U.S. Visitors to Be Tested; India’s Vaccine Push: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will require proof of a negative Covid-19 test before allowing visitors to fly into the country from other nations. India has kicked off one of the world’s biggest inoculation programs. New Zealand defers to virus hot spots.

The Trump administration is urging U.S. states to expand access to vaccines, including making them available to anyone over 65. New York state lowered its vaccine age to 65 from 75 following the change in guidance.

The number of patients in the U.K. needing ventilators rose to the highest since the pandemic began. Pfizer Inc. and federal health officials are investigating the death of a health-care worker 16 days after the person received the first dose of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Key Developments:

• Global Tracker: Cases top 91 million; deaths surpass 1.95 million
• Vaccine Tracker: More than 30.5 million shots given worldwide
• U.S. Hot Spots: U.S. deaths seen rising by another 80,000
• Patchwork of rules sows confusion in state-by-state vaccine rollout
• Besieged U.K. hospitals carry warning for EU lagging on vaccines

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

New Zealand: Shots Are Needed Elsewhere (7 a.m. HK)

New Zealand wants access to Covid-19 vaccines as soon as possible but accepts that other nations where the death toll is rising have a higher priority, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said.

“We’re doing every single thing that is possible to get the vaccines here as soon as we can, but I don’t think it will be a surprise to anybody that countries where there are literally thousands of people dying every day, that those are countries where the vaccines are going out right now,” Robertson told NewstalkZB Wednesday.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced mid-December that the entire population of five million would be offered vaccination from the second half of 2021 after the government signed contracts with four drug companies. Political opponents have raised questions about the risk of waiting another six months amid a global resurgence of the virus and the emergence of variants that are more transmissible.

U.S. Visitors Must Pass Virus Tests (6:15 a.m. HK)

The U.S. will require proof of a negative Covid-19 test before allowing visitors to fly into the country from other nations, in an effort to help airlines regain at least some of their most lucrative international travel.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday said it approved the new anti-pandemic measure that will take effect on Jan. 26.

Dow Jones reported the news earlier.

Pfizer Investigates Post-Vaccine Death (4:40 a.m. HK)

Pfizer Inc. and federal health officials are investigating the death of a health-care worker 16 days after the person received the first dose of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine.

So far, the evidence doesn’t suggest a connection, Pfizer said in a statement on Tuesday. The Florida-based physician developed a rare disorder called severe thrombocytopenia that decreases the body’s ability to clot blood and stop internal bleeding.

Cyber Attackers Leaked EU Vaccine Data (4:35 a.m. HK)

Hackers posted confidential documents regarding Covid-19 medicines and vaccines on the internet after a data breach late last year at the European Medicines Agency.

Timelines related to evaluating and approving Covid medicines and vaccines haven’t been affected, the EMA said in a statement on Tuesday. The agency said it remains fully functional and that law enforcement authorities are taking action on the breach.

U.K. Patients on Ventilators Reach Record (3:45 a.m. HK)

More coronavirus patients are on mechanical ventilation in the U.K. than at any point in the pandemic. There are now 3,363 people on ventilation, compared with a previous peak of 3,301 set on April 12 last year, the latest data shows.

The figure indicates that despite treatments that reduce the likelihood that a patient will be moved onto ventilation, the new strain of the disease has affected many more people than the April outbreak.

More than 35,000 people are hospitalized with the disease, as of Jan. 10, significantly higher than the April peak of 21,600.

The U.K. is relying on a mass vaccination program to reduce the mortality of the disease, and hopes to vaccinate 15 million of the most vulnerable people by Feb. 15.

Ontario Declares Second Emergency (3:30 a.m. HK)

Ontario’s government declared a second provincial emergency as Covid-19 rates accelerate and a new, more transmissible variant has surfaced in Canada’s most populous province.

The province is imposing stay-at-home rules that take effect Jan. 14, requiring residents to stay in except for essential purposes such as buying groceries, medical appointments, exercise or essential work, according to a statement. All businesses must ensure any employee who can work from home does so.

Ontario declared its original provincial emergency during the first wave in March. It remained in effect until July 24.

Arizona Sets Death Record (2:37 a.m. HK)

Arizona reported 335 deaths from Covid-19, a record number that underscored its status as a new epicenter of the virus’s latest surge. The state’s 8,559 new cases brought its total since the pandemic began to 636,100.

