January 11 coronavirus news

States are increasingly abandoning guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and taking their own approaches to giving people coronavirus vaccines, a new analysis finds.

“Overall, we find states are increasingly diverging from CDC guidance and from each other, suggesting that access to COVID-19 vaccines in these first months of the U.S. vaccine campaign may depend a great deal on where one lives,” the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy, said in a report issued Monday.

The report finds 40 states are still in Phase 1a either fully or partly. Ten states and Washington, DC, are in Phase 1b. Only Michigan has moved to at least part of Phase 1c.

While all states and Washington, DC, are giving priority to health care workers and long-term care residents and staff in Phase 1a of their plans as recommended, they are increasingly taking their own tacks in Phase 1b and 1c of the rollout. Ten states and Washington, DC, have moved to Phase 1b.

The Kaiser analysis found that 10 states have added first responders, including law enforcement and firefighters, the Phase 1a. These states are Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming. Utah added K-12 teachers and child care workers, while Louisiana limited health care workers to hospital staff only.

Four states added seniors to the 1a group: people 65 and older in Georgia and Florida, 75 and up in Tennessee, and 80-plus in West Virginia.

Fourteen states follow CDC advice precisely on who should be in Phase 1b, while 30 add extra age groups and others including educators, prisoners and the homeless.

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it was still unclear the extent to which being vaccinated reduces one’s risk of transmitting coronavirus.

"We know that the vaccine reduces your chances of getting Covid and then of being hospitalized or dying from Covid," Hancock said.

"We very much hope that it has a significant downward impact on that transmissibility after you are vaccinated," he added.

Hancock made the comments at a news briefing Monday where he announced that approximately 2.3 million people have already been vaccinated across the UK.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivered his annual State of the State address from the Capitol’s War Room, saying the setting was fitting because "we are at war, a war that continues today" with Covid-19.  

"This is a national challenge. It is a war," Cuomo said. "And like every war before, it must be financed by Washington."

He placed blame on the federal government for the state’s damage from Covid-19, calling the federal government’s response to the virus "an act of gross negligence."

Cuomo said the state’s main areas of focus for the coming year are "crushing Covid" and addressing "the short-term economic consequences for our state." He pressed the federal government to help fund recovery efforts. 

Cuomo will expand on his plans for the state in three more speeches in the coming days.

Around 2.3 million people have already been vaccinated across the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Monday.

Hancock said the UK was on track to deliver a first dose of the vaccine to “everyone in the top four cohorts” – which account for 88% of Covid-19-related deaths – by Feb.15.

He said that two-fifths of people over 80 and almost quarter of older care home residents have now received first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Israel’s Health Minister has told CNN he does not believe Israel has an obligation or responsibility to supply Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with a vaccine for the coronavirus but stressed instead co-operation on treatment to avoid a surge in new cases of Covid-19 in the Palestinian territories. 

Yuli Edelstein’s comments come after the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had held informal discussions with Israel’s Health Ministry regarding the possible supply of vaccines for the Palestinian health workforce as an “immediate priority target group.” 

“We are cooperating with the Palestinians to make sure that they get proper treatment to coronavirus patients. At this stage we are not supplying vaccines, but we do understand that it is in Israel's interest to make sure we don't get into a situation where we are vaccinated and out of trouble, and on the Palestinian side there is another surge in numbers," Edelstein said on CNN’s New Day.  

Israel is leading the world in vaccinating its people, with almost 20% of the population having received at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. But it has come under criticism from some human rights groups which say it has obligations under international law to provide vaccines to Palestinians as well. 

Amnesty International, for instance, said last week: “The Israeli government must stop ignoring its international obligations as an occupying power and immediately act to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are equally and fairly provided to Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” 

Groups like Amnesty point to the Fourth Geneva Convention which, among other duties of an occupying power, speaks of ensuring “measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.”

Israel argues that the Oslo Accords, signed with the Palestinians in the 1990s, hand responsibility for health care provision for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA). 

