Tag Archives: Pandemic

WHO investigators to scrap interim report on probe of COVID-19 origins: WSJ

(Reuters) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19 is planning to scrap an interim report on its recent mission to China amid mounting tensions between Beijing and Washington over the investigation and an appeal from one international group of scientists for a new probe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In Geneva, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply: “The full report is expected in coming weeks”.

No further information was immediately available about the reasons for the delay in publishing the findings of the WHO-led mission to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first human cases of COVID-19 were detected in late 2019.China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to a WHO-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, Dominic Dwyer, one of the team’s investigators said last month, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.

The probe had been plagued by delays, concern over access and bickering between Beijing and Washington, which accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticized the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research.

The team, which arrived in China in January and spent four weeks looking into the origins of the outbreak, was limited to visits organized by their Chinese hosts and prevented from contact with community members, due to health restrictions. The first two weeks were spent in hotel quarantine.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bernadette Baum)

Some Republican governors stand by mask mandates as Texas and Mississippi accelerate reopening

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – While Texas and Mississippi announced complete rollbacks of their states’ COVID-19 mitigation measures this week, several governors of other Republican states have made clear they are not abandoning their mask mandates despite political pressure.

The sharp decline of new daily COVID-19 cases and the rollout of vaccines in the United States have prompted state and local governments to ease business restrictions in recent weeks, with movie theaters set to open at limited capacity in New York and indoor dining resuming in San Francisco on Friday.

However, the decline in cases plateaued last week with new infections rising in 29 out of 50 states compared with the prior week. Texas saw a 69% rise in cases in the week ended Feb. 28.

Few of the rollbacks have been as sweeping as in Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday said the state’s mask mandate would be lifted and most businesses could open at full capacity next week.

The move drew immediate criticism from some politicians and public health experts who have urged caution while the nation’s vaccination program is still underway.

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that decisions to end the required wearing of masks – such as those made by Texas and Mississippi – amounted to “Neanderthal thinking” given the ongoing deaths being caused by the pandemic.

“I think it’s a big mistake. Look, I hope everybody’s realized by now, these masks make a difference,” he told reporters.

Public health experts agree face coverings are essential to slowing the spread of the virus, which has killed more than half a million Americans. But over the last year, resistance to public health measures in the United States, especially mask-wearing, has become politicized, with many Republican states enacting fewer and looser COVID-19 protocols than Democratic states.

In some Republican-led states, including Florida and South Dakota, there has never been a statewide mask mandate. In others, like Alabama and Ohio, mask mandates remain in effect.

Including the upcoming change in Texas, 34 states mandate that residents wear face masks in public, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

In Ohio, U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel on Wednesday called on Republican Governor Mike DeWine to follow Texas’ lead and repeal the statewide mask order. The governor quickly rejected the idea.

“Ohio will be keeping its mask mandate to protect Ohioans who have yet to receive the vaccine. Vaccine supply is increasing, and there is light at the end of the tunnel, but the virus is still here and the pandemic is still ongoing today,” a spokesman for DeWine told Reuters in an email.

Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia, a Republican, said on Wednesday he was not ready to ease any restrictions, including an indoor mask mandate.

“All businesses must continue to follow the safety guidelines,” Justice said.

Abbott’s executive order in Texas will lift all mask requirements statewide as of March 10 and forbid local authorities from penalizing residents who do not wear face coverings. It will remove all restrictions on businesses in counties without a high number of hospitalizations.

Local officials can still apply limits to businesses where hospitalizations remain high, according to the order, but are prohibited from mandating that they operate at less than 50% capacity.

As of Monday, Texas was seeing about 7,500 new cases per day on a seven-day average, according to Reuters data, and it was ranked 47th in the list of states that have vaccinated the highest percentage of their populations.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, on Tuesday also lifted his state’s mask order and removed all restrictions on businesses.

But Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat in a majority Republican state, doubled down on his state’s mask order even as it increased capacity to 75% at restaurants and retail businesses on Wednesday.

