Restrictions Ease in U.S.; J&J Seeks Approval: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) — Johnson & Johnson asked U.S. drug regulators to clear its experimental Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use. If approved, the shot would give the U.S. a third vaccine to try to halt a pandemic that has killed more than 450,000 Americans.

Around the U.S. restrictions are lifting as the outbreak eases. New York City hospitalizations surged after the snowstorm, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. Wisconsin’s governor issued a new face mask order immediately after the legislature repealed his earlier one. Texas set a daily record for vaccinations.

When might life around the world return to normal? In 7.4 years at today’s vaccine rates.

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.

Johnson & Johnson asked U.S. drug regulators to clear its experimental Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, setting up what is likely to be a fast-moving review process that could lead to millions more doses becoming available to step up a stumbling immunization drive.

The drugmaker said in a statement Thursday that it had filed an application for an emergency-use authorization with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If cleared, the shot would give the U.S. a third vaccine to try to halt a pandemic that has killed more than 450,000 Americans.

When will the pandemic end? It’s the question hanging over just about everything since Covid-19 took over the world last year. The answer can be measured in vaccinations.

Bloomberg has built the biggest database of Covid-19 shots given around the world, with more than 108 million doses administered worldwide. U.S. science officials such as Anthony Fauci have suggested it will take 70% to 85% coverage of the population for things to return to normal. Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker shows that some countries are making far more rapid progress than others, using 75% coverage with a two-dose vaccine as a target.

Israel, the country with the highest vaccination rate in the world, is headed for 75% coverage in just 2 months. The U.S. will get there just in time to ring in the 2022 New Year (though North Dakota could get there six months sooner than Texas). With vaccinations happening more rapidly in richer Western countries than the rest of the globe, it will take the world as a whole 7.4 years at the current pace.

Regulators in the U.S. have begun to review certain data required for clearance of Novavax Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine while final-phase clinical trials are still underway, the company said in a statement.

The process, called a rolling submission, has also begun in the U.K. and Canada, Novavax said. On Wednesday, the company said European regulators were doing a similar review.

U.K. ministers are racing to reserve more than 28,000 hotel rooms across the country by 5 p.m. on Friday evening in a bid to start the government’s “red list” quarantine plan by the middle of this month, Telegraph reports, citing documents the paper has seen.

Ministers have asked hotel bosses to be ready to accommodate 1,425 passengers a day by Feb. 15, according to the documents. The plan is expected to run until at least March 31, the memo said. Returning passengers would be quarantined in hotel rooms for 11 nights at a cost of up to 800 pounds per person.

Texas administered more than 150,000 vaccinations on Thursday, the highest 24-hour total since the rollout, Governor Greg Abbott said in a tweet.

The aggregate figure for shots in the second-largest US state will exceed 3 million “in a few days,” Abbott said. Meanwhile, statewide virus hospitalizations have dropped to the lowest since late December, health department figures showed.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers immediately issued a new face mask order after the state legislature repealed his earlier one.

“Our fight against this virus isn’t over,” Evers, a Democrat, said in a video on Twitter after the Republican-controlled body voted. “It’s not going away, especially as we see mutations of this virus in our state and others. Wearing a mask is the most basic thing we can do to keep each other safe.”

He accused the legislature of putting politics over science. Legislators have argued the issue is not masks themselves but who has the ultimate authority to declare heath emergencies.

A pilot project in which rapid Covid-19 tests were used in an effort to safely reopen some U.S. schools has encountered administrative and logistical hurdles, according to a report released Thursday.

Through a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Rockefeller Foundation, the project received about 140,000 quick-turnaround Covid tests from Abbott Laboratories.

Even with access to testing from the outset, however, schools needed additional resources like staffing to perform the tests. While they found support in their communities for testing, they also encountered resistance from parents and students.

Around the U.S., restrictions are relaxing as the outbreak eases:

• Massachusetts will increase the capacity on business like restaurants and gyms to 40% from 25%
• Rhode Island is allowing weddings to have as many as 50 guests, and indoor dining now can include two households
• Arkansas said it would not extend a directive requiring bars and restaurants selling alcohol to close at 11 p.m.
• Michigan will allow high school sports leagues to restart practices and competitions. Masks will be required
• Puerto Rico will shorten its nighttime curfew by an hour — the new schedule is midnight to 5 a.m. — and allow many businesses to operate at 50% capacity
• Denver began accepting applications for a program that encourages businesses to add Covid-19 safety measures “beyond what is already required by public health orders,” the city government announced. “In doing so, businesses will be able to expand operational capacity, which will help Denver’s economy recover”

Ireland’s total Covid-19 cases passed 200,000, even as the virus’s spread continues to slow. While case numbers may increase in the days ahead as authorities widen testing of close contacts, the so-called reproduction number is between 0.5 and 0.8, the nation’s health ministry said. Ireland reported 1,318 new cases on Thursday, with 75 deaths.

French health authorities has found four patients infected with the Brazilian coronavirus variant as of Wednesday, including in mainland France as well as on the island of Reunion, Health Minister Olivier Veran said in a weekly press briefing. Covid variants make up about 14% of French cases, mainly the strain that emerged in the U.K., Veran said.

“It’s the South African and Brazilian variants that worry us the most,” the minister said. “Our goal is clear, we want to limit as much as possible the spread of these variants, to gain time to vaccinate.”

Also, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday that while it isn’t possible to ease restrictions, a new lockdown isn’t justified at the moment.

All members of the U.S. Capitol Police — which suffered an outbreak following the Jan. 6 riot — will be given access to vaccines, the department announced.

“Thanks to the efforts of the Congressional leadership, especially House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the administration, enough doses of the Covid-19 vaccines have been secured to vaccinate all USCP personnel,” Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said in a statement. The police union had reported 38 cases on the force in the two weeks following the riot.

New York’s state health commissioner denied New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s request to start using vaccine doses that have been reserved for second doses.

The city currently has around 320,000 doses on hand that have been reserved for second doses. De Blasio has said these doses are sitting in storage for weeks and could be used for first doses.

Commissioner Howard Zucker on Thursday, responding to a Feb. 3 letter from the mayor, said the Biden administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are not currently recommending the use of second doses as first doses. The state will continue to follow that guidance, unless the CDC says otherwise, he said. “If the CDC does in fact recommend usage of the second dose as a first dose, I can assure you New York will set the national model.”

De Blasio responded by saying the decision “makes no sense to me.”

“We would not be having this conversation if we had ample supply,” he said. “We’re in a wartime dynamic. People are suffering, people are scared and they are vulnerable. The reality is we need to protect people and free up those second doses.”

New York City vaccine sites are up and running again after a snowstorm shut them down for a number of days, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

“All appointments have been rescheduled,” de Blasio said during a Thursday briefing.

The mayor said the city also saw a surge of patients admitted into New York City hospitals, which jumped to 300 on Tuesday, compared to the previous days which saw the numbers dip below 200.

“It’s very high,” de Blasio said. “We think a number of people didn’t go into the hospital because of the storm but we’re going to watch that number carefully.”

The…