The Director General of the Public Health Directorate at the Palestinian Ministry of Health told CNN the PA had not sought Israel’s assistance with vaccines, something that was contradicted by the President of the Union of Medical Relief Committees, Mustafa Barghouti, himself a leading Palestinian politician. He told CNN reports the PA had sought about 10,000 doses for health care workers were correct. Barghouti said the request had been rejected by Israel. 

The WHO said it was told the Israeli Health Ministry was ready to “explore the option” of immediate vaccines for medical workers in the Palestinian territories but had been told it was “currently not in a position to supply vaccines because of a shortage of vaccines in Israel.”

Edelstein told CNN: "It is our interest; it doesn't mean in any way it is our obligation or our responsibility. The Palestinians are running the Palestinian Authority … but as has been happening for the last several months, we were always ready to help with equipment, with good advice, with products or with medicine, and this sort of cooperation will continue."  

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Monday it had registered the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for what it called emergency use, with an initial batch expected to arrive in the territories within a month, according to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which sponsored the vaccine’s development. The Health Ministry says it has also signed contracts with three other Covid-19 vaccine suppliers.

The United Kingdom plans to have "tens of millions" of people immunized by spring with over 2,700 vaccine sites established across the country, the Department of Health said on Monday. 

It has set out plans to "rapidly scale up" the vaccine programme, pledging to have capacity to deliver "at least two million" vaccinations in England per week by the end of January at over 2,700 sites in the UK. 

Every adult in the country is to be offered a vaccine according to a press release and 10,000 care homes will have access to a vaccine by end of the month, it says. 

"The next few months will present a significant opportunity to turn the tide of battle against Covid – I am looking forward to watching these plans bring more reassurance and hope back to people’s lives after a difficult year," British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. Hancock is expected to announce the plan to expedite vaccinations later on Monday during a daily government press briefing. 

In a presentation posted by BioNTech on Monday the company said, it can “potentially” deliver about 2 billion doses of its Covid-19 vaccine by the end of 2021.

Previously, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the companies would manufacture 1.3 billion doses in 2021, but noted, “We are working very diligently to increase this number.”

BioNTech pointed to the updated label allowing for six doses as one of the factors to help increase supply capacity.

Originally, product labels said each vial had five doses available after dilution, but after it was discovered that there was enough leftover solution to potentially squeeze out extra doses, the FDA updated its guidance to say, “it is acceptable to use every full dose obtainable (the sixth, or possibly even a seventh) from each vial.”

BioNTech also said the 2 billion doses goal, “is based on continuous process improvements and expansion at our current facilities, and contingent upon adding more suppliers as well as contract manufacturers.”

The company also said 32.9 million doses have shipped globally as of Jan. 10, 2021. 

The New York Police Department had already vaccinated about 400 of their members by just after 7 a.m. ET Monday morning, on the first day the group became eligible, the NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told CNN affiliate NY1 Monday.

He described members as "definitely eager to get it" adding "at the same time …we’re New Yorkers, so you know everything that you see in the general population you see with us, and there’s also some hesitancy I’m sure."

"I think it’s going to take some momentum" he said, adding that as more people get it and do not experience side effects it should ramp up across the board. 

Shea contracted the virus Friday and has been working remotely.

He told NY1 via a phone interview "I’m doing ok," adding "myself and a lot of other officers unfortunately and new Yorkers have contracted this."

"We’ll get through it," he continued.

Shea described his symptoms as akin to a "bad flu, the chills the aches, the breathing is the one you got to be careful with," he said adding he is "recovering at home" and looking forward to "getting back to work soon."

Germany strengthened its Covid-19 restrictions on Monday, which include longer school closures and travel limits. These measures will last until at least January 31.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss extending the measures past February 1 with federal state leaders on January 25. She said Germany was entering the most difficult phase of the pandemic in the coming weeks, during her weekly podcast this weekend.

The country's new restrictions include: residents may only have one home visitor at a time; those living in high-incidence regions are confined to a nine-mile radius around their houses; only grocery stores and drugstores can remain open; and travelers entering Germany from high-risk areas must register upon arrival, quarantine for 10 days, and be tested for the virus.

Germany has been seeing record Covid-19 infections as it struggles with a winter surge. On Sunday, it recorded 16,946 new infections and 465 deaths -- pushing the total death toll to more than 40,000.