Tag Archives: COVID-19

Vaccinated people need not quarantine post COVID-19 exposure, CDC says

(Reuters) – People who have received the full course of COVID-19 vaccines can skip the standard 14-day quarantine after exposure to someone with the infection as long as they remain asymptomatic, U.S. public health officials advised.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday the vaccines have been shown to prevent symptomatic COVID-19, thought to play a greater role in the transmission of the virus than asymptomatic disease.

“Individual and societal benefits of avoiding unnecessary quarantine may outweigh the potential but unknown risk of transmission (among vaccinated individuals),” the CDC said.

The agency has laid down strict criteria for people who would no longer have to quarantine after the vaccinations, including having received both doses of a two-dose vaccine.

People who choose not to quarantine should do so only if they received their last dose within three months, and should only avoid 14 days quarantine after their last shot, the time it takes to develop immunity, CDC said.

Fully vaccinated persons who do not quarantine should still watch for symptoms for 14 days following an exposure.

Two-dose vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have been authorized for emergency use in the United States. Johnson & Johnson applied for a U.S. authorization of its single-dose shot last week.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sriraj Kalluvila)

COVID-19 surge takes toll on Portugal’s undertakers

By Catarina Demony

LISBON (Reuters) – Standing next to the sealed coffin of yet another COVID-19 victim in Portugal, funeral parlor worker Carlos Carneiro wept as the bereaved family played a record of a traditional fado song as a final goodbye.

Carneiro, 37, has been in the undertaking business for two decades helping people cope with loss, but never felt as affected by sorrow and fear as now.

Portugal fared better than others in Europe in the first wave of the pandemic in March-April, but the new year brought a devastating surge in infections and deaths, overwhelming the health service and funeral homes.

More than 14,700 people have died of COVID-19 in Portugal, with cumulative infections since the start of the pandemic at nearly 775,000.

“I have never felt this emotional, with so many consecutive funerals,” Carneiro told Reuters in a quavering voice outside the crematorium where the body of 77-year-old Matilde Firmino was turned into ashes.

“It’s hard on us. We feel it when we get home.”

Due to coronavirus rules in place to reduce the risk of contagion, funeral homes like Carneiro’s Funalcoitao near Lisbon had to quickly adapt.

Workers must wear protective gear from head to toe, bodies are placed inside white plastic bags and then in a coffin, without embalming or makeup.

Families are rarely able to see the deceased before they are buried or cremated, and Firmino’s daughter was at one point worried if it was really her mother inside the coffin.

A priest blessed the coffin in a short service held outside as family and friends sheltered from the pouring rain. “I ask God to free us from this pandemic we are living,” he said.

Carneiro said he always seeks to honor the lives of the dead, but not being able to give families the full closure they seek is taking a toll on his well-being.

“These people are not numbers…People sit on their sofas and worry about (coronavirus) numbers, but we see people and their families. We have to deal with the drama,” Carneiro said.

‘THERE’S FEAR’

His brother Alvaro, 44, said January, when Portugal reported almost half of all its COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, was the hardest month in his 24 years in the funeral business.

“We are scared of being infected, of infecting our family members at home,” he said at their family-run funeral home, which on Tuesday alone organized six services. “There’s fear.”

Funeral business associations have urged Portuguese authorities to vaccinate the sector’s around 5,000 workers as soon as possible.

“We are on the frontline so we should be considered a priority for vaccination but according to the news we are seeing there are not enough shots for everyone,” Alvaro Carneiro said. “We will have to endure this a little longer.”

A July 2020 article by two public health researchers said high death rates, restrictions, a fear of being infected and worries about their families’ wellbeing could affect funeral workers’ mental health, especially in the longer run after the daily pressure subsides.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Miguel Pereira and Pedro Nunes; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Angus MacSwan)

65.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines delivered, 44.7 million administered: U.S. CDC

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 44,769,970 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Wednesday morning and delivered 65,972,575 doses.

The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on Tuesday, the agency had administered 43,206,190 doses of the vaccines, and delivered 62,898,775 doses.

The agency said 33,783,384 people had received 1 or more doses while 10,469,514 people have got the second dose as of Wednesday.

A total of 5,176,499 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)

Germany extends lockdown until March 7

By Sabine Siebold and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will extend restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus until March 7, though schools and hair salons may open sooner, Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of the 16 federal states agreed on Wednesday.

The number of new daily infections in Germany has been falling, prompting some regional leaders to push for a timetable to ease the lockdown, but concerns are growing about the impact of more infectious variants of the virus on case numbers.

“We know that these mutants are a reality now, and with that it (the infection rate) will increase. The question is how quickly it will increase,” Merkel told journalists in a news conference.

Under the agreement, some exceptions will be made to a strict lockdown which has been in place since mid-December.

