January 25 coronavirus news

The head of the scientific council advising the French government on the Covid-19 pandemic said Sunday that France would “probably need a new lockdown” and that there is an “emergency” in the country. 

France enacted two lockdowns in 2020. The first started in March and lasted until May while the second “lockdown light” began late October and ended in December. 

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said a third lockdown would be inevitable if the restrictive measures currently in place did nothing to curb the infections driven by the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK.

The average number of new infections in France has been gradually increasing from 18,000 per day to more than 20,000, according to figures from the country's Health Ministry. 

France passed the threshold of 3 million Covid-19 cases on Friday and so far more than 1 million people have been vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry. 

Measures to fight the pandemic: On Sunday, new border controls went into effect for people entering France from other European Union countries by air or sea. Travelers must be able to show a negative PCR test carried out fewer than 72 hours before departure.

Nine days ago, the start of a nationwide curfew was brought forward by two hours to 6 p.m. 

French President Emmanuel Macron will chair a Defense Council meeting Wednesday to decide on new restrictions. 

With the US now tallying more than 25 million Covid-19 cases, experts say now is the time to double down on safety measures and speed up vaccine rollouts before a variant further surges infections.

But the US continues to add staggering numbers of cases daily and faces several major challenges when it comes to vaccines. States say they don't have enough doses, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Sunday there's a lack of information on supply.

"I would say one of the biggest problems right now is I can't tell you how much vaccine we have," Walensky told Fox News. "If I can't tell it to you, then I can't tell it to the governors and I can't tell it to the state health officials."

"If they don't know how much vaccine they're getting, not just this week but next week and the week after, they can't plan."

It likely will be months from now until the vaccine is widely available to the American public, Gounder, who is also a former member of the Biden transition Covid-19 advisory board, said.

Read the full story:

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A second batch of 6.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech arrived in Istanbul early Monday, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency.  

Turkey received 3 million doses of Sinovac vaccine in December. The country’s drug authorities approved it for emergency use on January 13, before starting a mass vaccination drive the day after.    

Ankara has previously said the deal with Sinovac Biotech is for 50 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. 

Turkey has so far inoculated over 1.25 million people, mostly health workers and the elderly, according to the Turkish Health Ministry.  

The country has nearly completed vaccinating healthcare workers and has begun an at-home vaccination program for the elderly over the age of 85 across all 81 provinces, the ministry said Friday.  

The Australian government has suspended quarantine-free travel for New Zealanders arriving in Australia for a minimum of 72 hours, after a South African variant of Covid-19 was detected in a woman after 14 days of quarantine in New Zealand.

Travelers coming from New Zealand to Australia in the next 72 hours will be required to enter mandatory hotel quarantine for up to 14 days on arrival or other such arrangements in individual states and territories, according to a media release from Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt.

In addition, anyone who arrived in Australia from New Zealand on or since January 14 is asked to get tested and remain in isolation until they receive a negative test. This change comes into effect immediately, the release said.

The move comes after New Zealand said on Monday that a woman who tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving quarantine in New Zealand had been infected with the South African variant.

Since October, travelers coming from New Zealand did not need to complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine if they have been in New Zealand for 14 days prior to travel.

A woman in New Zealand who tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving quarantine likely contracted it from another returned traveler on the same floor in her quarantine hotel, according to the country's health officials.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health confirmed to CNN in an email that the case is “not due to community transmission.”

The 56-year-old woman recently returned from Europe and underwent 14 days of quarantine at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. She returned two negative tests during her stay before leaving quarantine on January 13, according to a media release from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health Sunday. She later developed symptoms and tested positive for the virus.

Genome sequencing results of the woman and another guest who was in the quarantine facility are identical, according to a media release from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health Monday. Early information suggests the transmission occurred between January 9 and 13, the release said.

The ministry added that the woman had contracted the South African variant. She has 15 close contacts, who are all self-isolating and have been tested.

