January 4 coronavirus news

With intensive care units at Southern California hospitals nearly full because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) has directed ambulance crews not to transport patients with little chance of survival to hospitals, and to conserve the use of oxygen.

Los Angeles and Southern California are dealing with one of the country's worst outbreaks of the novel coronavirus. ICU bed capacity plunged to 0% in Southern California last month, as more and more people were admitted to hospital seeking treatment for Covid-19. 

Now, many medical facilities simply do not have the space to take in patients who do not have a chance of survival, according to the agency.   

As of Monday evening, there were 7,544 people hospitalized in Los Angeles due to Covid-19 and just 17 available adult ICU beds, according to county health data. Due to the shortage of beds, the county EMS said patients whose hearts have stopped, despite efforts of resuscitation, should no longer be transported to hospitals.

If there are no signs of breathing or a pulse, EMS will continue to perform resuscitation for at least 20 minutes, the EMS memo said. If the patient is stabilized after the period of resuscitation, the patient would then be transported to a hospital. If the patient is declared dead at the scene or if no pulse can be restored, paramedics will no longer transport the body to the hospital.

Oxygen shortage: A shortage of oxygen in Los Angeles and the nearby San Joaquin Valley, thanks to Covid-19, is putting immense pressure on the system and forcing paramedics to conserve the supply.

In order to maintain normal circulation of the blood to organs and tissue needed for the body to function, EMS said an oxygen saturation of at least 90% will be sufficient. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom formed a task force to address the issue last week. It is working with local and state partners to help refill oxygen tanks and mobilize them to hospitals and facilities most in need.

More than 500,000 people in the US state of Michigan have contracted Covid-19, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Monday.

Despite the rise in cases, Whitmer said the fact that vaccine distribution has begun means there is "hope on the horizon."

However, Whitmer cautioned that "it will take some time for the vaccine to be widely available to all Michiganders, and until then, we must continue to do our part to keep ourselves and our fellow Michiganders safe."

Track US cases here:

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Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

The United States should be sequencing 10% of its confirmed Covid-19 cases to monitor for mutations, experts told CNN Monday -- yet current figures put the country at less than half a percent.

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security and an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, said that the US sequences a "dismal" 0.3% of detected cases.

US labs have submitted only about 57,700 sequences of the coronavirus to the genomic database GISAID. In comparison, the UK has submitted more than 146,000, despite having far fewer confirmed cases. Rasmussen said a lack of public funding for surveillance was a "big problem," because it's important that officials continually sequence detected cases in order to monitor for mutations to the virus that render vaccines less effective.

The UK sequences about 10% of its detected cases. Rasmussen said in an email that the US "should shoot for at least half of what the UK does, but ideally we should be at 10% or better,” Rasmussen said via email.

Variants detected in Britain and in South Africa both have patterns of mutation that trouble scientists and appear to make the virus more easily transmitted. Only a handful of these variants have been reported in the US so far although experts believe the mutation first found in Britain is likely fairly widespread.

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, also said the US should aim to sequence 10% of its confirmed cases.

Over the next two weeks, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to double the number of samples it genetically sequences to 6,500 per week, according to an agency official, who also noted that the UK has a more centralized system for genetic sequencing while the US relies on a patchwork of federal, state, academic and private labs. 

Anyone who receives the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine must get both doses, two top US Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday. 

They said people who are speculating about the possibility of making do with just one dose are misinterpreting the data.

“We have been following the discussions and news reports about reducing the number of doses, extending the length of time between doses, changing the dose (half-dose), or mixing and matching vaccines in order to immunize more people against COVID-19,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Peter Marks, who heads FDA’s vaccine division, said in a statement.

“The available data continue to support the use of two specified doses of each authorized vaccine at specified intervals. For the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the interval is 21 days between the first and second dose. And for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the interval is 28 days between the first and second dose.”

British officials have said they will allow more than 21 days between doses of Pfizer’s vaccines and would consider allowing people to get vaccinated with two different vaccines. Hahn and Marks dismissed these ideas for the US, saying while there is speculation that a single dose offers protection, there is not enough hard evidence to show it will.

“What we have seen is that the data in the firms’ submissions regarding the first dose is commonly being misinterpreted. In the phase 3 trials, 98% of participants in the Pfizer-BioNTech trial and 92% of participants in the Moderna trial received two doses of the vaccine at either a three- or four-week interval, respectively,” they wrote.

