March 15 coronavirus news

A review of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Covid-19 guidance has found that some of the agency's guidance during the Trump Administration was not grounded in science and free from undue influence, according to a statement from a CDC spokesperson.

The review found that some guidance "Used less direct language than available evidence supported"; "Needed to be updated to reflect the latest scientific evidence"; and "Presented the underlying science base for guidance inconsistently," according to the spokesperson.

Additionally, the review identified three documents that were not primarily authored by the CDC and yet were presented as CDC documents, according to the spokesperson. The agency removed two of the documents from its website, and updated and replaced the third.

The review was ordered by President Biden's CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in response to concerns about some of the CDC's guidance during the first year of the pandemic, when the Trump Administration was in charge of the agency.

News of the CDC review was first reported by The Washington Post.

Europe has nearly eight million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine sitting unused, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data shows as of Sunday.

That is more than half the total number of doses distributed to European nations, the data shows.

It shows 14,851,497 doses have been distributed, while 6,895,411 have been used – leaving 7,970,323 doses unused. 

Only Lithuania has used its full allocation, the data shows. 

The ECDC notes that member states are asked to upload data at least twice a week, on Tuesdays for the preceding week and Friday for the current week, so there may be a lag in reporting. 

The White House said it would welcome former President Trump's help in promoting the vaccine to his supporters but cited other ways to convince conservatives to get the shot.

"If former President Trump woke up tomorrow and wanted to be more vocal about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine certainly we’d support that," press secretary Jen Psaki said at a Monday press briefing.

Health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have said Trump's voice in promoting the vaccine would go far in convincing Republicans to get it. Polls have shown Republicans are more likely to say they are wary or don't plan to get inoculated.

Trump has made small efforts to promote the vaccine, including in a speech at CPAC, but he did not appear in a public service announcement featuring former presidents that was released last week.

Psaki noted those presidents — Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — "did not need an engraved invitation" to promote the vaccine.

CNN reported that Trump wasn't approached to participate in the PSA, and expressed little interest in joining his predecessors to promote the vaccine.

Still, Psaki said the administration was focused on using "trusted messengers" to convince wary populations to get the vaccine. 

She said Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, would meet with evangelical leaders on Tuesday to discuss vaccines and the best way to promote them among that population.

And she cited polls showing more Republicans would trust a doctor or health care provider when deciding whether to get a shot.

Last week at least 52,695 new child Covid-19 cases were identified through testing, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

However, it’s the eighth consecutive week with a decline in new cases. 

Children still represent more than 13% of all cases in the US and more than 3.28 million children in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 as of Feb. 25. 

Children made up between 6% and 18.6% of those who were tested for Covid-19, and 5.3% to 31% of children tested were positive for the 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 disease. Children represented 1.3% to 3% of total reported hospitalizations for Covid-19, based on the information provided by 24 states and New York City. Only 0.1%-2.1% of all cases of Covid-19 in children required hospitalization. 

10 states reported zero child deaths among the 43 states that provided data on Covid-19 mortality. 

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday that the state will be opening up Covid-19 vaccination appointments to all residents 16 and older starting Tuesday. 

Reeves said there will be around 10,000 appointments available over the next three weeks and encouraged those over the age of 50 to "lock them down."  

According to the governor's office, Reeves has been hinting that he was ready to do this for a few weeks.  

"He's been saying for a while that he was ready to open it up to anyone of any age who wants to get it. Today is the official announcement," the governor's press secretary Bailey Martin told CNN Monday.  

See his tweet:

The benefits of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine outweigh the risks, and the number of people developing blood clots after vaccination does not seem to be higher than in the general population, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Monday.

The statement comes after Germany, France and Italy announced temporary suspensions of use of the vaccine.

The agency said it would hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to advise on “any further actions that may need to be taken.”

The EMA said last week after Denmark suspended use of the vaccine over the death of a person with a blood clot that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks.

Canada says it will continue with its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine despite concerns in Europe about a link between the shot and blood clots. 

Health Canada confirmed last week that it is aware of reports of adverse events in Europe following immunization with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, but said "the benefits of the vaccine continue to outweigh its risks." 

“At this time, there is no indication that the vaccine caused these events. To date, no adverse events related to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, or the version manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, have been reported to Health Canada or the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the statement posted last week said. 

Canada’s vaccine regulator approved the AstraZeneca shot late last month, approving it for all Canadians over the age of 18, including seniors. However, Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) chose not to recommend the AstraZeneca’s vaccine for people aged 65 years and older, due to what it called an insufficient amount of evidence for that age group.

Canadian provinces, responsible for administering vaccines, have taken different approaches, with some restricting the AstraZeneca vaccine to those under the age of 65.

Earlier Monday, Trudeau visited a mass vaccination site in downtown Montreal, a city that remains a stubborn hotspot for coronavirus infections. 

Trudeau said that while he was relieved to see his mother get vaccinated in recent days, he has no firm date for receiving his own vaccine shot. 

“I’m not overly focused on when my turn will come. When it comes, I will gladly get vaccinated but I will wait my turn,” he said. 

New York City has administered at least 2,827,436 Covid-19 vaccines to date, Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a news conference Monday, adding that the figure was “more than the population of Chicago.”

De Blasio also said the city has set a goal to vaccinate any homebound residents within the next seven weeks.

The city will reach out to their own list of NYC residents with disabilities to facilitate in-home vaccinations and homebound persons will be able to register for vaccinations on NYC.gov, according to Victor Calise, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.

On Monday, New York City recorded a 6.16% Covid-19 positivity rate with 3,123 new cases. There are currently 3.38 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 people, de Blasio said.

Note on the data: These numbers were released by the City of New York, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

A Dutch lab that monitors the use of pharmaceuticals says that it has received reports of 10 instances of blood clots in people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, but none had the low blood platelet condition reportedly observed in Norway and Denmark.

Despite pausing the use of that vaccine for two weeks, the Dutch health ministry has made clear that it is still an open question whether blood clots have “any link with vaccination at all.”

“Thrombosis is of course a very common complaint,” Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said Monday. “And so if you are vaccinating a large group of people, it’s not crazy that there will also be people with thrombosis after vaccination.” 

The Lareb Pharmacovigilance Center said it had not received any reports in the Netherlands of vaccine recipients with both blood clots and lowered platelet count.