The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

The British government has drafted legislation that will forbid travel outside of the United Kingdom, with rule breakers facing a penalty of nearly $7,000.?

The travel ban is part of a set of restrictions the UK government published on Monday, as it sets its roadmap for leaving the current lockdown.

The restrictions come into force March 29.

The law says:

The document goes on to indicate those who attempt to travel “without a reasonable excuse” will be issued a fixed penalty notice worth $6,932.40.

These restrictions do not apply to travel within the common area, which includes the rest of the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland.

Exceptions to the ban apply when it is “reasonably necessary” for a person to work, study, provide charitable services, fulfill a legal obligation, sell or rent property and for some child care, medical or family reasons.?

Drug giant AstraZeneca hopes to be able to deliver 50 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine within a month if it gains US Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization, a top official told CNN Monday.?

AstraZeneca released Phase 3 trial results Monday that showed the vaccine it developed with Britain’s Oxford University was 79% effective against symptomatic disease and 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization.?The results are based on trials involving 32,449 volunteers in the US, Peru and Chile.

The vaccine has been in use in the UK since last year.

People are seen on a beach near Toronto on March 21.

Ontario, Canada’s largest province, declared it was at the beginning of a third wave of the pandemic Monday, pointing to increasing case counts, hospitalizations and variants of concern.?

“We’re in the third wave.?The numbers are slowly going up, they’re not going as fast as predicted by the modelers,” said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s top doctor. “We’re now starting to see impacts on our hospital rates, our ICU admissions are up again, our hospital admissions are up again.”

The news was sobering in a province where the majority of residents have been in some state of lockdown since late last year.?

Canadian public health officials also warned that the vaccine rollout would not occur quickly enough to halt what could be a potentially devastating third wave of the pandemic in some areas of the country, further stressing hospital capacity.??

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said in a statement on Monday that Covid-19 activity “has leveled off at a high level since mid-February and average daily case counts are now on the rise” throughout the country.

“While vaccine programs accelerate, it will be important to maintain a high degree of caution. Any easing of public health measures must be done slowly with enhanced testing, screening, and genomic analysis to detect variants of concern,” she said.?

Ohio vaccine providers having trouble filling appointments can now open them up to anyone 16 and older, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday.

Earlier this month, DeWine announced vaccine availability would open to everyone 16 and older on March 29.?

DeWine also announced changes to health orders regarding visitations in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.?Nursing homes and assisted living facilities will now be required to allow visitation for their residents, DeWine said.

Vaccinated residents will now be allowed, when wearing a mask, to have physical touch with their visitors, residents can also have visitation in their private rooms and visitations must be allowed to be a minimum of 30 minutes long, he added.?

The list of compassionate care visit examples has also increased, DeWine said. Vaccinated staff will be required to have regular Covid-19 testing once a week, and unvaccinated staff must be tested two times a week, he added. If an outbreak occurs at one of these facilities, visitations will be limited, DeWine said.??

Just two weeks ago, the total cases of Covid-19 variants was 32, now there are 173 variant cases, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Chief Medical Officer of the Ohio Department of Health said.??

Note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

None of the coronavirus variants that are?known to be?circulating in the United States are classified as “variants of high consequence” or currently near that level, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“At this time, none of the known SARS-CoV-2 variants rise to the level of high consequence, and none are close to that threshold,” CDC spokesperson Jade Fulce told CNN in an email on Monday. SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus that causes Covid-19.

The CDC classifies coronavirus?variants by three levels: variant of interest, variant of concern,?or variant of high consequence.?The B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1, B.1.427 and B.1.429 variants circulating in the United States are currently classified as variants of concern.

A variant of high consequence “is included in the new classification system so that health officials can be prepared to respond appropriately in the event that a SARS-CoV-2 variant crosses that threshold,” Fulce said.

To be classified as a “variant of high consequence,” a variant of concern would need to show evidence that it causes more severe disease and hospitalizations, vaccine effectiveness may be reduced against it, or it has significantly reduced susceptibility to therapeutics, among other factors, according to the CDC.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned in a White House briefing on Monday that the variants are still concerning – and she urged people to keep following Covid-19 mitigation measures.

“Increasingly, states are seeing a growing proportion of their Covid-19 cases attributed to variants,” Walensky said. “I am worried that if we don’t take the right actions now, we will have another avoidable surge.”

A health worker holds a coronavirus test in Ankara, Turkey, on December 29.

Turkey reported 22,216 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours – the highest daily case number in 2021, according to Turkish health ministry data released on Monday.

The ministry reported 117 new deaths bringing the total number fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic to 30,178.

The country is facing a spike in new infections following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, including partial reopening of schools and indoor dining since early?March.

Over all 1,644 people are in critical condition, according to the health ministry. Hospital bed occupancy is at 53.8% and adult intensive care unit occupancy is at 65%, the ministry said.

Turkey’s highest single-day increase in new cases since the beginning of the pandemic was in December 2020 when it recorded more than 33,000 new infections in a single day.

Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for coronavirus response, said Monday that global cases of Covid-19 have risen for the fifth consecutive week, and that WHO is seeing worrying trends in Europe, as well as number of areas.

“Four of our five WHO regions are seeing an increase in transmission,” she said at a news briefing. “This is the fifth week in a row globally that we have seen an increase in transmission. In the last week, cases have increased by 8%.”?

