Headlines

  • US Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisers are scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the potential emergency authorization of a third coronavirus vaccine for the US, this one made by Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine arm Janssen Biotech, the next step in a process that could end up with the new vaccine’s rollout early next week, with advisers and federal agencies meeting over the weekend to try to get the vaccines to the US public as soon as possible.
  • Coronavirus cases and deaths are making a “dramatic” decline that is faster than expected - a drop of 70% over the past five weeks, the team at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington reported Thursday, who said a big factor in the slowed spread has been that mask use remains high in the US, with more than three-quarters of adults reporting they wear one when leaving home.
  • Five residents of a skilled nursing facility in Kentucky may have been reinfected with coronavirus in the fall after testing positive for the virus in the summer, a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests, with each person infected, aged 67 to 99, receiving multiple negative tests between the first and second outbreak in July and October.
  • At least 2,157 cases of coronavirus variants first spotted in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil have now been reported in the US, according to data updated Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • New, more contagious variants of the coronavirus could fuel a renewed surge of infections, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said Thursday, warning that although the US is on a downward trend of cases and hospitalizations from Covid-19, it may not last.
  • Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm says that while the US is in a downward trend with cases, he expects an increase in cases to occur in the next few weeks due to the highly contagious variant first detected in the United Kingdom, explaining that “It often takes four, six, even eight weeks of this virus circulating before it really takes off, going from kind of the small little brush pile fire to a large forest fire.”
  • The US Food and Drug Administration handed Pfizer a victory on Thursday, agreeing to allow its Covid-19 vaccine to be transported and stored for up to two weeks at "conventional temperatures" typically found in pharmaceutical freezers, a decision expected to relieve some of the constraints that have made the vaccine especially difficult to store and distribute.
  • Reports of new vaccinations have started to increase again across the US, after a week of declines brought on by severe weather, as the country administered an average of about 1.5 million newly reported doses a day in the seven-day period ending Thursday, according to federal data, a slight increase from a low point of 1.4 million doses a day through Tuesday.
  • It’s possible a single dose of coronavirus vaccine might be enough to protect people who have recovered from a bout of Covid-19, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said on Thursday, adding that the agency is “trying to collect as much data as possible about that right now,” but for now that strategy is “very high risk” and could result in unforeseen consequences, including encouraging more variants to happen.
  • Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced Thursday that they are testing a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine against new coronavirus variants, and Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said that a third shot taken six months after the first could induce 10 to 20 times the antibody response of the first two doses.
  • The post-vaccination observation period required after the administration of Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines may not be necessary for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, Dr. Nirav Shah, deputy director of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wednesday.
  • Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said on Thursday that an independent panel found the company's COVID-19 antibody cocktail to have "clear clinical efficacy" in reducing the rates of hospitalization and deaths in patients.
  • With much of Europe living under heightened restrictions on movement and social interaction, the rates of Covid-19 infection across the continent have been cut in half from the winter peak, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, but as pressure on national governments mounts to ease lockdowns, Hans Kluge, the agency’s director in Europe, cautioned new cases were still 10 times as high as they were last May and that the region was still experiencing high rates of community transmission.
  • Covid-19 cases in England have fallen 78% since the government imposed a national lockdown on January 4, according to weekly statistics released today from the National Health Service Test and Trace, with some 84,310 people testing positive for the virus between February 11 and February 17, the lowest weekly figure recorded since September.
  • The European Union's goal is to vaccinate 70% of adults in each member state "by the summer," Europe's Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said during a virtual summit on Thursday, adding that “We are seeing more and more people being vaccinated every day and we are taking decisive action to increase the production, delivery and the rollout of vaccines across the EU.”
  • Initial weekly jobless claims improved last week, totaling 730,000 first-time filings - one of the lowest of the Covid era, with economists polled by Dow Jones having expected claims to total 845,000 for the week, and a readout that was still substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels, when fewer than 200,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits each week on average.
  • A CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey, conducted by SurveyMonkey between February 1st to the 8th among a national sample of 6,182 adults, found that 40% of Americans have taken an emergency financial action during the pandemic, including tapping into emergency savings, borrowing money from family or friends, and visiting a food bank.
  • The Biden Administration expanded unemployment insurance eligibility Thursday to include workers who refused job offers at unsafe worksites, making good on a pledge to reduce the pressure on people who say they have been forced to choose between staying healthy or getting a paycheck.

 

The Good Stuff:  A New Jersey woman not only has beaten COVID-19, she has also survived two cardiologists and three husbands.  What is Lucia DeClerck’s secret?  The 105-year-old’s tips for living a long and healthy life?  Prayer, avoiding junk food and eating nine gin-soaked raisins each morning.  “Fill a jar,” DeClerck told the Times. “Nine raisins a day after it sits for nine days.”  “She’s just been open with everything in life and I think that has really helped her because she hasn’t hesitated to do whatever she’s wanted to do,” DeClerck’s son, Henty Laws III said.  The raisin recipe may seem quirky, but it difficult to argue with DeClerck’s longevity.  Some of her other habits include drinking aloe juice - straight up from the container - and brushing her teeth with baking soda.  The baking soda worked wonders.  DeClerck’s relatives said she did not have a cavity until she was 99.  “We would just think, ‘Grandma, what are you doing? You’re crazy,’” DeClerck’s 53-year-old granddaughter, Shawn Laws O’Neil, of Los Angeles, said.  “Now the laugh is on us. She has beaten everything that’s come her way.”

