February 3 coronavirus news

Two people in Turkey have contracted the Covid-19 variant first seen in South Africa, and one patient has been identified with the variant first seen in Brazil, Turkish health minister Fahrettin Koca said on Wednesday, according to state news agency Anadolu. 

Turkey suspended flights from Brazil, Denmark, and South Africa in late January due to the new strains of coronavirus. 

The Turkish Health Ministry announced 8,102 new Covid-19 infections and 117 additional deaths on Wednesday, bringing the national total to 2,501,079 cases and 26,354 fatalities. 

About 2.4 million people have had their first dose of vaccinations, according to the ministry. After additional safety tests, phase 2 will begin, with the vaccination of citizens aged over 65.

Turkey is administering the Sinovac vaccine from China, in a deal that's expected to eventually supply 50 million doses.

Hundreds of grocery store workers in Long Beach, California may soon be without jobs after Kroger announced it will permanently close two stores to avoid offering workers hazard pay during the pandemic.

The citywide hazard pay ordinance requires large grocers to pay their staff an extra $4 per hour for at least four months since workers face higher risk of exposure to the virus.

Local officials and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents 1.3 million workers, condemned Kroger's move to close the stores instead of increasing employees' pay.

Profit during the pandemic: The two stores slated for closure experienced sales increases of up to 31% since the start of the pandemic, according to Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Herrera said Kroger has recently seen a 90% profit increase and spent $1.4 billion in stock buybacks. CNN has reached out to Kroger for comment on its earnings. 

Robert Gonzalez, a frozen food clerk at the Food 4 Less, said he was devastated to learn his store will be closing after working for Kroger for 26 years. 

More possible closures: Earlier this week, the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Oakland passed similar hazard pay ordinances. Grocery store employees in Seattle who work for a company with more than 500 employees also saw a $4 an hour hazard pay increase starting Wednesday. Kroger told CNN it was also considering additional closures in several US cities.

COVAX has announced its plans to distribute 1,992,000 AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine doses to North Korea.

In its first interim distribution forecast, COVAX said the North Korea allotment was part of its plan to distribute 336 million AstraZeneca-Oxford doses and 1.2 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to countries most in need. 

COVAX is an initiative to provide equitable global access to Covid-19 vaccines led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and World Health Organization.

North Korea claims to not have contracted a single case of Covid-19 -- which experts say is likely untrue, but the country has seemingly not experienced a serious wave of infections.

The United Kingdom is launching the world’s first study examining whether different coronavirus vaccines can safely be used for two-dose regimens.   

Participants in the study will be given the vaccine in alternating doses -- for example, Oxford/AstraZeneca for the first dose and Pfizer/BioNTech for the second.  

Enrollment in the UK government-funded study is currently underway and preliminary results are expected over the summer. 

The current vaccine dosing regimen for the general public will remain unchanged in the UK. But if the study shows promising results, the government may consider revising the recommended vaccine regimen. 

“Nothing will be approved for use more widely than the study, or as part of our vaccine deployment program, until researchers and the regulator are absolutely confident the approach is safe and effective” said minister of Covid-19 vaccine development Nadhim Zahawi.

Currently, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization do not recommend interchanging coronavirus vaccines, since there is no data available that examines whether doing so would still provide the same level of protection. 

Global vaccine confidence is rising according to a new survey showing that 54% of respondents across 15 countries would take a Covid-19 vaccine if one was offered to them.

The survey by the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London revealed that by mid-January, willingness to get vaccinated increased in 11 of the 15 countries since November, when 41% of respondents said they would get vaccinated. 

The UK had the highest share of respondents who strongly agreed they would get a vaccine, 70%. On the other end of the spectrum was France, with 30% – although that number has doubled since November, when just 15% of French respondents strongly agreed.

France also had the highest percentage of respondents who strongly agreed that they are worried about vaccine side effects, 40%. However, concern over potential vaccine side effects has decreased since November in most countries surveyed, with 47% of all respondents saying they are worried about side effects. 

Over half of those surveyed, 58%, believe government health authorities will deliver an effective Covid-19 vaccine – with the share of respondents who strongly agree increasing in 11 countries since November.

The results suggest that access to Covid-19 vaccines is a challenge. About 54% of respondents said it would be difficult to get a vaccine, with people in South Korea and Japan reporting the greatest difficulties in access. 

“As vaccines will play a vital role in controlling the pandemic, leaders must act now to help more people understand the benefits of being vaccinated against Covid-19 and make sure that no one is left behind,” Nabarro said.

The countries included in the survey were:

There have been at least 450,088 reported deaths from Covid-19 in the United States since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

There have been at least 26,533,999 total coronavirus cases in the US, university data showed.

Johns Hopkins recorded the first death from Covid-19 on Feb. 29 in Washington state. Later in the spring, two earlier deaths in California were posthumously confirmed to be from Covid-19.

There are four other countries in the world that have reported over 100,000 total Covid-19 deaths, according to the university. Brazil has more than 200,000 total deaths while Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom have over 100,000.

More than 20 states now report Covid-19 vaccination data by race or ethnicity, and inequities in Covid-19 vaccination are present in all of them, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. 

Black people have received a smaller share of vaccinations than their share of Covid-19 cases in all 23 states reporting data, and the same is true for Hispanic people in all 21 states reporting that data, the analysis found. 

In most of those states, Black and Hispanic people also received a smaller share of Covid-19 vaccinations than their share of Covid-19 deaths, with Vermont and Missouri as the exceptions. In Vermont, the share of vaccinations among Black people was equal to the share of Covid-19 deaths among Black people, and in Vermont and Missouri, the share of vaccinations among Hispanic people were higher than the share of Covid-19 deaths among Hispanic people.  

The Kaiser Family Foundation used data published on state websites as of Monday for the analysis, along with case and death data from The Covid Tracking Project.  

The coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across the world, and in the US, January marked the deadliest month of the pandemic so far. At the same time, the worldwide race to distribute vaccines is on.

If you're just catching up now, here’s a look at the latest vaccine news:

California is opening two mass Covid-19 vaccination sites as part of a federal pilot program to quickly boost the number of available doses, as the state continues to see improving numbers in cases, deaths, positivity rate, and hospitalizations.

The rolling average of new daily cases in the state has dropped in half in the past two weeks, according to data from California’s Department of Public Health. The state added 10,501 new cases and 481 additional Covid-19 related deaths Wednesday, and hospitalizations have dropped 30% over the last 14 days.

California State Los Angeles will house California’s other newly-announced vaccination site and both locations are part of a planned 100 locations nationwide in a federal-state partnership. FEMA will provide personal protective equipment and supplies, according to Newsom. 

California is now administering about one million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine each week, Newsom said, a rate two to three times higher than the initial rollout as the state attempts to speed up inoculations and jump start its economy as it emerges from a regional stay at home order that shuttered many non-essential businesses.

The Oakland and Los Angeles sites are expected to begin vaccinations on Feb. 16, and appointments will be available through a newly developed statewide website called MyTurn that will alert users when they are eligible for a Covid-19 shot and present an appointment.

Each site will be paired with two mobile vaccination clinics that can be deployed to multiple locations, according to a press release from Newsom’s office.