There was a 12% increase in Europe, van Kerkhove said, adding that it is driven by several countries across the region and by the B.1.1.7 variant, which is starting to circulate in many countries in the eastern part of Europe.?

The Southeast Asia region has seen a 49% increase in cases, largely driven by increases in India and a number of other countries.?

The eastern Mediterranean region has seen an increase of 8%.?

The Western Pacific region has seen an increase of 29%, largely driven by an increase in cases in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea.?

“The Americas and Africa have seen a slight decline in the last seven days,” she said. “But, overall, we’re seeing increasing trends and these are worrying trends.”?

Van Kerkhove said that in Europe and across a number of countries there is a combination of factors associated with transmission increases, including pressure for the countries to open up and difficulties with individuals and communities complying with proven control measures.

Vials of the Abdala vaccine candidate are seen during a press conference in Havana, Cuba, on March 19.

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced two of Cuba’s vaccine candidates would arrive in Venezuela in the first week of April.

“We will participate in phase three of their clinical trials heading to this vaccine’s mass production,” he said during a news conference on Sunday.

Maduro said 30,000 doses of Soberana 02 and 30,000 doses of Abdala will come into the country. Both vaccine candidates are in phase 3 clinical trials.

On March 4, Sacha Llorenti the executive director of ALBA-TCP (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty), a regional bloc of left leaning Caribbean and Latin American countries, announced the creation of a vaccine bank for its member countries. Cuba and Venezuela are both members of ALBA and the delivery of the vaccines will take place through the organization according to Cuban state media.

The vaccine bank is for member states to use if they are in need and vaccines developed in Cuba will have priority to be part of the bank.

A clinical pharmacist prepares to administer the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on March 12 in London.

More than 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have now been administered in the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Monday.?

This total figure includes first (27,997,976) and second doses (2,281,384). The government publishes these figures on its online dashboard daily.?

Hancock tweeted that the “vaccine rollout is showing the best of Britain”.

See the tweet:

Residents in Arizona aged 16 and above will be eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine starting this Wednesday at state-operated sites in Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties, according to a news release from the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS).

ADHS director Dr. Cara Christ says they anticipate “more and more” vaccine reaching Arizona in the coming weeks which allowed them to expand prioritization.

So far Arizona has administered 2,904,159 doses of Covid-19 vaccine and 1,136,413 residents are fully vaccinated.

According to the release, as of Monday morning there were 58,000 appointments available.

More than 126.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.?

The CDC reported that 126,509,736 total doses have been administered – about 81% of the 156,734,555 doses delivered. The CDC last updated total doses delivered on Saturday; CNN has reached out to the CDC to learn more about this.

That’s about 2 million more doses reported administered since yesterday, for a seven-day average of about 2.5 million doses per day.

About 1 in 4 people in the US – nearly 83 million people – have received at least one dose of vaccine, and more than 1 in 8 – about 45 million people – have been fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.

Note on the data: Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said all 488 high schools under the New York City Department of Education have reopened for in-person learning across the city, with at least half of those schools providing in-person instruction five days per week.

De Blasio said city officials have been following the latest US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?guidance for a safe reopening.

The city has set a new “opt-in” period from March 24 to April 7?to allow more students to “opt-in” to in-person learning if they wish. De Blasio also said that the NYC’s schools district has received $130 million in stimulus funding and it is being disbursed to schools.?

With approximately 1.1 million students, New York City is the largest school district in the United States, according to the?NYC Department of Education.

There are currently about 315,000 total students of all grades returning to in-person learning, and about 55,000 high school students who have returned to in-person school on Monday, spokesperson Danielle Filson said Monday.

NYC Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter added that the “opt-in” period is meant to give school administrators a chance to see how many additional students wish to return in the near-future so they can make appropriate preparations.

Porter also told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Monday that she estimates that around 80 to 90% of NYC students will return to classrooms in the fall.

“We want to get as close to 100% in-person in the fall, but we also know we have to honor the choices and decisions our families are making,” Porter said.

Jordan on Monday reported the highest number of deaths since the start of the pandemic, registering 109 new deaths, according to figures announced by the country’s health ministry.

Jordan also recorded at least 9,269 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, one of the highest daily tallies since the start of the pandemic.

Last week, the country with a population of about 10 million, surpassed half a million cases.

Jordan is facing its worst wave of the pandemic. Government officials blame the surge on the variant first identified in the UK and on people’s lack of adherence to regulations.

There has been a lot of concern about the healthcare sector’s ability to deal with the high number of infections — with several hospitals and intensive care units (ICUs) dedicated to COVID cases in the kingdom either close to or reaching capacity.

Earlier this month the government re-imposed restrictions including a Friday lockdown, extended the nighttime curfew, and shut down nightclubs, bars, pools, gyms and parks. It also suspended Friday prayers and Sunday church mass.

The government has said it is doing all it can to avoid another full lockdown because of the impact on the economy and people’s livelihoods.

Meanwhile, vaccines have been slow to arrive to the kingdom where just over 650,000 people have registered on an online platform to get inoculated.?

As of March 21, Jordan vaccinated at least 209,278 people since the start of the vaccination campaign launched in mid-January. Jordan has been administering the Sinopharm, Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. It has also issued emergency use authorization for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

Government officials have said they are working “night and day” to secure more vaccines from various sources.?

Jordan has reported a total of 544,724 Covid-19 cases and 5,985 Covid-19 related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the country’s health ministry.

