January 24 coronavirus news

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, reacted to images of long lines of senior citizens waiting to get Covid-19 vaccines, telling CNN Sunday that it’s "not America, that’s not the way we treat those we consider vulnerable, in need of this vaccine most, that is not America at its best.” 

Becerra said that many states are suffering massive budget deficits and trying to figure out how to get resources for their overburdened health workers, adding that Biden’s plan provides for 100,000 new health care workers to get out and help all the states. 

“It’s a plan that can work if we all get, you know, put our muscle to it together,” he said. 

Some more context: States had previously submitted plans for vaccine distribution to the CDC in October but had said they needed federal money to carry them out.

In September, Congress had initially set aside $200 million to states for preparedness and planning and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added another $227 million for vaccine distribution in December.

But the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials have said they needed $8.4 billion to administer and conduct vaccine efforts of this scale. Former President Trump signed a massive $2.3 trillion relief bill at the end of December which included $8 billion for vaccine distribution. 

More than 85,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Italy, the first European country to be hit hard by the pandemic, Health Ministry figures show.

The number climbed past 85,000 on Saturday and reached 85,461 on Sunday after 299 new deaths were recorded.

There have been at least 25,003,695 total cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 417,538 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

The university recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on Jan. 21, 2020.  

There are 17 other countries in the world that have reported more than 1 million total Covid-19 cases, according to the university: 

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, told CNN Sunday that the US can change the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it won’t happen overnight.

On Friday, Biden said “There is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” 

Becerra added that the President has put forward not just a plan, but a rescue plan that should be followed by a recovery plan, “but first you got to rescue the people, you got to rescue the economy."

When asked what the timeframe was for changing the course of the pandemic, Becerra again made it clear that it won’t happen overnight. 

“We can do better, we can not only control Covid but get us back to real normality,” he said. “But it takes everybody, all hands on deck, we’ve got to make sure we’re coordinating and we are talking to people.”

New York’s Covid-19 positivity rate fell to 5.09% on Sunday, with 12,720 new reported cases, according to new data from New York state.

Total Covid-19 hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and intubations are all down from Saturday’s numbers, the data showed.

There are 160 more New Yorkers who have died due to Covid-19, bringing the state’s overall death toll to 34,069, state data showed.

Currently, health department statistics show that New York’s Long Island and Mid-Hudson regions have the highest positivity rates at 6.99% and 6.85%, respectively. New York City has a rate of 5.58%, with the most cases in the Bronx.

To note: These figures were released by the state’s health agency and may not line up exactly in real-time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate budget committee, told CNN Sunday morning that Democrats will use budget reconciliation “as soon as we possibly can” to pass a Covid-19 relief package by 51 votes, rather than 60. 

Some more context: Reconciliation was used by the Republicans to pass legislation when Donald Trump was president. 

On the urgency to pass a Covid-19 relief package, Sanders told CNN: “If we do not respond now, yes, I believe two years from now the Republicans will say 'Hey, you elected these guys, they did nothing, vote for us,' and they will win."

The influential coronavirus model at the University of Washington is projecting 569,000 Americans will have died from Covid-19 by May 1.

This a slight increase since its last update, which projected 567,000 deaths by the same date. 

The model from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected that by May 1, “42,800 lives will be saved by the projected vaccine rollout.” 

The model expected 157 million people to be vaccinated by that time which translates to 36% of the country being immunized, assuming the vaccines are at least 50% effective. 

More details: The forecasters note that overall, just half of the country is willing to accept the vaccine.

“In the US, 50.8% of people say they would accept a vaccine for Covid-19 and 25.5% say they are unsure if they would accept one," the model said.

However, the modelers also note that they do not expect the US to reach a high enough level of herd immunity to prevent a third wave next winter, “because a quarter of Americans state they will not take the vaccine and a further quarter state they are unsure.” 

The forecasts also do not take into account the potential spread of the new variants first identified in the UK and South Africa, “which could extend the fall/winter surge into late spring if they spread in the US.” 

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain appeared on "Meet the Press" this morning and defended statements by the White House that there was no plan in place for vaccine distribution when the Biden administration walked in the door.

Klain said that outside of nursing homes and hospitals, a plan for “the community as a whole did not really exist.”  

Klain was asked about the differing comments from the White House on there not being a plan in place on vaccine distribution, which Dr. Anthony Fauci disputed this week.

Klain also stressed that the administration will “own” the vaccine problem going forward, unlike the administration before them.  

When asked where the problem lies, Klain said, "We need more vaccine, we need more vaccinators and we need more vaccine sites." 

Klain, speaking about the administration’s goal of 100 vaccines in its first 100 days, said it is “still a very bold and ambitious goal.”  

“Obviously we’re not going to stop there. 100 million people- 100 million shots is an ambitious goal but we need to keep going after that so. That is our goal. That is our first goal. It’s not our final goal. It’s not the endpoint. It’s just a metric that the American people can watch and measure how we’re doing,” Klain added. 

Police in the United Kingdom broke up a rave that saw more than 300 people packed under a railway arch in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Officers arrived at the party in Hackney, east London, at 1:30 a.m. local time, and said they have issued more than £15,000 ($20,500) to revelers for breaching the UK's lockdown policy.

The Metropolitan Police said "numerous attempts were made to engage with organisers and others but they were uncooperative." The doors to the building were padlocked from the inside to stop police getting in, they added.

The UK has been under a strict lockdown since earlier this month, with indoor gatherings banned.

Officers stopped 78 people and issued £200 fines at the event.

"Officers were forced, yet again, to put their own health at risk to deal with a large group of incredibly selfish people who were tightly packed together in a confined space - providing an ideal opportunity for this deadly virus to spread," Chief Superintendent Roy Smith said in a statement. "Our frontline officers continue to police this public health crisis with compassion & professionalism but it is completely unacceptable they have to face such needless risks to their own health and to their families too."