 

US Snapshots

Seven-Day Trending

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 ofThu Feb 25

Daily Average
Case Increase

Daily Average
Death Increase

Positivity Rate

Total Tests

Currently
Hospitalized

Currently in ICU

Currently on Ventilators

This Week

73,595

2,165

8.05%

349,785,144

52,669

10,846

3,567

Last Week

73,556

2,585

8.14%

339,981,823

62,300

13,045

4,180

Change

39

-420

-0.09%

9,803,321

-9,631

-2,199

-613

%

0.05%

-16.25%

-1.11%

2.88%

-15.46%

-16.86%

-14.67%

As of Feb 24

-8.46%

-25.71%

-0.98%

2.75%

-14.64%

-15.85%

-13.72%

As of Feb 23

-13.78%

-29.81%

-1.10%

2.72%

-14.68%

-17.22%

-14.78%

As of Feb 22

-20.43%

-35.51%

-1.10%

2.80%

-15.36%

-16.40%

-14.59%

As of Feb 21

-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%

-14.12%

-15.90%

 

Estimated National Hospital Utilization

Data compiled from US Department of Health and Human Services

As of

Inpatient Beds Occupied (All Patients)

Capacity Filled %

Inpatient Beds Occupied (Covid Patients)

Capacity Filled %

ICU Beds Occupied (All Patients)

Capacity Filled %

25-Feb-21

508,634

72.18%

58,558

8.31%

62,614

72.15%

19-Feb-21

509,498

72.41%

66,217

9.41%

63,268

72.61%

Change

-864

-0.23%

-7,659

-1.10%

-654

-0.46%

17-Feb-21

482,288

68.86%

67,757

9.67%

61,319

71.19%

16-Feb-21

501,487

71.31%

70,812

10.07%

63,678

72.89%

10-Feb-21

494,258

70.52%

82,599

11.78%

63,083

72.18%

01-Feb-21

511,756

72.27%

97,978

13.84%

66,981

75.57%

25-Jan-21

523,968

73.79%

114,816

16.17%

68,813

77.24%

15-Jan-21

529,318

74.53%

132,172

18.61%

70,352

78.88%

04-Jan-21

508,370

71.34%

126,417

17.74%

67,246

63.18%

 

Trending Charts

Charts compiled from Sunknighty CVOB web site via Johns Hopkins University data, updated daily at 5AM from the previous day’s numbers

 

 

US Vaccinations

Note: Washington Post data in Friday’s communication included numbers incorrectly posted on their web site which have since been updated

Total Doses

Data compiled by The Washington Post, updated February 25

Over 46 million people have received one or more doses of the vaccine, more than 21.5 million people have been fully vaccinated and almost 92 million doses have been distributed.

 

Current Doses

Data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, updated daily

Date

Total Doses Distributed

Change

% of Total Population

Total Doses Administered

Change

% of Total Population

2/25/2021

91,673,010

3,003,975

27.95%

68,274,117

-190,830

20.82%

2/24/2021

88,669,035

6,554,665

27.03%

68,464,947

3,432,864

20.87%

2/23/2021

82,114,370

6,908,430

25.03%

65,032,083

854,609

19.83%

2/22/2021

75,205,940

975

22.93%

64,177,474

1,086,840

19.57%

2/21/2021

75,204,965

-3,923,530

22.93%

63,090,634

1,801,134

19.23%

2/20/2021

79,128,495

976,000

24.12%

61,289,500

1,704,457

18.69%

2/19/2021

78,152,495

4,775,045

23.83%

59,585,043

1,847,276

18.17%

 

Date

Number of People Receiving 1 or more Doses

Change

% of Total Population

Number of People Receiving 2 Doses

Change

% of Total Population

Pfizer-BioNTech

Moderna

Not Identified

2/25/2021

46,074,392

837,249

14.05%

21,555,117

947,856

6.57%

35,095,003

33,066,503

112,611

2/24/2021

45,237,143

692,174

13.79%

20,607,261

724,717

6.28%

34,159,027

32,194,245

111,675

2/23/2021

44,544,969

406,851

13.58%

19,882,544

444,049

6.06%

33,352,170

31,569,021

110,892

2/22/2021

44,138,118

510,026

13.46%

19,438,495

573,176

5.93%

32,853,883

31,212,925

110,666

2/21/2021

43,628,092

818,497

13.30%

18,865,319

969,652

5.75%

32,232,422

30,747,615

110,597

2/20/2021

42,809,595

832,194

13.05%

17,895,667

856,549

5.46%

31,270,062

29,909,492

109,946

2/19/2021

41,977,401

956,352

12.80%

17,039,118

876,760

5.19%

30,431,247

29,044,336

109,460

  • Total doses distributed are cumulative counts of vaccine doses recorded as shipped in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Tracking System.
  • Doses distributed are for both Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech vaccine; administered doses are for Pfizer BioNTech vaccine only at this time

 

Reported doses administered by day

Data compiled by The Washington Post from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,, updated February 25

In the last week, an average of 1.37 million doses per day were administered, a 12% decrease over the week before.

 

State Doses

Data compiled by The Washington Post, updated February 25