Hairdressers will be allowed to reopen from March 1 and individual states can decide on how to re-start school classes. Merkel, who has adopted a cautious approach throughout the pandemic, has said nurseries and primary schools take priority.

The rest of the economy can start to re-open gradually where the spread of the virus drops to no more than 35 new cases per 100,000 people over seven days.

On Wednesday, that number was 68, having fallen from a high near 200 in late December. It was last below 50 in October.

BUSINESS ANGST

Some business and industry associations have pushed for an easing of the restrictions as soon as possible, citing the damage inflicted on Europe’s biggest economy, which shrank by 5% last year.

“The situation is serious,” the BDI industry and BDA employers groups said. “We urgently call for an easing plan.”

However, the Ifo economic think-tank said a lockdown extension until mid-March was bearable and that a swifter easing that triggered a surge in cases could create greater damage.

Germany reported 8,072 new cases on Wednesday and a further 813 deaths, bringing the total death toll to 62,969.

(Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Maria Sheahan, Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. government partnering with Texas to build three mass vaccination sites

By Rebecca Spalding

(Reuters) – The federal government is partnering with the state of Texas to build three mass vaccination sites, following last week’s announcement that it would build such sites in California, federal health officials said in a Wednesday media briefing.

Each site will be able to get 10,000 shots in arms per day, according to Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, and should begin administering shots by Feb. 22.

The sites will be in the Dallas and Houston areas and will be operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to a state news release. One site will be AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home to the Dallas Cowboys.

Last week, the state of California said it was partnering with FEMA to open mass vaccination sites in Los Angeles and Oakland as a part of a pilot program started by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Both states said the program’s goal was to make sure people in underserved communities have access to vaccines.

Double-masking, knotting-and-tucking for snug fit reduces COVID-19 spread, U.S. study shows

By Manas Mishra

(Reuters) – Making sure a mask fits snugly on the face and use of two masks is likely to significantly reduce a person’s exposure to the coronavirus, laboratory experiments described by U.S. health officials on Wednesday showed.

The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January conducted experiments to see how well wearing a cloth mask over a three-ply medical procedure mask, and knotting the ear loops of a surgical mask and then tucking the excess material close to the face, protects against COVID-19.

They found that both these methods helped reduce the exposure to potentially infected aerosols by more than 90% in laboratory simulations.

Results from one experiment demonstrated that the un-knotted medical procedure mask alone blocked 42.0% of the particles from a simulated cough, and the cloth mask alone blocked 44.3%.

The double mask combination blocked 92.5% of the cough particles.

In another experiment, the CDC tried to simulate the spread of COVID-19 during breathing when one or both people are properly masked. In the first scenario with only the source of the aerosols wearing a mask, they found coronavirus exposure was reduced by 82.2% when double-masking, and 62.9% with a snug fitting, knotted and tucked surgical mask.

When the source and receiver of simulated breathing aerosols were both fitted with double masks, or knotted and tucked medical masks, the exposure of the receiver was reduced 96.4% and 95.9%, respectively, the experiments found.

The data underscore that a good, tight fit with no spaces around the sides or use of a second cloth mask to improve the fit of the first mask increases overall efficiency and reduces virus transmission risk, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Greek premier orders full lockdown in Athens after surge in coronavirus cases

By Angeliki Koutantou

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday announced a full lockdown in the capital Athens and the surrounding region to curb a resurgence in coronavirus cases and ease pressure on badly stretched health services.

The new restrictions in the Athens region, where half of Greece’s population of 11 million lives, include closing non-essential shops and schools from Feb. 11 until the end of the month, Mitsotakis said in a televised address.

“I will not hide: In the next two months, restrictions may be imposed and lifted depending on the level of alarm,” he said after chairing an emergency meeting with ministers and health experts. “But this is also the last mile towards freedom.”

Authorities registered 1,526 infections on Tuesday, more than double the number recorded a day earlier – half of them in the wider Athens area, with COVID-19 related deaths reaching 6,017 since the coronavirus was first detected.

Greece, which has fared relatively better than others in Europe during the pandemic, was forced to impose a partial lockdown in November after infections began climbing, threatening to overwhelm a health system badly weakened by a decade-long financial crisis.

It has since eased restrictions on the retail sector to help struggling businesses. But Mitsotakis said a fresh rise in hospital admissions in Athens and the detection of more contagious variants of the coronavirus have alarmed authorities.

Greece has administered more than 400,000 inoculations so far with the Pfizer/BionTech and Moderna vaccines and is due to start vaccinating people aged 60-64 with the AstraZeneca shots on Feb. 15.

Mitsotakis said vaccinations will soon reach 500,000 and the most vulnerable will be protected by the end of spring, when the government hopes the vital tourism sector will be able to open.