At least 18,111 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Japan are waiting for a hospital bed or space at isolation centers in the 11 prefectures in the country under a state of emergency, according to local health officials.

CNN spoke to health officials in each prefecture where the virus is most prevalent.  

Coronavirus cases in Japan have surged drastically in the past two months. As of Sunday, the country has reported a total of 360,661 infections, a 74% increase from a month ago and 165% increase from two months ago.

Satoshi Hori, an infectious disease expert at Juntendo University, told CNN that high-risk groups -- such as the elderly and those displaying severe symptoms -- should be admitted to hospital upon receiving a positive result. People who develop mild symptoms after contracting Covid-19 are sent to designated facilities for isolation, Hori said.

Overwhelming surge: Prefectures are in charge of local protocols of where and when to move people who test positive for Covid-19. The 18,111 patients reported Sunday includes people with mild or no symptoms who are waiting for space in an isolation center. 

Among the 11 prefectures under a state of emergency, Tokyo has the highest number of infected people on the waiting list, having jumped nearly five times from December 19 to more than 7,500 people on Sunday, according to a Kyodo News Agency report Sunday. Meanwhile, the western prefecture of Hyogo has seen its number increase almost six times to at least 727 people.

Japan's Ministry of Health declined to give CNN comment on the number of people waiting for hospital or isolation accommodation and said it does not release statistics on those cases.

This post was updated with the latest available figures.

Residents of a city in northeast China have taken to social media to complain that a stringent coronavirus lockdown has left them short of food and medicine, triggering an online uproar and an apology from local officials.

Tonghua, a city of about 2 million in Jilin province, has been locked down since January 18 amid rising Covid-19 infections. All flights, trains, buses and taxis have been suspended, and residents barred from leaving their homes.

Under the restrictions, people must order daily necessities online, and have them delivered to their residential compounds by volunteers, according to the municipal government.

However, Tonghua residents complained on Chinese social media last week that there had been a delay in deliveries, causing a shortage of food, medicine, and infant milk powder.

The backlash: The residents' posts ignited a wave of criticism against the Tonghua government, with some accusing local officials of disregard for people's livelihood in order to meet epidemic control targets.

Following the backlash, city officials admitted Sunday that the delivery of daily necessities is "untimely and unavailable" to some residents, citing a shortage of manpower.

On Sunday night, some residents posted photos online of vegetable packages they received, but many others said they were still waiting.

The Tonghua government said Monday that vegetables had been delivered to nearly 67,000 households, and more than 7,000 officials and volunteers would continue to distribute food to the rest of the residents.

Stark contrast: Some social media users pointed to the disparities between the harsh lockdown measures in Tonghua and the more humane quarantine policies in some major cities.

In Shanghai, the government was lauded for allowing residents of "medium-risk" neighborhoods to bring their pets to government-designated hotels for quarantine.

The Beijing municipal government said it would allow each household to leave one family member at home to take care of pets if they are ordered to go into quarantine.

The United States reported 130,485 new coronavirus infections and 1,769 virus-related fatalities on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

According to JHU's tally, the nationwide totals now stand at 25,124,954 cases, including 419,209 deaths.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

Vaccine numbers: At least 41,411,550  vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 21,848,655 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CNN is tracking US cases here.

Reduced yields in the European supply chain are the reason that lower volumes of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine will initially be delivered to EU member states, according to a spokesperson for the drugmaker.

The European Union expressed its “deep dissatisfaction” on Friday, after being informed by AstraZeneca that vaccine deliveries to member states -- pending authorization -- would not arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2021, as originally forecast.

An AstraZeneca spokesperson told CNN that reduced yields at a manufacturing site in the European supply chain have caused the lower volumes of initial deliveries, but there is no schedule delay to the start of shipments once its vaccine receives approval in Europe.

EU's expectations: The EU was expecting 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first quarter of this year. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) received an application for conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on January 12. The decision on granting marketing authorization could be given by January 29.