The number of known coronavirus variant cases in the U.S. has surged 73% in the last week alone, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released late Tuesday.
The country now reports 944 cases of variants that spread more easily, bypass treatments and immunities, or both.
Nowhere has the increase been more noticeable than in Florida, which now has 343 cases of a fast-spreading variant -- up from 201 cases reported during Sunday's Super Bowl, which was hosted in Tampa. Florida now has more than twice as many known variant cases as any other state, with California a distant second with 156 cases, up six from Sunday.
The vast majority of the country's known variant cases, and all of Florida's, are of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first detected in the U.K. and has run rampant there. The CDC has said it may become the dominant strain in the U.S. by March. Last month, U.K. researchers said there's evidence the variant may be more deadly than others, and it's also considered at least 50% more transmissible than the original strain.
Tuesday night's report still shows three known cases of P.1, a variant first spotted in Brazil that appears to bypass immunities, and now nine cases of B.1.351, a variant that took over South Africa and resists some treatments and vaccines.
-- Mike Stucka
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In the headlines:
►Major League Baseball and the players union have agreed to health and safety protocols for the upcoming season that contain some of the same measures put in place last year but add more penalties for clear violations. Players and other personnel at ballparks will have to wear electronic tracing devices from the start of spring training.
►The United States has reported 775,975 new COVID-19 cases in a seven-day period ending Monday, the first time the weekly tally has been under 800,000 cases since Nov. 6. The country peaked at about 1.75 million cases per week last month. The number of deaths, which typically lag cases by about four weeks, remains as high as ever, averaging 21,700 per week, an average of 3,100 a day.
►Starting next week, Canada will require any non-essential traveler arriving in the country by land to show a negative PCR-based coronavirus test or face a fine. Canada already requires people arriving by air to show a negative test.
►Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will quarantine for 14 days after a member of his security detail tested positive for COVID-19, his chief of staff announced. Buttigieg said the Biden administration is considering a rule that would require negative COVID-19 test results for domestic air travel.
►Congressional Democrats rejected calls from some moderate lawmakers to reduce the number of people eligible for $1,400 stimulus checks in President Joe Biden's COVID-19 relief proposal, proposing an income threshold of $75,000 annually, the same as in the last round of $600 checks.
📈 Today's numbers: The U.S. has more than 27.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 467,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 106.8 million cases and 2.33 million deaths. More than 62.8 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S. and about 43.2 million have been administered, according to the CDC.
📘 What we're reading: Even as the latest surge in coronavirus infections abates across the nation, USA TODAY research found 245 hospitals reporting full intensive care units as of Jan. 28 and 477 hospitals reporting more COVID-19 patients in the ICU than the previous week. You can find out which hospitals in your community are overwhelmed here.
1 million vaccine doses for community health centers
The Biden administration will begin sending coronavirus vaccines directly to community health centers as it boosts distribution and reaches out to underserved communities, the White House announced Tuesday.
At least one center in every state and territory will get vaccines as the program ramps up to include 250 of the more than 1,300 such facilities in the country. The participating centers will receive a combined 1 million doses, starting as soon as next week. In later phases, vaccines will become available to all community health centers.
“This effort … really is about connecting with those hard-to-reach populations across the country,” said Marcella Nunez-Smith, who heads the COVID-19 health equity task force. That includes the homeless, residents of public housing, migrant workers and people with limited English proficiency.
Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, also said vaccine supply to states, tribal governments and territories is growing by 5% over last week. The new weekly total of 11 million doses represents a 28% increase over the 8.6 million distributed when Biden took office three weeks ago, Zients said.
-- Maureen Groppe
Vaccines at some drugs stores available Friday
That much-coveted vaccine shot could be available at a nearby drug store this week for those who are eligible.
CVS and Walgreens, the nation's two largest pharmacy chains, will begin vaccinating select populations in stores Friday. The CVS program will initially include 350 drug stores in 11 states, while Walgreens will offer vaccinations at some locations in 17 states and jurisdictions. Appointments are required. Other pharmacies chosen to deliver vaccines at certain locations include Walmart, Ride Aid, Kroger, Publix, Albertsons, Safeway, Costco and Meijer.
Experts hope the nation's established network of pharmacies will help speed up distribution amid consternation over the pace of the rollout.
