NFL Offers Stadiums; Race an Issue in NYC Vaccines: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) — New York state trails only Arizona in Covid-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. More than a quarter of those getting a vaccine in New York City are nonresidents who tend to be younger and are more likely to be White than those who live there. Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will reallocate unused hospital-worker vaccines to those with medical preconditions.

As the NFL season winds down, the league offered its stadiums as vaccination sites. New Orleans imposed strict rules around Mardi Gras. President Joe Biden’s insistence on another outsize relief package was bolstered on Friday with a surprisingly weak January employment report.

AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine is also effective against the new strain of the virus that emerged in the U.K., according to its co-developer, the University of Oxford. Germany is likely to extend its lockdown for another two weeks when Chancellor Angela Merkel and state government leaders meet next week, people familiar said.

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click CVID on the terminal for global data on cases and deaths.

Los Angeles Unified School District has pushed back on pressure to reopen, citing case counts that remain too high. While San Francisco has successfully lowered virus levels, L.A. has fumbled the handling of the pandemic by allowing businesses to reopen and closing testing locations, Superintendent Austin Beutner said.

“Los Angeles is a national example of how governmental dysfunction has allowed the virus to rampage out of control,” Beutner said.

Reopening schools in America’s second-largest city is turning into a battle, pitting teachers and administrators against politicians, doctors and even some health officials. Most of the 1.5 million children in the Los Angeles area have been out of classrooms for nearly a year.

Sweeping restrictions will be imposed on Mardi Gras celebrations, including the closure of bars in all of New Orleans and a ban on pedestrians and vehicles in areas of the French Quarter. “To those that are upset about these restrictions, know that when it comes to the health of our people, I’d rather be accused of doing too much than not enough,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted. The traditional parades had already been cancelled, and in a news conference Cantrell said new coronavirus variants have added to the risks of crowds around the holiday, celebrated this year on Feb. 16.

More than a quarter of those getting the Covid-19 vaccine in New York City are nonresidents, and they tend to be younger and are more likely to be White than those living in the city.

About 59% of the out-of-town recipients are White, according to data released Friday by the city’s health department. By comparison, 48% of the New Yorkers who received vaccines are White, the data show. Roughly half of the vaccinated nonresidents are younger than 65, compared with 44% of the New Yorkers getting the shots. New York City has been prioritizing health-care workers, the elderly and essential workers for immunization.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said late last month that initial data from New York City show “profound” racial disparities in who had received the vaccine.

Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia, whose state has been hit hard by the latest wave of the virus, said schools should begin to offer in-person learning by March 15. “Children learn better in classrooms, and that’s where they need to,” Northam, a Democrat and a pediatrician, said in a news conference.

Amid a political storm among parents, teachers, school officials and legislators, Northam said students have suffered everything from behavioral issues to academic decline — and that guidance from the Biden administration shows that in-person learning can be done safely. He said that schools should also prepare for in-person summer-school sessions.

As the NFL season draws to a close, the league offered to make all its stadiums available as mass vaccination sites, in a letter from Commissioner Roger Goodell to President Joe Biden. Goodell noted that several stadiums are already in use and that “we can expand our efforts to stadiums across the nation.” Seven clubs are already using their facilities as vaccine sites. “We look forward to further discussions with your administration as well as your partners in state and local government to advance this effort,” Goodell wrote in the letter dated Tuesday.

Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York are declining, but the improvement has been much slower than in other former hot spots. The upshot: New York now finds itself as the second-worst jurisdiction in America, behind only Arizona.

The Empire State has 410 people per million residents hospitalized with the virus, down 14% from Jan. 20, the latest peak, according to Covid Tracking Project data. Arizona and Georgia, also hit hard, have seen their numbers drop by 29% and 27%, respectively.

California’s 14-day positive test rate dropped to 6.6%, down from 12.7% a month ago and the lowest since Nov. 30. The state has administered 43.4 million coronavirus tests in total.

There were 14,021 new Covid-19 cases in California yesterday, below the 14-day rolling average of 17,600, according to the health department’s website. Still, the number of deaths at 558 was higher than the 518 average. The total number of Covid-19 cases has topped 3.3 million, with 43,024 deaths.

Spain is limiting use of the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc to people age 55 and younger, based on “scientific evidence,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Spain is the latest European Union country to set an upper age limit for recommended use of the shot. Countries including Germany, France and Italy have also set limits.

France’s Covid measures are failing to control the virus, and the country faces a new wave of infections at a time when pandemic activity is already at a high level, Bruno Riou, medical crisis director at Paris hospital operator AP-HP, said in a press briefing on Friday.

“It’s clear that we’re going to live very difficult times in the coming weeks,” Riou said, adding that the government has been slow to implement previous lockdowns, and he expects the same situation for a potential third lockdown.

Health authorities reported 22,139 new infections on Friday, with the seven-day rolling average little changed at 20,466 cases. Deaths increased by 651 to 78,603, with the numbers including several days of data from nursing homes.

The Greek government tightened restrictions on movement by citizens as the number of new cases and people hospitalized increased in the last days.

An existing national nighttime curfew will now begin at 6 p.m. during the weekend instead of 9 p.m. in so-called red areas that are considered higher risk, including the two largest cities of Athens and Thessaloniki and their greater regions.

AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine is about as effective against the new strain of the virus that emerged in the U.K. as against the initial version, according to a study by the shot’s co-developer, the University of Oxford.

Protection against symptomatic infection was comparable for the new variants well as the earlier strain, according to the study, which analyzed swabs taken from volunteers from October through mid-January. The findings are disclosed in a preprint version of the study that wasn’t peer-reviewed.

Germany is likely to extend its lockdown for another two weeks when Chancellor Angela Merkel and state government leaders meet next week, people familiar with the discussions said.

Chancellery officials in Berlin have concluded it’s too early to lift the restrictions even though new infections are declining, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public.

Countries should share their vaccine doses once they’ve inoculated their health staff and elderly, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing. He also called on companies to partner up to boost manufacturing and to share full dossiers with the WHO for emergency use listings.

More than three-quarter of administered vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for almost 60% of global GDP, he said. Around 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.

New York state will reallocate unused hospital-worker vaccines to those with medical comorbidities starting Feb. 15, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

Hospital-worker vaccination rates reached 75% as of Feb. 4, from 63% on Jan. 18, Cuomo said Friday at a press briefing. Hospitals have one more week to vaccinate their staff, and then unused doses will be shifted to local health departments to give to those with medical conditions that put them at higher risk, he said.

President Biden will send approximately 1,000 troops across the country to assist states with mass vaccination sites, said Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to the White House Covid-19 response team. The first deployment will head to California next week.

The AstraZeneca vaccine will initially be…