Category: Covid-19

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan on Saturday said it would temporarily ban non-resident foreign nationals from entering the country as it tightens its borders following the detection of a new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus.

FILE PHOTO: Shoppers wearing protective face masks walk on the street at Tsukiji outer market, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Tokyo, Japan December 24, 2020. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo

The ban will take effect from Dec. 28 and will run through January, the government said in an emailed statement.

Japanese citizens and foreign residents will be allowed to enter but must show proof of a negative coronavirus test 72 hours before departing for Japan and must quarantine for two weeks after arrival, the statement said.

Japan on Friday reported its first cases of a fast-spreading variant in passengers arriving from Britain. The new variant has also been detected in a man who visited the UK and a family member - the first cases of infected people found outside airport checks - Nippon TV reported on Saturday.

The new strain adds to worries about a surge in cases as Tokyo reported another record rise on Saturday.

Infections of the virus that causes COVID-19 hit a record 949 in the capital just as Japan heads into New Year holidays that normally see people stream from the capital into the provinces.

Serious cases were unchanged from a day earlier at 81.

Tokyo transport hubs were subdued, local media said, a day after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, under pressure as cases continue to climb, urged the nation to stay home and avoid social mixing.

With New Year celebrations centred around family gatherings and mass visits to temples and shrines, experts have warned public restraint will be essential to prevent infection rates from rising further amid concerns of pandemic fatigue.

Sugas initial political honeymoon after taking his post in September has ended, with his popularity sliding after criticism he was slow to react to rising infections in Tokyo and for attending a group steak dinner in defiance of his own calls for caution.

Reporting by Sam Nussey and Chris Gallagher; Editing by William Mallard and David Holmes

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Tokyo COVID-19 cases hit record, new strain arrives before New Year holiday - Reuters

Shoppers wear face masks on Regent Street in London on 19 December, the day the U.K. government imposed new restrictions to curb a rapidly spreading new SARS-CoV-2 variant.

By Kai KupferschmidtDec. 23, 2020 , 2:30 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

In June, Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, heard about a cancer patient who had come into a local hospital the month before with COVID-19 and was still shedding virus. The patient was being treated for a lymphoma that had relapsed and had been given rituximab, a drug that depletes antibody-producing B cells. That made it hard for him to shake the infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Gupta, who studies how resistance to HIV drugs arises, became interested in the case and helped treat the patient, who died in August, 101 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis, despite being given the antiviral drug remdesivir and two rounds of plasma from recovered patients, which containedantibodies against the virus. When Gupta studied genome sequences from the coronavirus that infected the patient, he discovered that SARS-CoV-2 had acquired several mutations that might have allowed it to elude the antibodies.

Now, his analysis, reported in a preprint on medRxiv earlier this month, has become a crucial puzzle piece for researchers trying to understand the importance of B.1.1.7, the new SARS-CoV-2 variant first found in the United Kingdom. That strain, which appears to spread faster than others, contains one of the mutations that Gupta found, and researchers believe B.1.1.7, too, may have originated in an immunocompromised patient who had a long-running infection. Its a perfectly logical and rational hypothesis, says infectious disease scientist Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust.

Scientists are still trying to figure out the effects of the mutations in B.1.1.7, whose emergence led the U.K. government to tighten coronavirus control measures and other countries in Europe to impose U.K. travel bans. But the new variant, along with research by Gupta and others, has also drawn attention to the potential role in COVID-19 of people with weakened immune systems. If they provide the virus with an opportunity to evolve lineages that spread faster, are more pathogenic, or elude vaccines, these chronic infections are not just dangerous for the patients, but might have the potential to alter the course of the pandemic.

Its still very unclear whether that is the case, but Farrar believes its important to ensure doctors take extra precautions when caring for such people: Until we know for sure, I think, treating those patients under pretty controlled conditions, as we would somebody who has drug resistant tuberculosis, actually makes sense.

Researchers concern mostly focuses on cancer patients being treated for chemotherapy and similar situations. We dont yet know about people who are immunocompromised because of HIV, for instance, Farrar says.

B.1.1.7 attracted scientists attention because it was linked to an outbreak in Englands Kent county that was growing faster than usual. Sequences showed that virus had accumulated a slew of mutations that together caused 17 amino acid changes in the virus proteins, eight of them in the crucial spike protein. Among them are at least three particularly concerning ones.

One is 69-70del, a deletion that Gupta also found in his Cambridge, U.K., patient whose virus seemed to evade the immune system. It leads to the loss of two amino acids in the spike protein. In lab experiments, Gupta found that lentivirus engineered to carry the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with this deletion was twice as infectious.