-- Nathan Bomey
Vaccination pace picks up but uneven across states
President Joe Biden’s effort to create 100 mass vaccination sites nationwide in 100 days is underway. California and Maryland announced new openings of several such sites last week, and residents of several other states have promptly signed up for COVID-19 shots. The U.S. government currently administers about 1.4 million vaccines a day, and the average number of Americans getting second shots hit an all-time high Tuesday, with 539,000 per day over the past week.
But other states are holding back on giving vaccines while appointments remain vacant. In Massachusetts, there are still over 7,500 appointments available at mass vaccination sites, but Gov. Charlie Baker said they won’t go to anyone who’s not in the first phase of vaccinations or at least 75 years old.
Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization said Monday it was "concerning news" that some vaccines appear less effective against the South African variant of the coronavirus.
Vaccine manufacturers will need to modify their shots and boosters will likely be necessary in the future as the virus changes genetically, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Should employers give workers time off or other incentives to get vaccine?
T.J. Daniels was hoping after working at a Petco store in Colorado for 11 months during a pandemic that the company would give him time off to get a COVID-19 vaccine and deal with any potential side effects. So far, nothing. And while Petco said it was poised to announce a plan, most major employers, including Amazon, Target and Walmart, are not committing to provide any extra pay or time off to workers to get their shots.
Advocates say incentives will encourage vaccinations, which will result in more protection for employees and customers. It will also potentially limit downtime that can occur when workers contract the virus. Experts say a high proportion of the U.S. population -- perhaps 80% -- needs to get vaccinated to build herd immunity, which would limit the coronavirus from continuing to spread.
Dollar General, McDonald’s and Olive Garden are among the employers that have announced incentives for workers to get vaccinated. But most others are saying only that they’re strongly encouraging vaccination and essentially forcing workers to do it on their own time.
– Nathan Bomey
WHO says it will end research into unlikely coronavirus lab-leak theory
World Health Organization investigators said Tuesday they would no longer pursue research into whether the coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety and animal diseases expert, announced the decision during a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of WHO experts to the city where COVID-19 was first identified in 2019.
Embarek said there was not enough evidence to support a hypothesis that the virus escaped from a Chinese biosafety laboratory in Wuhan – the Wuhan Institute of Virology – and that the WHO stood by its previous determination that COVID-19 most likely entered the human population through an intermediate animal.
The WHO team has spent several weeks on a fact-finding mission in Wuhan. Experts from 10 nations have visited hospitals, research institutes and a wildlife market tied to the outbreak. However, the WHO's fieldwork and other activities in Wuhan have been closely monitored by Chinese officials and security officers, and Beijing has repeatedly resisted called for a completely independent investigation into the origins of the virus.
– Kim Hjelmgaard
Worrisome South African variant may change expectations about vaccines
A new study showing the South African variant of the coronavirus eludes protection from the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine means "we must recalibrate our expectations,” said Shabir Madhi, director of the Vaccines & Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, who conducted the trial.
There is still much to learn about the variant, which has been detected in only six instances in the U.S. so far. We still don't know whether it's more transmissible and if so by how much, or whether the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine prevents severe disease from the variant, as some scientists expect.
AstraZeneca researchers say they’re working to tweak their vaccine by inserting a genetic sequence from the new variant.
The variant has reduced the level of protection offered by virtually all the vaccines, but most vaccines show satisfactory efficacy in protecting against severe cases and death causes by this version of the virus, Madhi said. Here are more answers to questions about the variant.
Facebook takes action to crack down on lies about COVID-19 vaccines
Facebook is moving more aggressively to combat vaccine misinformation, taking down debunked claims on Facebook and Instagram including that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to get COVID-19 than to receive the immunization.
Facebook also warned that groups, pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share these falsehoods may be removed. Administrators of groups that have administrators or members who have violated COVID-19 policies may also be required to temporarily approve all posts.
The new policy is a departure for Facebook. Last fall, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would not target anti-vaccination posts the same way it has cracked down on COVID misinformation.
False claims about vaccines have circulated on social media platforms for years, giving rise to a powerful anti-vaxxer movement with deep roots and a long reach.
– Jessica Guynn
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID news: Spike in variant cases; vaccinations in CVS, Walgreens
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