Morris, Max From: Morris, Max Sent: Monday, February 22, 2021 7:03 AM To: Morris, Max Subject: 02/22/2021 Coronavirus Weekend Recap These updates are being shared to multiple organizations, individuals and lists who/which are bcc’d. Best effort we are sending Daily updates during the business week, typically in the evening, a Weekend Recap on Monday mornings, and any significant breaking news events provided anytime. Please note some numbers included in the Statistics and news stories come from various sources and so can vary as they are constantly changing and not reported at the same time. All communications are TLP GREEN and can be shared freely. Know someone who might want to be added to our Updates? Of course ask them first, and then have them send us an email to [email protected]. Live the message, share the message: Be safe – Stay home and limit travel as much as possible, self-quarantine if you or any members of your family are or may be sick, if you go out wear your mask – the right way, ensure safe social distancing, and practice good hygiene – wash your hands, avoid touching your face, and sanitize used items and surfaces. It’s Monday morning Everyone! Saying hello earlier than usual and hope it was a great weekend for you. Start of a new week so let’s get it going, with positive thoughts it will be a good one. Following is our Weekend Recap of Headlines and Highlights, along with US Snapshots, US Vaccinations, US Variant Cases, Outbreak Statistics, Vaccine and Treatment information, US Restrictions and the US Back-to-Normal Index related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Enjoy your favorite beverage (I’m on my 2nd cup of coffee) and talk to you this evening . CVOB Website individual US State, US County, Global Trending Charts and Data as well as US Vaccinations, US Restrictions and our Communications Archive can be found at https://www.sunknighty.net/. Headlines The US was within hours of reaching an unfathomable 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the country early Monday morning, with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saying Sunday "It's something that is historic,” adding that “It's nothing like we've ever been though in the last 102 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic," but warning Americans to steel themselves against a sense of Covid-19 complacency even as coronavirus infections plummet and some scientists predict that herd immunity is just around the corner. The University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said Sunday that infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are steadily declining in the US, with the main driver being seasonality, aided by expanding levels of vaccination, but counteracting the combined effect of seasonality and vaccination is the spread of the United Kingdom B.1.1.7 variant, which likely accounts for less than 20% of infections today but will increase to 80% by late April, however the most uncertain driver of the trajectory of the epidemic over the next four months is how individuals will respond to steady declines in daily cases and deaths. The risk of illness from COVID-19 dropped 95.8% among people who received both shots of Pfizer’s vaccine, Israel’s Health Ministry said on Saturday, who added that it was also 98% effective in preventing fever or breathing problems and 98.9% effective in preventing hospitalizations and death, findings that were based on data collected nationally through February 13 from Israelis who had received their second shot at least two weeks previously. The United Kingdom’s vaccine rollout is significantly reducing hospitalizations, a new Scottish study suggests, and by the fourth week after receiving a vaccine, the risk of hospitalization fell by 85% to 94%, depending on which vaccine was administered, according to a Public Health Scotland report, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines producing the highest reduction in hospitalization, while Pfizer-Biontech’s vaccine had a slightly lower reduction. 1 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that a variant first identified in South Africa has reached the state, detected in a resident of Nassau County who had recently traveled, an announcement that comes days after a Connecticut resident tested positive for the variant in a New York City hospital. The White House said Sunday that it expects to catch up this week on coronavirus vaccine distribution after a sweeping winter storm disrupted the administration’s colossal logistics, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki saying Sunday that “We knew we can’t control mother nature, no one can, but we can certainly contingency plan. What our team has been doing and preparing to do is engage with and work with the Postal Service, work with FedEx and others to get those doses out to vaccination centers and to communities as quickly as they can handle them.” Covid-19 survivors who have gotten a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine are generating immune responses that might render a second shot unnecessary, potentially freeing up limited vaccine supply for more people, several new research papers suggest, with the findings, while preliminary, reporting that the previously infected people generated protection against the disease quickly and at dramatically higher levels after a first shot of the current two-shot regimens when compared with people who were vaccinated but hadn’t been sick. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for Covid-19, said on Sunday that Americans may still be wearing masks outside their homes a year from now, even as he predicted the country would return to “a significant degree of normality” by fall, explaining that “I want it to keep going down to a baseline that’s so low there is virtually no threat.” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said Saturday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recently released school reopening guidelines are a "safety guard rail" for teachers -- and in a recent poll, most educators said they'd be comfortable returning to class with the help of testing, vaccine prioritization and mitigation strategies in place. Britain will unveil its plan Monday for unwinding one of the world's strictest COVID-19 lockdowns, and in a statement to parliament, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce that all schools in England will reopen from March 8, people will be allowed to meet one-on-one to sit down for a coffee or picnic outdoors, and after-school activities outside can restart from the same date. Doctors say a woman in Michigan contracted Covid-19 and died last fall two months after receiving a tainted double- lung transplant from a donor who turned out to harbor the virus that causes the disease - despite showing no signs of illness and initially testing negative, with officials at the University of Michigan Medical School suggesting it may be the first proven case of Covid-19 in the US in which the virus was transmitted via an organ transplant. So far, the Covdi-19 virus has been detected in zoo animals, domestic animals like cats and dogs, and most worryingly, in farmed and wild animals like mink and ferrets, and now, animal experts are warning that if the virus is circulating freely in wild animals, it might develop mutations and evolve into a new version – one that is capable of jumping back into humans. With the US approaching half a million Covid-19 deaths, plans are underway for President Joe Biden to mark the moment this week with remarks and a candle-lighting ceremony at the White House around sundown as soon as Monday if the threshold is crossed. The House version of President Biden’s relief plan would add $1.9 trillion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this weekend, in line with the previously announced package’s cost. Global dividends fell sharply in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the amount of investor payouts declining 12.2% to $1.26 trillion, according to new research, and as the international public health crisis spread throughout the world, prompting lockdowns and curtailing business activity, dividend cuts and cancellations totaled $220 billion between the second and fourth quarters of 2020, according to the latest Global Dividend Index from asset manager Janus Henderson. The NCAA will allow a limited number of fans to attend all rounds of its men's basketball tournament in Indiana and later rounds of its women's tournament in Texas, with the governing body saying late Friday it is permitting 25% capacity at the men's tournament venues to allow for social distancing, a figure that will include all participants and essential staff along with the family members of team players and coaches. US Snapshots Seven-Day Trending 2 Data compiled daily from John Hopkins CSSE Tracking and The COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic, which uses a Creative Common CC-BY-NC-4.0 license type Trends as of Daily Average Daily Average Currently Currently on Sun Feb 21 Case Increase Death Increase Positivity Rate Total Tests Hospitalized Currently in ICU Ventilators This Week 70,105 1,944 8.10% 344,360,398 56,159 11,862 3,915 Last Week 91,453 3,128 8.19% 335,049,221 67,023 14,047 4,538 Change -21,348 -1,184 -0.09% 9,311,177 -10,864 -2,185 -623 % -23.34% -37.85% -1.10% 2.78% -16.21% -15.55% -13.73% As of Feb 20 -25.29% -37.52% -1.10% 2.85% -15.96% -15.81% -15.40% As of Feb 19 -29.89% -30.50% -1.22% 3.01% -16.25% -15.46% -15.08% As of Feb 18 -28.89% -9.33% -1.09% 3.00% -16.07%