February 8 coronavirus news

Two Sumatran tigers at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo in Indiana have tested positive for Covid-19, the zoo announced in a release.

Veterinarian staff received the tigers’ positive test results Friday, after care staff had reported one of the Sumatran tigers showing mild symptoms consistent with Covid-19 on Feb. 1, the release said.

According to the zoo, the source of the tigers’ infection is still unknown and they are working with the Allen County Department of Health and the State Board of Animal Health to identify potential sources. 

Among other extra precautions, the zoo is now restricting access to the tiger holding area and has increased PPE requirements for their care staff, in addition to following guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and recommendations by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan, the release said.

According to the release, no other animals at the Children’s Zoo have been tested for Covid-19 so far.

New Covid-19 cases among nursing home residents and staff have dropped more than 50% in about four weeks, according to a CNN analysis of the latest data published by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The data captured cases reported between the week ending Dec. 20 and the week ending Jan. 24.

A separate analysis by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living found that new Covid-19 cases have dropped twice as fast in those nursing homes that held early vaccination clinics. 

Last week, CMS said it was too soon to link the ongoing decreases in nursing home cases to vaccination efforts.

A federal program to vaccinate long-term care facility residents and staff held its first vaccination clinics during the week of Dec. 19. Three weeks later, new Covid-19 cases among residents had declined 48% in nursing homes that participated in the first week of vaccine clinics, compared to a 21% decline in nursing homes that did not have a clinic that first week. 

Similarly, new Covid-19 cases among staff declined 33% in those facilities that participated in the first week of vaccine clinics, compared to 18% in those that did not have a clinic that first week. 

The AHCA/NCAL analysis, published last week, only assessed those nursing homes that enrolled in the Federal Partnership for Long-Term Care Program, including 797 facilities that held vaccination clinics in the first week and 1,709 facilities in the same set of counties that did not. 

The President of the European Commission called on EU member states to donate some of their coronavirus vaccine supply to Ukraine. 

"On top of Covax, I have also asked our member states to donate part of their doses to Ukraine," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a video address at a conference held in Kiev on Monday. 

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

The EU has faced criticism for its handling of the vaccine rollout across the continent. Von der Leyen did not elaborate on what the donations to Ukraine – a non-EU country – would mean for the bloc. 

More about Ukraine: Ukraine has a population of approximately 40 million people. It is awaiting delivery of eight million vaccine doses promised under the United Nations Covax program, and up to five million doses of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine. The country will begin the first phase of its Covid-19 inoculation program this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced during the conference. 

The 43-year-old leader, who experienced mild symptoms of the coronavirus last year, said he was ready to get inoculated to encourage others to do the same. 

"As with the majority of world leaders, I am ready to show people by personal example that vaccination is important, it is safe, it is needed," Zelensky said. 

Ukraine has recorded over 1.2 million cases and more than 23,000 deaths from Covid-19.  

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker called on Congress to act on Covid-19 relief, saying, "there are still substantial financial challenges that we face as a Commonwealth and that other states across the country are facing as well." 

"While hundreds of thousands of residents have returned to work over the past few months, there's still way too many people out of work through no fault of their own," he said, adding that Massachusetts is still down 330,000 jobs from this time last year. 

"We're now in a much better economic spot than we were last spring, but many of our residents are still unable to find a job, and our main streets are hurting, and many small businesses have not recovered from the pandemic and won't for months," Baker said.

The governor was joined by Democratic Rep. Richard Neal, who represents Massachusetts' first congressional district and is also the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to promote President Biden's Covid-19 relief package. 

About 42.4 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the US, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC reported that 42,417,617 total doses have been administered – about 72% of the 59,307,800 doses distributed. That’s about 1.2 million more administered doses reported since yesterday, for a seven-day average of nearly 1.5 million doses per day.

About 10% of the US population – more than 32.3 million people – have now received at least one dose of the vaccine, and about 9.5 million people have been fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.

Remember: Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.

The House Committee on Education and Labor – one of the 12 committees contributing to the reconciliation package – released the top lines of what their committee would be contributing to the Covid relief bill as the bill takes shape.

These are the highlights:

The two pager also highlights their call to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a growing flashpoint as negotiations on the relief package continue to take shape.

You can read more about the Democrats' efforts to pass a stimulus bill here.

Italy started to vaccinate citizens over 80 years old on Monday, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said in a tweet. 

“Our commitment continues to protect the elderly that have been most affected by the pandemic,” Speranza wrote. 

The vaccination of elderly people was planned to start at the beginning of February but was delayed by the reduced number of doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.  

Special coronavirus commissioner Domenico Arcuri has expressed disappointment over Pfizer’s and Moderna’s failures to meet their scheduled delivery date.

Italy, like many of its European Union allies, has not authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine for people aged over 55. 

Italy first started vaccinations of medical and hospital personnel, as well as care home residents and staff, on Dec. 31. 

The number of people to receive both shots of the Covid vaccine is 1,147,256 since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, the Health ministry website says. 

The population of Italy is about 60 million.

About 2.93 million children in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 as of Feb. 4, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Last week alone, 117,518 new child cases were identified through testing, the report said. That’s an 10% increase in child Covid-19 cases over the course of two weeks. Children represent 12.9% of all cases in the US.

Children made up between 6% and 18% of those who were tested for Covid-19, and 7% to 29% of children tested were positive for coronavirus, depending on the state.

Children are still considered much less likely than adults to develop severe symptoms of Covid-19 or to die from the infection. Children represented 1.2% to 2.9% of total reported hospitalizations for Covid-19, based on the information provided by 24 states and New York City. Only 0.1%-2.3% of all cases of Covid-19 in children required hospitalization. 

Eleven states reported zero child deaths among the 43 states that provided data on Covid-19 mortality. The states that did report having a fatal case saw no more than 0.05% of deaths in children among all confirmed cases of Covid-19. 

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be invited to visit the White House “when it is Covid safe,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday, a day after the Bucs won Super Bowl LV. 

“We look forward to inviting the Buccaneers as well as the 2020 NBA Champions the Lakers to the White House when it is Covid safe, but I don’t know when that will take place yet,” she said.  

Some context: In January, LeBron James opened up the possibility of the LA Lakers visiting the White House in order to celebrate last year's NBA championship — if only Covid-19 protocols would allow it. It had become a tradition for the reigning champion to visit the US president in the season following its triumph, but that tradition took a hiatus during former President Donald Trump's time in office. 

James' Cleveland Cavaliers were the last team to fulfill the tradition when the players met Barack Obama in 2016 but the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors both since declined invites to meet Trump. 

Trump cancelled the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House visit to the White House in 2018 due to the controversy over standing for the National Anthem at NFL games. 

Presidents typically honor their invitations to championship teams. Players also have refused those invitations in the past – Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas declined to visit the White House in 2012 over disagreements with then President Barack Obama’s policies.