Residents wear protective masks in the observation area after being vaccinated at a West Virginia United Health System Covid-19 vaccine clinic in Morgantown, West Virginia on March 11

West Virginia will open vaccines eligibility to everyone in the state over the age of 16, Gov. Jim Justice announced Monday.?

What the numbers look like: There have been 12 additional Covid-19-related deaths since Friday and 276 new positive cases in the last 24 hours in West Virginia, the governor said.

There are 198 people hospitalized and 67 people in intensive care units, said Justice, marking an increase to the numbers that Justice reported at last Monday’s news conference. Last week,?Justice said that there were 210 new positive cases, 151 people hospitalized, and 50 people in ICU.?

Justice also announced that all fairs and festivals will be allowed to resume on May 1, but?all mask wearing, social distancing, and hand washing precautions are still in place.??

The second batch of Covid-19 stimulus checks will be issued this week, the Biden administration announced Monday.

Many of these payments will come via paper check or prepaid debit card and additional batches will be made weekly going forward, according to a statement from the US Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

The statement pointed people to the Get My Payment tool on IRS.gov to check whether their payment has been scheduled.

The payments of up to?$1,400?per person began disbursement earlier this month after President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill into law.

Families will receive an additional $1,400 per dependent, so a couple with two children could receive up to $5,600. Unlike prior rounds, families will now receive the additional money for adult dependents over the age of 17.

The full amount goes to individuals earning less than $75,000 of adjusted gross income, heads of households (like single?parents) earning less than $112,500 and married couples earning less than $150,000. But then the payments gradually phase out as income goes up.

Use?our calculator?to see what you can expect to get.

Healthcare workers administer Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines at a vaccination site in the Bronx borough of New York on February 5.

New York City has administered 3,295,812 Covid-19 vaccines to date, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

He said the city expects to see an increase in their vaccine supply beginning in April.

The mayor said Monday that he believes no further Covid-19 restrictions should be lifted in the city until more data is collected about case trends and about the Covid-19 variants that have been identified.?

“If we see numbers going in the wrong direction…we would put different options back on the table,” de Blasio said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will allow individuals ages 50 and above to be eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine starting on Tuesday, lowering the current vaccine eligibility age from 65.

Cuomo made the announcement at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon (in Westchester County) saying that the church would become a vaccine center on Tuesday.

The Rev. Al Sharpton also joined Monday morning’s event remotely to thank the governor for his work on the vaccine rollout, and encouraged everyone to get out and get their vaccine appointments.

Gov. Cuomo will hold a Covid Q&A later in the afternoon, his office said. The timing will be announced later today.

Monday’s event marked another closed press event for the embattled governor wherein he focused on expanding vaccine access and received praise from community and faith leaders. He again did not address the multiple accusations and investigations into his behavior, nor were they directly referenced by anyone who spoke at the event, although the speakers were clear to voice their support for the governor repeatedly.

White House?Senior Adviser Andy Slavitt

The White House has not yet confirmed whether Johnson & Johnson will deliver 20 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to states by the end of the month — which is a little more than a week away.

Slavitt added that he doesn’t think the company will be far away from reaching the numbers it has projected.

Some more context: Johnson?&?Johnson?has pledged?20?million?doses to the United States by the end of March, but only about 4.3?million?doses have been delivered to states, according to data reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday.?

“We are obviously working very closely with the company.?We are going to see a nice increase in Johnson & Johnson this week, and we should have more information around the first week in April to report on how they’ve done,” Slavitt said during a White House briefing on Monday.

The White House is encouraging governors, as well as the private sector, to maintain or reimpose coronavirus restrictions as new case rates remain high and some states are lifting guidelines.?

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the administration is working to “slow down the relaxation.” But some states have lifted restrictions on restaurant capacity and other retail businesses in recent weeks, with some states relaxing mask mandates.

Senior Covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt reiterated that the White House believes “it’s a mistake to get rid of mask mandates” and that the administration is doing “concerted” outreach to the private sector.

He added, “Obviously, governors have certain authority there, but so do corporations, so do employers, so do individuals, and we’re making concerted efforts to make sure that people know that whether or not there’s a mandate in place, it’s in people’s strong interest, strong interest to continue to wear a mask, until such time as people have had a chance to be vaccinated.”

Sao Paulo State Governor Joao Doria

Brazil’s Sao Paulo state Gov. Joao Doria called Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a “psychopathic leader” and criticized the president’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic in an interview with CNN’s Julia Chatterley on Monday.

“We are in one of those tragic moments in history when millions of people pay a high price for having an unprepared and psychopathic leader in charge of a nation,” he said on CNN’s First Move.

Doria said much of the deaths from the virus in Brazil could have been avoided if Bolsonaro had “acted with the responsibility that the position gives him.” He added that Bolsonaro made “unbelievable mistakes, the biggest one was having a political dispute with the governors who are trying to protect the population.”?

Bolsonaro has repeatedly opposed lockdowns and restrictive measures and has criticized governors and mayors for implementing them. He has also been seen greeting crowds of his supporters during the pandemic, without wearing a mask, and has advocated for drugs like hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus- a drug which has no proven effectiveness in combatting Covid-19.

The governor went on to say that he is facing the biggest challenge of his life as governor of Brazil’s most populous state and that he had to restructure the healthcare system in “record time” and look for ways to mitigate the economic crisis that hit the country during the pandemic. He spoke about the gravity of the state of hospitals and ICUs in Sao Paulo, saying they have already tripled the number of ICU beds and this month will open 12 field hospitals in the state.

