December 28 coronavirus news

Southwest Airlines said the just-signed stimulus bill will allow it to avoid employee furloughs – which would have been a first in the company’s approximately 50-year history.    

CEO Gary Kelly wrote in memo to employees on Sunday that the law extending the Payroll Support Program, known as PSP, "means we can stop the movement towards furloughs and pay cuts that we previously announced."  

A copy of the memo was obtained by CNN.

Southwest was planning on furloughing 6,828 employees in the spring, which would have been a first in the company’s 50-year history. The airline had offered the unions representing its employee groups a choice: either take a pay cut to preserve jobs, or furloughs. 

The law means "we can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that we will not be forced to follow through with those steps that are so foreign to all of us," Kelly wrote.

The new stimulus gives airlines another $16 billion for worker payroll support and bars any new furloughs until March 31, 2021.  

American Airlines also said prior to the bill’s passage that if it did become law, American would bring back all furloughed employees.

Phase 3 clinical trials of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine are set to start in the United States and Mexico, the company announced on Monday. 

The trial for the vaccine candidate, known as NVX-CoV2373, will evaluate safety, efficacy and immune response in up to 30,000 people age 18 and older. It builds on Phase 1 and 2 studies that demonstrated the vaccine provoked an immune response and appeared to be safe.

The trial is examining whether the vaccine prevents moderate Covid-19 symptoms, as well as severe Covid-19 symptoms. 

Two-thirds of participants will be assigned to randomly receive two injections of vaccine administered 21 days apart, the remaining one-third will receive a placebo. The trials sites are in locations that currently have high transmission rates "to accelerate the accumulation of positive cases that could show efficacy," a statement said.

Novavax says it aims for at least 25% of the study population to be age 65 or older, at least 15% to be Black, at least 10 to 20% Latinx and 1-2% American Indian.

The trial is being funded with up to $1.6 billion from Operation Warp Speed.

Some background: Novavax is also currently conducting a Phase 3 clinical study in the United Kingdom, a Phase 2b trial in South Africa and a Phase 1/2 continuation in the US and Australia, data from which are expected as soon as early first quarter 2021. 

Two coronavirus vaccines, those made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, have received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration. Two more vaccines, those from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, are in Phase 3 trials in the United States.

Watch Dr. Carlos Del Rio:

President Trump signed the massive $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government funding bill into law last night, averting a government shutdown that was set to begin on Tuesday, and extending billions of dollars in coronavirus aid to millions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had seized on Trump's call for $2,000 checks last week and brought to the floor a standalone bill that would have boosted the amount for relief checks on Thursday. House Republicans, however, objected to the bill over deficit concerns.

The Democratic-led House is set to vote on the expansion of the direct payments today.

Here are key things to know about the bill and what happens next:

Some more context: The Covid-19 relief legislation was passed by Congress last Monday and was flown to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday to await Trump's signature. But after sitting on the sidelines during the negotiations, Trump emerged with an eleventh-hour complaint that a separate provision in the deal, which the President's own White House helped broker, would only provide up to $600 in direct payments.

Trump wanted to send out $2,000 checks. 

Read more here.

The Transportation Security Administration said it screened a record number of people at US airports nationwide on Sunday, breaking a pandemic air travel record set only last Wednesday. 

At least 1,284,599 people passed through security checkpoints Sunday, the TSA said. That is the highest level air travel has reached since March 15th. 

The new figure is about one half of the number of fliers from the same day a year ago.

That is a sign that some people are staying home, but not as many as health experts and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would like. Earlier this month, the CDC urged Americans to stay home to avoid spreading coronavirus. 

Air travel has spiked, according to the TSA, with US air travel numbers hitting more than a million passengers for six of the past ten days. 

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services said on Good Morning America that when it comes to the number of Covid vaccines that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported being administered, “the two million number is probably an underestimate.”

On Saturday, the CDC Covid Data Tracker said that 9,547,925 vaccine doses had been distributed and 1,944,585 had been administered.

Giroir said that 10.8 million doses have been distributed to the states, “that two million number is delayed three to seven days, so we certainly expect that to be a multiple of two million.”

Giroir said that another four point seven million doses would be distributed this week, so by the end of the week there would be over 15 and a half million doses “in the hands of the states.”

There will be another allocation Tuesday, he said, saying “that’s the rhythm,” with states being told what they will get the following week.

The delivery of hundreds of thousands of doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to countries in the European Union has been delayed due to a “minor logistical issue,” Pfizer told CNN on Monday.

“We have rescheduled a limited number of our deliveries. The logistical matter has been resolved and those deliveries are now being dispatched,” Pfizer said in a statement.

