FS-ISAC Coronavirus Update, Jan. 14, 2021

Headlines

• The US crossed 23 million cases Wednesday, and in the last week, 22 states and Washington, D.C., have reported a record seven-day average of daily cases, with the national average at a record high of 246,000 new infections every day.
• The US reported a record-high number of 4,327 new Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and added 215,805 new infections, as officials said the country is now in its post-holiday surge, and the situation will likely worsen before it improves.
• This week’s White House coronavirus task force report to states raised concerns about “significant, continued deterioration from California across the Sunbelt and up into the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast,” so, essentially, the entire continental US.
• Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a member of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, acknowledged the “awful” numbers the US is currently seeing are likely to continue for a few months, but said there are reasons for optimism, including mass vaccinations with two “remarkably effective” vaccines, warmer weather, a new political administration and a population building immunity.
• Just over 10 million people have now received their first shots and 29.3 million doses of vaccine have been distributed, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday, and while the country is still lagging far behind its target rate, the new numbers indicate that close to a million people received shots in a day.
• Ohio State University researchers said today they have discovered two new variants that likely originated in the US, one found in just one patient that contained a mutation identical to the now-dominant strain in the United Kingdom, but the other - which became the dominant strain in Columbus, Ohio, in late December and January – has gene mutations not previously seen together.
• Early stage trials of Johnson & Johnson's experimental vaccine show it generated an immune response of up to 80% in nearly all volunteers, with minimal side-effects, after a single dose, and the company expects to report details of more advanced trials later this month and is hoping to apply for authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration soon after.
• More people in the US died of COVID-19 in the past week than they did from the flu during all of last season, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
• As some areas of the country push to reopen school buildings, a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that cases were lowest among younger children even after schools restarted for in-person learning, but cautioned that to safely reopen schools, transmission in communities must be kept in check.
• The second year of the pandemic may be tougher than the first given how the new coronavirus is spreading, especially in the northern hemisphere as more infectious variants circulate, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
• Last week 2.5 million people across the Americas were infected with Covid-19, which Pan American Health Organization’s director Carissa Etienne Etienne said Wednesday was the highest weekly case count since the virus reached the region, with local health systems in Canada and Mexico struggling to keep up with demanding care, early January data suggesting infections are on the rise in Costa Rica and Belize, and in South America, every country has reported a rise in cases over the last few weeks.
• Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn warned today the country is in one of the "gravest phases so far" of the pandemic, and said “we have to bring down the number of infections and deaths which are still too high,” but added the situation in the country’s intensive care units is slowly improving.
• The cost of closing schools due to the pandemic "has been devastating," as 90% of students globally faced shutdowns at the peak of the disruptions last year, the United Nations Children's Fund chief said Tuesday, closures that have meant more than a third of schoolchildren were left with no access to remote education.
• A leading Chinese vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech that has been found to just be 50.38% effective in late-stage trials in Brazil - significantly lower than earlier results showed, is now raising questions as to the veracity of the data and fueling skepticism over the apparent lack of transparency regarding the country’s vaccines.
• Cybersecurity firm Check Point has uncovered a number of people on the so-called dark web claiming to sell vaccines for payments in bitcoin but not delivering the goods, with price tags as high as $1,000 and ads that appeared to contradict official medical guidance on doses.

US Updates

Business Related

1. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, in a letter dated Tuesday, wants President-elect Joe Biden to push for $2,000 stimulus checks on his first day in office.
2. Missouri authorities are asking thousands of unemployment recipients to give back the weekly state payments or face potential consequences, with officials saying they incorrectly paid thousands of people, to the tune of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
3. Dollar General will offer four hours of pay to workers who get a vaccine, and discount retailer, which has about 157,000 employees, will also provide paid time off to anyone who experiences adverse reactions to the shots.
4. Target said Wednesday that its stores will be closed on Thanksgiving Day of 2021 after it opted to keep them closed during the health crisis last year.
5. A major chunk of the global recovery in companies’ earnings expected in the first quarter is at risk of being pushed back further, investment banks said.

Personal Infections & Vaccinations

1. At least 60 sitting members of Congress - more than one in 10 - have tested positive or are believed to have had Covid-19 at some point since the pandemic began, a higher proportion than the general population.