Arizona leads the nation in people currently hospitalized with the virus per capita, with 687 per million residents, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Dutch Lockdown Extended (2:35 a.m. HK)

Lockdown measures in the Netherlands will be extended by three weeks until Feb. 9, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday evening. The current lockdown, which added the shuttering of non-essential shops to the closure of bars and restaurants, was announced mid-December and had been set to last until at least Jan. 19. “The British corona variant is in the Netherlands, and this worries us greatly”, Rutte said at a press conference in the Hague.

About 1% of French Cases Are U.K. Variant (1:30 a.m. HK)

France’s health authorities analyzed thousands of positive Covid tests on Thursday and Friday, finding about 1% of confirmed cases were the U.K. variant, Health Minister Olivier Veran said in a hearing in the senate on Tuesday.

Suspect PCR tests were identified using Thermo Fisher’s platform, followed by genetic sequencing. Monitoring will be repeated about every 7-10 days to survey the progress of the variant.

France aims to vaccinate 5 million people by Easter, Veran said. The country will potentially have as many as 77 million doses of various vaccines delivered by the end of June, depending on approvals, the minister said. Should AstraZeneca’s vaccine be approved by the European medicines agency this month, France expects to receive 3 million doses of the shot in February and another 6 million in March, according to Veran.

Texas Opens Field Hospital in Capital (1:05 a.m. HK)

Texas opened a field hospital in a convention center in the state’s capital city, Austin, to relieve some of the strain on local hospitals. The “alternate care site” has an initial capacity of 25 beds that can be expanded if needed, Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement on Tuesday.

More than 19% of hospital beds in the 11-county region that includes Austin are occupied by virus patients, state health department figures showed.

UAE Reports Record Cases (12:22 a.m. HK)

The United Arab Emirates recorded the most daily coronavirus cases since the pandemic began: 3,243, for a total of 236,225. Earlier in the day, Dubai’s ruler urged everyone to get a vaccine to protect themselves and the economy and to speed up recovery. The Ministry of Health said it has so far administered 1.28 million vaccines including 108,401 in the past 24 hours, with an average of 12.9 doses for every 100 people.

N.Y. Allows Shots for People Over 65 (11:45 p.m. HK)

New York state is opening up vaccinations to those age 65 and older, as well as the people with compromised immune systems, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is encouraging states to widen access to Covid-19 vaccines as part of an effort to speed up a stumbling immunization campaign.

There will be more than 7 million people in the state eligible for the vaccine including those age 65 and older, and essential and health-care workers, Cuomo said. That doesn’t include the category of people who are immunocompromised that the CDC also recommended be made eligible. The governor said that could include anyone with conditions including cancer, diabetes and asthma.

NYC Makes Citi Field a Vaccination Site (11:25 p.m. HK)

New York City will open up the Mets stadium at Citi Field for vaccinations starting the week of Jan. 25. The site will operate 24 hours a day and will be able to do between 5,000 and 7,000 vaccinations a day. It will be operated by Health & Hospitals, the public hospital agency.

“We welcome all New Yorkers; we even welcome Yankee fans,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio on a briefing. “It’s going to be big, it’s going to be a game changer.”

Irish Virus ICU Patients Hit Record (10:37 p.m. HK)

The number of Irish coronavirus patients in intensive-care units reached a record Tuesday, as the hospital system nears capacity amid one of the worst outbreaks in the world.

Some 158 confirmed Covid-19 cases are intensive care, according to the health ministry, beating a record set in April. Overall, 1,620 patients are in the hospital. The nation is in the teeth of a new wave of the pandemic and now has the worst instance of the virus per million people globally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.S. Urges States to Widen Vaccine Pool (9:19 p.m. HK)

The Trump administration is expected to encourage states to widen access to Covid-19 vaccines as part of an effort to speed up a stumbling immunization campaign.

Health officials on Tuesday will push states to expand the shots’ availability to anyone older than 65, regardless of underlying conditions, and anyone 16 and older with such a condition, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public.

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will send a letter to governors making the recommendations on Tuesday. The planned announcement, first reported by Axios, follows President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to release more of the available vaccine supply.

India Kicks Off Race to Vaccinate (8:58 p.m. HK)

India has kicked off one of the world’s biggest inoculation programs, which will be a crucial test of how quickly developing countries with limited health and transportation infrastructure can protect their populations. Refrigerated trucks and private planes, accompanied by police officers, fanned out from the western city of Pune on Tuesday to around 60 different locations as medical workers are on standby to start vaccinations this weekend.