On vaccinations, the governor said of 90% of the vaccines in Brazil are produced by the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo — linked to the Sao Paulo government — and that by the end of August, they will have made 100 million vaccines available across the country. “It is still not enough,” he said, adding that the federal government in March started buying vaccines while Sao Paulo state began in April of last year.

The second wave of?Covid-19?is ripping through Brazil, pushing hospitals and ICUs toward collapse and claiming record numbers of daily deaths.

While a new variant of the coronavirus spreads?throughout the country, many Brazilians continue to defy mask mandates mobility restrictions following the example of?President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently said people need to “stop being sissies” and “whining” about the virus.

Brazil has reported a total of 11,998,233 Covid-19 cases and 294,042 Covid-19 related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the country’s health ministry.

Read more about the situation in Brazil:?No vaccines, no leadership, no end in sight. How Brazil became a global threat

The Biden administration on Monday announced the creation of another federally-run community vaccination center, part of its continued efforts toward promoting vaccine equity.

The site, a drive-through center at the Central Washington State Fair Park in Yakima County, will provide up to 1,200 shots per day, Slavitt said.

The Yakima County vaccination center is the 22nd such federally-run site, which, per Slavitt, deliver a combined nearly 100,000 shots per day and are aimed at targeting inequity.

“All of the sites are in areas defined by the CDC is having a high social vulnerability rating. In fact, against a backdrop of inequity in vaccine distribution generally, and the severe toll taken by the virus on people of color, in federal vaccination centers, over 60% of the shots have gone to people of color,” he said, noting that Yakima County has been “particularly hard hit” during the pandemic compared to the rest of the state.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she’s worried the United States could see “another avoidable surge” of Covid-19 if mitigation measures – such as mask-wearing, physical distancing and avoiding crowds or travel – are not followed.

“Increasingly, states are seeing a growing proportion of their Covid-19 cases attributed variants,” Walensky said, adding that for instance, two newly identified variants – B.1427 and B.1429 – are estimated to account for 52% of cases in California, 41% in Nevada and 25% in Arizona.

The B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the United Kingdom, is estimated to be responsible for 9% of cases in New Jersey and 8% in Florida, Walensky said.

“We are at a critical point in this pandemic, a fork in the road, where we as a country must decide which path we are going to take,” Walensky said. “We must act now, and I am worried that if we don’t take the right actions now, we will have another avoidable surge – just as we are seeing in Europe right now and just as we are so aggressively scaling up vaccination.”

A health worker in Pennsylvania holds a box with the Janssen Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine on March 15.

Only about 1 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine were reported administered last week, accounting for only about 6% of the more than 17 million doses reported administered in the past seven days, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since the first Johnson & Johnson shot was administered on March 2, about 2.3 million people in the US have been vaccinated with the only single-dose vaccine authorized for emergency use in the country.

But in that time, the average daily rates of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna doses administered have each outpaced Johnson & Johnson by more than nine times.

Here’s a breakdown of doses administered since March 2, according to CDC data:

Johnson & Johnson has promised 20 million doses to the US by the end of March, but only about 4.3 million doses have been delivered to states, according to data reported by the CDC on Sunday.

The manufacturer is “unknown” for a small share of vaccine doses administered – less than 150,000 of the nearly 125 million total doses administered – CDC data shows.

Poland’s Minister of Health?Adam Niedzielski?urged people to work from home saying according to the latest data, the dominant place in generating a new infection was the workplace.

The Polish prime minister and Niedzielski gave a news conference Monday after visiting a temporary coronavirus hospital in Radom.?

Prime Minister?Mateusz Morawiecki?appealed to the public for continued diligence adhering to restrictions to limit the spread of the virus and voiced concern at the infection rate acceleration during the last few weeks.

“This virus also attacks younger people; more and more people are hospitalized under the age of 50 and 40, and unfortunately, it often ends with a very serious case of illness or a very tragic case of death,” Morawiecki said.

The NFL logo is pictured before the first quarter between the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers at FirstEnergy Stadium on January 03 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The 2021 NFL Draft will be held?with a select number of prospects and fans?across various downtown Cleveland, Ohio locations, the league announced Monday.

The 86th draft, scheduled for April 29 through May 1, will take place at FirstEnergyStadium, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center.??

The NFL Draft Main Stage will be set?against the backdrop of Lake Erie.?An unspecified number of prospects will take the stage in Cleveland.?The league said additional prospects will participate in the festivities virtually from their homes around the country.

Last year’s draft was held virtually for the first time ever due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In an effort to promote getting the Covid-19 vaccine, each team will select fully vaccinated fans who will have?a front row seat at the draft.?

Fans will also be able to partake in the league’s free interactive football theme park — the NFL Draft Experience — all three days of the draft. Reservations will be required.

Fans must wear face coverings and adhere to physical distancing, the league said.?

A DoorDash delivery driver waits near a restaurant on December 30, 2020 in New York City.

DoorDash announced it will begin same-day deliveries of US Food and Drug Administration authorized Covid-19 PCR tests across the US.

In a new release, the online food and product delivery platform says it teamed up with digital health companies Vault Health and Everlywell, giving consumers access to “two COVID-19 home collection kits that received FDA Emergency Use Authorization.”

The delivery company says the Vault?Health Covid-19 test is for people of all ages and:

The Everlywell Covid-19 Test kit is done using a nasal swab.

