January 18 coronavirus news

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that the Covid-19 variant first identified in the UK is the biggest challenge facing New York City and called for a ban on travel from Britain.

Health experts say the new variant, also known as B.1.1.7, is likely more contagious but not more deadly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week the spread of B.1.1.7 could accelerate the spread of the virus in the United States.

Mayor de Blasio said he’s against lifting coronavirus-related restrictions on travel into the US. In fact, he said he’s in favor of shutting down travel from the UK to the US.

“We just can't take the chance.”

 A lot of vaccines that’s been held up in California while health officials check it out accounts for more than 330,000 doses allocated to 287 providers, a state health official said Monday.

Health officials in California are telling medical providers across the state not to administer doses from one lot of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine while they investigate possible severe allergic reactions last week in a number of people after they got shots at a community vaccination clinic.  

More than 330,000 doses from the lot were distributed to 287 providers across the state from Jan. 5-12. Tens of thousands of doses may have already been administered, but the number of unused does is unknown, according to Darrel Ng, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health.  

CDPH said Sunday that fewer than 10 people at a clinic in San Diego who received Covid-19 shots from the lot required medical attention over the span of 24 hours. The state said it was not aware of anyone at any of the other 286 sites who had similar allergic reactions after receiving vaccine from the lot.  

CDPH said it recommended pausing the entire lot "out of an extreme abundance of caution," noting that there are not immediate replacement doses in addition to what had already been ordered. 

San Diego County said 30,000 doses from the lot were pulled from its supply. On Monday, in a statement, Santa Clara County said 21,800 doses from the lot had been allocated to the county, and that none of them had been administered.

California's decision to hold back doses of vaccine carries its own risks, especially since allergic reactions can be monitored and treated and, in this case, they occurred at only one location, one expert said.

"There's going to be another probably roughly 100,000 people that die over the next couple of months, and among those people could be those who are not getting this vaccine because of 'an abundance of caution,’"Offit told CNN.

Before he leaves office Wednesday, a White House official confirms President Trump is expected to lift coronavirus-related travel restrictions imposed on much of Europe and Brazil starting Jan. 26.

On Monday, the White House released the text of a new executive order, which states "the Secretary has advised me to remove the restrictions applicable to the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Federative Republic of Brazil, while leaving in place the restrictions applicable to the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran. I agree with the Secretary that this action is the best way to continue protecting Americans from COVID-19 while enabling travel to resume safely."  

However, the incoming Biden administration says the order will not be implemented.

Incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted tonight, "With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel." 

She added: "On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19." 

The Trump order, which now seems dead on arrival, also states that the restrictions will be lifted to coincide with a new policy that requires travelers from those nations to have a negative Covid test before being allowed to travel to the US, writing, "On January 12, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order, effective January 26, 2021, requiring proof of a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of having recovered from COVID-19 for all air passengers arriving from a foreign country to the United States. The Secretary has explained that this action will help to prevent air passengers from the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Federative Republic of Brazil from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 into the United States, as it is the Secretary's understanding that the vast majority of persons entering the United States from these jurisdictions do so by air." 

More than 398,000 people in the US have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic started.

A third of people treated in hospital for coronavirus infection end up coming back, and more than one in 10 die later, British researchers report.

Many of those who end up back in the hospital have a variety of problems that indicate long-term damage to the heart, the kidneys, the liver and other organs, the researchers reported.

The team at Britain’s Office for National Statistics, University of Leicester and elsewhere studied data on nearly 48,000 people treated in hospitals up through August. They were followed for an average of 140 days, or just under five months.

“Nearly a third of people post COVID-19 hospital discharge were re-admitted and more than one in 10 died,” the team wrote in a preprint study – one not reviewed by a medical journal but posted online.

“Secondly, rates of post-discharge multi-organ dysfunction were elevated in individuals with COVID-19 compared with those in the matched control group,” they added. This suggested they had damage beyond their lungs. Diabetes and severe heart events such as heart attacks were especially common, the team wrote.

People 70 and older and ethnic minorities were especially vulnerable to this long-term damage, the researchers said.

The findings fit in with other studies that indicate many people who survive a bout of severe coronavirus end up with longer-term health conditions that can turn deadly, the researchers said.

More than four million people across the United Kingdom have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday.

“I'm very glad to report that as of midnight last night, we have now vaccinated 4,062,501 people across the United Kingdom and we're currently vaccinating more than double the rate per person per day than any other country in Europe,” Hancock said.

Speaking at a Downing Street news conference, Hancock went on to say that the latest data shows the country has “vaccinated more than half of those over 80, as well as half of our elderly care home residents." 

Hancock said there are 37,475 people in UK hospitals with Covid-19 — the highest number throughout the pandemic. He reiterated that someone is being admitted to hospital every 30 seconds.

California has become the first state in the nation to record more than three million Covid-19 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

The number of Covid-19 cases in California has tripled in just the past two months.

Current data shows at least 3,005,830 cases and 33,623 deaths resulting from the virus that has plagued the nation and debilitated the economy.

More than a million of those cases are centralized in Los Angeles County, where about one in 10 people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus. Health officials speculate the actual number may be as high as one in three.

Over 33,000 Californians have died from Covid-19 and hospitals throughout the state remain overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients seeking treatment.

About 90% of the state remains under stay-at-home orders due in part to limited intensive care unit capacity.

There’s more evidence that people develop broad, long-lasting immunity to coronavirus after an infection. 

A new study published Monday shows people’s bodies were producing a range of antibodies for six months after recovering from infection – and they were producing the B cells that, in turn, make these antibodies – something that promises even longer-lasting immunity.

It’s the latest in a batch of studies that show people’s bodies continue to produce immune responses after infection, which lowers the risk that people can get infected with the virus over and over again. 

The study, published in the journal Nature, also suggests that people produce a variety of antibodies that attack the virus from different angles. That’s good news for people worried about the emergence of new variants of the virus. Scientists are concerned that these mutations could help the virus evade either a natural immune response or a response elicited by vaccination.

The team took a close look at the blood of 87 people about six weeks after infection and then just over six months after infection.

They found, as have others, that there’s an initial spike in antibodies produces – one that dies away after a few months. But then the B-cells kick in and start making new antibodies. And not only that – they seem to make a new variety of antibodies that can act on even mutated virus.

It appears to be happening because little pieces of the virus stay in the body long after infection, helping prompt an ongoing immune response. They took samples from the intestines of some of their volunteers and found evidence these little bits – called antigens – were continuing to stimulate the immune response.

"The observation that memory B cell responses do not decay after 6.2 months, but instead continue to evolve, is strongly suggestive that individuals who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 could mount a rapid and effective response to the virus upon re-exposure," the team lead by molecular immunologist Dr. Michel Nussenzweig at Rockefeller University in New York wrote.

There have been at least 24,018,793 total cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 398,307 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

It took the United States 304 days to reach 12 million Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. It only took the nation 59 days to reach the second 12 million cases.

More than 40,000 individuals who received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose in Florida are overdue for their second dose, according to the latest report from the state’s health department.

Those who are overdue for their second shot account for about 5% of the nearly 916,000 people who have received their first Covid-19 vaccine shot in the state.

Both Covid-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States – Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – were authorized as a two-dose series. The second dose should be administered 21 days after the first dose for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and 28 days after for the Moderna vaccine. Last week, the CEO of BioNTech said there’s a risk of initial protection declining if the administration of a second dose is delayed.

The latest vaccine summary report from the Florida health department includes data through Saturday. “Overdue” individuals are defined as “those who have received their first dose and have passed the recommended timeframe to receive their second dose.” Data are provisional and subject to change.