The second is N501Y, a mutation that evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has shown to increase how tightly the protein binds to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, its entry point into human cells. The mutation is also present in 501Y.V2, a variant discovered by researchers in South Africa who investigated rapidly growing outbreaks in three coastal provinces. We found that this lineage seems to be spreading much faster, says Tulio de Oliveira, a virologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal whose work first alerted U.K. scientists to the importance of N501Y. Anytime you see the same mutation being independently selected multiple times, it increases the weight of evidence that that mutation is probably beneficial in some way for the virus, Bloom says.

The third worrisome change is P681H, which alters the site where the spike protein has to be cleaved to enter human cells. It is one of the sites on spike where SARS-CoV-2 differs from SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the worldwide outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, and the change there may allow it to spread more easily. This one is probably as important as N501Y, says Christian Drosten, a virologist at Charit University Hospital in Berlin.

So far, SARS-CoV-2 typically acquires only one to two mutations per month. And B.1.1.7 is back to this pace now, suggesting it doesnt mutate faster normally than other lineages. Thats why scientists believe it may have gone through a lengthy bout of evolution in a chronically infected patient who then transmitted the virus late in their infection. We know this is rare but it can happen, says World Health Organization epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove. Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah, agrees. Its simply too many mutations to have accumulated under normal evolutionary circumstances. It suggests an extended period of within-host evolution, he says.

People with a weakened immune system may give the virus this opportunity, as Guptas data show. More evidence comes from a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine on 3 December that described an immunocompromised patient in Boston infected with SARS-CoV-2 for 154 days before he died. Again, the researchers found several mutations, including N501Y. It suggests that you can get relatively large numbers of mutations happening over a relatively short period of time within an individual patient, says William Hanage of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, one of the authors. (In patients who are infected for a few days and then clear the virus, there simply is not enough time for this, he says.) When such patients are given antibody treatments for COVID-19 late in their disease course, there may already be so many variants present that one of them is resistant, Goldstein says.

Its simply too many mutations to have accumulated under normal evolutionary circumstances. It suggests an extended period of within-host evolution.

The question is whether the mutations arising in such patients could also help the virus spread more rapidly. In research published a few years ago, Bloom showed some of the mutations that arose in influenza viruses in immunocompromised patients later spread globally. Its totally possible that whats happening in immunocompromised patients could foreshadow what happens in the future with the pandemic, Bloom says. But adaptations that help a virus outperform other viruses in a patient can also be very different from what a virus needs to better transmit from patient to patient, he says.

U.K. scientists and others were initially cautious about concluding that B.1.1.7s mutations made the virus better at spreading from person to person. But the new variant is rapidly replacing others, says Mge evik, an infectious disease specialist at the University of St.Andrews. We cant really rule out the possibility that seasonality and human behavior explain some of the increase, she says. But it certainly seems like there is something to do with this variant. Drosten says he was initially skeptical, but has become more convinced as well.

But exactly what impact each mutation has is much more difficult to assess than spotting them or showing theyre on the rise, says Seema Lakdawala, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh. Animal experiments can help show an effect, but they have limitations. Hamsters already transmit SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly, for instance, which could obscure any effect of the new variant. Ferrets transmit it less efficiently, so a difference may be more easily detectable, Lakdawala says. But does that really translate to humans? I doubt it. A definitive answer may be months off, she predicts.

One hypothesis that scientists are discussing is that the virus has increased how strongly it binds to the ACE2 receptor on human cells, and that this allows it to better infect children than before, expanding its playing field. But the evidence for that is very thin so far, evik says. Even if children turn out to make up a higher proportion of people infected with the new variant, that could be because the variant spread at a time when there was a lockdown but schools were open. Another hypothesis is that P681H helps the virus better infect cells higher up in the respiratory tract, from where it can spread more easily than from deep in the lungs, Drosten says.

One important question is whether the South African or U.K. lineage might lead to more severe disease or even evade vaccine-induced immunity. So far there is little reason to think so. Although some mutations have been shown to let the virus evade monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and natural infections both appear to lead to a broad immune response that targets many parts of the virus, says Shane Crotty of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. It would be a real challenge for a virus to escape from that. The measles and polio viruses have never learned to escape the vaccines targeting them, he notes: Those are historical examples suggesting not to freak out.

At a press conference yesterday, BioNTech CEO Uur ahin pointed out that the U.K. variant differed in only nine out of more than 1270 amino acids of the spike protein encoded by the messenger RNA in the very effective COVID-19 vaccine his company developed together with Pfizer. Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus, he said. Experiments are underway that should confirm that in the first week of 2021, ahin added.

Sbastien Calvignac-Spencer, an evolutionary virologist at the Robert Koch Institute, says this marks the first time countries have taken such drastic actions as the U.K. lockdown and the travel bans based on genomic surveillance in combination with epidemiological data. Its pretty unprecedented at this scale, he says. But the question of how to react to disconcerting mutations in pathogens will crop up more often as genomic surveillance expands, he predicts. People are happy they prepared for a category 4 hurricane even if predictions turn out to be wrong and the storm is less severe, Calvignac-Spencer says. This is a bit the same, except that we have much less experience with genomic surveillance than we have with the weather forecast.