DoorDash says the testing kits will be available in a dozen DashMart locations across the US including Baltimore, Chicago, and Phoenix,?“with more cities rolling out in the coming months.”

A nurse fills a syringe with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Dobong health care center on February 26 in Seoul, South Korea.

South Korean health authorities investigated ten cases of severe adverse reactions and anaphylaxis reported after receiving Covid-19 vaccines and identified two linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said in a news release on Monday.

A nursing hospital patient in her 40s reported high fever and seizure?after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine and low blood pressure the next day, and a medical worker in her 20s displayed anaphylaxis symptoms seven minutes after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine.?

Both individual’s conditions improved, KDCA added.

Separately, there were two suspected blood clot cases after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccines in South Korea. One of the two died, but the Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Investigation Committee during KDCA briefing on Monday said the correlation between the vaccine and blood clot is “very low.”?An investigation is continuing for the other patient, who is currently in good condition.??

Meanwhile, it is recommended that South Korea continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine, just as the World Health Organization, European Medicines Agency, and UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency have.

Starting on March 23, nursing hospital workers and patients over 65 will receive the AstraZeneca vaccine. According to the Covid-19 Vaccine Administration Committee’s vaccination management system, 76.9% of 375,061 nursing hospital & facility workers and patients over 65 said they will get the vaccine, the KDCA press release added.

In South Korea, a total of 676,607 people have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine so far; 619,100 of those received the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to KDCA press release. A total of 9,703 adverse reactions after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine have been reported as of Monday — 9,592 had common symptoms, 89 had suspected anaphylaxis, six had severe reactions and 16 were deaths.

The committee has so far reviewed 15 of the 16 reported deaths that followed AstraZeneca vaccination and said that it is difficult to recognize the link between 13 deaths and the vaccine; two cases will be reviewed after autopsy.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson wears a face mask during a visit to BAE Systems at Warton Aerodrome on March 22 in Preston, England.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson talked down tension over a possible European Union blockaded of AstraZeneca exports to the UK.

The row between the European Union and the United Kingdom over the AstraZeneca vaccine is again heating up, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen warning that the bloc could stop its exports from the EU.

“We have the option of prohibiting a planned export,” von der Leyen said in an interview with Germany’s Funke Mediengruppe over the weekend.?

“That is the message to AstraZeneca: You first fulfil your contract with Europe before you start delivering to other countries,” she added.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of a possible third wave of the coronavirus hitting the UK.

Speaking during a factory visit in Lancashire, the UK prime minister said, “We are all facing the same pandemic, we all have the same problems, I think one thing is worth stressing, is that on the continent right now you can see sadly there is a third wave underway,”

The UK has reported a total of 4,310,195 coronavirus cases and 126,393 coronavirus-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic,?according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he will be vaccinated against coronavirus in the next 24 hours.

“Vaccination is voluntary. This is a personal decision of each person. By the way, I intend to do it myself tomorrow,” Putin said during a live televised video conference on vaccinations in Russia.

Putin did not specify which vaccine he will be taking. Russia became the first country in the world to register a Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik-V, in August last year. Russia has since approved two other vaccines for emergency use.

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov later said that Putin would be vaccinated with one of the three Russian vaccines, without disclosing which one the president had chosen, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

“This will be one of our three vaccines,” said the Kremlin spokesperson, answering a related question. “They are all good and reliable.”?Peskov said.

Russia has reported a total of 4,466,153 cases and 95,391 coronavirus-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the country’s coronavirus task force.

School buses are parked at a bus depot in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn on November 19, 2020 in New York City.

New York City is set to reopen its public high schools today, welcoming some students back to in-person learning about a year after schools first closed because of Covid-19.

The majority of high school students in the nation’s largest school district will continue remote instruction.

But as many as 55,000 students between grades 9 and 12 who previously opted for in-person learning are expected to return Monday,?officials said earlier this month. That’s about?20% of the district’s high school enrollment,?CNN affiliate WABC?reported.

About half of the city’s high schools will be able to provide in-person learning five days a week to all or most of their students, New York’s?new Education Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter?said in a news conference on March 8 with Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In a message to families Friday, Porter said high schools would follow the same protective measures that have been established for younger students who have returned to the classroom, like weekly random testing of students and staff, physical distancing and masks.

Additionally, with spring break set to begin on March 29, students and staff who travel to a place on the state’s travel advisory list must quarantine for 10 days, according to?the Department of Education, or test out?based on state guidelines.

The mayor said children had experienced increased emotional turmoil in the last year during the pandemic, saying in the news conference earlier this month, “Think about the children we’ve lost to suicide.”

“Think about that child that right now is feeling a little hopeless and lonely, what it’s going to mean for them on Monday, March 22nd, when they walk back through the door of their high school, see their friends, see their teachers, and have hope again,” de Blasio said.

People gather in Miami Beach, Florida as an 8pm curfew goes into effect on March 21.

Some travelers have?landed in popular spring break destinations like Florida, where local officials say the?vacationers have been more than they can handle.

On Saturday, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber?declared a state of emergency and set a curfew,?telling CNN too many people were coming “without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure.”

Saturday night, hundreds of mostly maskless people remained in the streets well after the 8 p.m. ET curfew. With sirens blaring, police opened fire with pepper balls — a chemical irritant similar to paint balls — into the crowd, causing a stampede of people fleeing, video from?CNN affiliate WPLG shows.

