January 19 coronavirus news

Top Vermont officials will quarantine and be tested "out of an abundance of caution," after a contractor who provided services at state coronavirus briefings tested positive for Covid-19.

Governor Phil Scott and Health Department Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine are among the officials who could have been exposed at the Jan 15 and Jan 19 briefings, according to a release from Scott's office, which reads:

According to the release, state contact tracers have started their investigation and will provide guidance to all those who are identified as close contacts. The Governor’s Office has reached out to those in attendance at the briefings.

Scott will continue working remotely “until further notice,” the release said.

The United States reported more than 400,000 total Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

This is the quickest the country has ever added 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 -- and it occurred in under half the time it took the U.S. to report its first 100,000 Covid-19 deaths. 

Per Johns Hopkins University:

The US currently averages 3,237 new Covid-19 deaths per day.

Abbott’s BinaxNOW Rapid antigen Covid-19 test can miss positive cases, especially among people with no symptoms, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday.

The researchers compared results of Abbott BinaxNOW rapid antigen test with gold-standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from 3,419 people tested at two Arizona community testing sites in November. All participants were given both tests.

The rapid antigen test was only able to detect infection in 64.2% of people with symptoms who tested positive by PCR. It only detected 35.8% of people with no symptoms who had tested positive on a PCR test, the researchers found.

Using PCR tests as the standard, researchers also found four false-positive rapid antigen test results among people with no symptoms. 

Among 299 people who tested positive with a PCR test, 47.5% got false negative results from the rapid antigen test.

Nevertheless, rapid antigen tests can still be a helpful screening tool to more quickly isolate people with the virus in community settings, the researchers wrote in the CDC’s weekly MMWR report.

They also noted that they studied the Abbott BinaxNow rapid antigen test, and cautioned against generalizing the results to other antigen tests.

Michigan health authorities say several shipments of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine were compromised after their temperature was reported as going out of range, during shipment. 

Doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine shipped on Sunday had their temperature reported as getting too cold, according to a statement released by Michigan State Police.

Moderna vaccine distributor McKesson re-sent the majority of the 21 shipments on Monday night and expects to ship the rest by Tuesday.

The state did not indicate the exact number of doses that were in the shipments.

An additional six shipments slated for Michigan were held back to check that there were no issues with the vaccine.

“This is the first report of vaccine potentially being compromised during shipment in Michigan and we are working quickly with the distributor to have replacement vaccine shipped out,” Chief Medical Executive and Chief Deputy for Health Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said in a statement.

Consequently, a number of counties and vaccination centers across Michigan have been forced to cancel or reschedule vaccinations due to the shortfall of COVID-19 vaccines delivered to the state, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said at a press conference on Tuesday. 

Because the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines in the US is very high, they are likely provide some protection even against emerging variants of the virus, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, incoming director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Tuesday.

“The efficacy of the vaccine is so good and so high, that we have a little bit of a cushion,” Walensky told JAMA editor-in-chief Howard Bauchner.

With a starting point of about 95% efficacy, Walensky said that even if the vaccines are slightly less effective against new variants, they will still be more effective than most vaccines.

"It's going to work against the variant," she said. "Will it be 95%? Maybe. Will it be 70%? Maybe. But our flu vaccines aren't 75% effective every year and we still get them."

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday said the state has administered 50% of the Covid-19 vaccine doses it has received, but the vaccination of residents and staff at long-term care facilities led by Walgreens and CVS is "lagging."

147,609 vaccine doses have been administered of the 293,600 received so far by hospitals, state long-term facilities, and other health care providers, according to state data.

But data on vaccination at long-term care facilities done by Walgreens and CVS through a federal partnership shows only 6,626 doses of the 80,700 doses allocated have been administered -- about 8%.

"If you look at our long-term care, that is the federal partnership that we don't have as much control over, that is lagging behind," Hutchinson said, adding the pharmacies have "assured" him they will complete vaccination at long-term care facilities by the end of the month.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who received his second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine today, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he believes President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to produce and distribute 100 million vaccines in 100 days is doable.

Biden “has made it very clear to the Covid-19 team that this is a very important goal and he’s going to do whatever it takes to get there and I feel pretty confident going to be able to do that,” Fauci said.

Fauci also addressed the US surpassing 400,000 Covid-19 deaths — a milestone he predicted months ago.

“I’m sorry that, that projection came about,” Fauci said.

“Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better. So, this is a situation where we need all hands-on deck and the President-elect has made it very clear that this is his top priority,” he explained.

Watch the moment:

Germany’s partial national lockdown will be extended until February 14, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the 16 federal state prime ministers agreed on Tuesday evening.

The decision comes because of concern over the spreading of the new coronavirus mutation which would lead to a serious aggravation of the pandemic situation, they said.

Restaurants, cafés, cinemas, concert halls and most stores will remain closed until mid-February, Merkel announced at a press conference following the multi hour meeting with the state prime ministers. 

Schools and childcare centers will remain closed. But the federal states have different approaches and will handle procedure individually, especially for emergency schooling and graduating classes.

The new measures include nationwide mandatory wearing of so-called surgical masks or FFP2 masks on public transport and shops, Merkel announced.

Working from home should happen wherever possible. Employers must allow employees to work from home if they can do so, provided that the activities permit this after a detailed examination. If presence is required in the workplace, employers will have to provide medical masks.

Covid-19 vaccine coverage is twice as high among white people than it is among Black and Hispanic people, according to a CNN analysis of state vaccine data. 

At least 14 states publish vaccine administration data by race on local dashboards or reports, and at least 13 states report it by ethnicity. White residents have greater vaccination coverage than Black or Hispanic residents in each of those states, and significantly more so in most.

On average, more than 4% of the white population had received a Covid-19 vaccine, about 2.3 times higher than the Black population (1.9% covered) and 2.6 times higher than the Hispanic population (1.8% covered), CNN found.

Of those states, disparities in Covid-19 vaccine coverage were most glaring in Pennsylvania, where coverage of the white population was more than four times as high as coverage of the Black population and more than three times as high as the Hispanic population.

In North Carolina and Mississippi, vaccine coverage among white residents was nearly three times as high as for Black residents and nearly four times as high as for Hispanic residents. 

Black and Hispanic individuals have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19, with death rates that are nearly three times higher than that for non-Hispanic white people and hospitalization rates that are about four times higher, CDC data shows. Indeed, the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that certain frontline workers be prioritized to receive the vaccine, in part to reach high-risk racial or ethnic minority groups who are more heavily represented in those sectors. 

The states that publish data on Covid-19 vaccination by race include Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont. Florida does not publish this data by ethnicity. 

State vaccination data were last published between Thursday and Monday. CNN used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey to calculate population coverage rates.