May 10 coronavirus news

By Joshua Berlinger, Brad Lendon, Tara John, Gul Tuysuz, Aditi Sangal and Ed Upright, CNN

Updated 8:02 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021
32 Posts
Sort byDropdown arrow
5:43 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

FDA authorizes Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for use in kids ages 12 to 15

From CNN's Jamie Gumbrecht

Leon Neal/Getty Images
Leon Neal/Getty Images

The US Food and Drug Administration has expanded the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to include kids ages 12 to 15.

This is the first Covid-19 vaccine in the United States authorized for use in younger teens and adolescents; the vaccine had previously been authorized for people age 16 and older. Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are authorized for use in people age 18 and older.

To support the extended use, the FDA reviewed data submitted by Pfizer. The company said at the end of March that a clinical trial involving 2,260 12-to-15-year-olds showed the vaccine’s efficacy is 100% and it is well tolerated.

The FDA’s independent Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee did not meet to vote on whether to recommend the expansion of the EUA to 12-to-15-year-olds. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet Wednesday to advise CDC on whether to recommend use of the vaccine in this age group. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky will then decide whether the agency will recommend the vaccine’s use in the new group.

Vaccinations for 12-to-15-year-olds are not expected to begin until after that recommendation. The Biden administration has said it will quickly mobilize to ready vaccinations for 12-to-15-year-olds through the federal pharmacy program, pediatricians and family doctors.

Expanding authorization to people 12 to 15 opens Covid-19 vaccination to another 5% of the US population, nearly 17 million more people. The expanded authorization means 85% of the US population is eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine.

“Today’s expansion of our EUA represents a significant step forward in helping the U.S. government broaden its vaccination program and help protect adolescents ages 12-15 before the start of the next school year. We are grateful to all of our clinical trial volunteers and their families, whose courage helped make this milestone possible. Together, we hope to help bring a sense of normalcy back to young people across the country and eventually around the world,” Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Pfizer said last week it expects to submit for emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 2 to 11 years old in September. Its vaccine safety and efficacy study in children ages 6 months to 11 years old is ongoing.

4:17 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

Novavax's Covid-19 vaccine could be a "booster for everyone," CEO says

From CNN's Jacqueline Howard

Novavax's coronavirus vaccine could be used as a booster shot later this year for people in the United States who have already been vaccinated against Covid-19, the biotech firm's CEO Stanley Erck told CNN Monday.

"In the US, I think it will be the booster for everyone, particularly if we get it out late in the third quarter," Erck said in a phone interview. "It's going to be time to start boosting — whether it's six months or at a year point."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaccine types and brands are not interchangeable for the initial immunization, and there has been no decision either in the US or globally on the need for booster doses, let alone which vaccine might be appropriate for any booster.

5:09 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

France records lowest number of Covid-19 infections since December

From CNN’s Arnaud Siad

A medical staff member holds a nasal swab as he collects samples from a person at a Covid-19 test site in Brest, France, in July 2020.
A medical staff member holds a nasal swab as he collects samples from a person at a Covid-19 test site in Brest, France, in July 2020. Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images

France has reported 3,292 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest number of confirmed cases since Dec. 28, official figures from the French government showed on Monday.

In an interview with Le Parisien on Monday, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said, “We are finally and durably exiting this health crisis. Of course, this exit will happen progressively, carefully and with constant monitoring. But the trend is clear, we’re reaching our goal and that’s good news.”

Asked whether France was sufficiently prepared to face a potential fourth wave, Castex said “nothing should ever be excluded” and the country had to remain “hyper vigilant, particularly through controlling the spread of variants, especially at borders and where people quarantine.”

He said these controls were among “the most stringent” in Europe.

Monday’s figures bring the total number of confirmed cases in France to over 5.7 million since the pandemic began, the fourth highest figure in the world after the United States, India and Brazil according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

 

4:16 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

Novavax's US and Mexico Phase 3 trial results expected "in a few weeks," CEO says

From CNN's Jacqueline Howard

Biotechnology company Novavax expects to see results from a Phase 3 study of its Covid-19 vaccine in the United States and Mexico "in a few weeks," the company's CEO Stanley Erck told CNN Monday.

The trial has enrolled 30,000 volunteers across more than 100 locations. Previously, the Maryland-based company announced that it was on track to have the trial results sometime in April.

"We're still unblinding in the second quarter — that hasn't changed. It's just not in April, obviously, and so it'll be in a few weeks," Erck said in a phone interview.

The new timeline "gives us the ability to count more cases," Erck said. "It gives us a bit more robust data, hopefully, and allows us to catch more severe events, and also take a closer look at what variants were infecting our population."

Erck added that the trial data will reveal the efficacy level of the vaccine in the United States and Mexico as well as which variants were circulating at the time of the trial and what the efficacy of the vaccine will be against those variants.

In March, Novavax announced that a final analysis of a separate Phase 3 trial in the United Kingdom confirmed its Covid-19 vaccine had an efficacy of 96% against the original coronavirus strain and 86% against the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the UK.

2:50 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

Here are the latest numbers from the US' Covid-19 vaccine rollout

From CNN's Amanda Sealy

Mario Tama/Getty Images
Mario Tama/Getty Images

About 262 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to data published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC reported that 261,599,381 total doses have been administered – about 79% of the 329,843,825 doses delivered.

That’s about 1.9 million more administered doses reported since yesterday, for a 7-day average of about 2.1 million doses per day.

About 46% of the population – 153 million people – have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 34.8% of the population – about 116 million people – have been fully vaccinated.