Florida has so far reported the highest number of cases of the B.1.1.7 variant — which experts say is?highly contagious and potentially more deadly?— in the country, according to data from the?Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Other experts have voiced the same concern, warning all the returning vacationers could help fuel Covid-19 surges in other parts of the country, especially now that vaccination numbers are still so low.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?currently continues to recommend?that Americans delay travel. And earlier this month, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned that every time travel escalates, a spike in infections tend to follow, citing July 4, Labor Day and the winter holiday season.

“We are very worried about transmissible variants. A lot of them have come through our travel corridors, so we’re being extra cautious right now with travel,” Walensky had told CNN.

CNN’s Melissa Alonso and Theresa Waldrop contributed reporting to this post.

Travelers walk through the Salt Lake City International Airport on March 9.

Spring break air travel just set yet another record of the pandemic, even as health experts warn it’s “crunch time” against the spread of coronavirus and its new variants.?

The Transportation Security Administration says it screened 1,543,115 people at airports nationwide on Sunday, beating a record set only two days prior and surpassing the 1.5 million level for the first time since air travel crashed due to Covid-19. That brings the total number of people who have flown in the last week to 9.8 million. It’s also the eleventh straight day that TSA has screened more than a million people each day.

Numbers continue to trend up. By comparison, Sunday’s new number is 70 percent of the TSA count from the same day in 2019, pre-pandemic. 1.5 million is almost three times greater than the same-day figure in 2020 when air travel was at its most depressed.

Health experts who are closely following travel data have said new figures could inform how the CDC crafts new guidance on travel for those who are fully vaccinated.?

“This is crunch time,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN on Saturday. “This is going to be our most difficult period right now in terms of seeing who wins out.”

Read more on whether the US is headed for another surge:

Travelers wait in line at ticketing at Terminal 4 in Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Ariz., on March 11, 2021. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport

Related article Increased traveling and spring break crowds are making US health experts nervous. Here's why

Commuters wearing face masks cross a street in Tokyo, Japan on March 22.

The state of emergency for Tokyo and its last three surrounding prefectures was lifted as of Sunday, according to Tokyo’s Municipal Government.

With today’s announcement, no more prefectures are under state of emergency.

The state of emergency had been in place for Tokyo and the three surrounding prefectures since January and was extended again in February after Covid-19 cases continued to rise.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had signaled the state of emergency would be lifted in a press conference last week as Tokyo’s Covid-19 daily numbers have been below 500 for 40 straight days.

“The number of hospitalized patients is decreasing and has become under 50%, the standard for lifting, and now is below 40%,” Suga said.

At a general party meeting Sunday, Suga urged people to remain vigilant.?

“We should continue to be careful of variant viruses and prevent ‘rebound’ from taking place,” the prime minister said.

Why this matters: Tokyo’s Olympic Games are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8 and the Paralympics from August 24 to September 5, though organizers recently announced they would not allow foreign spectators to enter and will refund their tickets.

Tokyo reported 256 new Covid-19 cases from Sunday, bringing its total number of cases to 117,517, including 1,636 deaths from the virus.

An Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine vial and syringes are seen at a medical centre in Bridport, England on March 20.

Ruud Dobber, president of AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals business unit, said on Monday that the company plans to apply for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for its Covid-19 vaccine in the first half of April.

“We are thrilled by the results we have disclosed this morning,” Dobber told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell.

AstraZeneca released Phase 3 trial results earlier Monday that showed the vaccine was 79% effective against symptomatic disease and 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization.?The results are based on 32,449 participants in the United, Peru and Chile.

“The plan is to file in the first half of April for the emergency use authorization,” Dobber told Tirell. “Of course, then it’s in the hands of the FDA, how fast they can decide about the approval.”?

Assuming that the authorization takes place quickly, AstraZeneca hopes to deliver 30 million doses for use “instantly after the EUA,” Dobber said.?

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine became the subject of controversy earlier in the month when more than a dozen European countries paused their rollouts due to reports of blood clotting in patients post-inoculation.?

Europe’s medicines regulator, the European Medical Authority (EMA), investigated the concerns and on Thursday declared the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be “safe and effective.” EMA executive director Emer Cooke said the group did not find that the vaccine causes clotting, though it could not definitively rule out a link to a rare blood clotting disorder.

Cooke added that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, a message previously stressed by both the EMA and the?World Health Organization?(WHO) earlier in the week.

Read more on this story here:

People queue to get the AstraZeneca vaccine shots outside La Nuvola (The Cloud) convention center that was temporarily turned into a COVID-19 vaccination hub, in Rome, Friday, March 19, 2021. Italy's pharmaceutical agency has formally lifted its temporary ban on AstraZeneca vaccinations after the European Medicines Agency ruled the shots were safe and effective. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Related article Europe's vaccine rollout needs AstraZeneca -- but public confidence is dented

Thousands participated in an unauthorized street party in Marseille, southern France, on Sunday.

Police in the southern French city of Marseille broke up an illegal street party on Sunday attended by 6,500 unmasked people, according to a spokesman with the Bouches du Rhone police.

Dozens were fined for breaking coronavirus restrictions and nine people were arrested, according to the interior ministry’s spokeswoman.

Many of the partygoers were protesting anti-lockdown measures, saying they are sick of it. Others were seen burning paper figurines in the shape of government ministers.

