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The world still struggling with COVID-19 as England enters national lockdown, and Zimbabwe has patients with a new strand of COVID -19 as well as LA.

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Days after Los Angeles County surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases, researchers say a new local strain is likely behind the seemingly never-ending surge. The strain, identified as CAL.20C by Cedars-Sinai researchers, consists of five different mutations and is different from the variant discovered in the U.K.

According to researchers, CAL.20C has been identified in more than one-third of LA COVID-19 patients.

"The recent surge in COVID-19 positive cases in Southern California coincides with the emergence of CAL.20C," Dr. Eric Vail, assistant professor of pathology and director of molecular pathology in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, said in a release posted to Cedars-Sinai's website.

Vail and his fellow researchers have submitted their study on the strain to MedRxiv.org ahead of peer review. In the study, researchers noted that the strain was essentially nonexistent in the fall, but by December it was detected in 36.4% of cases.
CALIFORNIA PROBING SEPARATE CORONAVIRUS VARIANT LINKED TO LARGE COUNTY OUTBREAKS
"The double-digit prevalence of the CAL.20C strain in November and December was striking given that it was first observed in July 2020 in just one of 1,230 virus samples in Los Angeles County and had not again been detected in Southern California until October," said Jasmine Plummer, a research scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, associate director of the Applied Genomics, Computation & Translational Core at Cedars-Sinai and the other co-corresponding author, according to the Cedars-Sinai website.

Outside of LA, it was also detected in patient samples from New York, Washington D.C., and Oceania.
LOS ANGELES LIFTS AIR-QUALITY LIMITS FOR CREMATIONS
The strain's five different mutations include L452R, which was identified by the California Department of Public Health. The L452R variant is increasingly being discovered in California counties and has been identified in "several large outbreaks" in Santa Clara County. The county's health officer called the variant a "red flag" that must be investigated further in a statement released over the weekend.

"This virus continues to mutate and adapt, and we cannot let down our guard," Dr. Sandra Cody said. "This news underscores the need for everyone to follow all prevention measures and get vaccinated as soon as they are offered the vaccine."

While it's not clear what impact these mutations may have on virus transmissibility or effectiveness of current COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, researchers said the discovery is imperative to ongoing research.
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
"The identification of this novel strain of SARS-CoV-2, like strains arising in Britain and South Africa, is highly significant to frontline and global surveillance of the constantly evolving COVID-19 pandemic," said Dr. Jeffrey Golden, vice dean of research and graduate education and director of the Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai. "We are delighted that the California Department of Public Health was able to use our data to also identify one of the variants included in this new strain. The pioneering research of our Cedars-Sinai investigators is part of our ongoing drive to discover new ways to identify, treat and prevent COVID-19."

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New COVID strain in LA eyed as cases surge

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Days after Los Angeles County surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases, researchers say a new local strain is likely behind the seemingly never-ending surge. The strain, identified as CAL.20C by Cedars-Sinai researchers, consists of five different mutations and is different from the variant discovered in the U.K.

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Florida university has created new technology that can pick out signs of potential suicides. This is new artificial intelligence it has 80% accuracy.

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FSU Researcher Uses Machine Learning to Improve Suicide Prediction

A groundbreaking project led by a Florida State University researcher makes an exponential advance in suicide prediction, potentially giving clinicians the ability to predict who will attempt suicide up to two years in advance with 80 percent accuracy.

FSU Psychology researcher Jessica Ribeiro feels an urgency to confront this relentless problem. Shadowing her research is the ever-present awareness that 120 Americans take their lives every day, nearly 45,000 a year.

Ribeiro's paper, titled "Predicting Risk of Suicide Attempts over Time through Machine Learning," will be published by the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

The study offers a fascinating finding: machine learning - a future frontier for artificial intelligence - can predict with 80-90 percent accuracy whether someone will attempt suicide as far off as two years into the future. The algorithms become even more accurate as a person's suicide attempt gets closer. For example, the accuracy climbs to 92 percent one week before a suicide attempt when artificial intelligence focuses on general hospital patients.

