U.S. Passes Vaccine Milestone; Aid Goes to Ontario: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) --

Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said a decision on how to resume the Johnson & Johnson shot will probably come by Friday. Half of Americans 18 years or older have received at least one dose of vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the outbreak in her hard-hit state may be easing, though she worries demand for the vaccine may also be slowing.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will deploy additional health-care workers and equipment to help Ontario, struggling to contain a sharp rise in cases. Hong Kong is set to ban flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days starting April 20.

Key Developments:

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Oxford Starts First Study to Reinfect Recovered Patients (7:01 a.m. HK)

People who have fought off Covid will be reinfected in a first-of-its-kind trial at the University of Oxford, potentially illumating how to develop more effective vaccines against the virus. Researchers are looking for 64 healthy, previously-infected volunteers aged 18 to 30 year to be studied under controlled, quarantined conditions for at least 17 days, the university said. They’ll be infected with the original strain from Wuhan and followed for a year.

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Tokyo Weighs State of Emergency (6:24 a.m. HK)

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Sunday evening that she instructed officials to consider a state of emergency as an option to contain the coronavirus outbreak, public broadcaster NHK reports.

Asked when she would seek an emergency declaration, she said “the number of confirmed virus cases is on a rising trend and it should be considered with a sense of speed.”

Chicago High Schools to Reopen (5:49 p.m. NY)

The Chicago Teachers Union approved a plan to reopen the city’s high schools on Monday. High schools have been closed since last year, and it took long negotiations to reopen grade schools earlier this year.

Union president Jesse Sharkey had said on Thursday that the union’s House of Delegates had approved the plan “overwhelmingly” before a full vote. That vote passed by 83%, the union said in a tweet on Sunday.

The plan will improve vaccine access to students 16 and older and allow principals or supervisors to approve the option for teachers to work remotely on any given day, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Canada Sends Emergency Aid to Ontario (5:35 p.m. NY)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday he’ll deploy additional health-care workers and equipment to help Ontario, the country’s most populous province, which is struggling to contain a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases.

The move follows Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s decision on Friday to impose some of North America’s toughest restrictions to get a handle on the region’s third wave of the pandemic that threatens to overwhelm its health-care system.

Half of U.S. Adults Have At Least One Dose (2:41 p.m. NY)

Half of Americans 18 years or older have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday. About 32% of adults have been full vaccinated.

Another 3.5 million doses were reported on Sunday, as the seven-day average dipped slightly to 3.19 million doses, according the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. Most states have opened shots up to all people 16 years and older, and some are reporting a growing surplus of unused vaccine. Total doses administered are 209 million.

N.Y. Positive Tests Fall (2:01 p.m. NY)

New York state’s rate of positive tests dipped to 2.35%, the lowest since Nov. 7, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. Hospitalizations in the state, once stubbornly high, have dropped to less than 4,000, and cases and deaths are trending downward. Another 35 people died, the fewest since Nov. 22.

More than 41% of New Yorkers have had at least one dose of vaccine, and 28% are fully vaccinated, the governor said. More than 13 million vaccines have been administered.

Turkey Reaches Record Deaths (1:28 p.m. NY)

Turkey reported 318 fatalities on Sunday, a 10% rise from the previous day and the highest figure since the start of the pandemic.

As the number of new cases continues to hover among the highest in the world, an expert warned about the surge in the number of critically ill younger people.

Sunday’s death toll raised total fatalities to 35,926, official data show. Social distancing measures announced on April 13 have “started to decrease the speed of the increase,” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a tweet. However, the nation ranks as the third in the number of daily cases, behind India and Brazil.

Gottlieb Says Logistics Key With J&J Sidelined (12:47 p.m. NY)

“Better logistics” will be key to keeping the U.S. vaccination momentum rolling while the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot remains sidelined, said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The challenge now is that we’re going to have to set up better logistics to try and reach communities we know are hard to reach,” Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” The J&J shot has been seen as an important part of the national strategy because it’s one-and-done and doesn’t need special storage equipment.

Still, he agreed with Biden adviser Anthony Fauci that “the J&J vaccine will be back on the market in a reasonable period of time - hopefully this week.”

Michigan Surge May Be Easing (12:06 p.m. NY)

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said cases may be slowing in her state, which has been hit hard by the virus variant first detected in the U.K. and has the most per-capita Covid infections in the U.S.

While Michigan is starting to see “the beginning of what could be a slowdown,” she expressed concern about getting people vaccinated. “We are going to see, I think, a moment where supply outweighs demand,” Whitmer said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Hong Kong Bans Flights From Asia Hot Spots (11:42 a.m. NY)

Hong Kong will ban flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days starting April 20, the government said in a statement Sunday.

A circuit breaker arrangement is triggered for each of the countries as there had been five or more arrivals with the N501Y mutant coronavirus strain within seven days, the government said. Under the mechanism the three countries will be designated as “extremely high-risk.”

Macron Says France Open Soon to U.S. (10:50 a.m. NY)

French President Emmanuel Macron said U.S. citizens will be able to travel to the country again in the summer. France is working on a “special pass” to allow Americans who are vaccinated to enter the country, in addition to an ongoing EU initiative to create certificate for European citizens to travel, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Macron also said Russia’s Sputnik vaccine was not a “solution” to accelerate France’s vaccination campaign because it will “take time” for the European Medicine Agency to approve and produce the vaccine in Europe.

U.S. at Precarious Point, Fauci Says (10:34 a.m. NY)

The U.S. is “in somewhat of a precarious position” with a seven-day average of more than 60,000 new Covid-19 infections per day, though vaccinations will bring the number down, Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“That’s good news, we’ve got to keep that up,” he said. “But we also have to make sure that people don’t throw caution to the wind and declare victory prematurely.”

He also said a decision on how to resume vaccinating Americans with the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus shot will probably come by Friday. “I doubt very seriously if they just cancel” the J&J vaccine, one of three approved for use in the U.S., he said.

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