In an attempt to contain a third wave of Covid-19 sweeping the country, new lockdown restrictions came into effect Saturday for 16 regions in France – Marseille is not one of them.?

The mayor of Marseille took to Twitter Sunday to condemn the event. “Nothing justifies that we undermine our collective efforts to keep the virus at bay,” Benoit Payan tweeted.??

Over the weekend, a similar gathering happened in the US when Miami Beach Police fired pepper balls into crowds of partiers and arrested at least a dozen people late Saturday as the city took extraordinary measures to crack down on spring breakers who officials have said are out of control.

More than 50 people have been arrested and eight firearms confiscated since Friday, according to?a tweet from the Miami Beach Police Department?on Sunday.

A member of the medical staff from the National Health Organisation (EODY) conducts a rapid test for Covid-19 at a mobile testing point in Athens, Greece on March 14.

Greece is ordering?doctors from the private sector to help?the country’s strained public health system handle escalating coronavirus infections.?

The country’s health?minister Vassilis Kikilias announced the decision after an appeal for private practice doctors to step forward was met?with?a weak response.?

?“For weeks, the Health Ministry has sent an invitation – an appeal – to private doctors to strengthen the hospitals … during the third major wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, very few private doctors came,” Kikilias said.

?“Taking into account the emergency conditions … the Health Ministry is ordering the personal services of doctors in the specialties of physicians, pulmonologists and general practitioners,” he said.

Greece is experiencing a surge in cases with hospitals in Athens bearing the brunt and?intensive care wards running out of beds.?

To alleviate pressure on the health system, the?Greek?government?also announced that it will?start distributing free self-testing kits in pharmacies from the first week of April.?Anyone who wishes to be tested will be able to pick up one per week.

Despite a resurgence in cases, a number of outdoor archaeological spaces across Greece, including the Acropolis in Athens, have reopened to visitors. Greece last week announced the lifting of a number of Covid-19 restrictions, as part of a plan to gradually reopen ahead of the tourism season. The move was also to provide some outdoor “decompression” spaces for citizens after acknowledging that strict lockdown measures initially imposed in November are increasingly resulting in covid fatigue.

Hair and beauty salons?reopened Monday and churches will have limited services in the build-up to Orthodox Easter.?

On?Sunday,?Greek health authorities reported?1514?new coronavirus cases and?41?deaths, bringing total cases to 237,125?with 7,462?deaths.?

Empty vaccine vials are seen in Ede, Netherlands where the vaccination campaign with the AstraZeneca vaccine resumes.

The row between the European Union and the United Kingdom over the AstraZeneca vaccine is again heating up, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen warning that the bloc could stop its exports from the EU.

“We have the option of prohibiting a planned export,” von der Leyen said in an interview with Germany’s Funke Mediengruppe over the weekend.

For background:?The latest comments come after the pharmaceutical giant announced another shortfall in expected vaccine deliveries to the EU last week. Von der Leyen slammed AstraZeneca for alleged under-production and under-delivery, blaming them in part for the slow vaccine rollout in Europe.

Asked on Sunday about the risk of the EU blocking vaccine exports to the UK, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace warned the European Commission that the “world is watching what happens.”

?“The European Union will know that the rest of the world is looking at the Commission about how it conducts itself on this and if, if, if contracts get broken and undertaken, you know that that is a very damaging thing to happen for a trading bloc that prides itself on the rule of law, prides itself on following you know contracts being an open trading bloc,” Wallace told Sky News.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference after discussions with the heads of federal governments on the vaccination strategy at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin on March 19.

German chancellor Angela Merkel will once again meet the federal state prime ministers Monday to discuss further tough restrictions in the country.

With cases rising again, Merkel and the state premiers are due to discuss an extension to the current lockdown that would last until the middle of April. The talks could also see the introduction of a night curfew in areas with a high seven-day incidence rate.?

Foreign trips, for example to the popular Spanish holiday island of Mallorca, will also come under scrutiny.?

Merkel is due to meet the premiers at 2 p.m. (9 a.m. ET) and will hold a press conference to announce details later Monday.

Some context: The German agency for disease control and prevention Monday reported 7,709 new cases, bringing the total to 2,667,225.?

A total of 74,714 people have died from the disease in Germany, including 50 new recorded cases, the Robert Koch Institute reported.

The seven day incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants lies at 107.3.

So far, 10,479,936 vaccinations have been administered in the country, which are a combination of first and second doses.?

A vaccinator administers the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine at a medical center in Bridport, England, on March 20.

AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine showed 79% efficacy against symptomatic disease and 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization in a new, US-based clinical trial, the company said Monday.

The findings from the new Phase 3 trial, which included tens of thousands of participants, may boost confidence in the vaccine, which was originally developed by the University of Oxford.

The data will be sent to US regulators, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as part of an application for emergency authorization of the vaccine in the country, AstraZeneca said.

The trial showed the vaccine was well-tolerated and identified no safety concerns, the company said.

The new data came from a Phase 3 clinical trial conducted?in the United States, Chile and Peru. AstraZeneca says it plans to submit the findings to a scientific journal for peer review.

Oxford University said the findings?add “to previous trial data from the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa, as well as real-world impact data from the United Kingdom,” according to a news release.

As part of the trial, more than 32,000 volunteers recruited across all ages received either two doses of the vaccine or a placebo vaccine at a four-week interval.

Recent controversy: The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine became the subject of controversy earlier in the month when a number of European countries including Norway, France and Denmark decided to temporarily suspend its rollout due to reports of blood clotting in patients post inoculation.?