“Louisiana’s mask mandate is still in place,” Edwards tweeted. “As we vaccinate more and more people, masks are still our most effective tool in stopping the spread of COVID-19 and saving lives.”

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely, Jarrett Renshaw and Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)

T cell response to virus variants remains potent; Asthma does not raise severe COVID-19 risk

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Immune system T cell responses to variants remain potent

While worrisome coronavirus variants identified in Brazil, South Africa, and California have mutations that might help them resist antibody treatments and vaccines, the immune system’s T cell responses to the variants are unaffected in recovered patients and in people who have received the Moderna Inc or Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccines, new data show. “We think this is really good news,” said Alessandro Sette of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, whose team reported the findings on Monday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. The T cells induced by vaccines can recognize pieces of the virus spike protein, while T cells induced by previous infection recognize multiple parts of the virus, including the spike and other proteins, Sette said. “These pieces are largely not changed/mutated in the variants,” he explained. “This means that the T cell responses recognize the ‘ancestral’ sequence and the variants equally well.” While circulating memory T cells would probably not prevent infection, they could reduce COVID-19 severity, he added. T cell responses are known to be linked with milder COVID-19, he noted, and may contribute to limiting COVID-19 severity induced by variants that partially or largely escape neutralizing antibodies.

Asthma does not increase COVID-19 risks

Asthma itself is not a risk factor for hospitalization or more severe COVID-19, and people whose asthma is triggered by allergies may actually be at lower risk, according to new research presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology virtual annual meeting. Researchers at Stanford University studied 5,596 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 from March to September 2020. Of these, 11% were hospitalized, including 100 patients with asthma. After accounting for patients’ other medical conditions that have been linked with more severe COVID-19 illness, including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, “asthma was no longer a risk factor for hospitalization,” said Dr. Lauren Eggert. Among patients who were hospitalized, asthma was not significantly associated with disease severity, she said. Researchers also found that patients with allergic asthma were nearly half as likely as patients with other types of asthma to need hospitalization. A possible explanation, Eggert said, is that in allergic asthma, the immune system “downregulates,” or reduces the production, of the ACE2 proteins on cell surfaces that are a major port of entry for the coronavirus.

Antibodies to variants may offer cross-protection

Antibodies to a newer, more infectious coronavirus variant might prevent infection by earlier variants, laboratory studies suggest. In test tube experiments, researchers studied the neutralizing effects of antibodies obtained from people infected with COVID-19 in the first wave of the pandemic in South Africa, when the initial version of the virus was predominant, and in survivors from the second wave, when a more infectious, harder-to-treat new variant predominated. First-wave antibodies neutralized the first-wave virus but not second-wave virus. As expected, second-wave antibodies neutralized second-wave viruses. They also neutralized the first-wave virus, although not as potently, according to a paper posted on Saturday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. In a news conference on Wednesday, co-author Alex Sigal from the Africa Health Research Institute said the findings offer hope that vaccines based on the variant could protect against this and other variants circulating worldwide. Pfizer, AstraZeneca Plc, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are already developing vaccines based on the variant identified in South Africa. Salim Abdool Karim, a top government adviser on COVID-19, predicted that by the end of 2021 most vaccine manufacturers will have adapted their shots, accordingly.

UK finds vaccines protect elderly

The Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are more than 80% effective at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations in people over age 80 after one dose, Public Health England said on Monday, citing a study released on medRxiv ahead of peer review. The UK study also found that in people over age 70, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are approximately 85% to 90% effective at preventing symptomatic disease. Pfizer vaccine recipients in that age group who did acquire symptomatic infections had a 44% lower risk of hospitalization and a 51% lower risk of death compared to unvaccinated patients. Because the two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine had only recently been introduced, researchers only had data after one dose. The effect against symptomatic disease was approximately 60% to 75%, and there was also a protective effect against hospitalization, the researchers said. They noted that the AstraZeneca data was gathered while a more-infectious variant was predominant in the UK. Britain’s use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on elderly people contrasts with many European countries, which have cited a lack of clinical trial data for their decision not to use it on older people.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks, Kate Kelland, and Alexander Winning; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. private payrolls miss expectations; cost pressures rising for businesses

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. private payrolls increased less than expected in February amid job losses in manufacturing and construction, suggesting the labor market was struggling to regain speed despite the nation’s improving public health picture.

