November 27 coronavirus news

After a spike in complaints about airline refunds when the Covid-19 pandemic first struck, the US Department of Transportation unveiled on Friday a rule that will impact how travelers claim mistreatment.     

The rule formally defines the words “unfair” and “deceptive” – two legal terms governing how airlines and ticket agents may interact with customers. It also says passengers need not prove an airline’s intent when claiming a violation. The Transportation Department said the rule formalizes the way it has interpreted those words in the past.  

The rule matters because it now gives travelers specific language to cite in their claims.  

Airlines had asked for the rule and said a formal definition would provide regulatory certainty. Southwest said the rule would benefit the economy. Spirit Airlines said with the lack of a rule, “the Department can levy punitive fines on carriers for practices allegedly violating ill-defined regulations.” However, the carriers did ask for changes the Transportation Department did not incorporate. Spirit, for example, asked for regulators to change a word to make the rule less subjective.  

But the department also noted consumer advocacy groups, several lawmakers, and two members of the Federal Trade Commission argued the definitions “were either unnecessary or weakened consumer protection.” The FTC shares jurisdiction over travel agents with the Transportation Department.  

The rule change got underway in February 2019, more than a year before formal claims against airlines spiked as the pandemic spread and flights were canceled. Customers said the airlines resisted refund requests and only provided vouchers for a later flight or avoided providing compensation by changes to the fine print. 

There have been at least 13,047,202 cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 264,624 people have died from Covid-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

Johns Hopkins recorded the first case of coronavirus in the US on Jan. 21.  

Eleven other countries in the world have reported over 1 million total Covid-19 cases. They are:

Advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called an emergency meeting Tuesday so they can vote on recommendations for the first people to get a coronavirus vaccine once one gets emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration, the committee’s chair told CNN Friday.

“We foresee imminent authorization if this vaccine is shown to be effective and safe in the near future and we want to be at the point where we are providing appropriate guidance to the states and jurisdictions for the use of these vaccines,” said Romero, who is Secretary for Health for the Arkansas Department of Health.

“This is not something that is being rushed. We have already discussed the groups within the first tier. We are simply going over the data once again and having a vote primarily on the first tier group 1a – health care providers and the people in the long-term, congregate facilities.” 

ACIP met on Monday to discuss the priority groups for receiving any vaccine that may get emergency use authorization from the FDA. The CDC has already recommended that the first group – designated as 1a – should be frontline health providers and support personnel, as well as residents of long-term care facilities who have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

“It is important because these are the individuals that are really at the front line providing the care,” Romero said.

Vaccine maker Pfizer has submitted to the FDA for emergency use authorization, or EUA, for its vaccine and biotech company Moderna is expected to do so, also. The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its own vaccine advisers for Dec. 10.

Romero said it was important for ACIP to hold a public meeting and a public vote.

The NFL announced on Friday that it will move the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers to Tuesday out of an “abundance of caution to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and game day personnel.”

The game was originally scheduled to be played on Thanksgiving Day, but was then moved to Sunday after several Ravens players tested positive for coronavirus in consecutive days. Now the league is moving the game for a second time.

Baltimore has sent 12 players to the Reserve/Covid-19 list this week, including MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson. The Ravens currently have 14 players on the list overall, according to the Ravens’ website.  

The NFL describes the Reserve/Covid-19 list as being for players who either test positive for Covid-19 or who have been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or persons. 

The Ravens were set to host the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday but the NFL also announced that game has now been moved to Dec. 7.

At least 12,993,261 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the US and at least 264,241 people have died from virus, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases.

So far today, Johns Hopkins has reported 109,997 new cases and 787 deaths.

Friday marked the 25th consecutive day the US reported more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases.

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

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will vote Tuesday on the very first people to get a coronavirus vaccine once one gets emergency authorization.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices has scheduled an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss allocation of Covid-19 vaccines, according to a document obtained by CNN.

Members of the committee will discuss who should be in the first group, and clinical considerations for the group. Draft recommendations have suggested that health care workers should be in the 1a vaccine allocation group. Other possible members of the group: people most likely to catch, spread and develop severe disease from the virus such as nursing home residents.

The advisers will also discuss how to monitor safety after allocation of the vaccine, according to the document.

A surge in Thanksgiving demand is taxing Delta’s smaller pandemic-era workforce.  

