The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

By Ben Westcott, Brett McKeehan and Eoin McSweeney, CNN

Updated 8:17 p.m. ET, January 31, 2021
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12:40 p.m. ET, January 30, 2021

California surpasses 40,000 total coronavirus-related deaths

From CNN’s Jon Passantino

Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, and Noe Meza prepare to move the body of someone who died from Covid-19 to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 9.
Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, and Noe Meza prepare to move the body of someone who died from Covid-19 to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles on January 9. Jae C. Hong/AP

California surpassed a grim milestone on Friday evening as over 40,000 coronavirus-related deaths have now been reported in the state, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

California added 664 deaths on Friday, according to data from the university. The state has now reported a total of 40,238 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

The only other state with over 40,000 deaths is New York state. New York has reported 43,278 deaths, according to university data.

10:02 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

Massachusetts congressman tests positive for Covid-19

From CNN's Daniella Diaz

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch speaks at a hearing in Washington, DC, on December 2, 2020.
Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch speaks at a hearing in Washington, DC, on December 2, 2020. Greg Nash/Pool/Getty Images

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch is the latest House member to announce he's tested positive for Covid-19 after a staff member in his office was positive, according to a statement from his spokesperson.

His spokesperson said he received his second dose of the vaccine but didn't specify the date. He is also asymptomatic and plans to vote by proxy next week, according to his spokesperson.

To note: Covid-19 vaccines do not necessarily prevent infection – they prevent illness.

The vaccines prevent people from getting sick with Covid-19. They do not prevent Covid-19 infection. If someone tests positive and doesn’t get sick, the vaccine has worked as intended.

If someone tests positive within a few weeks of receiving the second dose, it may be because the vaccine hasn’t fully kicked in yet.

9:13 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

When Covid-19 vaccines are about to expire, health care workers scramble to ensure they are used

From CNN's Travis Caldwell

Health care workers distribute vaccines late into the night at a last-minute Covid-19 event at Seattle University.
Health care workers distribute vaccines late into the night at a last-minute Covid-19 event at Seattle University. David Ryder/Getty Images

Mechanical breakdowns. Bad weather. Expiration deadlines. The earliest phases of Covid-19 vaccine distribution in some instances have left doctors, nurses, and health officials scrambling to inoculate Americans.

In the worst cases, valuable doses have been wasted or thrown out. However, quick thinking by practitioners mixed with a bit of luck have found them administering vaccines in unique circumstances.

On Thursday night, after a freezer containing vaccine doses malfunctioned in Seattle, a nearby hospital had less than nine hours to administer more than 800 vaccinations before they spoiled. Vaccines from Pfizer-BioTech and Moderna require certain low temperatures for storage and have a limited shelf life when exposed to room temperature.

Swedish Health Services told CNN it quickly signed up eligible recipients on short notice via social media. Clinical and non-clinical hospital volunteers convened to run the site.

"No vaccine went to waste last night," spokesperson Tiffany Moss told CNN on Friday.

Swedish was not the only location to assist that night. An additional supply from the broken freezer made its way to the University of Washington, where staff and volunteers administered vaccines at two of its centers, according to CNN affiliate KOMO.

Clever solutions and fast action by health workers nationwide, when faced with the total loss of a vaccine supply, have benefited those in the right place at the right time.

Read the full story here

8:17 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

Oxford professor disputes Macron comments on vaccine effectiveness in over-65s

From Schams Elwazer in London and Barbara Wojazer in Paris

French President Emmanuel Macron waits at the Élysée Palace in Paris before a working lunch on January 27.
French President Emmanuel Macron waits at the Élysée Palace in Paris before a working lunch on January 27. Chesnot/Getty Images

An Oxford professor who was part of the team that developed the Covid-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca has disputed comments by French President Emmanuel Macron appearing to question the efficacy of the jab in over-65s.

Asked on BBC Radio about Macron’s comments that the vaccine is “quasi-ineffective” in people over 65, professor John Bell said Saturday, “I’m not sure where he got that from.”