Part of the labor market’s problems appear to be rooted in a shortage of workers. Other data on Wednesday showed job growth in the services industry retreated last month, with businesses reporting they were “unable to fill vacant positions with qualified applicants” and “need more resources to meet demand.”

The year-long COVID-19 pandemic is keeping some workers at home, fearful of accepting or returning to jobs that could expose them to the coronavirus. The data was published ahead of the government’s closely watched employment report on Friday, and could temper expectations for an acceleration in job growth in February. The ADP’s private payrolls report, however, has a poor track record predicting the private payrolls count in the government’s more comprehensive employment report.

“This is a disappointment given that the drop-off in coronavirus case numbers and the resulting lifting of containment measures should be giving the economy a bigger shot in the arm,” said Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.

Private payrolls rose by 117,000 jobs last month after increasing 195,000 in January, the ADP National Employment Report showed. The report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private payrolls would increase by 177,000 jobs in February.

Construction employment fell by 3,000 jobs and manufacturing payrolls decreased 14,000. Hiring in the services sector increased by 131,000 jobs, with the leisure and hospitality industry adding 26,000 positions. Harsh weather in some parts of the country was also likely a factor holding back gains.

Still, the labor market has been slow to regain traction even as some restrictions on services businesses have been rolled back amid a drop in new COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. Though the rate of decline in coronavirus cases has stalled, economists still believe the labor market will regain momentum in the spring and through summer.

In a separate report on Wednesday, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its measure of services sector employment fell to a reading of 52.7 in February from 55.2 in January.

The lack of significant improvement in the labor market is also despite nearly $900 billion in additional pandemic relief provided by the government in late December, which boosted consumer spending and positioned the economy for faster growth in the first quarter.

Gross domestic product growth estimates for the first quarter have been raised to as high as a 10% annualized rate from as low as a 2.3% pace. The upgrades also reflect President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion recovery plan, under consideration by Congress. The economy grew at a 4.1% rate in the fourth quarter.

“Historically, employment lags GDP by a quarter or so,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Everything from that (GDP) front looks good, we are expecting substantial job growth in the not-too-distant future.”

Stocks on Wall Street were mostly lower. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell.

RISING COSTS

According to a Reuters poll of economists, the government will likely report on Friday that nonfarm payrolls increased by 180,000 jobs in February after rising only 49,000 in January.

Hopes for a pick-up in hiring last month were supported by a survey last week showing consumers’ perceptions of the labor market improved in February after deteriorating in January and December. In addition, a measure of manufacturing employment increased to a two-year high in February.

The retrenchment in services employment last month contributed to the ISM’s broader non-manufacturing activity index declining to a nine-month low of 55.3 in February from a reading of 58.7 in January. A reading above 50 indicates growth in the services sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

Economists had forecast the index unchanged at 58.7. The decline likely reflected brutal winter storms, which lashed Texas and parts of the populous South region in mid-February.

The lack of qualified workers at suppliers and manufacturers is creating bottlenecks in the supply chain, leaving businesses with high production costs. The survey’s measure of prices paid by services industries jumped to 71.8 last month, the highest reading since September 2008, from 64.2 in January.

It mirrored findings of the ISM’s manufacturing survey published on Monday and a surge in consumers’ near-term inflation expectations.

Inflation is expected to accelerate in the coming months in part as last year’s pandemic-driven weak readings drop out of the calculation. Economists are divided on whether the jump in price pressures will stick beyond the so-called base effects.

U.S. Treasury yields have risen, with investors betting that the Federal Reserve’s ultra-easy monetary policy stance and White House’s proposed massive stimulus will ignite inflation.

