January 4 coronavirus news

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown for England Monday night on the heels of a warning from top medical advisers that the country’s National Health Service was in danger of being overwhelmed by coronavirus cases within 21 days.

The lockdown is expected to remain in place at least through the middle of February.

Coronavirus cases are surging in the country due to the new variant, with 30% more Covid-19 patients in hospitals in England on Monday than a week earlier.

The announcement for England follows an announcement earlier Monday that Scotland would go into lockdown. Wales and Northern Ireland, the other two nations of the United Kingdom, were already in lockdown.

In New York City, 130 school buildings are currently closed due to cases of Covid-19. 

One hundred of those buildings are under a two-week closure, and an additional 30 buildings are under a 24-hour closure, according to New York City's Department of Education (DOE).

There are currently 169 active Covid-19 cases, according to the DOE's tracking website. Thirty-two cases are students and 137 are among staff members. That brings the total to 7,176 cases among NYC students and staff since the DOE started keeping track in mid-September.

This latest update comes on the heels of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issuing guidance for counties that are testing at more than a 9% positivity rate to keep schools open if individual district's numbers are lower than those of the county. New York City is currently at a 9% positivity rate, according to Monday's data.

Schools in NYC have been open for some in-person learning for elementary school students since December. In-person learning is expected to be offered for middle school and high schoolers in early 2021, but no date is currently set.

Fewer than 30% of the 15.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses distributed in the US have been administered, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The figures, last updated Monday, show a slight slowdown in the rate of vaccine administration. As of Saturday morning, the rate was closer to 33% administered. 

Only four states have administered at least half of the Covid-19 vaccine doses that have been distributed to them, according to the CDC data. Those states are: South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, in 12 states, fewer than a quarter of the doses distributed have been administered.

The CDC tracks vaccine distribution and administration – for both Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – through submissions from states and other jurisdictions. Health care providers may report doses up to 72 hours after administration.

Scientists in Britain said Monday they are increasingly concerned that that the pattern of mutations in a variant of the novel coronavirus first identified in South Africa may affect the protection offered by some vaccines.

While that variant shares the same N501Y mutation as another variant first identified in the United Kingdom, it also has two other mutations called E484K and K417N. They affect the spike protein – the part of the virus that attaches to the cells it infects.

Most of the coronavirus vaccines are also designed to train the body to recognize the spike protein, or parts of it, and the fears are that if it mutates too much, vaccines will no longer be as effective.

"These two additional mutations may interfere more with vaccine effectiveness in the South African variant," Dr. Julian Tang, honorary associate professor and virologist at the University of Leicester, said in a statement distributed by the UK-based Science Media Center on Monday. 

Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, said in a separate statement on Monday that "the accumulation of more spike mutations in the South African variant are more of a concern and could lead to some escape from immune protection."

Meanwhile, scientists are working to better understand the new variant, its mutations and their significance. "Some of the changes are quite significant and thus scientists are paying a lot of attention. We do not yet know enough to say more than this," James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, said in a statement on Monday. 

Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead for coronavirus response, told CNN Sunday that scientists are doing tests to assess the vaccine's efficacy against the variant first found in South Africa, which has 22 mutations.

Rep. Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas, has tested positive for coronavirus, her office announced in a statement Monday.

Read the statement: 

Read more on the members of Congress who have tested positive for coronavirus or its antibodies here.

Just over 15.4 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been distributed in the US, but only 4.5 million people have been given their first doses as of 9 a.m. on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

That’s just 337,000 more doses than were given out as of Saturday, according to the CDC.

US federal health officials have been trying to explain why so few vaccines have been given out, after repeated promises to have vaccinated 20 million people by the end of December. Earlier Monday, Operation Warp Speed chief scientific adviser Moncef Slaoui said “nothing has gone wrong,” even as he acknowledged delays. 

“We worked with the states to immunize. We agree that there is a lag. We’ll work with the states,” Slaoui told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” Officials have also revised their forecasts to say 20 million doses would be distributed by the end of 2020, but Monday’s numbers show the US is still nearly 5 million doses short of the distribution goal.

The CDC said 2.5 million doses have been distributed to long term care facilities and 365,294 people have been given vaccines in those facilities. The CDC said the reported numbers can take 72 hours to come in.

UK Chief Medical Officers and the NHS England Medical Director have recommended that the national coronavirus alert level be moved from Level 4 to Level 5 in response to rising cases and growing pressure on the country’s National Health Service (NHS). 

“Following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre and in the light of the most recent data, the four UK Chief Medical Officers and NHS England Medical Director recommend that the UK Alert Level should move from Level 4 to Level 5,” UK Chief Medical Officers said in a statement on Monday. 

According to the statement, the spread of the “new more transmissible variant” has led to rising cases “almost everywhere” in the UK.

“We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days,” UK Chief Medical Officers said. 

The statement comes just hours ahead of a national address from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is expected to outline new measures the government will be taking to tackle the spread of the virus. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he wants to look at the data from vaccine clinical trials before giving an opinion whether it’s a good idea to give half-doses of the Moderna vaccine, he told CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen Monday.

Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said the FDA will meet this week to consider giving half-doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to people ages 18-55.

Slaoui told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta that earlier data showed that binding and neutralizing antibody responses were similar among participants under 55 who received either 100-microgram or 50-microgram doses.

While an FDA briefing document last month also references these “comparable” immune responses from Moderna’s Phase 2 study, the full data have not yet been published.

“He’s saying that the half dose for younger people is as good as the full dose, but I want to check that out myself before I start talking about it,” Fauci said. “I totally trust [Slaoui]. But I want to look at the data myself.”

A nurse in California is one of the first to receive the second dose of the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine Monday morning. 

Helen Cordova, an intensive care unit nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, was visibly exuberant under her mask as she sat in the patient’s chair. 

She said the second dose and getting closer to immunity is comforting.

Cordova said it is “mind-blowing” and “monumental” to receive the vaccination. She was reluctant to call herself a hero.

“I’m a nurse, a daughter, aunt, friend. Hero — it carries a big weight in my eyes,” she said but eschews the label. “This is what we went into the healthcare industry for,” she said humbly. She is thankful for the opportunity to be among the first to receive the vaccine. Cordova was with a group of nurses to receive the first group of Covid-19 patients, “so it was more of a coming full circle.”

Some more context: Last month, Cordova spoke to CNN’s Briana Keilar after she received the first dose and said she was hesitant about the vaccine but changed her mind after engaging credible sources. “I sought out information, I spoke to fellow co-workers, physicians, anyone that was an expert in the field within my access and tried to really get more information on the vaccine to make that decision,” she said.