronaVac is far less effective than vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have an efficacy rate of about 95%. Russia says its Sputnik V vaccine has an efficacy of 91%, while the UK’s vaccine, developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, has an average efficacy of 70%. The Sinovac vaccine has a lower efficacy rate than its domestic Chinese competitor, developed by the state-owned Sinopharm, which it says has a 79.34% efficacy.

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Employees work on the production line of CoronaVac, Sinovac Biotech's vaccine against COVID-19 coronavirus at the Butantan biomedical production center, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 14, 2021. - Sao Paulo state is due to begin immunizing its 12 million citizens from January 25. Beijing has already sent 10.7 million Coronavac doses and the supplies needed to make another 40 million doses. The health ministry, though, has yet to divulge when it will launch a nationwide immunization program. (Photo by Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images)

Related article Confidence in Chinese vaccines has taken a hit. But as coronavirus cases grow, some countries are still pushing ahead

Health workers wait in line to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Mumbai, India on January 16.

More than 200,000 people were vaccinated against coronavirus on the first day of India’s nationwide vaccination drive on Saturday, the country’s Health Ministry announced in a news release on Sunday.

According to the ministry, the total is “much higher than many other countries such as the USA, the UK, and France.”

As of Sunday, India has vaccinated a total of 224,301 people, and to date 447 adverse events following immunization have been reported, of which three patients were hospitalized.?

“Protocols are in place for reporting, immediate case management at vaccination session site, transportation and hospitalization, and further care of such cases,” the release added.?

Indian Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Sunday congratulated states on a successful vaccine rollout.?

India has reported more than 10.5 million Covid-19 cases, including 152,419 deaths, according to the Health Ministry on Monday.

Some context: India is embarking on one of the world’s?most ambitious mass immunization programs?ever undertaken, with the country of 1.35 billion planning to inoculate?300 million?frontline workers, elderly and vulnerable people by August.

Earlier this month, Indian drug regulators gave the go ahead?for two coronavirus vaccines, one developed by?AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and the other conceived locally by Bharat Biotech and a government-run institute.

China’s economy grew more than expected last year, even as the rest of the world was upended by the coronavirus pandemic.

The world’s second largest economy expanded 2.3% in 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to government statistics?released?Monday.

It’s China’s slowest annual growth rate in decades – not since 1976 has the country had a worse year, when GDP shrunk 1.6% during a time of?social and economic tumult.

But during a year when a crippling pandemic plunged major world economies into recession, China has clearly come out on top. The expansion also beat expectations: The International Monetary Fund, for example, predicted that China’s economy?would grow 1.9% in 2020. It’s the only major world economy the IMF expected to grow at all.

The pace of the recovery is also accelerating. China’s economy grew 6.5% in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier, according to the government. That’s faster than the?4.9% growth recorded in the third quarter.

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Shipping containers next to gantry cranes at the Yangshan Deepwater Port in Shanghai, China, on Monday, Jan, 11, 2021.

Related article China's economy grows 2.3% in 2020 as recovery quickens

Workers wearing protective gear carry the casket of a Covid-19 victim at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 8.

The number of known cases of Covid-19 globally has surpassed 95 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Johns Hopkins reports the current number of cases identified around the world is now at least?95,037,610 and at least?2,030,668?people have died from the disease.?In just one week, the world has recorded more than 5 million new Covid-19 cases.

The United States has seen the most deaths and the most confirmed cases worldwide.

At least?23,932,306?coronavirus cases have been identified in the US, including 397,561?fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins.

India, Brazil and Russia follow the US in reporting the?highest number of recorded coronavirus cases in the world.

Track worldwide cases:

Motorists queue up to take a coronavirus test in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium's drive-thru testing site in Los Angeles Monday, January 11.

A day after surpassing 1 million coronavirus cases, Los Angeles County reported 11,366 new infections and 108 deaths on Sunday.

According to a news release from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health (LADPH), these numbers, which are lower than any day of the past week, represent an undercount due to a lag in weekend reporting.

The numbers show:

UK variant: The LADPH announced its first confirmed case?of the UK Covid-19 B.1.1.7 variant?on Saturday, in a male who had traveled to L.A. County but is now isolating in Oregon. The department said it believed the more contagious UK variant was likely already spreading in the community and urged residents to “more diligently” follow safety measures.

Members of the public receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine at Lichfield Cathedral, in Staffordshire, England, on Friday, January 15.

Starting Monday,?England is expanding the next phase of its Covid-19 vaccination campaign to offer doses to people age 70 and older and those considered vulnerable to the virus, the UK government said in a statement issued late Sunday.?

Until now, the vaccination program has focused on two priority cohorts: people over the age of 80 and frontline health and care workers.?