"This study provides evidence that we can predict suicide attempts accurately," Ribeiro said. "We can predict them accurately over time, but we're best at predicting them closer to the event. We also know, based on this study, that risk factors - how they work and how important they are - also change over time."

Ribeiro's research represents an extraordinary development in suicide prediction that is desperately needed. A recent study by FSU Psychology Assistant Professor Joseph Franklin revealed that 50 years of suicide prediction research had not produced any real progress in being able to predict who will try to kill themselves. The traditional risk factors identified over the past half century to predict suicidal behavior - such as depression, stress or substance abuse - could muster an accuracy rate not much better than random guessing.

A coin flip is as accurate on suicide attempts as the brightest suicide experts in the world.

"It was really sad," said Ribeiro, who worked with Franklin on that study. "Fifty years of research with really smart people working on this and no real change. We can see that in the suicide rates. I'm not saying machine learning is the panacea, but these kinds of techniques and changes in the status quo can really disrupt a stagnant research area."

Ribeiro's project was born out of Franklin's startling findings. She and Franklin, along with Colin Walsh of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, successfully accessed a massive data repository containing the electronic health records of about 2 million patients in Tennessee. The project was the largest research study of its kind in history, a "huge opportunity," Ribeiro said. The team combed through the electronic health records, which were anonymous, and identified more than 3,200 people who had attempted suicide.

Having that information was crucial; it contained detailed medical histories of thousands of people leading up to their suicide attempts. Using machine learning to examine all of those details, the algorithms were able to "learn" which combination of factors in the records could most accurately predict future suicide attempts.

"The machine learns the optimal combination of risk factors," Ribeiro said. "What really matters is how this algorithm and these variables interact with one another as a whole. This kind of work lets us apply algorithms that can consider hundreds of data points in someone's medical record and potentially reduce them to clinically meaningful information."

That kind of meaningful information could be used to develop an alert system for clinicians identifying patients at risk of suicidal behavior. For example, the system would issue a "red light warning" or "risk score" for every person so when they come into a hospital with acute symptoms, an emergency room doctor could see an elevated risk for suicide and get a psychiatrist to respond immediately.

"Just like you get a cardiovascular risk score, you would get a suicide risk score that is informative for clinicians and helps direct them on what steps to take next," Ribeiro said.

Too often, those next steps never happen. Studies show about 60-90 percent of people who die by suicide had visited their medical provider within the past year and the clinician never saw it coming.

"This algorithm funnels our attention to the folks who are most likely to attempt suicide so our resources are better devoted to people we're missing now," Ribeiro said. "Right now, we're missing a large proportion of people who are at risk that we never even think about."

Health care systems are building national and international infrastructures of electronic records that could be analyzed with machine learning to identify people at risk of suicide. But the data might have to be modified for research purposes, so that's one challenge still ahead.

More organizations like the U.S. military and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are already in a position to move ahead with machine-learning methods for their own electronic health records. Ribeiro is currently working on a study with the Military Suicide Research Consortium based at Florida State that uses machine learning to identify people with an imminent risk of suicide.

The suicide rate has not changed much over the past century: In 1915, it was around 13 per 100,000 people; in 2015, it was 13.26 per 100,000 - little progress over a century despite some of the most brilliant minds scrutinizing the problem and billions of dollars being spent on mental health care. But Ribeiro remains hopeful about her team's work and believes it will meet ambitious goals. She envisions breakthroughs on being able to identify and treat large-scale populations of those who need help the most.

"The whole focus of my research program is to be able to accurately detect suicide risk for all people at all points in time," Ribeiro said. "That's what I'm going to work toward. What we have so far is promising, but it's just a start. While these are not the only methods or the best ones, I think if more researchers focus on this approach we can finally see meaningful declines in the rates of suicidal behaviors, and ultimately suicide deaths, on a global scale. It's not that far off."