An emergency investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) came to the conclusion last Thursday that the vaccine is “safe and effective” in preventing coronavirus and “not associated with an increase in the overall risk of thromboembolic events, or blood clots.”?

What the data means: Co-designer of the vaccine and professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, Sarah Gilbert, hailed the data for providing?“further confirmation of the safety and effectiveness” of the vaccine.?

Lead investigator for the vaccine and professor of pediatric infection and immunity at Oxford University, Andrew Pollard, said the AstraZeneca data was “consistent with the results from Oxford-led trials,” adding that he expected a “strong impact against COVID-19 across all ages and for people of all different backgrounds from widespread use of the vaccine.”

A health worker takes a nasal swab sample to test for Covid-19 at a market place in Mumbai, India, on March 18.

India reported 46,951 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the highest single-day rise since November 12 and the sixth consecutive daily increase in infections, according to a CNN tally of figures from the country’s Health Ministry.?

The country has recorded a total of 11,646,081 cases, including 159,967 fatalities, since the beginning of the pandemic.?

The jump in infections comes almost a year since India’s first nationwide lockdown.

On March 22 last year, India announced a “janta curfew” or people’s curfew for 14 hours, forcing the country’s 1.3 billion-strong population indoors.?

A nationwide lockdown followed on March 24 and lasted for nearly three months.?

The current jump in cases: According to the Indian Ministry of Health on Sunday, five states including Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh accounted for 77% of the cases reported over the previous 24 hours.?

Maharashtra on Friday restricted the number of people that can enter theaters and auditoriums to 50%, in addition to a previously imposed cap of 50% on office staff until March 31.?Several districts in the state have also imposed full or partial lockdowns.?

The state’s capital, Mumbai, will also be conducting rapid antigen tests at random in crowded places such as malls, railway stations, bus depots and markets among other places.?

In the state of Punjab, night curfews are in place. In Gujarat state, schools and colleges are shut in eight metropolitan cities and a night curfew has been imposed in Ahmedabad city.?

India has distributed 45,065,998 vaccine doses since January 16, according to the Health Ministry on Monday.

Turkey has surpassed 3 million Covid-19 cases and 30,000 deaths, according to the country’s Health Ministry.?

On Sunday, the ministry announced the nation has seen a total of 3,013,122 cases and 30,061 related deaths since the first infection was reported there on March 11 last year.

Of those, 20,428 infections and 102 fatalities were registered in the past 24 hours, according to the ministry.

Some 1,568 people are in critical condition, the ministry said. ICU occupancy is at 66.2%

Turkey is facing a resurgence in new infections following the easing of its Covid-19 restrictions at the start of the month with the partial reopening of schools and the reopening of restaurants to the public until 7 p.m.

According to government data, more than 13 million doses of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine have so far been administered in Turkey, with frontline health workers and people over 65 years old being prioritized in the rollout.

Medical staff members transport a patient on a stretcher at the Pedro DellAntonia Sports Complex field hospital in Santo Andre, Brazil, on March 11.

Brazil reported Sunday that intensive care units in 25 out of 27 states are at least 80% full.

Of those, 14 have an ICU occupancy of over 90%, meaning they are overwhelmed or on the verge of collapse.

Two states in the south, Rio Grande do Sul and Mato Grosso do Sul, have reached capacity of over 100%.?

No states have ICU occupancy rates below 70%, and only two have occupancy below 80% – Amazonas with 77.6% and Roraima with 72%.

Over the past week, Brazil’s Health Ministry has reported two of the highest numbers of new cases in a 24-hour period since January,?topping well over 90,000 new daily cases on those two occasions.

COVAX doses arrive: The first batch of Covid-19 vaccines sent through the COVAX program?arrived in Brazil on Sunday, the country’s communication minister Fabio Faria announced on Twitter.

The contract signed between the federal government and the World Health Organization estimates that 42.5 million doses will be delivered by the end of the year. So far, it’s established that the first 9.1 million doses will be the AstraZeneca vaccine, shipped through the end of May.

Read more about Brazil’s situation:

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazils president, speaks during a bill signing ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Wednesday, March 10, 2021. Bolsonaro said Brazil will have more than 400m doses of vaccines available by the end of this year. Photographer: Andressa Anholete/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Related article Brazilian town says drug shortages could force Covid-19 patients off ventilators

People leave the area as an 8pm curfew goes into effect in Miami Beach, Florida, on March 21.

Miami Beach Police fired pepper balls into crowds of partiers and arrested at least a dozen people late Saturday as the city took extraordinary measures to crack down on spring breakers who officials have said are out of control.

The aggressive enforcement actions came just hours after Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber declared a state of emergency and set an 8 p.m. curfew, saying the crowds that have descended on the city recently are “more than we can handle.”

Saturday night, hundreds of mostly maskless people remained in the streets well after the 8 p.m. curfew. With sirens blaring, police opened fire with pepper balls – a chemical irritant similar to paint balls – into the crowd, causing a stampede of people fleeing, video from?CNN affiliate WPLG shows.

Police in Miami Beach said early Sunday they arrested at least a dozen people following the start of the curfew.

More than 50 people have been arrested and eight firearms confiscated since Friday, according to?a tweet from the Miami Beach Police Department?on Sunday.

Read more:

Related article Miami Beach officers shoot pepper balls into spring break crowds to enforce emergency curfew