Many services businesses complained about supply delays and labor shortages. Wholesalers reported an “ongoing influx of price increases due to raw-material shortages.” Retailers said “price increases are occurring with more frequency,” while accommodation and food services noted suppliers were proposing “price increases that are above and beyond normal expectations.”

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

U.S. Senate negotiates limits in Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill before vote

By Susan Cornwell and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill would phase out $1,400 payments to high-income Americans in a compromise with moderate Democratic senators, according to lawmakers and media reports.

The Democratic-controlled Senate expects to open debate on the package as early as Wednesday, with a final vote for passage seen later in the week. Before the bill hits the chamber floor, Democrats are negotiating limits to a measure Republicans have attacked as wasteful.

Senate Democrats said the proposal, which would block Americans earning $80,000 per year or more and couples earning $160,000 or more from receiving the $1,400 payments, was a good solution.

The income cutoff had been higher – $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for couples filing jointly – in the House-passed version of the legislation.

“It’s an appropriate way of bringing this to a successful conclusion,” Senator Michael Bennet told reporters. Senator Debbie Stabenow said the caps would be “a reasonable compromise.”

The 100-seat chamber, where control is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, is due to consider a motion to begin 20 hours of debate on the sweeping legislation, according to a Senate Democratic aide. A vote to proceed could be an early indicator of how much Republican opposition the package faces.

The bill would pay for vaccines and medical supplies, boost jobless assistance and send a new round of emergency financial aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments. Democrats aim to get it to Biden to sign into law before March 14, when some current benefits expire.

Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have denounced the bill as a Democratic “wish list” containing provisions unrelated to the pandemic, which has killed more than 517,000 Americans and left millions more jobless.

But it is not clear that McConnell can replicate the monolithic party unity on display last Saturday, when the House of Representatives approved the bill with all Republicans in opposition.

Before the legislation comes to a final vote, Democrats will have to sort out a welter of competing ideas as they seek to advance the bill.

First to go will be a minimum-wage increase, which the Senate parliamentarian said last week could not be included in the package if Democrats want to invoke a special procedure that would allow them to pass the bill with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation in the chamber.

With Democrats and their allies controlling 50 seats, Vice President Kamala Harris might need to give them a tie-breaking vote.

STICKING POINTS

Democrats have, however, shown no interest in dropping another partisan sticking point: $350 billion in aid for state and local governments, which face rising costs and uncertain tax revenues because of the pandemic. But they are negotiating what to include in that figure, with some advocating for spending on rural broadband internet service, a priority for senators from states with large rural populations.

A Reuters analysis found that Democratic-leaning states would get a larger share of that money this time around than they did under the first $150 billion of state and local aid that Congress approved last year.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a key centrist, pushed to scale back enhanced unemployment benefits to $300 per week from $400. Lawmakers may also opt to discontinue those benefits if unemployment in a given state drops below a certain level, according to a Democratic aide.

The Senate could vote on the bill by the end of the week. The House would then have to sign off on the changes before Congress could send it on to Biden to sign into law.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone, Peter Cooney, Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis)

COVID safety measures still essential even as U.S. boosts vaccine supply: White House

By Carl O’Donnell and Jarrett Renshaw

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. states need to “rally together” to maintain safety measures like social distancing and mask-wearing even as the federal government helps ramp up the production and delivery of vaccines, the White House said on Wednesday.

White House senior adviser Andy Slavitt said the federal government is planning to spend $100 million to help the joint partnership between Merck & Co and rival Johnson & Johnson accelerate vaccine production.

The infusion will help Johnson & Johnson ramp up its production of vaccines, Slavitt said. The company was contracted to deliver 200 million doses to the federal government by the end of May and roughly a billion doses globally by end-2021.

“Over time we believe Merck will be able to double the capacity of Johnson & Johnson,” Slavitt said.

Slavitt said while the increased production is good news, he urged states like Texas to reconsider recent decisions to lift mask mandates and allow businesses to fully open without restrictions.

There are health officials in every state who feel “now is the wrong time to lift the mask mandate,” Slavitt said. “Hopefully, the country will continue to rally together on this front.”

