April 1 coronavirus news

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CBS This Morning on Thursday the loss of 15 million doses of Johnson and Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine due to human error is "really quit unfortunate."

The New York Times reported Wednesday that workers at Emergent, the Baltimore plant that has been making Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, accidentally mixed up some of the ingredients, ruining as many as 15 million potential doses of vaccine and delaying US Food and Drug Administration authorization of the plant. 

Johnson & Johnson Wednesday said that it had found a quality problem at the plant, which was identified.

“Obviously, you don’t like to see anything like this happening, but you’re right, Gayle, it was human error,” Fauci told CBS’s Gayle King.

The US Food and Drug Administration is investigating, Fauci said, adding that the plant has not yet been fully certified by the agency.

“People should realize that all the doses that have been distributed to us and have been administered did not come from that plant,” Fauci said. “So, this is not related in any way to any of the J&J doses that people have already gotten. And what’s going on there now, as I mentioned, is being thoroughly investigated by the FDA.”

Thousands of cases of the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in the UK, have now been reported across the US, and experts fear the strain may fuel another Covid-19 surge as states race to vaccinate more residents.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 11,500 cases of the variant, but the agency has said the number is likely larger.

Florida has the highest case count of the UK variant. The Sunshine State has welcomed crowds of spring breakers looking for a carefree vacation, and an escape from the restrictions still in place in other parts of the country.

Michigan has the second highest number of cases in the country and officials say another surge there is well on its way.

New Jersey has also seen a rise in cases and hospitalizations, and experts have warned the numbers could stay high into the summer.

Pennsylvania is seeing the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant too. The University of Pittsburgh implemented a shelter-in-place period in response to a rise in cases among students on campus and in the surrounding area.

The vaccines that are being administered across the US appear to protect people well against the B.1.1.7 variant. But only 16.4% of Americans have been fully vaccinated and a big part of the population remains vulnerable to the virus.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday that France could reach the peak of its current wave of the virus within the next 10 days.

He made his comments as the country woke up to tighter nationwide restrictions amid a surge that has stretched the country's hospitals. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a partial lockdown across France on Wednesday night, after ICU admission numbers broke past the 5,000 mark and doctors called on the government for more restrictive measures.

We “could reach the epidemic peak in about 7 to 10 days, if all goes well,” Veran told the France Inter public radio station.

“Then it takes another two weeks to reach the ICU peak, which could happen around the end of April.”

He added: “I believe the measures announced last night by the President of the Republic will have a strong impact on the dynamic of the epidemic,” he said.

The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection lasts at least six months after the second dose, the companies said Thursday.

It also appears to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa and which researchers feared had evolved to evade the protection of vaccines, the companies said.

The results are the first look at how long protection for a coronavirus vaccine lasts, and while six months is a modest target, it's longer than the 90 days of protection that had been the best estimate offered to date.

The vaccine remains more than 91% effective against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said.

"The vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement.

On Wednesday, the companies said a small trial of volunteers aged 12 to 15 showed 100% efficacy in that age group.

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Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday it had found a quality problem at a Baltimore plant helping manufacture its single-dose coronavirus vaccine.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that workers at Emergent BioSolutions, the Baltimore plant that has been making Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine, accidentally mixed up some of the ingredients, ruining as many as 15 million potential doses of vaccine and delaying US Food and Drug Administration authorization of the plant.

Emergent is also making the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has yet to be authorized for use in this country.

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to CNN that the quality control process at the plant identified "one batch" of drug substance that did not meet quality standards. The batch in question was part of a test run and quality check. The site is not yet authorized by the FDA to make the drug substance used in the vaccine.

"This batch was never advanced to the filling and finishing stages of our manufacturing process," the emailed statement from the company said.

None of the lost doses impact the company's goal of delivering 20 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in March. For that, the company said Wednesday, it is on track. Those doses come from J&J's Janssen vaccine plant in the Netherlands.

The coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 -- which was first identified in the UK -- has been found in nearly nine in 10 of all new Covid-19 infections in Germany, according to a report from the country’s public health authority the Robert Koch Institute, published on Wednesday night.

The RKI report shows that the UK variant accounted for 88% of new coronavirus infections for tests conducted between March 22 and 28.

