The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

Dr. Patrice Harris, a psychiatrist and former president of the American Medical Association, said that parents should seek out mental health services if they feel like they are “about to burn out” as the coronavirus pandemic drags on.

She added that if parents notice their children’s mental or physical health being affected by the pandemic, they should consult their pediatrician and look for resources from places like the American Psychological Association.

Harris also said that there is no “one-size-fits-all approach” to reopening schools.?

She encouraged parents to seek out information on school reopening plans, any surveillance testing, and ask their children are ready to return to school.

A patient is brought into a Brooklyn hospital that has seen a high number of Covid-19 patients on January 27, in New York City.

There have been at least?26,012,880?total?cases?of coronavirus in the United States and at least?438,239?people?have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by?Johns Hopkins University.?

From the first case of Covid-19 in the US in January 2020, it took the nation 311 days, until Nov. 27, 2020, to reach 13 million total Covid-19 cases.

The US took just?64 days to reach the second 13 million cases.

Maryland state health officials have confirmed a case of?a more contagious coronavirus strain first identified in South Africa, according to a press release from Gov. Larry Hogan’s office.

The announcement comes after South Carolina identified the first known case of the Covid-19 variant in the US?earlier this week.

The Maryland case “involves an adult living in the Baltimore metro region,” Hogan’s office said.

“The individual has not traveled internationally, making community transmission likely. Comprehensive contact tracing efforts are underway to ensure that potential contacts are quickly identified, quarantined and tested,” Hogan’s office added in its statement.

People commute by train at a station in New York on December 10, 2020.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order Friday that will require people to wear a mask while using any form of public transportation in the US, beginning Monday at 11:59 p.m.

The CDC said that public transportation operators must use best efforts to enforce the mask mandate, including only boarding those wearing masks and disembarking any passengers who refuse to comply.

People can take their masks off briefly to eat, drink or take medication; verify their identity to law enforcement or transportation officials; communicate with hearing-impaired people; don an oxygen mask on an aircraft; or during a medical emergency, the CDC said on its website.

The agency advises people to wash or sanitize their hands after touching their mask.

The order applies to all travelers, including those who have had Covid-19 or the Covid-19 vaccine.?Children under the age of 2, those who cannot safely wear a mask due to a disability, and some people who cannot safely perform their job while wearing a mask are exempt from the order.

The order applies to all US transportation hubs, except those operated by the Department of Defense.

A new study of two independent US schools supports the argument that children don’t spread coronavirus in school when proper precautions are taken.

Just 9% of students — out of 3,500 students studied — who brought new Covid-19 infections to school ended up infecting others, researchers found.

As President Biden has pledged to reopen most schools during his administration’s first 100 days, Long said the study can be used as a roadmap by larger schools.

“They need a?really centralized protocol,” Long said.?

In addition, schools need to increase rapid testing, she added.?

“We have to make testing?available and affordable,” Long said. “It’s incumbent upon the?government to help make that?feasible for schools.”

Watch more:

Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, and Noe Meza prepare to move the body of someone who died from Covid-19 to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 9.

California surpassed a grim milestone on Friday evening as over 40,000 coronavirus-related deaths have now been reported in the state, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

California added 664 deaths on Friday, according to data from the university. The state has now reported a total of 40,238 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

The only other state with over 40,000 deaths is New York state. New York has reported 43,278 deaths, according to university data.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch speaks at a hearing in Washington, DC, on December 2, 2020.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch is the latest?House?member to announce he’s tested positive for Covid-19 after a staff member in his office was positive, according to a statement from his spokesperson.

His spokesperson said he received his second dose of the vaccine but didn’t specify the date. He is also asymptomatic and plans to vote by proxy next week, according to his spokesperson.

To note: Covid-19 vaccines do not necessarily prevent infection – they prevent illness.

The vaccines prevent people from getting sick with Covid-19. They do not prevent Covid-19 infection. If someone?tests?positive?and doesn’t get sick, the vaccine has worked as intended.

If someone?tests?positive?within a few weeks of receiving the second dose, it may be because the vaccine hasn’t fully kicked in yet.

Health care workers distribute vaccines late into the night at a last-minute Covid-19 event at Seattle University.

Mechanical breakdowns. Bad weather. Expiration deadlines. The earliest phases of Covid-19 vaccine distribution in some instances have left doctors, nurses, and health officials scrambling to inoculate Americans.

In the worst cases, valuable doses have been wasted or thrown out. However, quick thinking by practitioners mixed with a bit of luck have found them administering vaccines in unique circumstances.