While vaccinating the first two groups remains a priority, the statement read, vaccination sites that have enough supply can offer them to those 70 and older along with “clinically extremely vulnerable people.”

“Now that more than half of all over-80s have had their jab, we can begin vaccinating the next most vulnerable groups,” UK Health minister Matt Hancock said.?

“We are working day and night to make sure everyone who is 70 and over, our health and social care workers and the clinically extremely vulnerable are offered the vaccine by the middle of February,” he added.

More infectious Covid-19 variants that are not necessarily more deadly can still cause more deaths, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that Covid-19 variants could accelerate the spread of the virus in the United States.

Fauci said the US is closely examining new variants, including one first identified in the UK and another, “more ominous” strain identified in South Africa and Brazil. Health experts are watching out for whether new strains could lessen the impact of Covid-19 vaccines, which would prompt some modifications to the vaccines.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it’s important for people to double down on public health measures and get vaccinated as soon as they can to prevent excess hospitalizations and deaths caused by new variants.

With a new variant of Covid-19 spreading across the US, the nation is facing a “relentless strike” from the virus, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said Sunday.

The variant of Covid-19 first identified in the UK has now spread through multiple US states. While it does not appear to be more deadly, health experts believe it is likely more infectious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned that it could accelerate the spread of the virus in the US.

“In about five weeks, this is going to start to take over,” he said. “The only backstop against this new variant is the fact that we will have a lot of infection by then, so there’ll be a lot of immunity in the population and we will be vaccinating more people, but this really changes the equation.”

While surveillance of Covid-19 variants in the US is developing slowly, Gottlieb said data from the US and other nations shows that the number of people infected with the new variant will likely double every week.

Amid?a devastating resurgence of the coronavirus in parts of Brazil,?federal health officials have finally voted to authorize two vaccines for emergency use.

Brazilian regulatory agency Anvisa on Sunday approved both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Coronavac vaccine.

Minutes later, Monica Calazans, a Black nurse from downtown S?o Paulo, became the first Brazilian to be vaccinated. Calazans, who is at high risk for Covid-19 complications and works in an ICU that has been at 90% capacity or above since April, exploded into tears before receiving the Coronavac shot.

Brazil is the country hit hardest by Covid-19 in Latin America. It has recorded more than 8 million cases and more than 200,000 deaths from coronavirus. While several of its neighbors have already approved vaccines for use,?Brazil has seemed to lag?despite its renowned public health and vaccination track record.

Coronavac, developed by Chinese company Sinovac, is now authorized for use of 6 million imported doses. It has a history in Sao Paulo state, where the local Butantan Institute conducted Phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine. Butantan will also produce future doses.

However, Coronavac has shown?a low average efficacy rate of 50.4% – barely above the 50% minimum established by the World Health Organization. The number, which falls far below the 78% previously announced, has raised questions about the veracity of the data and fueled skepticism over the apparent lack of transparency regarding Chinese vaccines.

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SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - JANUARY 17: Nurse Monica Calazans (54) receives the first CoronaVac vaccination shot in Brazil from Disease Control nurse and Master of Public Health at Santa Casa de Sao Paulo, Jessica Pires de Camargo, at Hospital das Clinicas of the University of Sao Paulo (USP) on January 17, 2021 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Monica is part of the risk group and suffers from diabetes and hypertension, she works in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Emilio Ribas, a reference in the treatment of infectious diseases. The CoronaVac vaccine was developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac in partnership with the Butantan Institute. The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) authorized today the emergency use of the CoronaVac and the AstraZeneca (developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) vaccines against Covid-19. (Photo by Rodrigo Paiva/Getty Images)

Related article Brazil authorizes two Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use

In less than a year, Covid-19 has killed?almost 400,000 Americans.

And in just the next month, another 100,000 lives could be lost to the disease, the incoming director of the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention said.

“That doesn’t speak to the tens of thousands of people who are living with a yet uncharacterized syndrome after they’ve recovered,” said Walensky, who was chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital before President-elect Joe Biden picked her to lead the CDC.

Some people who have had Covid-19 have?suffered symptoms months after testing positive.

“And we still yet haven’t seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel, from holiday gathering, in terms of high rates of hospitalizations and the deaths thereafter,” Walensky said.

“I think we still have some dark weeks ahead.”

100 million doses in 100 days: Walensky said Sunday that the Biden administration will address “bottlenecks” in Covid-19 vaccine distribution and fulfill its goal to deliver 100 million doses in 100 days.

President-elect?Joe Biden says?his goal is to distribute 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days of office.

“We have looked carefully, and we are confident that we have enough vaccines for the 100 million doses over the next 100 days,” Walensky said. “It will be a hefty lift, but we have it in us to do that.”

Read more:

Related article Some states are seeing higher numbers of Covid-19 cases as others ease restrictions