The U.S. on Friday administered the most vaccines in a day so far, with nearly 2.4 million shots given, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data Saturday.
The news comes as the U.S. authorized a third COVID-19 vaccine Saturday evening. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted unanimously Friday to recommend authorizing Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate for use in adults, paving the way for an emergency-use authorization.
Meanwhile, the House approved President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package early Saturday, a key step for a measure that would provide millions of Americans $1,400 stimulus payments, ramp up vaccine distribution and extend unemployment aid through the summer. The measure now heads to the Senate where it faces a rocky path in the evenly divided chamber.
Also in the news:
â–ºThe federal government has agreed to buy a 100,000 doses of a COVID-19 treatment by Eli Lilly, the company announced Friday. The drug, bamlanivimab, is a monoclonal antibody, meaning it mimics one of the natural antibodies the immune system uses to fight off the virus. The FDA authorized the drug late last year.
►The federal government has supported 441 community vaccination centers in the U.S., including 171 that have been staffed with federal personnel, said Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response. Two new federal vaccination sites were also announced Friday, in Chicago and Greensboro, North Carolina.
â–ºThe Ivory Coast has become the second country to receive a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from the global COVAX initiative. The first shipment was sent to Ghana on Wednesday.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has more than 28.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 511,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 113.6 million cases and 2.5 million deaths. More than 96.4 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S. and about 72.8 million have been administered, according to the CDC.
📘Â What we’re reading:Â They met on Bumble. She claims he abused her and killed her dogs. Now she’s speaking out to help other domestic violence survivors who feel isolated amid COVID-19.
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Plunging demand for COVID-19 tests may leave US exposed
After a year of struggling to boost testing, communities across the country are seeing plummeting demand, shuttering testing sites or even trying to return supplies.
U.S. testing hit a peak on Jan. 15, when the country was averaging more than 2 million tests per day. Since then, the average number of daily tests has fallen more than 28%. The drop mirrors declines across all major virus measures since January, including new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Officials say those encouraging trends, together with harsh winter weather, the end of the holiday travel season, pandemic fatigue and a growing focus on vaccinations are sapping interest in testing. But testing remains important for tracking and containing the outbreak.
“We need to use testing to continue the downward trend,” said Dr. Jonathan Quick of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has been advising Biden officials. “We need to have it there to catch surges from the variants.”
– The Associated Press
Studies: People who’ve had COVID-19 might only need to get vaccinated once
Six recent studies suggest that people who’ve already come down with COVID-19 might not need to get a second vaccine dose.
The federal government has not changed its recommendation for a second dose, but studies that look at the immune response show that while a first shot gives people who’ve recovered from COVID-19 a huge boost, the second shot makes little difference.
“I think that makes perfect sense,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For someone who had COVID-19, the first shot is like a COVID-19-naive person getting a booster – they even have the side effects of someone getting a second vaccine dose, he said. Read more.
– Karen Weintraub
Allegations of vaccine waste, theft investigated in Tennessee
More investigative findings from the state of Tennessee revealed Friday that COVID-19 vaccine might have been stolen in Shelby County, children are believed to have been inappropriately vaccinated and more doses of COVID-19 were wasted than was previously thought.Â
The state learned of the child vaccinations and the alleged theft weeks after the incidents occurred, State Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said in a wide-ranging press conference Friday afternoon in which she detailed to reporters numerous instances of poor vaccine management and called the Shelby County Health Department a “low-accountability organization.”
Piercey also described Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and county health officials as slow to report the problems to authorities and lacking candor in conversations with state officials.Â
The revelations were the latest in a string of vaccine management issues in Shelby County which have been made public this past week.
– Corinne S. Kennedy and Samuel Hardiman, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Cases in nursing homes drop 89%
New federal data offers a glimmer of hope in what has been the darkest and deadliest corner of the pandemic. The number of COVID-19 cases and deaths at America’s nursing homes have dropped significantly since December as millions of vaccine doses have been shot into the arms of residents and staff.
The weekly rate of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes plummeted 89% from early December through the second week of February. By comparison, the nationwide case rate dropped 58% and remains higher than figures reported before late October.
The dramatic drop in cases at nursing homes, where nearly 130,000 residents and staff have died since the virus emerged in the U.S., raises optimism for brighter days ahead at nursing homes and in communities overall as more Americans get vaccinated, experts say.
– Ken Alltucker and Jayme Fraser
CDC director warns about ‘concerning’ case increase
After a several week decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned Friday about a “concerning” uptick in cases over the most recent days.
The most recent seven day average of daily new cases was over 66,000 and higher than the average on Wednesday, Walensky said citing CDC data.
The peak in early January was the highest seen in the pandemic, and though current averages are lower, they’re still high, Walensky said. “Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions,” she said, pointing to the spread of new variants of the coronavirus.
“We may now be seeing the beginning effects of these variants in the most recent data,” she added.
– Ryan Miller
NYC schools chancellor, who lost 11 family members to COVID-19, resigns
Richard Carranza, New York City’s Schools chancellor, said Friday he was stepping down from his role, citing the need for time to grieve his 11 family members and close friends who died from COVID-19.
“I feel that I can take that time now because of the place that we are in and the work that we have done together,” he said.
The city’s schools have largely been heralded for its reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Carranza said the system reopened safely for children of essential workers, distributed over half a million electronic devices for remote learning, and delivered 80 millions meals to its students.
“We have stabilized the system in a way no one thought possible,” he added. “The light, my fellow New Yorkers, is truly at the end of the tunnel.”
Carranza will be succeeded by Bronx Executive Superintendent Meisha Ross Porter, who will become the first Black woman to lead the nation’s largest school district.
– Ryan Miller
