April 8 coronavirus news

About a quarter of adults in the United States – more than 66 million people – are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than a third of the total US population – more than 112 million people – have received at least one dose of vaccine, including more than 43% of adults and nearly 77% of people age 65 or older.

CDC data shows that 174,879,716 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been reported administered – about 76% of the 229,398,685 doses delivered.

That’s more than 3.4 million doses reported administered since yesterday, for a seven-day average of more than 3 million doses per day.

Note: Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.

Portuguese health authorities are only recommending the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for those above 60 years of age.

“The [Portuguese] Directorate General of Health recommends, until further information is available, the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine to people with more than 60 years,” it said in a statement on Thursday.

With this decision, Portugal becomes the latest European country to restrict use of AstraZeneca following the announcement by the European Medicines Agency yesterday that it had found a "possible link" between the jab and the occurrence of very rare blood clots. 

In its statement, the Portuguese Directorate General of Health goes on to remind people who have already been vaccinated with AstraZeneca that these events are “extremely rare,” while recommending that those vaccinated remain vigilant to the appearance of symptoms within two weeks of vaccination. 

It also calls on people who have only received one dose of the vaccine to await further instructions. 

The number of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine shots allocated to states and other jurisdictions by the federal government is expected to drop 84% next week, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This week, nearly 5 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were allocated to states and other jurisdictions, but only about 785,000 are slated for next week.

Allocations of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for next week, however, will remain steady compared to this week. About 4.7 million first doses of Pfizer and 3.5 million first doses of Moderna have been allocated for next week, along with corresponding second doses.

Allocations of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been largely consistent week to week. However, weekly allocations of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have varied widely. 

According to data from the CDC, the first allocation of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine – for the week of March 1 – included more than 2.8 million doses. There are no allocations of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine logged for the week of March 8, and allocations dropped to less than 500,000 doses for the two following weeks. Then, for the week of March 29, allocations jumped to nearly 2 million, before more than doubling for this week.

Here are the total allocations for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to states and other jurisdictions each week, according to data from the CDC: 

About 4.5 million people have been vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, accounting for about 7% of people who are fully vaccinated in the US, according to the latest data from the CDC.

The African Union has announced it is dropping plans to buy additional doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine directly from the Serum Institute of India and will instead focus on securing further vaccines from Johnson & Johnson. 

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC), said the decision was not related to recent safety concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine but “because we work very closely with COVAX,” the vaccine-sharing facility for the world’s poorest countries.

Addressing a virtual news briefing from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia Thursday, Nkengasong explained the pivot to Johnson & Johnson was to ensure, the “Indian Serum Institute was enabled to be able to supply doses to the COVAX mechanism.”  

“It was just a clear understanding of how not to duplicate efforts with the Serum Institute, so that we complement each other rather than duplicate efforts,” he added.

Last week, the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) signed an Advance Purchase Agreement with Johnson & Johnson for 220 million doses on behalf of the 55 member states of the African Union (AU).

Nkengasong said he hoped the vaccines would “begin to be available at the beginning of the third quarter.”

The AU will now explore options of securing an additional 180 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, he said.

The AU's decision comes a day after EU regulator European Medicines Agency (EMA) found that there was a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and “very rare cases of blood clots.”

However Nkengasong said, “this (AstraZeneca) vaccine continues to be safe. We will still recommend that the vaccines be used.” He also reiterated the findings of the EMA saying, “the recommendation still stands that the benefits of receiving the vaccine outweighs the risk of the unusual and rare side effects of the vaccine.”

Nkengasong confirmed that “a total 33.8 million vaccine doses have been acquired by Member States, with approximately 12.9 million doses administered” so far.  

He welcomed the news that “Seychelles and Mauritius have received enough COVID vaccine doses to reach 20% target vaccination benchmark, which was what the COVAX facility promised.”

“I think every little step and progress that we observe in the continent is good progress” and “it's always good to highlight those success stories,” he added.

As coronavirus cases in Brazil continue to surge at alarming rates and vaccine rollout has been slow at best, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said the adoption of restrictive measures against the virus could help curb its spread. 

Fauci's comments come as Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro continues to oppose lockdowns and restrictive measures, and criticizes governors and mayors with insulting language for implementing them.

