January 27 coronavirus news

The regional government of Madrid has decided to stop administering first doses of Covid-19 vaccine for the next two weeks due to growing uncertainty over the supply situation.

Ignacio Aguado, regional vice-president, told a news conference Wednesday that priority would be given to providing a second dose to those who had received a first dose at the end of December and the beginning of January. 

Madrid has completed the vaccination of just 2% of those who received a first dose, far lower than most of Spain's regions. Severe weather earlier this month in the Spanish capital hampered the roll-out of the vaccination program.

Several Spanish regions have complained to the central government about uncertainty over supplies. 96% of the doses distributed – largely of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine – have already been administered. 

The daily Health Ministry figure for the number of doses distributed has been static for the last week at 1,346,000 doses.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK government was introducing government-provided accommodations, for example hotels, for 10 days for those who cannot be refused entry into the UK from high-risk countries. 

“And in order to reduce the risk posed by UK nationals and residents returning home from these countries. I can announce that we will require all such arrivals who cannot be refused entry to isolate in government provided accommodation, such as hotels for 10 days without exception, they will be met at the airport and transported directly into quarantine. The department for health and social care is working to establish these facilities as quickly as possible. And by right one roof in the Home Secretary will set out the details of our plans in her statement shortly.”

The number of people flying on commercial airlines just hit a six-month low, with fewer than half a million passengers screened at US airports Tuesday. 

New figures, released by the Transportation Security Administration show 468,933 people were screened at TSA checkpoints nationwide. 

That number hasn’t dipped below 500,000 since July 4, 2020.

Dr. Paul Offit says he doesn’t think the US needs "to wait for vaccination” to get public schools back open.

“I think we have to be able to provide a mechanism whereby we can get those kids back into a public school setting where it can be done safely. It may require more money for those schools, but I definitely think we need to do it,” Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said on CNN’s “New Day.” 

Experts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that with the right mitigation measures, there is a path to low-risk, in-person learning. In a paper published Tuesday, researchers noted that the kind of spread seen in crowded offices and long-term care facilities has not been reported in schools.

Offit, a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, outlined strategies that school can implement.

Offit added that he doesn’t think the Covid-19 variants play a role in reopening schools. 

Beijing's municipal government has announced new measures for anyone entering the Chinese capital, aimed at curbing the spread of the virus during the Chinese Lunar New Year, otherwise known as the Spring Festival.

On Wednesday, spokesperson Xu Heijan said that from Thursday until March 15, anyone coming to Beijing from "low-risk areas in China" must show negative Covid-19 test results within seven days of arriving. The festival is celebrated in mid February.

On arrival, visitors must undergo 14 days of "health monitoring" and get tested on the seventh and fourteenth days of their stay. 

During the "health monitoring" period, people can work and travel but cannot participate in group activities or gatherings. 

Some background: According to data from John Hopkins University, the total number of coronavirus cases in China currently stands at 99,605 since the start of the pandemic, with 4,811 deaths.

Two hospitals in the German state of Bavaria have started self-quarantining on Wednesday after preliminary tests showed 11 people connected to the facilities were potentially carrying the UK coronavirus variant B1.1.7.

The two hospitals -- the Klinikum Bayreuth and Krankenhaus Hohe Warte -- located in the town of Bayreuth, east of Frankfurt, have stopped admitting new patients except those in a very serious condition.

Frank Schmälzle, head of press and public relations at the Klinikum Bayreuth, told CNN that a total of 3,300 staff from both hospitals are only allowed to commute between the facilities and their homes during the quarantine period.

Schmälzle said a total of 560 patients were being treated across both hospitals.

Professor Juergen Duner, chief medical officer at the laboratory Becker & Kollegen, meanwhile told CNN that there was a rise in the new coronavirus mutations B1.1.7 and B1.351 in the area of Munich, the Bavarian state capital.

Some background: 

The move to self-quarantine the two hospitals comes just days after the Vivantes Humboldt-Klinikum hospital in Berlin was placed under quarantine following an outbreak among both patients and staff of the coronavirus variant first detected in the UK. 

On Tuesday, 24 cases of the UK variant were detected at the hospital -- in 13 patients and 11 members of staff, the hospital confirmed.

In a different Berlin hospital, the Klinikum Spandau, two additional cases have been identified in patients. 

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has accused wealthy countries of trying to jump the queue in the distribution of vaccines -- and described equitable distribution around the world as both a moral imperative and essential for ending the pandemic. 

Tedros told a session of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on Wednesday that "the promise of equitable access is at serious risk." 

He said some companies and countries were making bilateral deals in an attempt to jump to the front of the queue. This was driving up prices and meant they were "going round" the COVAX mechanism, a WHO program which purchases vaccines in bulk for distribution to poorer countries.

75% of the doses distributed had been deployed in just ten countries, Tedros said, and it was not right that younger, healthy adults in rich countries could get the vaccine before health workers and older people in poorer countries. 

The emergence of new variants of Covid-19 has made the speedy and equitable roll-out of vaccines even more important, he added.

Some background: Tedros said WHO's COVAX program had secured contracts for two billion doses from five producers this year and has options for a further one billion doses into next year. The first deliveries of doses bought through the program should be made next month, he said.

However, Tedros continued, the WHO still needed funds to complete the purchases contracted for this year. COVAX needs access to those doses soon, not the "leftovers in many months from now," he said.

Read more on rich countries snapping up Covid vaccines supply here

One year ago today, the first person was diagnosed with coronavirus in Germany at a Bavarian company, as German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned the country was at the "beginning of a coronavirus epidemic."

Germans were warned by Chancellor Angela Merkel that the country would enter into its first national lockdown on March 22 while cases and deaths were still low. She added that Germany should expect restrictions like they have "never seen them before."

As people were urged to stay at home, the data showed cases and mortality rates slowing down, leading Merkel to say in May, the first phase of the pandemic was behind them.

But as Germany started to open up and travel restrictions were lifted, a second wave of coronavirus quickly grew, leading Merkel to warn that another -- lighter -- lockdown was to come. Experiencing lockdown fatigue, social distancing became less of a priority and the country battled higher infections and death rates.

On Wednesday, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder marked the grim anniversary, telling CNN’s German affiliate they could now identify and isolate the patients effectively. He warned though that the virus was still spreading “at great speed.”

Some background:

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has entered an agreement with BioNTech to help produce more than 125 million doses of the German biotech company's coronavirus vaccine for the European Union, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

The statement said production of the shots would begin later this year in the summer period at the Sanofi plant in Frankfurt.

Sanofi scientists are also developing two vaccine candidates to help prevent and control Covid-19. One, with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, has been delayed until later this year after it showed an insufficient immune response in the elderly, but according to Sanofi phase two trials with an improved formulation are set to start in February.

Another vaccine the company are working on is with the U.S. firm Translate Bio which uses mRNA technology, similar to Pfizer/BioNTech. Phase one trials are expected to start this quarter.

Some background:

Read more about criticism of the vaccine delays here