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

‘When will it end?’: How a changing virus is reshaping scientists’ views on COVID-19

By Julie Steenhuysen and Kate Kelland

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Chris Murray, a University of Washington disease expert whose projections on COVID-19 infections and deaths are closely followed worldwide, is changing his assumptions about the course of the pandemic.

Murray had until recently been hopeful that the discovery of several effective vaccines could help countries achieve herd immunity, or nearly eliminate transmission through a combination of inoculation and previous infection. But in the last month, data from a vaccine trial in South Africa showed not only that a rapidly-spreading coronavirus variant could dampen the effect of the vaccine, it could also evade natural immunity in people who had been previously infected.

“I couldn’t sleep” after seeing the data, Murray, director of the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Reuters. “When will it end?” he asked himself, referring to the pandemic. He is currently updating his model to account for variants’ ability to escape natural immunity and expects to provide new projections as early as this week.

A new consensus is emerging among scientists, according to Reuters interviews with 18 specialists who closely track the pandemic or are working to curb its impact. Many described how the breakthrough late last year of two vaccines with around 95% efficacy against COVID-19 had initially sparked hope that the virus could be largely contained, similar to the way measles has been.

But, they say, data in recent weeks on new variants from South Africa and Brazil has undercut that optimism. They now believe that SARS-CoV-2 will not only remain with us as an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in communities, but will likely cause a significant burden of illness and death for years to come.

As a result, the scientists said, people could expect to continue to take measures such as routine mask-wearing and avoiding crowded places during COVID-19 surges, especially for people at high risk.

Even after vaccination, “I still would want to wear a mask if there was a variant out there,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, said in an interview. “All you need is one little flick of a variant (sparking) another surge, and there goes your prediction” about when life gets back to normal.

Some scientists, including Murray, acknowledge that the outlook could improve. The new vaccines, which have been developed at record speed, still appear to prevent hospitalizations and death even when new variants are the cause of infection. Many vaccine developers are working on booster shots and new inoculations that could preserve a high level of efficacy against the variants. And, scientists say there is still much to be learned about the immune system’s ability to combat the virus.

Already, COVID-19 infection rates have declined in many countries since the start of 2021, with some dramatic reductions in severe illness and hospitalizations among the first groups of people to be vaccinated.

WORSE THAN FLU

Murray said if the South African variant, or similar mutants, continue to spread rapidly, the number of COVID-19 cases resulting in hospitalization or death this coming winter could be four times higher than the flu. The rough estimate assumes a 65% effective vaccine given to half of a country’s population. In a worst-case scenario, that could represent as many as 200,000 U.S. deaths related to COVID-19 over the winter period, based on federal government estimates of annual flu fatalities.

His institute’s current forecast, which runs to June 1, assumes there will be an additional 62,000 U.S. deaths and 690,000 global deaths from COVID-19 by that point. The model includes assumptions about vaccination rates as well as the transmissibility of the South African and Brazilian variants.

The shift in thinking among scientists has influenced more cautious government statements about when the pandemic will end. Britain last week said it expects a slow emergence from one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, despite having one of the fastest vaccination drives.

U.S. government predictions of a return to a more normal lifestyle have been repeatedly pushed back, most recently from late summer to Christmas, and then to March 2022. Israel issues “Green Pass” immunity documents to people who have recovered from COVID-19 or been vaccinated, allowing them back into hotels or theaters. The documents are only valid for six months because it’s not clear how long immunity will last.

“What does it mean to be past the emergency phase of this pandemic?,” said Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. While some experts have asked whether countries could completely eradicate any case of COVID-19 through vaccines and stringent lockdowns, Baral sees the goals as more modest, but still meaningful. “In my mind, it’s that hospitals aren’t full, the ICUs aren’t full, and people aren’t tragically passing,” he said.

“SCIENTIFIC WHIPLASH”

From the beginning, the new coronavirus has been a moving target.

Early in the pandemic, leading scientists warned that the virus could become endemic and “may never go away,” including Dr. Michael Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program.