Although the rise of B.1.1.7 in the United Kingdom is troubling, Farrar says he is equally concerned about the other variant spreading quickly in South Africa and that has now been detected in two travelers in the United Kingdom as well. It includes two further mutations in the part of the spike protein that binds to its receptor on human cells, K417N and E484K. These could impact the binding of the virus to human cells and also its recognition by the immune system, Farrar says. These South African mutations I think are more worrying than the constellation of the British variant. South African hospitals are already struggling, he adds. Weve always asked, Why has sub-Saharan Africa escaped the pandemic to date? Answers have focused on the relative youth of the population and the climate. Maybe if you just increase transmission a bit, that is enough to get over these factors, Farrar says.

To Van Kerkhove, the arrival of B.1.1.7 shows how important it is to follow viral evolution closely. The United Kingdom has one of the most elaborate monitoring systems in the world, she says. My worry is: How much of this is happening globally, where we dont have sequencing capacity? Other countries should beef up their efforts, she says. And all countries should do what they can to minimize transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the months ahead, Van Kerkhove says. The more of this virus circulates, the more opportunity it will have to change, she says. Were playing a very dangerous game here.

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U.K. variant puts spotlight on immunocompromised patients' role in the COVID-19 pandemic - Science Magazine

East Alabama Medical Center nurse Harvard Graham checks fluids for a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit this month in Opelika, Ala. Julie Bennett/AP hide caption

East Alabama Medical Center nurse Harvard Graham checks fluids for a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit this month in Opelika, Ala.

Updated at 3:26 p.m. ET

President Trump's done it again.

The man who threatened to cause a ruckus in Washington and has done so over his four years in office introduced a new round of disarray Tuesday night.

Trump's pre-Christmas chaos includes:

In addition to endangering relief to millions of Americans due to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump's bombshell also brings the country to the brink of yet another government shutdown.

Trump signed a one-week temporary spending measure Monday to keep the lights on as the bill made its way to his desk, but the government will shut down at midnight Tuesday if more funding isn't provided.

The way out of Trump's criticism of the bill isn't clear, with the clock running out on this Congress and most members now home for the holidays.

Trump's move also throws a wrinkle into the crucial Georgia Senate races that will determine control of the Senate during President-elect Joe Biden's first term. Both incumbent Republicans, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, touted the bill, saying more help was finally on the way and blamed Democrats for the delay.

COVID-19 relief in jeopardy

On Tuesday, Trump called on Congress to increase the direct payments drastically, throwing a big wrench into whether and when people will get needed money because of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

"I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple," Trump said in a video. "I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package."

That came despite months of bitter, bipartisan negotiations to get a bill that finally could pass both chambers, which it did Monday. The package passed with veto-proof majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Trump didn't say he'd veto the package, but he didn't say he'd sign it either.

Trump's call for direct payments that are more than triple what's in the final version of the bill is ironic, considering it was Republicans who stood in the way of higher payments for months and because Trump's Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was heavily involved in the negotiations.

Democrats leaped at the president's suggestion of more money for direct payments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said they would bring legislation to the floor Thursday to pass it.

The problem, however, is two-fold (1) With most members out of town, the legislation would have be approved by voice vote or unanimous consent, and (2) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has to sign onto it. If one member objects, it would be shut down, and there would not be the ability to have the entire House vote on it with a roll call.

In a letter to her colleagues, Pelosi also revealed that in negotiations, Republicans had floated direct payments as low as $500.

"In the bipartisan negotiations, [Senate] Leader [Chuck] Schumer and I repeatedly asked Republicans what would be the highest number the President would accept for direct payments, and they responded with Sphinx-like silence," she wrote. "In the negotiations, they would never go above $600 and in some cases, proposed $500."

Trump's criticism now puts Republicans on Capitol Hill in a tight spot they agreed to the current bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not responded to Trump's latest comments.

Larger spending package in peril, too

Given that this Congress's clock expires at noon Jan. 3 when a new Congress will be sworn in, this was seen as the last likely chance to pass anything through this Congress.

So the $900 billion in COVID-19 relief was paired with a larger $1.4 trillion spending package that is more than 5,500 pages.

It was the result of months of negotiations between various committees for bipartisan issues important to them, including funding for military pay raises, veterans, border security, water projects, addressing surprise medical billing, creating museums for women's and Latino history, and providing foreign aid.

In his video statement, Trump objected to the foreign aid and cherry-picked other items, claiming the package "has almost nothing to do with COVID." Ironically, though, many of the items, including foreign aid, were in his own administration's budget sent to Capitol Hill earlier in the year.