US Outbreak

1. US hospitalizations are showing the earliest signs of a plateau, hovering around 130,000 patients for a few days after a months-long dramatic rise, but health systems continue to be overwhelmed by that volume, while also trying to balance a vaccine rollout.
2. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest ensemble forecast published today now projects there will be 440,000 to 477,000 deaths in the US by February 6, updated from the January 6 projection of up to 438,0000 by January 30.
3. Arizona, Alabama and Nevada currently hold the highest hospitalizations rates per million people in the country.
4. Texas reported 26,808 new and probably cases, a record number of daily Covid-19 related fatalities and 14,106 current hospitalizations on Wednesday, a day after becoming only the second state to cross 2 million diagnosed infections, following California.
5. Oklahoma, averaging nearly 4,000 new cases each day, is experiencing the third worst outbreak in the country, behind Arizona, which is enduring a surge even worse than its summer peak, and California, where a weekslong flood of cases is wearing hospitals and their workers thin.
6. California Governor Gavin Newsom today said “There are some good things to report,” and the state is “starting to see some stabilization both in I.C.U.s as well as in our positivity rate.”
7. Oklahoma’s rural Mercy Hospital Ardmore has so many Covid-19 patients that some people are being cared for in curtained-off areas of hallways and the emergency department’s waiting room.
8. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found that he incidence of COVID-19 in children, particularly those ages 0 to 10, has been lower than that of young adults and adults throughout the entire second half of 2020, and the incidence of in kids was higher as the age increased.
9. Native Americans, who are dying of Covid-19 at nearly twice the rate of white people, are also facing a cultural crisis, as the coronavirus tears through the ranks of tribal elders, inflicting an incalculable toll on bonds of language and tradition that flow from older generations to the young.

US Restrictions & Schools

1. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is weighing new measures that could allow expanded travel after unveiling testing requirements for people flying into the US.
2. California’s region around Sacramento has improved enough to lift a strict stay-at-home order and allow some businesses to reopen at partial capacity, including restaurants offering outdoor dining and hair salons.
3. Montana’s new governor, Greg Gianforte, reversed restrictions imposed by his predecessor, lifting restrictions on capacity and hours of operation at bars, restaurants, casinos, breweries, distilleries and other businesses, effective January 15.

New Variants - US

1. The White House coronavirus task force again suggested the existence of “more transmissible” strains and a “much more rapid” spread of the virus, in its weekly reports to states today.
2. At least 76 cases of the variant first identified in the United Kingdom have now been found in 12 US states, according to data posted Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with California reporting 32 cases, 22 in Florida, five in Minnesota, four in New York, four in Colorado, two in Connecticut, two in Maryland, and one case each in Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Georgia.
3. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said Wednesday he does not believe variants that have been detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa or Brazil, and now seen in many countries, will affect the efficacy of his company's vaccine. 
4. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that three additional three cases of the variant surging in the United Kingdom have now been identified in the state, bringing the total number of infections to 15.

Vaccines – US

1. West Virginia, South Dakota and North Dakota have administered the most first doses per capita among states according to federal data.
2. California has administered nearly 900,000 of the 3.4 million doses it has received to date, representing roughly 2,200 administered shots per 100,000 residents, and Governor Gavin Newsom said this afternoon the state will expand its vaccine eligibility to include everyone over the age of 65, a shift following the guideline change from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control and similar moves by New York and New Jersey.
3. Mississippi has allotted its entire supply of vaccines and doesn't expect more doses until mid-February, the state health department announced Wednesday.
4. New Jersey, beginning Thursday, will make all residents ages 65 and above, as well as people between the ages of 16 and 64 with medical conditions defined by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that increase risk for severe illness from COVID-19, eligible to begin receive vaccinations.
5. The production pace of the vaccine being developed by drugmaker Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary Janssen appears to be behind schedule, with the New York Times reporting on Wednesday that Operation Warp Speed's lead manufacturing adviser Dr. Carlo de Notaristefani acknowledged a delay, but said the company might be able to catch up with its original production goals by March.
6. The President and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, includes 40,000 pharmacies and 155,000 pharmacists, said Wednesday that pharmacists across the US will have the capacity to administer 100 million doses of the vaccine once supply is available. 
7. New York has turned the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan into a mass vaccination site, a key step toward speeding up the rollout of the life-saving doses, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said today he is working on a plan to use Yankee Stadium as a vaccination site, a move that comes after he announced the Gotham Health Clinic on Staten Island is opening today as a 24-hour mega site.
8. Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened as a mass vaccination site Wednesday, with about 3,000 people expected to get shots on the first day, with about an hour-and-a-half wait time, and ultimately 7,000 people a day will be able to receive doses.
9. Major League Baseball teams reached out to county and city health officials this week to offer every MLB stadium in the country as a mass vaccination site, Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said Wednesday.

Statistics Sources

John Hopkins CSSE Live Tracking Map, CDC US Case Reporting, Worldometer Coronavirus Pandemic, News Break Coronavirus Realtime Update Stats, Bing Covid19 Tracker, Covid Tracking Project, Uncast Social Distancing Scoreboard, University of Washington Outbreak Model, Moody’s Analytics and CNN Business Back-to-Normal Index