On Thursday night, after a freezer containing vaccine doses malfunctioned in Seattle, a nearby hospital had less than nine hours to administer more than 800 vaccinations before they spoiled. Vaccines from Pfizer-BioTech and Moderna require certain low temperatures for storage and have a limited shelf life when exposed to room temperature.

Swedish Health Services told CNN it quickly signed up eligible recipients on short notice via social media. Clinical and non-clinical hospital volunteers convened to run the site.

Swedish was not the only location to assist that night. An additional supply from the broken freezer made its way to the University of Washington, where staff and volunteers administered vaccines at two of its centers,?according to?CNN affiliate KOMO.

Clever solutions and fast action by health workers nationwide, when faced with the total loss of a vaccine supply, have benefited those in the right place at the right time.

Read the full story here

French President Emmanuel Macron waits at the élysée Palace in Paris before a working lunch on January 27.

An Oxford professor who was part of the team that developed the Covid-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca has disputed comments by French President Emmanuel Macron appearing to question the efficacy of the jab in over-65s.

Asked on BBC Radio about Macron’s comments that the vaccine is “quasi-ineffective” in people over 65, professor John Bell said Saturday, “I’m not sure where he got that from.”

Acknowledging that the number of elderly people participating in the original study was “small” at around 12%, Bell added that “in vaccinology the way you deal with that problem is you identify the level of immunity that a vaccine generates.”

“The elderly people responded just as well as people in other age groups and there’s really persuasive evidence that this is a protective vaccine in those populations,” Bell said.

On Friday, Macron told reporters, “what I can tell you officially is that the first results are not encouraging for those over 60-65 years old,” adding that “very little information” is available on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

“I suspect this is a bit of demand management from Mr. Macron,” Bell said.

Pushed on the point by the host, Bell added that “if he didn’t have any vaccine, the best thing you could do is reduce demand.”

Macron’s comments have been widely criticized in the UK press as the bitter row between the EU, drugmakers and the UK over vaccine supply continues to dominate headlines.

The EU’s medicines regulator approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for all age groups on Friday. Earlier in the week, Germany’s vaccine commission said it would not recommend its use in the over-65s due to insufficient data on its effectiveness in that population.

A patient is taken from an ambulance to the emergency room of a hospital in the Navajo Nation town of Tuba City in Arizona on May 24, 2020?

Arizona joins the list of states reporting cases of the UK Covid-19 variant,?known as B.1.1.7.?

The?Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH), Pinal County Public Health Services District, and Arizona State University (ASU) announced the detection of the first three cases of the UK variant in the state in a press release Friday.?

The health agencies did not offer any additional information on the cases or patients involved in the release.

The UK variant was first identified in the fall of 2020 according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The variant appears to spread more easily and has been found in at least 70 countries, according to information from the World Health Organization.?

The CDC reports at least 434 cases of the UK variant in at least 30 US states, not including the state of Arizona, in data updated Friday on its website.

The new variant has wreaked havoc in the UK, fueling a surge in cases towards the end of 2020 despite a national lockdown being in place. Data showing an uptick in cases in younger people suggests this was largely because schools had stayed open, enabling the variant to spread rapidly.

The UK is a cautionary tale of what could happen elsewhere. American public health experts are warning about a possible new surge in Covid-19 cases caused by the strain first seen in southeast England. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the B.1.1.7 strain could become the predominant?variant seen in the United States by March.

Visitors queue before receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine at a closed down Debenhams department store, in Folkestone on Wednesday

The ugly vaccine nationalism that the World Health Organization and other public health advocates feared is here. And it’s beginning in Europe, the region that usually boasts the world’s greatest levels of equality by many measures.

Between the United Kingdom and?the European Union, solidarity has disappeared entirely and given way to an all-out battle over who is more entitled to tens of millions of doses produced by British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca. Meanwhile, many countries in the global south have yet to administer a single vaccine.

The spat revolves around the EU’s deal with AstraZeneca, which recently informed the bloc it would not be able to supply the number of vaccines the EU had hoped for by the end of March. EU leaders are furious that the company appears to be fulfilling its deliveries for the UK market and not theirs.

And while the EU’s complaints are largely directed at AstraZeneca, the dispute has triggered animosity on both sides of the Channel, the two sides having only just emerged from four years of bickering over the terms of their Brexit divorce.

On Friday, Brussels imposed controls on vaccine exports to keep track of how many doses were leaving the continent and where they were going, in what leaders called a transparency measure but what looks like a targeted export ban.

The EU also said Friday it would invoke a clause in the Brexit deal to impose controls on exports to Northern Ireland to ensure doses wouldn’t funnel through the region into the rest of the UK. Hours later it then backed down from the threat after UK and Irish leaders sought urgent clarification from Brussels over the highly controversial move.

