February 24 coronavirus news

The Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine seems to work better against the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa than data initially suggested.

The variant, which is thought to be more contagious, currently makes up the majority of cases in South Africa and has been found in several countries, including in the United States.

According to a US Food and Drug Administration’s briefing document released Wednesday, the vaccine showed a 64% efficacy rate in South Africa. That’s seven points higher than what was reported in interim data released by the company in January. 

Since that time, Johnson & Johnson did additional sequencing and determined there were more cases that could be included in its analysis from South Africa. Nearly 95% of the cases in the study in South Africa came from the variant, according to the addendum to the analysis. 

The vaccine has a 72% efficacy rate in the US and a more than 68% rate in Brazil at protecting people from mild to severe/critical disease. 

The vaccine offered nearly 86% protection against severe forms of the disease in the US, nearly 82% in South Africa and nearly 88% in Brazil.

Experts have said variants may fuel a surge of cases in the US, and that’s one reason why it’s important to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

Moderna has designed an updated version of its Covid-19 vaccine to help it combat the South Africa coronavirus variant, the company announced Wednesday.

Initial doses have been shipped to the US National Institutes of Health for a clinical study.

The new vaccine, called mRNA-1273.351, will be evaluated as a booster shot for people who have already been vaccinated against coronavirus and as a primary vaccine for people who haven't had coronavirus and have yet to be vaccinated.

Moderna said it will also evaluate a "multivalent" booster shot that combines the new vaccine formulation with the current vaccine.

Additionally, the company said it has begun to test whether a third, lower dose of its current Covid-19 vaccine can increase immunity against coronavirus variants of concern, with some study participants already getting third doses.

On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance to vaccine makers to address the emergence of coronavirus variants. The agency recommended that data from clinical immunogenicity studies be used to support any changes or updates to vaccines. Such studies would be smaller and could take less time than large-scale clinical trials.

Moderna said it plans to "evaluate immunogenicity and safety in participants" consistent with the recently updated guidance. 

"We are moving quickly to test updates to the vaccines that address emerging variants of the virus in the clinic. Moderna is committed to making as many updates to our vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control. We hope to demonstrate that booster doses, if necessary, can be done at lower dose levels, which will allow us to provide many more doses to the global community in late 2021 and 2022 if necessary," Stephane Bancel, Moderna's CEO, said in a news release Wednesday.

Moderna did not say how long it expects the studies to take, or when the new vaccine would be available, if authorized.

Moderna has shipped approximately 55 million Covid-19 doses to the US to date, the company said Wednesday.

An additional approximately 33 million doses have been produced, filled into vials and are in the final stages of production and testing before being released to the US, Moderna said in a news release.

The company now plans to manufacture 700 million doses globally this year, an increase of 100 million doses. In 2022, it says its global capacity will increase to approximately 1.4 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine.

Moderna said it is making new financial investments to achieve that increased capacity at manufacturing sites. The influx of money will enable additional production of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine and potential production of new versions of the vaccine that may be needed to combat coronavirus variants.

The company said it could potentially manufacture even more doses in 2022 if studies show new variant-based versions of the vaccine can be administered at lower dosages than the current vaccine.

The White House officially announced it will continue the national emergency declared by the previous administration surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The national emergency was declared last year on March 13, 2020.

In a news release issued today, the White House said "the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause significant risk to the public health and safety of the Nation," adding that the declaration "must continue in effect beyond March 1, 2021." 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he will sign a new executive order that starts on Friday that will ease some of the Covid-19 restrictions that have been in place in the state since the beginning of the pandemic. 

The new executive order lifts the modified stay-at-home order that requires people to stay in their residences and businesses to close to the public between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. local time.

Cooper and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said the statewide mask mandate remains in effect.

Indoor gathering limits increase from 10 to 25, with the limit of 50 for outdoor gatherings remaining the same, the order said.

The curfew for alcohol sales for onsite consumption will now be from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. under the new order.

The order also lightened capacity limits for event venues. Indoor venues that have a capacity over 5,000 can now allow 15% capacity as long as they follow additional safety measures.

Previously, this limit was at 250 people, regardless of venue size. Outdoor venues can now have a capacity of 30%.

By the numbers: According to the state dashboard, 849,630 cases have been reported since the start of the pandemic. There have also been 11,074 deaths reported in North Carolina.

The dashboard showed that 2,180,655 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the state.

To note: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency and may not line up exactly in real-time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University, The Covid Tracking Project and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Honduras authorized the emergency use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, according to a report from the Honduran Health Regulatory Agency (ARSA) on Wednesday. 

ARSA detailed in a statement that the authorization was dated Feb. 19 and was based on the consideration of the "regulatory authorities of regional reference," as a measure to control the pandemic.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia's sovereign wealth fund, announced that Honduras is the 36th country to approve the use of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Further delays in the delivery of AstraZeneca vaccines are "extremely frustrating," said Belgian regional Health Minister Wouter Beke during a meeting of the Flemish Parliament Wednesday afternoon.

Beke said Belgium only got 88,800 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine this week instead of the expected 114,716 doses.

“Next week: 21,600 instead of 19,167; and the week after we should get – but I’ll see before we believe it – 127,200 instead of 33,984 deliveries," Beke said.

The lack of supply this week will be made up for in future deliveries, Beke said but there remains a structural shortage of 31,714 doses across Belgium. He added that the delay in vaccine deliveries is no reason to doubt the efficacy of the vaccine. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration was "surprised" when Johnson & Johnson told them they were behind on manufacturing.

CNN has reported the initial number of doses was expected to be closer to 10 million, and Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday it would be between 3 and 4 million.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed Psaki on the amount of Johnson & Johnson vaccine that will be deployed next week, pending emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. 

She continued, “We’re going to continue to work with them on ensuring that that can be expedited.”

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São Paulo, Brazil, will begin a statewide curfew this Friday, the state's governor, João Doria, announced today.

The curfew — which will run from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. local time and will remain in place until March 14 — requires bars and restaurants to close and prohibits people from being out in the streets. 

The decision is part of a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has led to record hospitalizations.

As of Monday more than 6,400 patients were hospitalized in ICUs across the state, up from the previous record of 6,250 recorded last July.

“It's a historic record since February last year when we had our first case of Covid in Brazil, here in the state of Sao Paulo," Doria said.

The governor also said large gatherings will be prohibited at any time of day, and regulations will be enforced with fines.

The increase in hospitalizations is likely due to large gatherings and parties organized 10 days prior during Carnival, the state’s emergency Covid-19 center coordinator, Paulo Menezes, said in a press conference. Menezes said a more contagious variant of the coronavirus might also have played a part.

Correction: An earlier version of this post included the wrong end date for São Paulo's curfew. The curfew will remain in place until March 14.