“Those participants who did not receive two vaccine doses at either a three-or four-week interval were generally only followed for a short period of time, such that we cannot conclude anything definitive about the depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine from the single dose percentages reported by the companies.”

It’s understandable that people may want to stretch the vaccine supply, they said. But it’s not advisable.

A feared holiday surge of coronavirus infections has begun in Los Angeles County, where about one in five residents getting tested for Covid-19 are now testing positive, officials in the hard-hit region announced Monday, calling the situation a “human disaster” and predicting the death toll could soar to more than 1,000 people per week.

L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Covid-19 hospitalizations in the county have reached an all-time high with 7,697 patients, 21% of whom are in intensive care, a figure she called “distressing.”

“The anticipated surge from the winter holiday gatherings has begun,” said Ferrer. “The increases in cases are likely to continue for weeks to come as a result of holiday and New Year’s Eve parties and returning travelers.”

County health officials reported 77 new deaths on Monday, raising the total number in the county to 10,850, and an additional 9,142 cases. Ferrer pointed out Monday’s lower than average numbers reflect a lag in reporting from the holiday weekend and the closure of some testing sites.

According to Ferrer, one person is now dying from the virus every 15 minutes in L.A. County. 

According to the L.A. County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office, with hospitals and mortuaries full of bodies, the county coroner’s office has been storing additional victims, a growing toll that has risen to 757 bodies, a coroner’s spokesperson told CNN.

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis called the situation in the county, which has doubled its total number of Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic in the last month alone, “a human disaster.” 

With infections continuing to surge out of control in the nation’s most populous county, Solis warned the situation, which is already “beyond our imagination, could become beyond comprehension.”

This post has been updated to reflect that one in five LA residents who were tested for the virus tested positive.

The United States reported 128,210 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Monday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

This is the 34th consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.

According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers were recorded on these days:

Johnson & Johnson tells CNN its Janssen Covid-19 vaccine trial is still on track and the company should have enough data “toward the end of January” to determine if the vaccine is safe and if it provides protection against the novel coronavirus, according to company spokesperson Lisa Cannellos.

The vaccine trial was fully enrolled Dec. 17. With the high number of infections in the US, the company determined it could enroll 45,000 volunteers and generate enough data.

If the trial shows the vaccine is safe and effective, the company has said it expects to submit an emergency use authorization application to the US Food and Drug Administration in February.

Unlike Moderna and Pfizer, the Janssen vaccine is a single dose shot. The vaccine uses a certain subtype of the adenovirus (a virus that causes cold symptoms) that is altered to carry the proteins for the novel coronavirus. Both viruses have been deactivated but exposure causes the immune system to create protective antibodies.

The United Kingdom recorded a record 58,784 new coronavirus cases on Monday — the highest daily increase since the beginning of the pandemic and the seventh day in a row in which the UK has recorded more than 50,000 new cases. 

According to the latest government data, the total number of cases recorded across the UK since the pandemic began now stands at 2,713,563.

A further 407 deaths have also been registered over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of people who have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test in the UK to at least 75,431.

The staggering figures come as England enters a third national lockdown, which is expected to last until mid-February, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

In a statement, Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, urged citizens to adhere to government guidance in order to stem the spread of the virus. 

“The continuous rise in cases and deaths should be a bitter warning for us all,” Doyle said Monday.

“We must not forget the basics — the lives of our friends and family depend on it. Keep your distance from others, wash your hands and wear a mask. This virus will transmit wherever you let your guard down,” she added. 

A group of 30 French citizens will be selected at random to represent the concerns of members of the public and advise the country’s government on its vaccination strategy, the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council said.  

“A group of 30 citizens, selected at random, whose composition is intended to be as representative as possible of French society, will be formed,” the council said, adding that the group’s purpose will be to “take into account the concerns, observations and interrogations of citizens” across the country.  

“Its members will be invited to raise issues relating to vaccination, whether they are about scientific, health, technical or financial matters. Fears, resistance or questions surrounding the ethics of the national vaccination campaign may also be expressed,” the council added. 

In an interview with French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, the council said that the draw would be held on Monday, with the group expected to begin working on Jan. 16.

A broader digital consultation platform will also be set up, the council said on its website, “in order to collect on a large scale the expression of citizens on their concerns, their expectations or their information needs regarding the vaccination campaign."