Defense money at risk

Trump on Wednesday also vetoed the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act.

The bill provides pay raises to military service members, approves construction of child care development centers on military bases, expands cyber command authority, provides more training on use of artificial intelligence, adds hundreds of millions for science and technology research, allows victims of sexual harassment and assault to file anonymous complaints, creates a domestic violence task force and has measures lightening some of the burden of the coronavirus pandemic for federal employees.

But Trump objects because of the social media company protections and the stripping of some facilities with names of Confederate officers. Even Republicans who negotiated the bill pushed back against Trump on the social media protections, saying they're not related to defense.

The bill passed both the House and Senate with veto-proof majorities two-thirds would be needed to overturn a presidential veto. So both chambers could act when they come back next week to override it.

The House is expected to try and do so Monday and the Senate on Tuesday. But there's some question if the override can be upheld, particularly in the House. It would mean Republican allies of the president would have to oppose him in what would be Trump's first of nine vetoes that would not be upheld and in what would be one of the final acts of this Congress during this presidency.

Sending Trump out with a loss might not be something Republicans want to do. Already, Republican House leader McCarthy, who voted in favor of the defense bill, said he would not support a veto override.

More:

What's At Stake With Trump's Threat: COVID-19 Relief And A Government Shutdown - NPR

GENEVA A 90-year-old woman living in a retirement home received the first Covid-19 inoculation in Switzerland on Wednesday as the Alpine nation began its Covid-19 vaccination program.

A few countries, including Britain and the United States, have started vaccinations, but the inoculations issued on Wednesday in the central Swiss canton of Lucerne were the first on the European mainland.

Swiss regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last weekend, and the first 107,000 doses from an order of three million arrived on Tuesday. The Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are still under review, but the authorities in Switzerland, a nation of eight million people, have already ordered 12.8 million doses. The vaccines require two shots spaced weeks apart.

Vaccinations, which are voluntary and provided at no cost, were scheduled to start on Wednesday in six of the 26 cantons, with the rollout spreading to the rest of the nation over the next few weeks.

The vaccination program gives priority to four groups of people: anyone older than 75 or with a chronic illness; health care workers and caregivers, people in close contact with those at high-risk of the disease; and people living or working in communal facilities that are identified as at increased risk.

Vaccinations started a day after new rules came into effect closing restaurants and bars, museums and sports and leisure facilities and shutting shops after 7 p.m. in an effort to reduce infection rates that have severely strained available hospital capacity.

Switzerland has recorded 6,333 coronavirus-related deaths. Restrictions on public and private activities over the past two months have kept new cases below their peak, but the rate of new infections per 100,000 people in the past week remains stubbornly higher than in Britain, France, Italy or Spain.

To complicate matters, Swiss medical experts say the new coronavirus variant that has been identified in Britain has arrived in Switzerland with some of the 10,000 or so British travelers who arrived in the country in the past week. The new variant is not believed to be more fatal but higher rates of transmission threaten to add to the strain on health care facilities. The Swiss authorities have ordered anyone who has arrived from Britain since Dec. 14 to go into quarantine for 10 days, and officials said they had traced most of those arrivals.

Originally posted here:

Switzerland begins Covid-19 vaccinations. - The New York Times

The West VirginiaDepartment of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of December 23, 2020, there have been 1,410,382total confirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 75,936 total cases and 1,194 deaths.

DHHR hasconfirmed the deaths of a 74-yearold female from Hampshire County, an 80-year old male from Cabell County, a 71-yearold female from Morgan County, an 80-year old male from Wood County, a 61-yearold male from Mason County, an 84-year old female from Hancock County, a 69-yearold female from Mineral County, a 61-year old female from Kanawha County, a 97-yearold female from Ritchie County, a 61-year old female from Marshall County, a 99-yearold female from Greenbrier County, a 78-year old male from Mineral County, a 74-yearold male from Mineral County, a 78-year old male from Kanawha County, a 91-yearold female from Raleigh County, a 67-year old male from Marshall County, a 78-yearold male from Clay County, a 69-year old female from Kanawha County, an 81-yearold female from Putnam County, a 71-year old female from Taylor County, a 91-yearold male from Cabell County, an 82-year old male from Monongalia County and a 97-yearold female from Jackson County.