On Wednesday, Bolsonaro once again told supporters that a national lockdown is out of the question, although the country registered a record 4,195 Covid-19 deaths the previous day. 

"Public health restrictions are crucial to gain control over epidemics,” Fauci said.

“We have seen in many other countries where there have been a large number of cases that, when public health measures were implemented, the number of cases has dropped dramatically," he continued. "So, this is one of the things that Brazil should seriously think about and consider given the very difficult period that it is going through.”

Why Fauci is making those remarks: The Covid-19 P1 variant, first founded in Brazil, is causing a rise in cases in neighboring countries, including Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, and Argentina. It's also causing a sharp rise in hospitalizations. Intensive care occupancy rates in most Brazilian states are at or above 80% and some local healthcare systems have already collapsed. 

Fauci said he preferrers not to refer to Brazil as a “global threat,” a term used by foreign and Brazilian media to describe the ongoing crisis in the country, but said “there is no doubt that severe public health measures, including lockdowns, have been very successful.”

A man is being held in custody in the Netherlands after plotting to blow up a vaccine center, a spokesperson for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) told CNN on Thursday. 

Police arrested the 37-year-old man on March 18 on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack on the former town hall of Den Helder on the Drs. F. Bijlweg. The building has been in use as a coronavirus vaccination center since March 8.

The police investigation so far has revealed the suspect, from Den Helder in North Holland, intended to cause an explosion with a firework bomb, according to the Public Prosecution Service, which classified the actions as an act of terror.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday, OM said the suspect tried to sabotage a crucial government process, namely the nationally coordinated vaccination program, in an "extremely violent way." 

The man has been detained since his arrest and will be remanded in custody for at least 90 days while police gathered more information, the spokesperson said. He will appear later for trial.

An investigation is also being carried out into possible co-suspects.

Correction: A previous version of this post stated the man had been found guilty. A verdict has not yet been made in the case.

The European Union is on track for herd immunity by mid-July, the EU’s vaccine chief Thierry Breton told CNN.

He insisted the EU was working extremely hard to make this happen and said it was possible. Once the doses are produced, it is up to each member state to administer the vaccines, Breton said, adding that he was in contact with all EU countries who are “doing the right things” to make sure people will get vaccinated.

Breton said he had confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying it is a “good vaccine,” adding, it’s “extremely important that all of our fellow citizens understand that we are extremely cautious…and when we give it (a vaccine) the green light, we can go.”

Asked whether the EU would use Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, he said approval was in the hands of European medical regulators. But he said even if it was approved, it wouldn’t change the situation in Europe immediately.

“Our citizens believed maybe at the beginning that you order and you get, the following day, the vaccine. No it doesn’t happen like that, you need at least 10 to 12 months to transform the facility to adapt to the vaccine. When it will be approved, you will need maybe another 10 months,” he explained.

Watch Thierry Breton's full interview on CNN's First Move with Julia Chatterley here:

Chile's Institute of Public Health authorized the emergency use of the new CanSino Biologics vaccine on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Health Ministry.

President Sebastián Piñera highlighted the need for the acquisition of 1.8 million single doses from the Chinese-Canadian laboratory CanSino, and said the vaccinations would take place between April and May.   

Chile already uses vaccines from Sinovac, Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca. It has vaccinated 7,111,354 people so far, of which 4,192,320 have received the complete dosage.

There have been 1,043,022 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 23,796 deaths associated with the disease, according to the latest figures by Chilean health authorities. 

France is beginning to see encouraging signs after the latest lockdown measures aimed at curbing the surge in Covid-19 infections, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said Thursday during his weekly press conference.  

The restrictions — extended to the rest of France since Saturday — allow individuals to go outdoors to walk or exercise, but they cannot go further than 10km from their home or travel between regions without a valid reason. There’s also a nationwide curfew at 7 p.m. CET.  

The number of hospitalizations is still on the rise. On Wednesday, the number of people in intensive care units (ICU) with Covid-19 in France reached a new 2021 record of 5,729 people, according to official data. 

The last time France had seen a higher number of patients in ICUs was nearly a year ago on April 19, 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic.

According to the Health Ministry, 3,362,472 people have been fully vaccinated in France and 9,797,957 have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.