Yet they had much to learn, including whether it would be possible to develop a vaccine against the virus and how quickly it would mutate. Would it be more like measles, which can be kept almost entirely at bay in communities with high rates of inoculation, or flu, which infects millions globally each year?

For much of 2020, many scientists were surprised and reassured that the coronavirus had not changed significantly enough to become more transmissible, or deadly.

A major breakthrough came in November. Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE as well as Moderna Inc said their vaccines were around 95% effective at preventing COVID-19 in clinical trials, an efficacy rate that is much higher than any flu shot.

At least a few of the scientists Reuters interviewed said even in the wake of those results, they hadn’t expected the vaccines to wipe out the virus. But many told Reuters that the data raised hope within the scientific community that it would be possible to virtually eliminate COVID-19, if only the world could be vaccinated quickly enough.

“We all felt quite optimistic before Christmas with those first vaccines,” said Azra Ghani, chair in infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London. “We didn’t necessarily expect such high-efficacy vaccines to be possible in that first generation.”

The optimism proved short-lived. In late December, the UK warned of a new, more transmissible variant that was quickly becoming the dominant form of the coronavirus in the country. Around the same time, researchers learned of the impact of the faster-spreading variants in South Africa and in Brazil.

Phil Dormitzer, a top vaccine scientist at Pfizer, told Reuters in November that the U.S. drugmaker’s vaccine success signaled the virus was “vulnerable to immunization” in what he called “a breakthrough for humanity.” By early January, he acknowledged the variants heralded “a new chapter” in which companies will have to constantly monitor for mutations that could dampen the effect of vaccines.

In late January, the impact on vaccines became even clearer. Novavax’s clinical trial data showed its vaccine was 89% effective in a UK trial, but just 50% effective at preventing COVID-19 in South Africa. That was followed a week later by data showing the AstraZeneca PLC vaccine offered only limited protection from mild disease against the South African variant.

The most recent change of heart was considerable, several of the scientists told Reuters. Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego, described it as “scientific whiplash”: In December, he had believed it was plausible to achieve so-called “functional eradication” of the coronavirus, similar to measles.

Now, “getting as many people vaccinated as possible is still the same answer and the same path forward as it was on December 1 or January 1,” Crotty said, “but the expected outcome isn’t the same.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Kate Kelland in London; additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Cassell Bryan-Low)

California reaches deal to fund school reopening for youngest children

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California’s governor said on Monday he and Democratic lawmakers had reached a deal to fund the reopening of schools for students up to second grade, as the numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the state and country drop to their lowest this year.

A Reuters tally shows that COVID-19 infections are decreasing in the United States, with 68,240 new infections reported on average each day, or 27% of the peak daily average reported on Jan. 7. The United States has recorded 28,681,793 infections and 513,721 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

California’s $6.6 billion budget package marks the latest effort by a U.S. state to get school children back in class after nearly a year confined to home learning by political leaders in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

“You can’t reopen your economy unless you get your schools reopened for in-person instruction,” Governor Gavin Newsom, said at a Monday afternoon news briefing announcing the agreement with Democratic leaders in the state legislature.

But the deal does not include an order by Newsom, a first-term Democrat, for public schools to open by a certain date, and the governor conceded that negotiations may still need to take place with teachers’ unions.

“We expect all of our transitional kindergarten to grade two classrooms open within the next month,” Newsom said. “And our core belief is this: Once you dip your toe in … once you build trust, then we will start to see a cadence of reopening across the spectrum.”

The $6.6 billion will partly pay for personal protective gear and improved classroom ventilation. The deal would also make vaccinating teachers and other school employees a priority in California, the nation’s most populous state.

NEWSOM CRITICIZED

Newsom has imposed some of the harshest restrictions of any U.S. state on California’s roughly 40 million residents, and many businesses remain closed one year into the pandemic.

The governor, who was sharply criticized after he was photographed eating at a posh Napa Valley restaurant late last year despite ordering Californians to stay home, has seen his approval ratings dip and is the subject of a recall effort.