We mourn with all families suffering theloss of loved ones due to COVID-19, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR CabinetSecretary.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (630),Berkeley (5,460), Boone (957), Braxton (240), Brooke (1,226), Cabell (4,683),Calhoun (117), Clay (239), Doddridge (216), Fayette (1,562), Gilmer (319),Grant (690), Greenbrier (1,221), Hampshire (844), Hancock (1,631), Hardy (677),Harrison (2,545), Jackson (1,038), Jefferson (2,131), Kanawha (7,984), Lewis(433), Lincoln (678), Logan (1,483), Marion (1,528), Marshall (1,810), Mason(920), McDowell (856), Mercer (2,353), Mineral (2,023), Mingo (1,289),Monongalia (4,826), Monroe (565), Morgan (560), Nicholas (584), Ohio (2,305),Pendleton (241), Pleasants (317), Pocahontas (327), Preston (1,407), Putnam(2,743), Raleigh (2,434), Randolph (1,028), Ritchie (301), Roane (268), Summers(375), Taylor (609), Tucker (280), Tyler (293), Upshur (756), Wayne (1,555),Webster (121), Wetzel (616), Wirt (188), Wood (4,391), Wyoming (1,063).

Delays may be experienced with the reporting ofinformation from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillancecontinues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those testedin a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state asan individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested.

Please note the new section of the DashboardOverview page showing the total number of vaccines received and administered.This information will be updated along with the daily dashboard update. Please visit the dashboard located at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.

Free COVID-19 testing is available daily to all West Virginiaresidents. Please visithttps://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspxto view the testing site map and location list.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 12-23-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., receives a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shot from Brian Monahan, the attending physician for the U.S. Congress, last week. Anna Moneymaker/AP hide caption

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., receives a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shot from Brian Monahan, the attending physician for the U.S. Congress, last week.

Top leaders and rank-and-file members of Congress are taking part in the first round of COVID-19 vaccinations, a move that could accelerate plans for Congress to return to business as usual. But not all lawmakers agree on who should get priority as millions of Americans in high-risk groups still await their turn.

The Capitol's attending physician, Brian Monahan, alerted its more than 500 lawmakers this month that they're now eligible to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under continuity-of-government requirements.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy were among those with first dibs. Other members soon followed suit, saying it could inspire public confidence in the vaccine.

"Our job is to make sure the vaccine isn't politicized the way masks were politicized," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a Twitter exchange after getting her vaccine.

McConnell, who was treated for polio as a child, repeatedly cites public opinion polls showing reticence among the public about the vaccine, and he emphasizes the importance of getting inoculated.

"It took decades to develop the polio vaccine. This vaccine was developed in under a year, a modern medical miracle, and we need to take the vaccine," McConnell said in an interview on Fox News.

The efforts could also stem the flow of coronavirus cases linked to Congress, where more than 270 individuals including 50 lawmakers have become infected during the pandemic.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx and California Democratic Rep. Karen Bass were among the first wave of members to get the vaccine.

"When public health officials say it's your turn to get a vaccine, roll up your sleeves I'll be doing the same when my turn arrives," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who was infected with the coronavirus this year, said on the Senate floor on Monday. "Getting immunized is the only way we'll beat the virus and get back to the normal way of American life."

The pandemic has also disrupted the work of Congress, from floor activity to committee hearings.

Lawmakers "will be provided with a specific number of COVID19 vaccine doses to meet long-standing requirements for continuity of government operations," Monahan, the Capitol's attending physician, wrote in a Dec. 17 note to members.

COVID-19 vaccine divides members on who should get it now

While members such as Ocasio-Cortez have said getting the vaccine will encourage others to follow suit, they've faced criticism from a smaller minority of colleagues such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a critic of mask mandates.

Paul, who was infected with the coronavirus early on during the pandemic, says younger members shouldn't take part now, while those who have had COVID-19 should be "last in line."

"I think it would be unconscionable for somebody who's had it to get in front of somebody who hasn't had it to take a vaccine," Paul told a Capitol Hill pool reporter on Monday. "I think it's unconscionable for [Ocasio-Cortez] ... to be smiling gleefully and getting the vaccine when you got 85-year-old people in nursing homes who haven't gotten it."

Paul later tweeted his attack of Ocasio-Cortez, triggering a heated exchange.

Ocasio-Cortez responded that "maybe if the GOP hadn't spent so much time undermining public faith" in science and mask usage for COVID-19, she wouldn't have to weigh in on potential misinformation.

For his part, Brown also used his turn to get the vaccine to say it sends a "bipartisan message" that the vaccine is safe and critical for protecting others.

"Getting this vaccine isn't a partisan issue it's patriotic," Brown said in a statement.

Still, other members disagree. And that includes Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a member of the "Squad" with Ocasio-Cortez and two other House Democrats.

Omar lost her father to COVID-19 this year.

"We are not more important then [sic] frontline workers, teachers etc. who are making sacrifices everyday," Omar tweeted. "Which is why I won't take it. People who need it most, should get it. Full stop."

Others are taking their opposition to getting the vaccine further, saying they don't trust it.

"I'm more concerned about the safety of the vaccine than I am the side effects of the disease," Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., told Fox Business.

This, as many of his GOP colleagues laud the vaccine, including McCarthy, who tie its success to President Trump.