Acknowledging that the number of elderly people participating in the original study was “small” at around 12%, Bell added that “in vaccinology the way you deal with that problem is you identify the level of immunity that a vaccine generates.”

“The elderly people responded just as well as people in other age groups and there’s really persuasive evidence that this is a protective vaccine in those populations,” Bell said.

On Friday, Macron told reporters, "what I can tell you officially is that the first results are not encouraging for those over 60-65 years old," adding that "very little information” is available on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

“I suspect this is a bit of demand management from Mr. Macron,” Bell said.

Pushed on the point by the host, Bell added that “if he didn’t have any vaccine, the best thing you could do is reduce demand.”

Macron’s comments have been widely criticized in the UK press as the bitter row between the EU, drugmakers and the UK over vaccine supply continues to dominate headlines.

The EU’s medicines regulator approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for all age groups on Friday. Earlier in the week, Germany’s vaccine commission said it would not recommend its use in the over-65s due to insufficient data on its effectiveness in that population.

 

8:01 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

Health agencies announce first three cases of UK variant in Arizona

From CNN's Alta Spells

A patient is taken from an ambulance to the emergency room of a hospital in the Navajo Nation town of Tuba City in Arizona on May 24, 2020 
A patient is taken from an ambulance to the emergency room of a hospital in the Navajo Nation town of Tuba City in Arizona on May 24, 2020  AFP via Getty Images

Arizona joins the list of states reporting cases of the UK Covid-19 variant, known as B.1.1.7. 

The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH), Pinal County Public Health Services District, and Arizona State University (ASU) announced the detection of the first three cases of the UK variant in the state in a press release Friday. 

The health agencies did not offer any additional information on the cases or patients involved in the release.

The UK variant was first identified in the fall of 2020 according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The variant appears to spread more easily and has been found in at least 70 countries, according to information from the World Health Organization. 

The CDC reports at least 434 cases of the UK variant in at least 30 US states, not including the state of Arizona, in data updated Friday on its website.

The new variant has wreaked havoc in the UK, fueling a surge in cases towards the end of 2020 despite a national lockdown being in place. Data showing an uptick in cases in younger people suggests this was largely because schools had stayed open, enabling the variant to spread rapidly.

The UK is a cautionary tale of what could happen elsewhere. American public health experts are warning about a possible new surge in Covid-19 cases caused by the strain first seen in southeast England. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the B.1.1.7 strain could become the predominant variant seen in the United States by March.

7:34 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

A fight between the EU and UK reveals the ugly truth about vaccine nationalism

Analysis by CNN's Angela Dewan

Visitors queue before receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine at a closed down Debenhams department store, in Folkestone on Wednesday
Visitors queue before receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine at a closed down Debenhams department store, in Folkestone on Wednesday Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The ugly vaccine nationalism that the World Health Organization and other public health advocates feared is here. And it's beginning in Europe, the region that usually boasts the world's greatest levels of equality by many measures.

Between the United Kingdom and the European Union, solidarity has disappeared entirely and given way to an all-out battle over who is more entitled to tens of millions of doses produced by British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca. Meanwhile, many countries in the global south have yet to administer a single vaccine.

The spat revolves around the EU's deal with AstraZeneca, which recently informed the bloc it would not be able to supply the number of vaccines the EU had hoped for by the end of March. EU leaders are furious that the company appears to be fulfilling its deliveries for the UK market and not theirs.

And while the EU's complaints are largely directed at AstraZeneca, the dispute has triggered animosity on both sides of the Channel, the two sides having only just emerged from four years of bickering over the terms of their Brexit divorce.

On Friday, Brussels imposed controls on vaccine exports to keep track of how many doses were leaving the continent and where they were going, in what leaders called a transparency measure but what looks like a targeted export ban.