The issue led Delta to cancel hundreds of flights this week, according to the pilot union and the airline.  

Delta ultimately canceled nearly one in every five flights it was scheduled to operate on Thanksgiving Day, and has dropped in total more than 500 flights this week. The airline said it expects its system to return to normal over the weekend.  

The union representing pilots said staffing reductions due to the coronavirus pandemic and drop-off in travel “have left a smaller pool of pilots qualified and ready to fly in the fleets that are seeing an increased demand over this holiday.”  

Delta said Wednesday that a “number of factors have pressured our ability to timely staff some of our scheduled holiday flights” but did not specify the issues.  

After distributing the November employee schedules last month, Delta added flights to its schedule and asked for volunteers to cover those flights, according to a source familiar with the situation. But when there were not enough employees to cover those legs, the airline was forced to cancel some of those.  

The airline declined to comment on that explanation. The Delta Master Executive Council at the Air Line Pilots Association said its pilots have stepped up to take on extra flights over the holiday period and receive the incentive of premium pay for picking up extra legs.  

But when demand surged this week, the heavy cuts to the aviation system due to the coronavirus began to show.  

Airline passenger traffic is currently only about 40% of what it was last year, according to data from the Transportation Security Administration, and US airlines are running 43% fewer flights.  

Delta and other US airlines responded to the drop in demand by cutting from employee ranks. Work schedules were reduced, 1,800 pilots retired early, and others were placed on inactive status or are in line for training because the model of planes they flew were retired.  

Employee unions and executives at the major US airlines have called for a multi-billion extension of a payroll support program that kept their employees on the job through September. Legislation to do that includes other stimulus and has stalled in Washington.  

The airlines have seen a relative surge in bookings this week as distanced families reunite for Thanksgiving dinner and college students are booted from university housing. More than one million people have crossed through TSA checkpoints only four times since the spring – and three of those days were in the last week.  

Travelers are also booking closer to their departure dates, airlines have said, giving the companies less visibility when arranging schedules more than a month in advance.  

The union, in a statement, said the scheduling issue cannot be attributed to crews calling out sick because of the coronavirus.   

California reported 54 deaths on Friday, pushing the state past a sober benchmark for Covid-related fatalities, which is now a total of 19,033.

California is only the third state to reach this milestone, after New York and Texas. 

The state also added 12,635 Covid-19 cases Friday, bringing the total to 1,171,324. This is down about 2,000 from Thursday's 14,640 cases.

The positivity rate of Covid-19 in California remains at 6.1%, a 1.9% increase from 14 days ago.

According to the state's dashboard, 191 more people were also hospitalized, a 2.6% increase from the previous day. This continues an upward trend since the beginning of November. There are now 1,904 beds remaining in intensive care units across the state, down 23 from yesterday.

The state's case data reporting may be incomplete due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

While modeling studies have suggested that around 60 to 70% of the population would need to be immune to Covid-19 in order to achieve herd immunity, targeted vaccination may be needed to defeat the virus, said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program.

Ryan said it may take “some very clever vaccination strategies” that target people in society who are more likely to carry, transmit and spread the virus.

Herd immunity is built around the idea that disease spreads evenly through a community and that everyone’s absolute risk of being infected is about the same, Ryan explained during a news briefing in Geneva on Friday.

But the virus does not spread evenly. 

If there are lots of protected people surrounding those who are unprotected then “effectively, there’s a barrier. There’s a firewall around some who are not vaccinated, a firewall of vaccinated people, and therefore you can achieve control and eradication, sometimes, without vaccinating everyone,” he said.

While an overall number may be important in terms of policy, Ryan said it will be important to be strategic about which groups are targeted for vaccination.

“It may be much more important to target certain sections of the community than it will be to necessarily target some others who may not be participating in transmission as much,” he said.

And the vaccine may not be a miraculous solution to the pandemic, he cautioned. “I don’t think anyone can promise eradication of this virus until we understand much more about the vaccine, and much more about how the vaccines work in the real world and until we understand much more about the details of transmission of this virus.”

Katherine O’Brien, director of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO, added to Ryan’s point with the example of measles. Last year was a terrible year for measles outbreaks globally, she said.

“Many of those outbreaks were happening in countries that had very high measles vaccine coverage,” she said. “But it wasn’t about the whole country’s coverage that was important, it was about the sub communities, the sub national coverage.”