Trump "kept his promise!" McCarthy said on Twitter after his vaccine shot.

Vaccines for Capitol Hill workers

Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., has a new mission: develop a plan for workers and other support staff for Congress to get the new vaccine as well.

The top Republican of the House Administration Committee, which oversees such efforts, is urging Pelosi and the panel's Democratic chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, to create a plan soon.

"As an essential branch of government, it is vital that our institution returns to full functionality and that our Members and essential staff are provided a transparent vaccination plan to not only ensure the continuity of operations, but the health and safety of our committed workforce," Davis said in a Dec. 14 letter to Pelosi and Lofgren.

This year, Davis and McCarthy joined forces to urge Pelosi to implement a widespread testing program. An on-site rapid-testing center was finally installed at the Capitol in November, several months into the pandemic, after Pelosi and McConnell turned down offers from the administration for testing capacity. The administration had offered only 1,000 tests a drop in the bucket for the large Capitol complex. And Pelosi and McConnell said that members shouldn't go ahead of front-line workers at a time when tests were sparse for the public.

Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican aides have declined to detail a future vaccine plan for the larger Capitol complex, saying those details remain to be determined.

However, this month's passage of a massive government funding bill that includes coronavirus relief designates $5 million for the attending physician's office to combat COVID-19. That includes testing and potentially could support future expansion of vaccine efforts.

Davis tells leaders that now is an opportunity for the House to redo its approach to COVID-19 and respond quickly with vaccines for the larger Capitol complex. But that remains a challenge, because that includes a legislative branch workforce of about 20,000.

"I encourage you to take strong, decisive action in working with our institutional partners to create, communicate, and implement a vaccination distribution plan for the House's essential workers and Members," Davis said.

More:

With COVID-19 Vaccine, Congress Gets Shot To Jump-Start Return To Business - NPR

Two new studies give encouraging evidence that having COVID-19 may offer some protection against future infections. Researchers found that people who made antibodies to the coronavirus were much less likely to test positive again for up to six months and maybe longer.

The results bode well for vaccines, which provoke the immune system to make antibodies substances that attach to a virus and help it be eliminated.

Researchers found that people with antibodies from natural infections were at much lower risk, on the order of the same kind of protection youd get from an effective vaccine, of getting the virus again, said Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Its very, very rare to get reinfected, he said.

The institutes study had nothing to do with cancer many federal researchers have shifted to coronavirus work because of the pandemic.

Both studies used two types of tests. One is a blood test for antibodies, which can linger for many months after infection. The other type of test uses nasal or other samples to detect the virus itself or bits of it, suggesting current or recent infection.

One study, published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, involved more than 12,500 health workers at Oxford University Hospitals in the United Kingdom. Among the 1,265 who had coronavirus antibodies at the outset, only two had positive results on tests to detect active infection in the following six months and neither developed symptoms.

That contrasts with the 11,364 workers who initially did not have antibodies; 223 of them tested positive for infection in the roughly six months that followed.

The National Cancer Institute study involved more than 3 million people who had antibody tests from two private labs in the United States. Only 0.3 percent of those who initially had antibodies later tested positive for the coronavirus, compared with 3 percent of those who lacked such antibodies.

Its very gratifying to see that the Oxford researchers saw the same risk reduction 10 times less likely to have a second infection if antibodies were present, Sharpless said.

His institutes report was posted on a website scientists use to share research and is under review at a major medical journal.

The findings are not a surprise, but its really reassuring because it tells people that immunity to the virus is common, said Joshua Wolf, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis who had no role in either study.

Antibodies themselves may not be giving the protection; they might just be a sign that other parts of the immune system, such as T cells, are able to fight off any new exposures to the virus, he said.

We dont know how long-lasting this immunity is, Wolf added. Cases of people getting COVID-19 more than once have been confirmed, so people still need to protect themselves and others by preventing reinfection.

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Studies find having COVID-19 may protect against reinfection - pressherald.com

The festivities would start each year with their mom, Lisa Cheatham, 58, setting out a plate-bending buffet with just about every breakfast food you can think of, the sisters said.

Then they would open presents, watch festive movies (Christmas Vacation and The Grinch are family favorites) and play card games into the evening.

Their dad, Mark, 61, would have his video camera ready to capture special moments.

Now the holiday will never be the same, the sisters say, after their parents and their grandfather died within a four-week period.

Mark and Lisa Cheatham were married for 40 years and died just days apart in a Louisville, Kentucky, hospital -- Mark on December 11 and Lisa on December 15, the sisters told CNN. They were buried together after a joint funeral service.

They were being treated on separate floors, but the sisters convinced hospital staff to let their mom be in the ICU with her dad the day before he died.

"We watched her literally say goodbye to my dad," Allen said. "You talk about one of the most heart-wrenching moments in your entire life is watching your parents go through that."