Despite plummeting numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths nationwide, most students across the United States remain stuck at home as governors and local leaders seek to navigate complicated political and logistical hurdles to reopen schools.

Public school students in many of Maryland’s most populous areas returned to in-class instruction on Monday.

“School buses are on the road this morning – a welcome sight as we give more young Marylanders the opportunity to get safely back in the classroom,” Governor Larry Hogan said on Twitter.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Monday announced that as of March 15, pre-K-12 teachers and childcare workers would be eligible for vaccination.

While New Jersey lags behind other states in making vaccinations available to teachers, Murphy said two-thirds of classes are already hybrid or completely in-person.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

Texas governor lifts state’s mask mandate, business restrictions

(Reuters) – The governor of Texas lifted most of the state’s coronavirus pandemic restrictions, allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity as of next week and telling residents that masks were no longer required.

The move by Governor Greg Abbott marks the furthest any U.S. state has so far gone to roll back harsh restrictions on businesses and residents imposed by political leaders in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is now time to open Texas 100%,” Abbott said at an afternoon news briefing. The full lifting of the mandates will take effect on March 1, he said.

Abbott’s order comes as COVID-19 infections have plummeted in recent weeks across much of the world, including the United States.

According to a Reuters tally roughly 68,240 new cases have been reported on average each day this week, or 27% of the peak daily average reported on Jan. 7. The United States has recorded 28,681,793 infections and 513,721 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler and Matthew Lewis)

EU, under pressure over vaccine rollouts, considers switch to emergency approvals

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Tuesday that it was considering emergency approvals for COVID-19 vaccines as a faster alternative to more rigorous conditional marketing authorizations which have been used so far.

The move would mark a big shift in approach to vaccine approvals, as it would entail using a procedure that the EU had considered dangerous and that before the COVID-19 pandemic had been reserved for exceptional authorization at national level of drugs for terminally ill patients, including cancer treatments.

The potential change comes as the EU executive and the bloc’s drug regulator come under increasing pressure for what some consider slow vaccine approvals, which have contributed to a slower rollout of COVID-19 shots in the 27-nation union, compared to the United States and former EU member Britain.

“We are ready to reflect with the member states on all possible avenues to indeed accelerate the approval of the vaccines,” an EU Commission spokesman told a news conference after the matter was discussed earlier on Tuesday at a COVID-19 meeting with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

One option could be “an emergency authorization of vaccines at EU level with shared liability among member states,” the spokesman said, adding that work on this could start very quickly if EU governments supported the idea.

It was not clear whether an EU-wide emergency authorization procedure, if agreed upon, would entail the same conditions as emergency approvals granted at national level, the commission spokesman told Reuters.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) cannot currently issue emergency approvals but in exceptional circumstances has recommended the compassionate use of drugs before marketing authorization.

This procedure was used in April to initially authorize doctors to use Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir as a treatment against COVID-19. The drug was later given conditional approval by EMA.

CHANGE OF TACK

National emergency approvals are allowed under EU laws, but they force countries to take full responsibility if something goes wrong with a vaccine, whereas under the more rigorous marketing authorization, pharmaceutical companies remain liable for their vaccines.

The EU Commission had said that national emergency authorizations should not be used for COVID-19 vaccines because faster approvals could reduce regulators’ ability to check efficacy and safety data.

This could also boost vaccine hesitancy, which is already high in some countries, EU officials had said.

One senior EU official said the emergency procedure had so far usually been used at national level for terminally ill patients and the EU had instead chosen the lengthier conditional marketing authorization because with vaccines “we inject healthy people” and the risk was disproportionate.

The change of tack would come after Eastern European countries, including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, approved or said they were considering approval of Russian and Chinese vaccines with national emergency procedures.

Britain has also used the emergency procedure to approve COVID-19 vaccines.

The EU Commission also said last month it was working on a possible fast-track approval of upgraded anti-variant vaccines, which had already been authorized and would need fewer comprehensive checks before they are made available to the public.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; additional reporting by Emilio Parodi; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jonathan Oatis)