Read the full story here

A sign in a classroom reminds students to wear face masks.

An in-depth look at two US schools supports the argument that children don’t spread coronavirus in school when proper precautions are taken.

Out of 3,500 students, just 234 coronavirus infections were documented during the fall semester, the researchers reported in a pre-print study posted online.

Just 9% of students who brought new infections to school infected others, the researchers found.

“There was no evidence of student-to-teacher or teacher-to-student transmission in either school,” they wrote.

The team studied?two independent K-12 schools, not named. One was described as being in the Southeast and one in the Mid-Atlantic. Each school followed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for preventing the spread of the virus, including social distancing and mask use. They also implemented?“aggressive” laboratory screening testing policies.?

“Seventy two percent of in-school transmission cases in School A were associated with noncompliance with school mask wearing rules. Of known off-campus sources, the major ones identified were family exposure, including siblings returning from college; off-campus activities, including parties and other gatherings,” they wrote.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London for parliamentary questions on January 27.

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has hailed the efforts of parents during lockdown in an open letter published on Saturday.

“While the past 12 months have been tough for all of us, the demands of this pandemic have also brought out the very best in a great many people,” he wrote. “And I’m particularly in awe of the way the parents, carers and guardians of children have risen to the unique challenges with which you have been faced.”

Parents are doing “a great job” and by staying home are “saving lives”, he added.

He attended a virtual classroom of 10 to 11-year-olds on Friday and was impressed by the work of parents during the session.

Some 876,000 laptops have been given to schools so that kids can learn online and “hundreds of millions of pounds” will be put into “nationwide catch-up programmes” when the pandemic is over, Johnson said.

For weeks leading up to the New Year, despite surging coronavirus cases and a new highly contagious variant, Johnson’s government assured schools and parents that children would return to the classroom in January.

On the morning of January 4, as children streamed into schools and he toured a hospital, Johnson touted “the efforts that we’re making as a government to try to keep primary schools open.”

Just hours later, he executed an about-face of acrobatic proportions. In a somber prime-time address to the nation, the Prime Minister said?he was ordering the closure, from the next day, of not just secondary schools – which serve children 11 and above and are where spread is more likely – but also primary, or elementary schools.

A health care worker collects a Covid-19 swab test at a United Airlines drive-thru testing site inside San Francisco International Airport on January 9.

There were 162,601?new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States on Friday, with 3,483 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.

To date, there have been at least?25,929,282?Covid-19 cases in the US. More than 436,678?people have died in the country from the virus.?

At least?49,216,500?vaccine doses have been distributed and at least?27,884,661?shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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

For regular updates, follow CNN’s map, which uses Johns Hopkins data to refresh every 15 minutes.?

Sweden’s G?teborg Film Festival?has gone digital this year and chosen one lucky film enthusiast to experience its Isolated Cinema on a remote lighthouse island.

Emergency nurse Lisa Enroth will spend seven days in the cabin of Pater Noster Lighthouse on Hamnesk?r island, with only movies and the sea for company.

The festival reviewed more than 12,000 applicants from 45 countries before settling on the nurse who spent the last year on the front lines fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Through my work in healthcare I seem to have spent ages listening, testing and consoling. I feel like I’m drained of energy,” said Enroth in a statement. “The wind, the sea, the possibility of being part of a totally different kind of reality for a week – all this is really attractive.”

Enroth, from Sk?vde, Sweden, won’t be allowed a cellphone, a laptop, a book, or any other distractions from January 30 to February 6. She will create a daily video diary that will allow the world to watch her experience.

Like many recent film festivals, G?teborg will be virtual in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but organizers decided to offer one festival-goer a totally different experience.

“And in these troubled times it feels particularly right to be able to give this unique experience to one of the many heroes of the healthcare system who are all working so hard against COVID-19,” said?the chief executive of the festival, Mirja Wester.

The lighthouse was deactivated in recent years, and the lighthouse cabin was recently renovated by design agency Stylt, so Enroth will be able to relax in comfort and style.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated the name of nurse Lisa Enroth.

Workers at the Australian Open walk past posters of 2020 champions Novak Djokovic and Sofia Kenin in Melbourne on January 30.

Crowds of up to 30,000 people per day will be allowed for the opening week of the Australia Open, announced the minister for sport in Australia’s state of Victoria, Martin Pakula,?and Tennis Australia CEO, Craig Tiley.

During a press conference on Saturday morning, Pakula said?Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has signed off on the spectator numbers.

