COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Nearly half of new coronavirus infections nationwide are in just five states — a situation that is putting pressure on the federal government to consider changing how it distributes vaccines by sending more doses to hot spots. New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey together reported 44% of the nation’s new COVID-19 infections, or nearly 197,500 new cases, in the latest available seven-day period, according to state health agency data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total U.S. infections during the same week numbered more than 452,000. The spike in cases has been especially pronounced in Michigan, where the seven-day average of daily new infections reached 6,719 cases Sunday — more than double what it was two weeks earlier.

Fed up with pandemic restrictions and lulled into a false sense of security by the increasing rate of vaccinations, coronavirus wards at local hospitals are increasingly being populated by younger, still-unvaccinated adults who've let their guard down, the nation's top public health experts are warning. "It is premature to declare a victory," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said Tuesday at the National Press Club. "We're seeing more and more young people get into serious trouble, namely severe disease, requiring hospitalization and occasionally even tragic deaths in quite young people." Meanwhile, Covid-19 outbreaks linked to younger people have shut down day care centers in Nebraska and Wisconsin and caused cases to quadruple in at least one Connecticut town. In states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Maryland, the number of younger people in hospital Covid-19 wards is on the rise.

Vaccination programs have been upset after a small number of reports that recipients of the AstraZeneca inoculation have suffered extremely rare blood clots, leading some countries worldwide to suspend its use out of caution. A senior official for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in an interview published on Tuesday there was a link between the vaccine and rare blood clots in the brain but the possible causes were still unknown. Germany was the first European country to recommend on April 1 that people under 60 who have had a first AstraZeneca shot should receive a different product for their second dose. Norway will decide whether to resume using AstraZeneca’s vaccine or rely on alternatives by April 15.

There's good news for the millions of Americans who've already received a dose or two of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine: New research shows the vaccine should protect against illness for at least six months. The new study tracked 33 participants in the trials that led to the vaccine's approval. Six months after having received their second vaccine dose, "antibody activity remained high in all age groups," according to a team led by Nicole Doria-Rose of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Her group published their findings April 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

As many as one in three people infected with Covid-19 have longer term mental health or neurological symptoms, researchers reported Tuesday. They found 34% of Covid-19 survivors received a diagnosis for a neurological or psychological condition within six months of their infection, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Psychiatry. The most common diagnosis was anxiety, found in 17% of those treated for Covid-19, followed by mood disorders, found in 14% of patients. And while the neurological effects are more severe in hospitalized patients, they are still common in those who were only treated in an outpatient setting, the researchers note.

After-school activities are creating clusters where coronavirus can spread among children, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus was linked to high school wrestling tournaments in Florida last December where 38 people tested positive, according to a CDC report published in January. In Minnesota, the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 spread through Carver County with at least 68 cases linked to youth sport activities including hockey, wrestling and basketball, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Brazil reported a 24-hour tally of COVID-19 deaths exceeding 4,000 for the first time Tuesday, becoming the third nation to go above that daily threshold. Many governors, mayors and judges are reopening parts of the economy despite lingering chaos in overcrowded hospitals and a collapsed health system in several parts of the country. Brazil’s health ministry said 4,195 deaths were counted in the previous 24 hours, with the nation’s pandemic toll quickly approaching 340,000, the second highest in the world. Only the U.S. and Peru have had daily death tolls higher than 4,000.

President Joe Biden was set to announce Tuesday that he is shaving about two weeks off his May 1 deadline for states to make all adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines. With states gradually expanding eligibility beyond such priority groups as older people and essential, front-line workers, the president plans to announce that every adult in the U.S. will be eligible by April 19 to be vaccinated, a White House official said…. Biden was scheduled to visit a COVID-19 vaccination site in Virginia on Tuesday, followed by remarks at the White House updating the nation on the administration’s progress against the coronavirus. April 19 is about two weeks earlier than Biden’s original May 1 deadline. Biden is also expected to announce that 150 million doses have been put into people’s arms since his inauguration on Jan. 20. That puts the president well on track to meet his new goal of 200 million shots administered by April 30 — his 100th day in office.

United States coronavirus cases have increased again after hitting a low point late last month, and some of the states driving the upward trend have also been hit hardest by variants, according to an analysis of data from Helix, a lab testing company. The country’s vaccine rollout has sped up since the first doses were administered in December, recently reaching a rolling average of more than three million doses per day. And new U.S. cases trended steeply downward in the first quarter of the year, falling by almost 80 percent from mid-January through the end of March. But during that period, states also rolled back virus control measures, and now mobility data shows a rise in people socializing and traveling. Amid all this, more-contagious variants have been gaining a foothold, and new cases are almost 20 percent higher than they were at the lowest point in March.

Valneva on Tuesday reported positive results for its COVID-19 vaccine in early stage clinical trials and said it planned to launch a Phase Three trial this month. The French drugmaker, whose shot uses the technology behind its licensed Japanese encephalitis vaccine, tested its vaccine in 153 adults with three dose levels based on a schedule of two doses with vaccinations three weeks apart… The vaccine, Valneva said, was “generally safe and well tolerated across all dose groups tested, with no safety concerns identified by an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board”.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on cleaning and disinfecting everyday household surfaces, saying that in "most situations" with no known coronavirus exposure, a thorough scrub with soap and water will suffice -- rather than disinfectant sprays and wipes -- to ward off COVID-19. "Routine cleaning performed effectively with soap or detergent, at least once per day, can substantially reduce virus levels on surfaces," the CDC said at a White House briefing Monday. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said "disinfection is only recommended in indoor-setting schools and homes where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19, within the last 24 hours."

An estimated 37,300 to 43,000 children have lost a parent to COVID-19, according to a research letter published online April 5 in JAMA Pediatrics… Three-quarters of children who lost a parent were adolescents. Black children are disproportionately affected by loss of a parent, comprising only 14 percent of the U.S. child population but 20 percent of those losing a parent to COVID-19. When using excess death data, an estimated 43,000 children have lost a parent.

A or B, AB or O, it doesn't matter -- your blood type has nothing to do with your risk of contracting severe COVID-19, a new study concludes. Early in the pandemic, some reports suggested people with A-type blood were more susceptible to COVID, while those with O-type blood were less so. But a review of nearly 108,000 patients in a three-state health network has found no link at all between blood type and COVID risk.

A new U.S. study offers more evidence that a single dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine may provide enough protection to people who've previously been infected with the coronavirus. "Our findings extend those from smaller studies reported elsewhere and support a potential strategy of providing a single dose of vaccine to persons with a confirmed prior history of coronavirus infection, along with two doses for people not previously infected," said researcher Dr. Susan Cheng.

The World Health Organization criticized Europe's sluggish vaccine rollout as "unacceptably slow" in a recent statement, pointing to the low rate of Europeans who have been fully vaccinated. Just 10% of Europeans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and only 4% have been fully vaccinated, according to the WHO.

The Biden administration on Saturday put Johnson & Johnson in charge of a troubled Baltimore manufacturing plant that ruined 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine and moved to stop the plant from making another vaccine by AstraZeneca, senior federal health officials said. The extraordinary move by the Department of Health and Human Services came just days after officials had learned that Emergent BioSolutions, a contract manufacturer that has been making both the Johnson & Johnson and the AstraZeneca vaccines, mixed up ingredients from the two, which led regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines. By moving the AstraZeneca vaccine out, two senior federal health officials said, the plant can be solely devoted to the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine and avoid future mishaps.