It added that because of the high proportions of B.1.1.7, the overall increase is “not expected to slow down'' and hospitalizations are set to continue to rise.

On Thursday, Germany recorded 24,300 new coronavirus infections, a rise of 1,643 cases compared to the same day last week, according to RKI data.

Germany's coronavirus deaths stood at 201 within the last 24 hours, bringing the total tally of deaths to 76,543. The latest data from RKI indicates that the number of new infections per 100,000 residents has risen to 134, more than double in just four weeks.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the European vaccine rollout is “unacceptably slow” and that the surge in coronavirus infections within the continent was “worrying.”

In a statement, the WHO said that vaccines were the best way out of the pandemic, but the slow rollout was prolonging it.

“Let me be clear: we must speed up the process by ramping up manufacturing, reducing barriers to administering vaccines, and using every single vial we have in stock, now,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr. Hans Kluge said in the statement.

Dr. Dorit Nitzan, regional emergency director for the WHO Europe, warned that it was only five weeks ago that new cases in Europe had dipped to under 1 million, but now with more mobility, gatherings over religious holidays and the presence of the B.1.1.7 variant -- first identified in the UK -- there is a greater public risk.

“This variant is more transmissible and can increase the risk of hospitalization, it has a greater public health impact and additional actions are required to control it,” Dr. Nitzan said.

As the vaccination rollout grows across Europe, the WHO are calling for early action to implement public health and social measures.

The statement added that 27 countries in Europe are in a partial or full nationwide lockdown, with 21 imposing night time curfews. In the past 2 weeks, 23 countries have intensified restrictions while 13 have eased measures, with an additional nine to follow suit.

Parts of Austria are entering lockdown from Thursday until at least April 10 -- coinciding with the Easter holiday -- in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus and prevent an overburdened healthcare system.

The lockdown would apply to nearly four million people living in Vienna, Burgenland and lower Austria, where shops -- excluding grocery stores and pharmacies -- museums and zoos will be closed.

According to the rules introduced by Vienna, curfews will also be implemented as people are only allowed to leave their homes for essential shopping trips, walk their pets or exercise.

Church services over the Easter holidays are permitted however, while being subject to very strict hygiene rules.

On Thursday, Austria recorded 3,687 new coronavirus infections -- with Vienna reporting nearly 1,000 new cases and more than 800 in Lower Austria, according to data from the Austrian public health authority. This brings the total number of new infections in the country to 545,965.

According to Austria’s health authorities 2,323 people are being treated in hospital due to coronavirus infections, of which 540 are in intensive care. The country's death toll stands at 9,339.

Massive crowds of Hindus began arriving in the northern Indian city of Haridwar on Thursday for the largest religious pilgrimage on Earth, even as experts warned it could cause a surge in Covid-19 cases as the country grapples with a second wave.

The months-long Kumbh Mela festival, one of the most important Hindu celebrations, typically takes place every 12 years and draws tens of millions of pilgrims to four rotating sites.

This year, it takes place in Haridwar, in the foothills of the outer Himalayas in Uttarakhand state, where devotees attend prayers, and wash their sins away in the sacred waters of the Ganges River. According to some myths associated with the festival, the river water turns into "amrita," or the nectar of immortality, on particular days.

But this year, Covid-19 measures have seen the festival postponed and then scaled back. The traditional start date, called Makar Sankranti, was in January, but people were not authorized to take holy baths in the river until the government's formal launch in April.

Although authorities moved the start date, and shortened the pilgrimage from three and a half months to just one month, many people have chosen to disregard the official guidelines, said Oommen Kurian, senior fellow and head of health initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been flocking to Haridwar since Makar Sankranti in January anyway -- congregating in close quarters for hours a day, sharing public facilities and having meals together. Photos show people washing their faces and taking full body dips into the sacred waters, then attending evening prayers by the banks of the river, lighting candles and making religious offerings.

Thursday saw the first ceremonies and holy baths take place by the banks of the Ganges, with holy men carrying out prayer rituals, said festival officer Harbeer Singh. Religious flags were hoisted ahead of their arrival, marking the formal start of the celebrations.

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