Coronavirus variants identified in the US 0:54
(CNN) -
After six consecutive weeks of declines in new COVID-19 cases in the United States, the numbers have begun to stabilize, even as hospitalizations and deaths continue to decline.
The 7-day average of new cases a day was just over 72,000 this Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, a total that is relatively unchanged from last Thursday.
It's a low number compared to Thursday, February 11, when the United States averaged about 102,000 new cases a day.
Experts say it's too early to tell if this week-long flattening represents a small problem or the beginning of a larger problem.
"I've been watching this and I've been wondering the same thing," Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, told CNN.
“We have not seen widespread increases, but there is a flattening.
We will have to monitor this closely.
The other thing we have to track is how the new variant is doing and if that's part of the reason.
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Reducing the number of infections now will not only help prevent the virus from mutating further, it will also allow vaccines to remain effective.
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Meanwhile, additional deaths and new hospitalizations from Covid-19, which are several weeks behind the cases, have continued to decline dramatically.
And the two vaccines approved in the United States have shown extraordinary success in limiting severe COVID-19, which makes the race to vaccinate so important.
Coronavirus vaccines are already working
In the United States and abroad, vaccines are quickly proving their effectiveness.
A study of around 600,000 vaccinated people in Israel found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains highly effective in preventing symptomatic coronavirus infections.
The risk of contracting symptomatic covid-19 - that is, people who became infected with the coronavirus and felt sick - decreased by 94% among people who received two doses of the vaccine, according to the study.
Even before the second dose, the effectiveness of the vaccine approached 60%.
The vaccine reduced the risk of severe disease by 92% and was also very effective in all age groups.
The vaccine also appeared to protect against a highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus first identified in the UK, the researchers said.
Details of the study were first reported last week, but the full peer-reviewed findings were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The results confirm that the vaccine remains highly effective outside the carefully controlled conditions of a clinical trial.
Additionally, an analysis of federal data from The New York Times found that new cases and deaths have declined significantly in nursing homes since vaccines began in late December, even outpacing national declines.
Dr. Mark McClellan, director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, described this as a "crater" of hospitalizations and deaths in nursing homes.
"It's really going down to levels we haven't seen since before the initial big outbreaks in New York City," he said.
And that is incredibly good news and a reflection of how important vaccination has been in those settings.
Hopefully it's a sign of things to come as we get more shots faster now that the weather is better.
Now that the number of vaccines and injections in arms is going up ».
A third vaccine for the United States could be just a few days away
The United States could be just days away from getting another vaccine on the market.
Vaccine advisers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will meet Friday to determine if the Johnson & Johnson vaccine works and if it is safe.
They will make a recommendation to the FDA and the agency could green light the vaccine on Friday or Saturday.
Then, advisers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are scheduled to meet on Sunday to discuss recommendations around the possible launch of the vaccine, recommendations that would have to be formally accepted. by the CDC.
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In an analysis released Wednesday, the FDA said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine met the requirements for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
Efficacy of the moderate to severe / critical COVID-19 vaccine in all geographic areas was 66.9% at least 14 days after single-dose vaccination and 66.1% at least 28 days after vaccination, according to analysis.
"No specific safety concerns were identified in the subgroup analyzes for age, race, ethnicity, medical comorbidities, or previous SARS-CoV-2 infection," the analysis said.
Meanwhile, the vaccine supply in the United States is projected to increase significantly in the coming months.
Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines were already licensed for emergency use, have pledged to have a combined 220 million doses available for shipment by the end of March.
And on Thursday, the FDA gave permission for Pfizer's vaccine to be transported and stored at normal freezing temperatures for up to two weeks, making it easier to transport the vaccine to more places.
Until now, it had to be kept between -80 and -60 degrees Celsius, much colder than normal freezer temperatures.
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson, if granted an emergency use authorization, has committed to making 20 million doses available in the same time frame.
And a fourth COVID-19 vaccine could be available in the United States in April, which could add millions more doses to the country's supply by the end of that month.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC's Savannah Guthrie that Americans should get the vaccine that is available as soon as possible rather than waiting one over another.