“There are no manufacturing issues to report,” the US pharmaceutical giant added.

Vaccination deliveries delayed: Spain’s Health Ministry has said it had expected to receive a further 350,000 vaccine doses on Monday after launching its vaccination campaign the day before, but confirmed that the delivery has since been delayed due to a problem encountered “in the loading and shipping process.”

“The next delivery of vaccines will be delayed a few hours and will arrive in Spain on Tuesday, December 29, for the continuation of vaccinations throughout the national territory,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Transporting the newly-developed Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has proven to be a major logistical challenge, as the vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, or -94 degrees Fahrenheit, while in transit.

Beijing is cutting down its New Year's Eve events after the city reported local coronavirus infections over the weekend.

The Chinese capital's Happy Valley amusement park announced it will close at 5:30 pm beginning Monday and cancel its planned New Year's Eve concert and celebrations, an announcement from the amusement park read.

Another major New Year's event from Beijing's China Central Television Tower is also canceled, according to a CCTV Light Show announcement on its official WeChat account.

The tower's light show usually runs from December 31 to January 3 but all four days will be canceled this year out of precaution due to the Covid-19 pandemic, CCTV said.

The cancellations come after two locally transmitted Covid-19 cases were reported in Beijing's Shunyi district Friday. The city has collected 838,270 samples as of Sunday afternoon in its latest round of mass testing, Beijing's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said. Of the samples collected, close to 390,000 testing results have returned, and five people who are identified as close contacts of the initial two cases have returned positive results for the virus.

On Sunday, Beijing officials discouraged people from attending temple fairs and gatherings for the New Year and Spring Festival holidays, adding that holding major events will need to go through a strict application and review process.

Officials also discouraged travel agencies and online travel companies from organizing group tours to Beijing during the holiday season.

Parks and tourist attractions are required to operate at 75% capacity during the two holidays.

As the US prepares to grapple with potential holiday Covid-19 surges, hospitals across the country have reported more than 100,000 patients for the 26th day in a row.

December has been a devastating month for coronavirus spread in the country. More than 63,000 Americans have died so far this month -- the most since the pandemic began -- bringing the total to more than 333,000 people lost to the virus in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. With a total of 19.1 million people infected, there are now 118,720 people currently hospitalized, the Covid Tracking project reported.

One hospital in Southern California is facing the possibility of rationing the limited number of ICU beds and treatment equipment due to the surge of cases, meaning health care providers may have to make decisions of who gets treatment and who does not, infectious disease specialist Dr. Kimberly Shriner told CNN on Sunday.

Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena is preparing for the "ultimate triage" if cases continue to climb in the coming weeks, Shriner said.

“We have a limited number of ventilators, we have a limited number of ICU beds,” Shriner explained, adding that the hospital has nurses who normally take care of one or two patients now taking care of three or four.

And with waves of holiday travel, health experts predict cases will only grow. More than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, according to the TSA. More than 616,000 were screened on Christmas Day alone, and hundreds of thousands more traveled in the days leading up to the holiday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci described the potential impacts of the holiday season as a "surge upon a surge."

Read the full story here.

A number of British tourists staying at the Swiss ski resort of Verbier are reported to have "fled clandestinely under cover of night" on Saturday, after a quarantine period was imposed on all travelers from the United Kingdom, a local official told CNN on Monday.

The quarantine requirement was introduced amid concerns over a new, more contagious, coronavirus variant.

"Some British tourists left immediately, while others decided to stay a little longer. Some of them fled clandestinely during the night," Jean-Marc Sandoz, spokesman for the town of Bagnes, some 20 minutes away from Verbier, told CNN.

"They left progressively, as soon as they found a way back to their homes," he added, noting that the exact number of tourists who left the resort has not been confirmed.

On 21 December, the Swiss Federal Council imposed an entry ban and retroactive quarantine period on all travelers from the UK and South Africa, to prevent the spread of two newly-detected variants of coronavirus.

All those who have entered Switzerland from the two countries since 14 December are required to quarantine for 10 days.

According to Sandoz, 370 holidaymakers from the UK were recorded as being required to comply with the 10-day quarantine order.

"Some of them had to leave for France, because planes for the UK are suspended in Switzerland," Sandoz said.

"You can't blame them. In most cases the quarantine was unbearable. Imagine staying with four people in a hotel room of 20 square metres, and they had to pay for staying at a Swiss ski resort," he added.

According to Head of the Verbier Tourism Office, Simon Wiget, British tourists usually make up 21% of holidaymakers staying at the resort.