The sisters had both recovered from Covid-19, so they were able to stay with their mom until she died.

Their grandfather, Charles Herbert Tucker, had died on November 22, two days after his 76th birthday.

Cheatham and Allen said their parents were active and loved to travel before the pandemic and were in pretty good health until they started showing symptoms the week before Thanksgiving.

They said their parents had been very careful and always wore masks and gloves when they had to leave the house.

Their mom had done some online Christmas shopping in the hospital, so they've been wrapping presents for the grandkids and other family and friends."This is the last stuff we'll ever get [from them] for Christmas," Allen said.

"I would much rather have missed one Christmas with my family then have to go the rest of my life, never having Christmas with my family again," Cheatham said. "It's worth the sacrifice, to just stay home and stay safe and focus on planning for the next few years, because we won't, we won't get that opportunity."

Excerpt from:

Kentucky sisters lost their mom, dad and grandfather to Covid-19 within four weeks - CNN

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner pleaded with residents to cancel holiday gatherings this year as COVID numbers continue to rise.

HOUSTON Two days before Christmas, the COVID-19 trends are getting worse in Houston. Leaders in Harris County and Houston are hoping residents do what they can in order to avoid what has happened in other communities across the state.

Local leaders held a news conference Wednesday urging residents to cancel holiday plans in order to slow the spread in the Houston area.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner both pressed the issue. Both the mayor and the judge referenced rising hospitalization rates and a rising positivity rate that has nearly doubled over the last month.

"We can't sustain a surge in cases beyond what we're at now," Hidalgo said. "All across Texas, communities are entering dangerous territory. We've consistently seen the cases increase, and most worrisome, the ICU population continues to increase. It's a very real possibility that we could end up facing the fate we've avoided thus far."

Multiple national COVID-19 models suggest Houston could be the next hotspot in January. It's why Turner and Hidalgo joined forces Wednesday to plead with the public to cancel and holiday gatherings or parties with anyone outside their immediate household.

"You don't want someone to get sick because you decided to host a holiday party," Hidalgo said.

The numbers are moving in the wrong direction, and although it's manageable now, Turner and Hidalgo said they're worried it won't be for much longer. Local health experts share the same concern.

Since Thanksgiving, contract tracing shows the spread is happening in private gatherings where people let their guard down, not in controlled environments like office settings and school classrooms.

"We've unfortunately seen our positivity rate has doubled in the last two months. If we continue with this trajectory, it will triple by January," Dr. Sherri Onyiego, with the Harris County Health Department, said.

If people ignore the threat, city and county leaders said they have one tool left in their toolbox to try to tame the virus: A curfew.

"I view it as a nuclear option," Turner said. "Once you've done it ... you've done it."

Hidalgo said no curfew will be put in place at this time but the option is still on the table if things get worse. She said the curfew would only be used in a "worst-case scenario."

Turner announced 634 new COVID-19 cases in the city as well as two more deaths related to the virus. The city's positivity rate is at 11.2% and has been rising over the last month or so.

Public testing sites in the city and county will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but will reopen Saturday.

Turner and Hidalgo said the vaccine is a step in the right direction. Both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines have already been rolled out in the Houston area.

Modernas COVID-19 vaccine began arriving Monday at dozens of Houston-area hospitals and clinics. The City of Houston is expected to get at least 6,000 doses of Modernas COVID-19 vaccine this week.

Those doses will be split evenly between the Houston Health Department, the Houston Fire Department and other frontline health workers.

The support operations, the functions that are filled by support personnel, at this moment dont qualify, said HFD Chief Sam Pea during a news conference Monday afternoon. But as soon as the decision is made for the Phase 1 Bravo group to be eligible, then well be prepared to administer those.

Although both vaccines use messenger RNA or mRNA to attack the coronavirus and both require two doses, there are some key differences.

Pfizer's is approved for people ages 16 and older. Moderna's is for people 18 years or older.

Pfizer's must be stored in ultra-cold freezers, around -80 degrees Celsius. Moderna's can last in normal refrigerators for up to 30 days.

According to Dr. Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UT Health School of Public Health, the difference is because of the lipids, or fats, that each company used for surrounding the mRNA.

She said Moderna's are more stable, but that Pfizer did not know that when creating their vaccine.

Get whichever vaccine you can," said Dr. Troisi. "They are both equally effective.

Pfizer requires shipment batches of 975 or more. Moderna requires 100 or more.

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'Cancel gatherings and get tested' | Local leaders urge residents to cancel holiday parties - KHOU.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) The Tennessee Department of Health hasconfirmed additional cases and deaths related to COVID-19 across the state for Wednesday, December 23.

The department reported 7,221 new cases, putting the state at 541,240 total cases. Of the total cases, 481,706 are confirmed and 59,534 are probable.

