The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

The US Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted emergency use authorization to the Quidel QuickVue At-Home Covid-19 Test.

Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement that “The FDA continues to prioritize the availability of more at-home testing options in response to the pandemic.”

Here are some key things to know about the at-home test:

Rapid antigen tests have been shown to be less accurate than RT-PCR tests, which are considered the “gold-standard” of diagnostic testing.

In a press release, Quidel said the test can return results in as little as 10 minutes, and that positive test results match PCR tests 84.8% of the time; negative test results match PCR results 99.1% of the time.

The sample swabs are placed in a test tube along with a test strip. Colored lines on the test strip indicate a positive or negative test result, similar to a home pregnancy test.

In a separate news release Monday, the National Institutes of Health announced it is evaluating the use of Quidel’s QuickVue test with a smartphone app. The agency says it has enrolled more than 200 participants in the study, which requires them to use the test daily for two weeks.

The NIH says that as at-home tests become more widely available, it believes companion apps will play a role in tracking symptoms, administering tests and reporting results to public health authorities and health care providers.

“Understanding how individuals interact with these apps and where they find value in them will inform future efforts to advance at-home COVID-19 testing,” the NIH said in a statement.

The US military has administered 1,144,697 doses out of 1,275,925 doses delivered to the military so far. At least 735,000 of those are initial doses, 409,000 are second doses, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said. 

The US military expects to get doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine delivered to them in “the next week or so,” now that it has been approved by the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization, Kirby said.

Kirby acknowledged that the Secretary is aware of vaccine hesitancy in some pockets of the military, particularly “cultural and community concerns,” he said.

Right now, the Pentagon has not decided whether or not to make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory when it does receive full authorization from the FDA. The Pentagon cannot make the vaccine mandatory currently because it has been authorized under emergency use by the FDA.

“These are still under emergency authorization, and so right now, they are not mandatory. Obviously, we’re thinking about what happens when they become FDA approved,” Kirby said.

Nearly 77 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC reported that 76,899,987 total doses have been administered – about 80% of the 96,402,490 doses delivered.

That’s about 1.7 million more administered doses reported since yesterday, for a seven-day average of more than 1.8 million doses per day.

More than 15% of the population – about 50.7 million people – have now received at least one dose of vaccine. Nearly 8% of the population – nearly 25.5 million people – have been fully vaccinated with both shots, CDC data shows.

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

Senate Democratic leaders are urging their caucus to stick together and fend off GOP amendments that could alter key elements of the $1.9 trillion relief plan when it heads to the floor later this week, a plea aimed at keeping together a fragile Democratic coalition in order to send the bill to President Biden's desk by mid-March.

Senators are walking into a legislative minefield later this week since the relief bill is being considered under budget reconciliation rules that allow a free-flowing amendment process, meaning senators can force votes on as many amendments as they like. That means if two Democrats break ranks, they could amend the bill with the backing of 49 Republicans.

But Democratic leaders want their caucus to hold the line against amendments that could alter the core of the bill and ultimately derail the chances of getting the sweeping measure out of both chambers by March 14 — when jobless benefits are set to expire for millions of Americans.

Asked if he wanted his caucus to hold the line against GOP amendments, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told CNN: "Certainly [against] any amendments that we think will be disruptive of the reconciliation process — maybe more."

Durbin added of the GOP amendments: "There are some that could be lethal. So we have to take it very seriously.”

It's unclear which amendments could peel away Democratic support, but party leaders and the White House have their eyes in particular on a handful of their more centrist members, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Angus King of Maine.

Whether there could be some changes around the margins of the bill remain to be seen. And already the Senate is poised to make one major change: Scrapping the $15 federal minimum wage included in the House-passed bill since it was ruled by the Senate's parliamentarian as outside the scope of the chamber's rules of budget reconciliation.

Some House liberals want the presiding officer of the Senate, potentially Vice President Kamala Harris, to simply ignore the parliamentarian's ruling and keep the minimum wage in the bill.

But Durbin threw cold water on that idea, which is also opposed by a number of senators in both parties and by the White House.

