February 7 coronavirus news

A new version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to tackle the variant first identified in South Africa “will be available for the autumn,” professor of vaccinology at Oxford University Sarah Gilbert said on Sunday.

“It looks very much like [the new vaccine] will be available for the autumn. We’re already working on the first part of the manufacturing process in Oxford, that will be passed on to other members of the manufacturing supply chain as we go through the Spring, and it looks very much like that we can have a new version ready to use in the autumn,” Gilbert told the BBC.

Here's some background: On Saturday, a spokesperson for AstraZeneca told CNN that the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine currently being administered provides limited protection against mild disease in cases caused by the variant first identified in South Africa.

The Financial Times first reported Saturday that a study releasing Monday showed the vaccine does not appear to provide protection against mild and moderate disease caused by the virus variant. CNN has not obtained a copy of the study.

New vaccine not quite ready: Gilbert said the new version of the current Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine “was in the works” but “not quite ready to vaccinate people yet.”

Anna says she did not want to break the UK's Covid-19 lockdown rules. The 37-year-old has worked through the pandemic. Anna says she cleans an office building in London which is open but nearly empty, as most staff are working from home.

It's a job the Ecuadorean native has done for five years, after moving to the UK from Spain in 2013 while looking for work. CNN is not disclosing Anna's real name as she fears repercussions from her employer.

Anna's employer insisted that she continue to clean the building during the pandemic but cut her hours from five a day to four. She earns £10.75 ($14.77) per hour.

"I have been forced to go to work in a nonessential building," she told CNN. "There is no one at work, I'm alone."

Last month Anna caught Covid-19. She's unsure where she picked it up from but said it was likely "on the bus or on the Underground."

But after staying home for a few days as she recovered from the disease, Anna decided to go into work, as she was only receiving partial pay.

UK government rules state that while recovering from Covid-19, patients should self-isolate for at least 10 full days.

"I only felt tired and [had] a headache," she said. "That is why I went to work -- I also couldn't afford to stay at home because I received very little salary.

Breaches of self-isolation rules are rampant across the UK. Up to 20,000 people a day are failing to stay home when instructed to, according to Dido Harding, who is in charge of the country's coronavirus Test and Trace scheme.

For the British government, the lack of compliance is a significant worry.

Read the full story here:

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While Covid-19 numbers are trending in the right direction across much of the US, officials nationwide warned against Super Bowl gatherings to avoid another surge of infections.

"While the instinct may be to celebrate together, we cannot get cocky," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Saturday. "We must continue doing the things we know are effective at taming the virus: wear a mask, adhere to social distancing, and avoid gatherings.

"We can beat this thing, but we must stay smart," he added.

No time to relax: The warnings came from all corners of the country ahead of the big game Sunday, with local and state leaders reminding Americans that despite the hopeful signs in declining numbers of new cases and hospitalizations, now is not the time to let their guards down.

That's because experts have made clear that the US is still not out of the woods. Thousands of Americans continue to lose their lives to the virus every single day. And the detection of several Covid-19 variants now poses new challenges.

"When people get together in private residences in close proximity, that is one of the single most effective ways to spread this disease," Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack said last week.

Read the full story here.

Nearly three weeks into office, US President Joe Biden is trying to do what he knows how to do best -- connect with average Americans, letting them know he understands their suffering and offering words of comfort. But instead of doing so quietly on the campaign trail, he's now using those skills to win a different kind of campaign -- to sell his massive Covid-19 relief package to the American people.

In the first installment of a series of weekly addresses to the American people, released by the White House Saturday, Biden's team filmed him calling Michele, a woman from Roseville, California, who lost her job because of the pandemic. He promised that his economic plan is intended to help restore the loss of dignity and purpose that she and so many others have felt over the past year.

Biden hasn't made headway with his initial efforts to win bipartisan support for his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package, so he is taking his case directly to the voters -- connecting with Americans one at a time as he uses their stories to drive his policy agenda.

The clips of the conversation -- which the White House framed as a modern-day version of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats -- were brief, tightly edited and organized around Biden's longstanding campaign theme that many Americans derive their dignity and self-worth from their jobs.