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

 

1:39 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

Hundreds break Covid-19 protocols to attend funeral in India's Uttar Pradesh state

From CNN’s Swati Gupta in New Delhi

Hundreds of people attended the funeral of a senior Muslim cleric on Sunday, flouting Covid-19 protocols and a state-wide lockdown in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Qazi Hazrat Abdul Hameed Mohammed Salimul Qadri died Sunday afternoon in Badaun district and as news of his death spread, people started collecting, Praveen Chauhan, a senior police official, told CNN. 

“He was beloved in the community so people came to pay their respects,” said Chauhan.

He added that there was a curfew but the area is such that even with barricades and check points in place people were able to get in. If not for the Covid-19 restrictions, the crowd would have been in hundreds of thousands, he said.

On Sunday, Uttar Pradesh extended its current lockdown until May 17 as India continues to battle the second wave.

Local police have filed a complaint against “unknown people” and are currently investigating the incident. 

No arrests have been made yet.

 

1:34 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

New York will require vaccinations for in-person students at public universities this fall, governor says

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today that students attending classes in person at public colleges in the state's SUNY and CUNY system will be required to be vaccinated.

Cuomo tweeted then announcement earlier today:

Some more context: More than 100 US colleges and universities have said they will require all their students to get vaccinated against Covid-19 before they return to campus for the fall semester, according to a CNN tally.

Earlier this month, the tally indicated that at least 14 universities and colleges were adopting that policy. Since then, dozens of higher education institutions have jumped on the bandwagon, demonstrating the trajectory of vaccine requirements. Some schools have said they will make exemptions for medical, religious or personal reasons.

1:17 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

DC to lift capacity restrictions on all businesses starting June 11

From CNN’s Nicky Robertson and Ali Main

Allison Shelley/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
Allison Shelley/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Monday that capacity limits will be lifted at most businesses on May 21, and all businesses including restaurants, bars, and larger sports or entertainment venues on June 11, given rates of infections continue to decrease. Residents will still be required to wear masks indoors.

“Friday, May 21st we will be turning on substantially more activity in the District. We anticipate on three weeks following that on June 11 we will be able to turn up activity in the District all the way," Bowser said at a news conference. 

The mayor said the loosening of these restrictions will be formalized in a Mayor’s Order.  

Bowser stated that residents need to get vaccinated in order to allow reopening. 

“I just want to reiterate how important the following will be for us to continue to reopen our city to get back to life, we need to get people vaccinated,” she said. 

226,566 residents have been fully vaccinated according to data from the DC Department of Health.

When asked whether she might reverse this reopening stance if the course of the pandemic changes, Bowser answered, "do I think that we would have to put in business restrictions at a future date? I hope not. But if we think that our health system was strained by covid, we would have to."

DC Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt echoed the warnings of health officials across the country, urging caution and stressing the immense importance of vaccines, as the District stands poised to reopen. "We still want people to be cautious. If you are not fully vaccinated, your degree of risk is still going to be higher than someone who was fully vaccinated. The more that you want to do without a mask, the more we need people to continue to get vaccinated," she said.

Despite the large-scale lifting of restrictions, Bowser suggested that DC's public health emergency would remain in place for "administrative" reasons, including those having to do with reimbursements from the federal government as the District continues to recover from the pandemic. The current public health emergency expires on May 20.

Bowser also clarified to reporters that the new guidance outlined on Monday would include a lift on restrictions on dancing at wedding venues and live music venues as they open in the coming weeks.

This comes after the mayor faced backlash for a so-called "dancing ban," due to a provision in a previous health order prohibiting "standing and dancing receptions" at wedding venues opened at reduced capacity.

 

2:29 p.m. ET, May 10, 2021

New York City's public libraries will open for limited browsing, mayor says

From CNN's Laura Ly

People walk by the New York Public Library in July 2020.
People walk by the New York Public Library in July 2020. Ron Adar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Public libraries in New York City will reopen for limited browsing for the first time since the pandemic began, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.

The New York Public Library, the largest public library system in the United States, will add the expanded services beginning Monday, alongside the Brooklyn and Queens public library systems, de Blasio said.

The NYPL will reopen with limited browsing at select locations. It plans to expand services at additional library branches in the coming weeks, with all available branches set to reopen with at least limited services by mid-July, according to their website.

Min Jin Lee, a native New Yorker and author of novels such as “Pachinko” and “Free Food for Millionaires,” joined Mayor de Blasio for the announcement. Lee said she grew up going to the public library in Elmhurst, Queens, and said she “wouldn’t be a writer unless [she] had been there.”

Lee applauded the reopening of public libraries as a place to come together after the pandemic “made us afraid of each other.”

“The pandemic has made us all afraid of getting sick, or dying. But it has also made us afraid of each other because we haven’t had a time to hang out and I can’t think of a better place in New York City in which we can hang out and learn, and really learn more about each other and about ourselves,” Lee said.

Lee also said the rise in violence against the AAPI community makes communal spaces such as libraries more important than ever.

“With the rise of violence and hate incidents against Asians and Asian Americans, more than ever, I think that it’s very important that we learn more about ourselves and each other and to become friends again,” Lee said.

Some more context: New York City has administered 7,048,270 Covid-19 vaccine doses to date – more doses than there are people in the state of Massachusetts, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. 

De Blasio said that approximately 3 million New York City residents are now fully-vaccinated and about 3.8 million have received at least one dose, but acknowledged that the city’s vaccine supply now exceeds the demand for them.