“We’re really looking forward to welcoming fans to Melbourne Park for the @AustralianOpen @ATPCup and Melbourne Summer Series starting tomorrow,” said Tiley in a tweet.

Thousands of cheering fans packed the stands on Friday to watch some of tennis’ biggest stars warm up for the Australian Open – with hardly a face mask to be seen.

In an unusual scene for the?coronavirus pandemic, the 4,000-strong crowd sat cheek by jowl as big hitters including Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka emerged from their 14-day quarantine to play exhibition matches ahead of the first grand slam of the year in Melbourne next month.

Australia’s tough approach to the coronavirus has been controversial ahead of the Open, with some players arriving from overseas frustrated to find themselves in quarantine.

Some took to social media to complain while others issued lists of demands to Australian authorities. But speaking to CNN from quarantine earlier this week, Nadal said his fellow stars should have?a “wider perspective.”

The Australian Open will begin on February 8 in Melbourne and run for two weeks. Friday’s exhibition matches were the official curtain raiser for the international tennis competition and saw Williams and Novak Djokovic win?hard-fought matches.

Security personnel guard an entrance to the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in China's Hubei province, where a team from the World Health Organization visited on January 30.

The World Health Organization team of international scientists investigating the origins of Covid-19 in Wuhan spent Saturday visiting a hospital that treated some of the Chinese city’s most severe coronavirus cases last year.

The team started its investigation Friday with a visit to the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, which treated some of the first known coronavirus patients.

On Saturday, the group went to Jinyintan Hospital. One of the scientists, British-Americam Peter Daszak, tweeted:?

The Trump administration spent $200 million sending thousands of ventilators around the world, starting weeks?after the former President touted America as the “king of ventilators,”?but without any established way to locate them, the Government Accountability Office found?in a report released Thursday.

A total of 150 ventilators went to countries with zero new cases per day on the date the government committed to sending the life-saving machines overseas,?as the US edged closer to a shortage of its own. Kiribati and Nauru, two of the countries that received a total of 20 ventilators, have never had a confirmed case, according to the World Health Organization.

From late May to late September, the previous administration committed to sending 8,722 ventilators to 43 countries, but with no clear criteria for determining which countries need ventilators or how many to send, the GAO found.

Read more here:

This picture taken on March 16, 2020 during a press presentation of the hospitalisation service for future patients with coronavirus at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, shows the director of the epidemics service Dr Karina Glick checking a medical ventilator control panel at a ward, while wearing protective clothing. - As of March 16, Israel has 255 confirmed cases of coronavirus with no fatalities but tens of thousands in home-quarantine. Authorities have banned gatherings of more than 10 people and ordered schools, universities, restaurants and cafes to close, among other measures. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article US sent ventilators around the world but can't find many now, watchdog finds

Buses on 5th Avenue display "Mask Required" signs in New York on September 21, 2020.

Americans will have to wear a mask while using any form of public transportation – including buses, trains, taxis, planes, boats, subways or rideshare vehicles – from late Monday to slow the spread of Covid-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced.

The order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. ET Monday.

The order,?signed by Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine,?says people must wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth while on public transportation and while waiting for their ride. The mask needs to feature at least two layers of breathable fabric and secured to the head with ties, ear loops or elastic bands.?

Masks need to fit snugly and should not have exhalation valves or punctures. If someone chooses to wear a gaiter, it must be made with two layers of fabric or folded to have two layers. Face shields and goggles can supplement a mask, but cannot be worn in place of a mask. Scarves and bandanas do not fulfill the new requirement.

Children under the age of 2 or people with a disability who cannot wear a mask are exempt.?

In the order, which was announced late Friday, CDC said it reserves the right to enforce it through criminal penalties, but it “strongly encourages and anticipates widespread voluntary compliance” and expects support from other federal agencies.

The order will stay in effect until further notice.

The move comes after US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on January 21 that mandated interstate travelers wear a mask. On his first day in office, Biden challenged Americans to wear a mask for 100 days to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, says colleagues in South Africa have told him some patients there have been reinfected with the coronavirus due to the new, more contagious, variant.?

However, Fauci said vaccination appears to be “good or better than natural infection in preventing further infection.”

“The vaccine itself appears to be better at inducing that kind of protection because they had anywhere from 50 to 88% efficacy against severe disease,” said Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

At least 434 cases of a coronavirus strain first identified in the UK have been detected in 30 US states, according to data posted Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That’s over 100 more cases than the CDC’s last update on Wednesday.

The current total includes 125 cases in Florida, 113 in California, 42 in New York and 22 in Michigan. The rest have fewer than 20 known cases each.