“We will be much better from April,” he said.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Alison Williams and Grant McCool)

Canada to demand negative COVID tests from people returning across U.S. land border

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada will step up its fight against COVID-19 by obliging citizens returning home over land from the United States to show they do not have COVID-19, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.

Everyone arriving by air already has to prove they tested negative within the previous 72 hours and this rule is being expanded to land crossings starting on Feb. 15, Trudeau said.

Although non-essential travel between the two nations is banned, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have second homes in the United States, and Ottawa is obliged to allow them to return if they wish. People who arrive without test results can be fined C$3,000 ($2,360).

The measure only affects around 5% of returning Canadians because the majority arrive by air.

“We’re using every tool in the toolbox to get us all through this crisis,” Trudeau told reporters. Essential workers such as truck drivers are exempt from the new rules.

Canada has recorded a total of 20,835 deaths and 808,120 cases of COVID-19. Many provinces reimposed restrictions to combat a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and as a result the number of new daily cases over the last week fell to around 3,500 from 8,000 in early January.

“This is gratifying progress,” chief medical officer Theresa Tam told reporters.

Trudeau also promised the supply of vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc would ramp up next week.

His Liberal government has been attacked by critics over the slow pace of vaccinations, caused in part by a temporary reduction in supplies from Pfizer.

Separately, officials said Canada would allow a sixth dose to be taken from each vial of Pfizer’s vaccine rather than the originally intended five.

They told reporters that six doses could be extracted provided a special syringe was used, mirroring moves taken by the United States and some European nations.

($1=1.2704 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Mark Heinrich)

U.S. job openings edge up in December, hiring declines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job openings increased marginally in December while hiring declined, pointing to a labor market that was treading water amid a raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose to 6.65 million on the last day of December from 6.572 million in the previous month, the Labor Department said on Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report. The job openings rate ticked up to 4.5% from 4.4% in November.

Hiring dropped to 5.54 million from 5.94 million in November. The hiring rate declined to 3.9% from 4.2% in November. Layoffs decreased to 1.81 million in December from 2.056 million in the prior month. That lowered the layoffs rate to 1.3% from 1.4% in November.

The JOLTS report followed on the heels of news last Friday that the economy created only 49,000 jobs in January after shedding 227,000 jobs in December. Employment is 9.9 million jobs below its peak in February 2020.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

Britain tightens travel restrictions with hotel quarantine and prison threat

By Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will require passengers arriving from countries where worrying coronavirus variants are spreading to pay for 10 days of quarantine in hotels, while rule-breakers will face heavy fines or jail terms, under tighter restrictions from next week.

The new travel rules add to restrictions that already ban travel abroad for holidays. The government said the stronger measures were needed to prevent new variants of the virus from thwarting Britain’s rapid vaccination program.

Airlines and travel companies called for more government aid, saying the new rules would deepen a crisis that has seen them lose nearly all their revenue.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said people could be sent to prison and fined up to 10,000 pounds ($14,000) if they break the rules which come into force on Feb. 15.

“Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on the ‘red list’ in the 10 days before arrival here, will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years,” Hancock told parliament.

British and Irish nationals arriving in England who have been in high risk countries in the last 10 days would be required to pay 1,750 pounds ($2,400) to cover the cost of a minimum 10-day quarantine in a designated hotel, Hancock said.

All arrivals into the UK will also have to take further COVID-19 tests on day 2 and day 8 of their quarantines, he said, on top of a pre-departure test already required.

Britain has rolled out the fastest vaccination program of any large country. But there has been alarm in recent days after reports that the vaccines it is using may be less effective against some new variants of the virus, such as one that has spread rapidly in South Africa.

NO END IN SIGHT

The government, criticized in recent weeks for being slow to bring in tougher border measures, said the stricter rules could stay in place until it is sure vaccines work against new variants, or booster shots become available.

“Strong protections at the border are part of defending and safely allowing the domestic opening up,” Hancock said.

British airlines and airports issued a new cry for help, the latest of many, urging the government to provide more support to make sure the sector makes it through the year, and to issue a roadmap on how it will ease restrictions.

“Airports and airlines are battling to survive with almost zero revenue and a huge cost base, and practically every week a further blow lands,” aviation trade bodies said.

Hancock said the measures could not be in place permanently and would be replaced “over time with a system of safe and free international travel”.

The government said it had contracted 16 hotels for an initial 4,600 rooms for hotel quarantine and would secure more as needed, with further details due to be published on Thursday.

Quarantines in hotels have been used by Australia and New Zealand as a strategy to sharply limit the spread of the coronavirus.

($1 = 0.7259 pounds)

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Editing by Paul Sandle, Michael Holden, Giles Elgood, Peter Graff)