The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

Johnson & Johnson board member Dr. Mark McClellan said on Thursday the company plans to have "enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring." 

"I do know that J&J is making a very large supply, going all out with its production both here in the US and elsewhere around the world, with the goal of having perhaps enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring, by this April or so," McClellan told CNBC. 

"So that's going to make a big difference in supply availability over the coming weeks and months, if the clinical trial does work out," 

McClellan also said that the vaccine's clinical trial is "going on at very large scale right now" to make sure it's safe and effective.

Close to seeking EUA: Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that Johnson & Johnson is "right around the corner" from seeking emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine from the FDA.

Fauci also stated that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has some advantages, as it's a single shot, and it doesn't have as stringent of a cold chain requirement.

However, when asked if AstraZeneca is close to requesting an EUA for its vaccine as well, Fauci said they're behind.

"AstraZeneca is not quite there yet, you know that's one that's being tested in multiple countries but it's a bit behind, but not too far behind," Fauci said. 

Some people this week waited in line for up to five hours at Dodger Stadium -- the largest vaccination site in the United States -- amid low supply of the Covid-19 vaccine in Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti said.

Most of these individuals were over 65 years old.

"Some of the brave folks who came forward I know waited for up to five hours," Garcetti said. "I worked that line apologizing to people," he added. 

The mass drive-through vaccination site stayed open until 11 p.m. PT Wednesday, three hours past the scheduled closing time, to assure everyone in line was immunized, Garcetti said. Officials have since increased staffing and deployed additional resources to reduce wait times. The average wait time Thursday was 30-40 minutes, Garcetti said.

While there are nearly 1.4 million people over the age of 65 in LA, only about 850,000 first doses have been delivered due to strained supply, Garcetti said. If production of the vaccine does not ramp up, officials say it will take until June 2021 for all healthcare workers and seniors over 65 in LA to get vaccinated with their second dose.

To date, five LA city sites have vaccinated more than 80,000 people. This week, Los Angeles County vaccination centers have immunized 46,635 people, a 90% increase since last week.

Surge in cases: LA County added 8,512 new coronavirus cases and 262 additional deaths on Thursday. According to Garcetti, the last time the county reported under 10,000 cases for two consecutive days was in the first week of December. 

The seven-day average of new cases has decreased by 30%, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Hospitalizations have also decreased this week, down 7% since last Thursday. 

To date, the county has reported a total of 1,046,021 Covid-19 cases and 14,641 deaths.

People can schedule their second doses of Covid-19 vaccine up to six weeks after their first doses if they are otherwise unable to get one in the recommended timeframe, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in guidance updated Thursday.

The recommended time between doses is three weeks for Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine, and four weeks for Moderna’s vaccine. 

"The second dose should be administered as close to the recommended interval as possible,” the latest guidance says.

The updated CDC guidance appears to clarify earlier language that said “there is no maximum interval between the first and second doses for either vaccine.”

Delaying the second dose up to six weeks is in line with what WHO advisers said earlier this month.

CDC says its guidance may be updated as new information and new types of Covid-19 vaccines become available.

Fauci's response: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said people would be "taking a chance" if they follow the CDC's updated guidance.

Fauci said it's possible that delaying the second dose is “not going to be a big deal.” However, he said, we don’t know for sure because the vaccine data hasn’t been looked at for this extended time-period between doses. 

Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said his government is “determined” to “realize a safe and secure Olympics” during a news conference Friday.

Earlier on Friday, The Times of London, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition, reported that the government “privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be cancelled because of the coronavirus,” CNN has not independently verified the report.

The Japanese government is determined that the Tokyo Olympics will go ahead, organizers said Friday, following an unconfirmed report that a cancellation of the Games might be imminent.

On Friday, the Times of London, citing an unnamed senior member of the ruling coalition, reported that Japanese authorities had privately concluded that the Olympics could not proceed due to the ongoing pandemic. CNN has not independently verified this report, which officials in Tokyo were quick to refute.

In a statement, the Tokyo 2020 organizers said that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga had expressed to them his determination to hold the Games, and that meetings were ongoing to ensure that they could go ahead while implementing thorough infection countermeasures and other precautions due to the pandemic.

Suga has yet not publicly spoken about the issue and his office declined to comment when approached by CNN on Friday morning.

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The United States can look forward to getting back to some semblance of normality by fall if enough of the population gets vaccinated this summer, top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday.

It was Fauci’s first appearance at a news briefing held by the new Biden administration, held on its first full day.

It won’t be perfectly normal by then, he said, but it will take the pressure off if three-quarters or more of the population gets vaccinated.

"The concern I have, something we're working on, is getting people who have vaccine hesitancy who don't want to get vaccinated because many people are skeptical about that,” Fauci added.

At least five people died in a fire that broke out at a facility for the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine maker, in the city of Pune on Thursday, according to local authorities.

Murlidhar Mohol, mayor of the western Indian city, told reporters that five bodies, believed to be those of construction workers, were retrieved from the six-floor building, while four people were rescued.

The blaze, which is now under control, will not impact production of the Covid vaccine, the company says.

SII is in partnership with Oxford University and AstraZeneca to produce the Covishield vaccine.

In a separate post, Poonawalla tweeted, “We are deeply saddened and offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the departed.”

The cause of the blaze is yet to be determined though, according to Mohol, preliminary investigations suggest that “during the building’s construction, some welding work could have led to the fire.”

Covid-19 vaccinations will not only help stop the virus from spreading, they will also hamper the coronavirus' ability to mutate into new variants, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday.

Fauci's remarks come as scientists around the world attempt to decipher what the new variants may mean for those who've been vaccinated or have antibodies to the virus.

While a few recent studies suggest that a variant first detected in South Africa may be a problem, even for people who have been vaccinated, at least one recent study found evidence that people vaccinated against coronavirus will be protected against new variants.

The South African variant has not yet been detected in the United States. Other variants include one first identified in the United Kingdom and one found in Brazil.

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President Joe Biden's first full day in office on Thursday focused on rolling out his national strategy to get the coronavirus pandemic under control and signing several executive actions, including ramping up vaccination supplies and requiring international travelers to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test prior to traveling to the US.

Biden's plan starts with a national vaccination campaign in order to meet the President's goal of administering 100 million shots, which is enough to cover 50 million Americans with vaccines that require two doses, in his first 100 days in office.

He said the plan was developed with input from the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, among other advisers and experts. Fauci was at the event at the White House, along with Biden's Covid czar Jeff Zients.

Biden said the American public would be "hearing a lot more from Dr. Fauci again, not from the President, but from the real genuine experts and scientists."

Former President Donald Trump sidelined and undermined his own medical experts as the pandemic raged across the country.

"We're going to make sure they work free from political interference and that they make decisions strictly based on science and health care alone, science and health alone, not what the political consequences are," Biden said.

The day after being sworn-in, Biden signed at least 10 executive orders, memorandums and directives focused on tackling the pandemic, which, as of Thursday night, has claimed the lives of more than 409,000 Americans and infected more than 24 million in the US.

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