Yet pursuing the wage hike outside of budget reconciliation would require 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster, something highly unlikely to succeed.

Given the divisions within the Senate Democratic Caucus over the $15 hourly wage mandate, Durbin conceded that the parliamentarian's decision made passage of the overall bill "less complicating," while calling the ruling "disappointing."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that President Joe Biden is not considering sharing part of the US coronavirus vaccine supply with Mexico.

On Sunday, CNN reported that Obrador was expected to ask Biden to share some of the US Covid-19 vaccine supply, according to a Mexican government official briefed on plans for the conversation. 

Ahead of a virtual bilateral meeting between Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Monday afternoon, Psaki was asked whether Biden is considering sharing part of the supply with the country. 

The press secretary said the Biden administration is focused on economic recovery and ensuring that Mexico and Canada are safe enough to open their borders to the US.

“(T)he administration's focus is on ensuring that every American is vaccinated. And once we accomplish that objective, we're happy to discuss further steps beyond that,” Psaki added.

Johnson & Johnson's single-dose coronavirus vaccine is now the third Covid-19 shot approved for use in the US, with some 3.9 million doses to be distributed as early as Tuesday.

CNN's Pete Muntean was live at a UPS facility in Kentucky as the new vaccine rolls out, answering your questions.

Watch more:

President Joe Biden continues to engage with the Senate amid this week’s efforts to pass his top legislative priority, a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill. The clock is ticking to get the bill passed and signed into law before unemployment insurance expires for millions of Americans on March 14.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday the White House is “evaluating day by day what the needs are” for Biden’s engagement with Democrats, as well as Republican senators that could be persuaded to vote for the package. 

Biden will be meeting via Zoom “with a number of Democratic senators this afternoon,” she said.

Her comments come after White House director of public engagement Cedric Richmond told Axios on HBO that he is still meeting with Republicans and said that “possibly, maybe even probably,” a Republican will vote for it.  

Psaki also said Monday that the White House does not intend to challenge a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian that will not allow the $15 minimum wage provision to be in the Senate version of the bill. 

A decision for Vice President Kamala Harris to override the parliamentarian’s ruling would “also require 50 votes,” and is “not an action we intend to take,” she said.

Psaki reiterated Biden’s campaign promise to raising the minimum wage and suggested they will be looking for the “best vehicle” to do so. 

The first UPS truck carrying the Johnson & Johnson vaccine just arrived at the carrier’s Worldport hub in Louisville, Kentucky. The company says deliveries will start Tuesday for the eastern half of the country.

More trucks carrying the vaccine are expected to arrive at the facility throughout the day Monday.

UPS says two people will unload vaccine shipments by hand onto more than 150 miles of conveyer belt where machines will sort vaccine packages in 13 minutes time. Packages will then be loaded onto UPS cargo planes along with regular, everyday packages— even though vaccine shipments are getting priority over other packages.  

UPS head of healthcare Wes Wheeler told CNN in an interview that the network has plenty of capacity to carry the new vaccine. The company has already shipped tens of millions of Pfizer and Moderna doses. 

Some more context: The White House said Monday 3.9 million doses are going out in this initial wave of shipments. Johnson & Johnson said Monday the goal is to distribute 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of this month.

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who chairs the White House coronavirus equity task force, told CNN Monday that while there are benefits to the newly approved Johnson & Johnson single-dose Covid-19 vaccine that make it appealing for treating marginalized and hard-to-reach communities, “overall, you know, we do think that the distribution again should be even across communities.”

Over the weekend, the CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver told the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that a single-dose vaccine has an advantage, particularly in settings where a second dose “would be challenging,” and could be used to help protect the homeless, people in the justice system, and those with limited access to health care like people who are homebound or live in rural areas.

Still, to ensure that the vaccine is spread across all communities, Dr. Nunez-Smith told CNN, "we will be tracking biometrics such as zip code and social mobility to see where vaccines are going.”

Should it arise that any one vaccine is being deployed in a disproportionate manner to one community over another, Nunez-Smith said, “we’re here provide support and technical assistance to pivot and intervene and correct if and when needed.”