The variant – which is known as B.1.1.7 and appears to spread more easily – has also been found in at least 70 countries worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

In addition, South Carolina reported the first two US cases of another strain first seen in South Africa, which is called B.1.351 and has been found in more than 30 other countries. Minnesota health officials have also reported one case of the P.1 strain first linked to Brazil, which has been detected in at least eight countries.

The CDC says this does not represent the total number of such cases circulating in the US, but rather just 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.

Colombia will start mass vaccinations on February 20, President Ivan Duque announced on Friday.?

The Andean country will receive a mix of privately purchased vaccine doses as well as 20 million shots purchased through the Covax mechanism in order to vaccinate its 35 million citizens, Duque said in his daily television address to the nation.?

Colombia has reported more than 2 million coronavirus cases and more than 53,000 related deaths during the pandemic. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo died due to Covid-19.?

Piazza Venezia Square is reflected in the window of a closed coffee bar following Covid-19 restriction measures in Rome, Italy on January 22.

Coronavirus restrictions in many parts of Italy will be eased from Sunday, the country’s Health Ministry has announced.

All but five of Italy’s regions will be considered “yellow” under its color-coded system, the ministry said on Friday.?

Veneto, the region around Venice, is to go from an orange to a yellow zone, which allows the daytime reopening of bars and restaurants and greater freedom to travel.

Calabria in the south and Emilia-Romagna in the north were also downgraded from orange to yellow.

From Sunday, the regions of Puglia, Sardinia, Sicily, Umbria and the autonomous province of Bolzano will be in the orange zone.

All the other regions and autonomous provinces are in the yellow zone.

Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Italy had experienced a significant drop in its coronavirus transmission rate.

Former US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Tom Frieden says schools can safely reopen as long as the right precautions are taken.?

“Classrooms should stay open as long as possible, and reopen as soon as possible – in-person learning is enormously important,” Frieden?said during an Axios podcast interview on Friday.

Frieden says effective?safety precautions include masks, proper ventilation in school buildings and social distancing to “the extent you can.” He also recommends schools eliminate teacher break rooms and regulate?extracurricular activities.

When US?President Joe Biden?intensifies his attention next week to selling Republicans and Democrats on his?coronavirus relief bill, he won’t be relying on some of the presidency’s most symbolic powers.

Out, for now, are arm-twisting sessions in the Oval Office or rides into a lawmaker’s district aboard Air Force One. Instead, administration aides are planning remote television hits from the White House, out-of-the-blue phone calls to skeptical Republicans and maybe a stop somewhere within driving distance, according to officials.

Hamstrung by the very pandemic he is working to contain, Biden and his advisers have sharply limited the ways in which he can promote the $1.9 trillion relief bill he has proposed in the opening days of his presidency. Flying around the country to sell the plan is off the table for now, aides said, as Biden works to promote responsible pandemic behavior. Even the idea of visiting the weekly Democratic and Republican Senate luncheons on Capitol Hill is a non-starter, aides said, though – like Biden – many members of Congress have been vaccinated.

It’s not necessarily how Biden would like to be ushering his debut legislative attempt through Congress, particularly since he built an entire career as a senator around attempts to foster bipartisanship through camaraderie on Capitol Hill. So, too, will his famous personal touch with middle-class Americans be sidelined as Air Force One remains in the hangar at Joint Base Andrews. He and his then-boss President Barack Obama used both while mustering support for the 2009 stimulus plan in the earliest days of that administration.

Read more here:

Related article Biden seeks to intensify public lobbying for Covid-19 relief bill amid the pandemic

In an apparent rethink late Friday, the European Commission issued a statement saying it will not trigger a Brexit clause to introduce emergency export controls on vaccines to Northern Ireland from the bloc.?

“In the process of finalisation of this measure, the Commission will ensure that the Ireland / Northern Ireland Protocol is unaffected. The Commission is not triggering the safeguard clause,” the statement said.?

However, the statement warned that “should transits of vaccines and active substances toward third countries be abused to circumvent the effects of the authorisation system, the EU will consider using all the instruments at its disposal.”

Earlier Friday, the EU startled Belfast, London and Dublin when it said it was willing to use Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol – an emergency measure that could be used by either the UK or the EU to retain stability on the island of Ireland.??

If the EU had invoked Article 16, any effort to use Northern Ireland as a back door to the rest of the UK to circumvent export controls would be restricted.

Following discussions with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen late Friday, the Irish leader,?Taoiseach Micheál Martin, said he “welcomed the decision by the EC not to invoke the safeguard clause of the Ireland / Northern Ireland Protocol.”