The EU also said Friday it would invoke a clause in the Brexit deal to impose controls on exports to Northern Ireland to ensure doses wouldn't funnel through the region into the rest of the UK. Hours later it then backed down from the threat after UK and Irish leaders sought urgent clarification from Brussels over the highly controversial move.

Read the full story here

7:00 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

Children unlikely to spread coronavirus in school when proper precautions are taken, researchers find

From CNN Health’s Maggie Fox and Ben Tinker

A sign in a classroom reminds students to wear face masks.
A sign in a classroom reminds students to wear face masks. Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images

An in-depth look at two US schools supports the argument that children don’t spread coronavirus in school when proper precautions are taken.

Out of 3,500 students, just 234 coronavirus infections were documented during the fall semester, the researchers reported in a pre-print study posted online.

Just 9% of students who brought new infections to school infected others, the researchers found.

“There was no evidence of student-to-teacher or teacher-to-student transmission in either school,” they wrote.

“To our knowledge, this is the only, comprehensive and long-term study that tested all K-12 students (asymptomatic) and staff from August through December -- making it the only one where we really see disease incidence in this age group and true spread in schools,” Dr. Darria Long of the University of Tennessee Department of Emergency Medicine, who worked on the study, told CNN.

The team studied two independent K-12 schools, not named. One was described as being in the Southeast and one in the Mid-Atlantic. Each school followed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for preventing the spread of the virus, including social distancing and mask use. They also implemented “aggressive” laboratory screening testing policies. 

“Seventy two percent of in-school transmission cases in School A were associated with noncompliance with school mask wearing rules. Of known off-campus sources, the major ones identified were family exposure, including siblings returning from college; off-campus activities, including parties and other gatherings,” they wrote.

“Children do contract Covid-19 and can transmit it, but rates of illness when they are in school are lower than rates of illness when they are out of school, suggesting that children and communities may be at lower risk when children are in school,” Long said.
5:57 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

UK Prime Minister "in awe" of parents who have risen to "unique challenges" during lockdown

From CNN's Eoin McSweeney and Mick Krever

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London for parliamentary questions on January 27.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London for parliamentary questions on January 27. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has hailed the efforts of parents during lockdown in an open letter published on Saturday.

"While the past 12 months have been tough for all of us, the demands of this pandemic have also brought out the very best in a great many people," he wrote. "And I'm particularly in awe of the way the parents, carers and guardians of children have risen to the unique challenges with which you have been faced."

Parents are doing "a great job" and by staying home are "saving lives", he added.

He attended a virtual classroom of 10 to 11-year-olds on Friday and was impressed by the work of parents during the session.

Some 876,000 laptops have been given to schools so that kids can learn online and "hundreds of millions of pounds" will be put into "nationwide catch-up programmes" when the pandemic is over, Johnson said.

For weeks leading up to the New Year, despite surging coronavirus cases and a new highly contagious variant, Johnson's government assured schools and parents that children would return to the classroom in January.

On the morning of January 4, as children streamed into schools and he toured a hospital, Johnson touted "the efforts that we're making as a government to try to keep primary schools open."

Just hours later, he executed an about-face of acrobatic proportions. In a somber prime-time address to the nation, the Prime Minister said he was ordering the closure, from the next day, of not just secondary schools -- which serve children 11 and above and are where spread is more likely -- but also primary, or elementary schools.

5:28 a.m. ET, January 30, 2021

US records at least 162,000 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours

A health care worker collects a Covid-19 swab test at a United Airlines drive-thru testing site inside San Francisco International Airport on January 9.
A health care worker collects a Covid-19 swab test at a United Airlines drive-thru testing site inside San Francisco International Airport on January 9. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

There were 162,601 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States on Friday, with 3,483 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.

To date, there have been at least 25,929,282 Covid-19 cases in the US. More than 436,678 people have died in the country from the virus. 

At least 49,216,500 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 27,884,661 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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

For regular updates, follow CNN’s map, which uses Johns Hopkins data to refresh every 15 minutes.