This is a race, Savannah, between the virus and giving people vaccines.
The longer a person waits to get vaccinated, the more likely it is that the virus has a variant or a mutation, "he said.
"So the sooner we get the vaccine into people's arms, whatever the vaccine is, once the FDA has approved it for an EUA, if it's available, get it."
President Joe Biden has previously said that the United States will have enough vaccines for 300 million Americans by the end of July.
More people become eligible for vaccines
Georgia and Connecticut announced that they will join the more than two dozen states that have expanded vaccination eligibility to teachers and school staff members.
Starting Monday, Connecticut teachers and school staff will be able to begin scheduling vaccinations, Governor Ned Lamont and Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz said.
In Georgia, educators and school personnel in grades K-12, adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers, as well as parents of children with complex medical conditions, will be eligible for immunization beginning on 8 March, Governor Brian Kemp said Thursday.
And in Utah, anyone 16 and older with certain medical conditions, including severe obesity, cancer and chronic heart disease, can get vaccinated right away, Gov. Spencer Cox said.
Utahns won't need to have a doctor's note about their health, Cox said, asking healthy people not to get ahead of the line.
"We are prioritizing these people, again, based on age and these underlying comorbidities, because they have the highest risk of hospitalization or death," Cox said.
Concern about the spread of coronavirus variants
Still, experts have warned that another spike in cases is likely in the coming weeks, one that this time will be driven by variants of the coronavirus, and the country is still not approaching herd immunity levels.
In fact, health officials are bracing for a possible third wave that will be driven by a fast-spreading variant first identified in the UK: B.1,1.7.
CDC data shows 2,102 cases of the variant have been detected in the US, but scientists have cautioned that the number likely does not represent the total number of cases in the country.
"Right now, it appears that in the United States we are at risk of another increase due to this variant called B.1,1.7," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, in an interview with chief medical correspondent. from CNN, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
And a researcher who helped identify a variant that was first found in New York City said one appears to be increasing at an alarmingly rapid rate.
Two separate teams of researchers have said they found the new variant in New York City and other areas in the Northeast that carries variants that help it evade the body's natural immune response, as well as the effects of monoclonal antibody treatments.
Dr. David Ho, who led one of the teams, said Thursday that in recent weeks, they found the new variant in about 12 to 13% of the positive samples they tested.
The first detection was in November, Ho told CNN's Erin Burnett, and early last month, it was "about 3% of COVID-19 positive samples within the tests we studied inside the hospital," Ho said. .
"The fairly rapid increase is alarming," he said.
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And two studies coming out soon raise concerns about a variant that scientists have been monitoring in California, hinting that the variant might not only be more contagious, but may also cause more serious illness.
"We could all wish this was the last wave," said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House for the Covid-19 Response Team.
“But we wouldn't be doing our job if we weren't really focused on variant containment measures, if we weren't really focused on how therapeutics could help minimize the effects of the variants, how could we make sure, if we have another wave, it feels different, ”he said in a webinar conducted by the American Public Health Association.
To address the growing threat of variants, CDC is collaborating with public and private laboratories to expand genomic sequencing capacity.
And with the Biden administration's $ 200 million investment in sequencing last week, the CDC hopes to quickly reach the goal of sequencing 25,000 samples per week.
Pfizer / BioNTech are testing a third dose of their vaccine against the variants, the companies announced Thursday.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told NBC News' Lester Holt that his company's vaccine protects people against the B.1,1.7 variant, and there is data to suggest it works against two other variants, one detected for the first time in South Africa and another identified for the first time in Brazil.
A third injection could increase a person's antibody response 10 to 20 times that of the first two doses, Bourla said, but it is not likely to turn into a three-dose vaccine.
"We will have an annual revaccination, probably with one dose of the vaccine," he said.
- CNN's Ben Tinker, Naomi Thomas, Amanda Watts, Jen Christensen, Maggie Fox, Cheri Mossburg, Christopher Rios, Arman Azad, Chris Boyette, Elizabeth Stuart, Jamiel Lynch, Lindsay Benson and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.
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