On the campaign trail last year and as Barack Obama's running mate, Biden sought an emotional connection with voters by telling the story countless times of what he learned from his own father's struggle to find steady work. He has often reflected on the isolation and self-doubt that can come from losing a job. As often, he has highlighted the lesson his father taught him -- that success can also be measured by one's resilience, getting back up after being knocked down.

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More than a week after Philadelphia cut ties with a Covid-19 testing and vaccine provider, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley testified that it was a "mistake" to allow Philly Fighting Covid (PFC) to operate vaccine clinics.

The city severed its ties with PFC amid reports the non-profit shifted to a for-profit entity. There were also concerns over PFC's patient data collection and protection practices.

PFC CEO Andrei Doroshin said shortly after the break with Philadelphia that he never hid the group's intentions to transition to a for-profit business.

"Vaccinating large groups of people takes resources, manpower, and ultimately financial help...We have always intended on scaling up the number of clinics to eventually vaccinate more people (we have been working for months on plans to scale-up vaccinations and have shared them with the city) and money is needed to do that," he said in a statement.

Read the full story:

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The United States reported 102,420 new Covid-19 infections and 2,618 additional virus-related fatalities on Saturday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

That raises the national tally to at least 26,916,192 coronavirus cases and 462,173 deaths.

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

Vaccines: At least 59,304,600 vaccine doses have been distributed and at least 39,037,964 shots administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

See CNN's live tracker here.

As fans prepare to watch Super Bowl LV on Sunday, Disney has some bad news: There will be no Super Bowl victory parade down the Magic Kingdom's Main Street U.S.A. this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the cancellation of the parade, the traditional "I'm going to Disney World" commercial is scheduled to air following the big game, according to post on the Disney Parks Blog on Friday.

The tradition began in 1987 when New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms appeared in a commercial and said the now-famous phrase -- which he voiced as "I'm going to go to Disney World" -- after winning Super Bowl XXI.

The advertisements show clips of players and fans cheering and running around while the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" plays over the scenes. At the end, a narrator asks a player on the winning team, "What are you going to do next?" The player responds with "I'm going to Disney World!"

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People who have been hoping to cruise the northern waters of North America this summer will have to place their travel dreams in dry dock for now.

Because of the worsening Covid-19 pandemic, Canada has extended its cruise ship ban until February 2022. That affects popular voyage destinations in Canada, including the St. Lawrence River and Maritime Provinces on the Atlantic side to British Columbia along the Pacific Coast.

But the ban extension is also going to hit Alaska and even Seattle, Washington, hard through a combination of geographical proximity and US maritime rules.

What Canada is doing -- and why: On Thursday, Canadian Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra announced the interim orders that ban pleasure craft in its Arctic waters and cruise vessels in all Canadian waters until February 28, 2022.

The government said "passenger vessels carrying more than 12 people are still prohibited from entering Arctic coastal waters. ... Pleasure craft used by local Arctic residents will not be affected by these measures."

But the bigger vacation impact will be for folks who enjoy the big cruise ship experience. Cruise ships that ferry more than 100 passengers will still be prohibited from operating in Canadian waters.

It's notable that there's no ban on "smaller cruise ships certified to carry 100 or fewer people."

If the pandemic situation "sufficiently improves," Alghabra could rescind orders earlier than February 2022.

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By Forrest Brown, CNN

The New York State Department of Health has released updated data on Covid-19 deaths among the state's nursing home residents, several days after a state Supreme Court judge ordered the department to fulfill a watchdog group's Freedom of Information request.

The data released Saturday comes over a week after the state attorney general said in a report that the department had undercounted Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents by about 50%.

Data released on the department's website Saturday shows 13,197 confirmed and presumed-positive Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents across the state from March 1, 2020 to February 5, 2021. Of those deaths, 4,080 occurred after a nursing home resident was transported outside the facility, the data shows.

The data reflect a slight uptick in the previously reported numbers. In a statement released last week in response to the attorney general's report, state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said that, at that time, the health department had recorded a total of 12,743 confirmed and presumed-positive Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents through January 19 -- 3,829 of which occurred outside nursing home facilities.

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