There are currently 79,274 active COVID-19 cases in the state.

Tennessees seven-day new cases average is currently 8,136 additional cases per day, while the 14-day new cases average is 8,448.

Of the 541,240 cases, 285,985 are female (53%), 250,877 are male (46%), and 4,378 are pending (1%).

TDH confirmed 111 additional deaths, bringing the state up to 6,380 total deaths. Wednesday now stands as the fourth-highest single-day increase of deaths in Tennessee. The state is averaging 77 new deaths per day in December.

Out of the total positive cases, 455,586 are listed as inactive/recovered, an increase of 7,590 in the last 24 hours.

Earlier on Wednesday, the state reported a new record-high 2,934 people are currently hospitalized in Tennessee due to COVID-19. The number of total COVID hospitalizations now sits at 13,970.

Tennessee has processed 5,386,825 tests with 4,845,585 negative results. The percentage of positive cases remains around 10%. Wednesdays update added 29,883 tests to the states total with 17.53% percent positive cases.

Tennessee reported an increase of 1,778 deaths in December so far. The state has seen more deaths in 23 days this month, than during the first six months of the pandemic combined (1,754 deaths Aug. 31).

Tennessees top five single-day death increases have all been this month.

The state has also reported an increase of 166,747 cases this month. The new cases through 23 days is more than the total cases for the first six months of the pandemic (154,933 cases Aug. 31). The top five single-day increases have all fallen within the last ten days.

Vaccine Tracker

On Tuesday, TDH reported 24,236 vaccinations have been given out so far in Tennessee. On the same day, the department announced that soon the state will begin receiving 50,000 Pfizer and 40,000 Moderna vaccines weekly.

Less than two weeks after a COVID-19 vaccine was approved, the Metro Nashville Health Department transformed the East Nashville Explore Community Center into a clinic to administer the shots. The clinic began operations Wednesday with 311 people scheduled to receive the first dose.

Sumner County Mayor Anthony Holt announced the countys mask mandate would be extended once again.

The Executive Order for Sumner County will take effect at the end of the current order at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, December 29, and will remain in effect until 11:59 p.m. on February 27, 2021, unless sooner canceled or extended.

Governor Bill Lee has announced he has extended the State of Emergency in Tennessee through 11:59 p.m. on February 27, 2021.

Lee delivered a statewide address to Tennesseans Sunday night regarding a surge in COVID-19 cases. Lee announced he is limiting holiday gatherings to no one outside of families immediate households and all public indoor gatherings will be limited to 10 people.

Very strong encouragement for people to limit Christmas parties or New Years parties or New Years dinners or holiday time together by staying with their immediate family members inside their home, said Lee during a call with media on Monday.

Some Tennessee leaders were hoping that the governor would announce a statewide mask mandate during his remarks on Sunday.

A group of Tennessee doctors was also hoping for a statewide mask mandate. I dont know what it will take at this point, I think he made a great step yesterday, limiting gatherings is a huge first step, but that goes hand in hand with a statewide mask mandate, said Dr. Aaron Milstone at Williamson Medical Group with Protect My Care TN Doctors.

The Moderna vaccine has arrived in Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Health said in a media briefing Monday afternoon. TDH reported the Moderna vaccine arrived in all of Tennessees 95 counties. The 5,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine designated for emergency backup will be released immediately. Tennessee anticipates delivering 115,000 Moderna vaccines throughout the state in the next two weeks.

On Saturday,Governor Lee announced his wife Maria Lee tested positive for COVID-19. The First Lady tested positive for COVID-19 after experiencing mild symptoms of the virus. The governor said he doesnt have any symptoms and tested negative Saturday night. However, as a precaution, he will be quarantining at the Governors Mansion.

On Sunday, the Tennessee Department of Health also held a media briefing on hospital capacity in Tennessee, sayinghospitals wont be able to keep up with another COVID-19 surgelike we saw after the Thanksgiving holiday.

COVID-19 in Nashville

Earlier Wednesday, Metro Public Health Department officials reportedanincrease of 422 COVID-19 cases in Davidson County, bringing the countys total to 63,944.

Members of the Metro Coronavirus Task Forceare urging caution this holiday season, saying the COVID-19 outbreak in Nashville has reached a new peak.

The Nashville Office of Emergency Management and the Metro Public Health Department is asking for volunteers to help with Nashvilles COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Metro Nashville Public Schools announced the district will start the second semester virtually due to increased COVID-19 cases. The second semester is set to begin on January 7. MNPS will use a risk score based on metrics from the Metro Public Health Department to make decisions on when to return to in-person learning. School officials say that score must be below seven before returning to face-to-face learning.

Stay with News 2 for continuing coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

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COVID-19 in Tennessee: 7,221 new cases, 111 deaths reported on Dec. 23 - WKRN News 2