Ribeiro collaborated on the "Predicting Risk of Suicide Attempts over Time through Machine Learning " project with Joseph Franklin, assistant professor of psychology at Florida State University; and Colin Walsh, assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

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How artificial intelligence will save lives in the 21st century - Florida State University News

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FSU Researcher Uses Machine Learning to Improve Suicide Prediction A groundbreaking project led by a Florida State University researcher makes an exponential advance in suicide prediction, potentially giving clinicians the ability to predict who will attempt suicide up to two years in advance with 80 percent accuracy.

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Boeing is being charged with 'conspiracy to defraud the US'. This is due to an investigation finding that Boeing knowingly misled regulators to approve the 737 MAX. Boeing must now pay $243 million in criminal penalties, $500 million to relatives who lost loved ones and $1.77 billion to global airlines affected by the MAX groundings.

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The U.S. Justice Department charged The Boeing Company with "conspiracy to defraud the United States" -- concluding after a lengthy investigation that the company knowingly misled regulators while seeking approval for its 737 MAX aircraft.

In October 2019 pilots struggled to regain control of the MAX and it plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia. Five months later another MAX crashed near Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia just six minutes after takeoff, killing all on board, and forcing regulators around the globe to ground the plane. Three hundred and forty-six people perished in both accidents.

Boeing is now entering into a "deferred prosecution agreement" worth 2.5 billion dollars consisting of a $243 million criminal penalty, $500 million to relatives who lost loved ones and $1.77 billion to global airlines affected by the MAX groundings.

In an SEC filing released Thursday, Boeing said it agreed to the charge "based on the conduct of two former 737 MAX program technical pilots."

"I firmly believe that entering into this resolution is the right thing for us to do-a step that appropriately acknowledges how we fell short of our values and expectations," David Calhoun, Boeing president and CEO, said in a note to employees. "This resolution is a serious reminder to all of us of how critical our obligation of transparency to regulators is, and the consequences that our company can face if any one of us falls short of those expectations."

Investigators found that both crashes were tied to Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, software, which had been designed to help stabilize the jet after heavier, repositioned engines placed on the aircraft caused the plane's nose to point too far upward in certain circumstances.

In both crashes, incorrect data from a faulty sensor caused the MCAS to misfire, forcing the planes to nose down repeatedly. MCAS was not mentioned in the pilot manual -- allowing pilots to enter the MAX cockpit without simulator training that would have cost the airlines more money.

Boeing has been accused of withholding information from the Federal Aviation Administration regarding MCAS. In internal messages that surfaced in October 2019, the chief technical pilot for the aircraft, Mark Forkner, told another pilot that the MCAS flight control system was "running rampant" in a simulator session.

The documents released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee show Forkner told FAA officials that MCAS was safe despite calling it "egregious" based on simulator tests, according to internal messages and emails.

"I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)," Forkner said to his colleague in the messages.

Forkner was the main point of contact between the administration and Boeing in regard to areas like pilot training and manual recommendations, an FAA official explained at the time.

Forkner was reportedly questioned by federal prosecutors.

Boeing said in a statement in October 2019 that Forkner's comments "reflected a reaction to a simulator program that was not functioning properly, and that was still undergoing testing."

In January 2020, Boeing released more than 100 pages of internal communications that the company itself called "completely unacceptable."

In one exchange, an unnamed Boeing employee says the 737 Max "is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys," after complaining about the flight management computer.

In another 2018 message a Boeing employee asks, "Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft?"

"I wouldn't," he said.

"No," the colleague responded.

Boeing has since rewritten the MCAS software, receiving the FAA's approval for the jet to reenter commercial service on Nov. 18, 2020.

Last week, American flew the first Boeing 737 MAX with paying passengers in almost two years. United Airlines said it will start flying the MAX out of its Denver and Houston hubs on Feb 11. Southwest Airlines estimated that the MAX will return to service no sooner than March.

American, Southwest and United have all said they will be completely transparent with customers who are scheduled to fly on a MAX and will allow them to rebook with no change fee or request a refund if they do not feel comfortable.

But for the family members who lost loved ones the changes Boeing made are not enough to convince them the plane is safe.

"I wish that the Boeing executives would have been there to have experienced watching coffins being lined up and wondering who your loved one is," Zipporah Kuria, who lost her father Joseph Waithaka in the Ethiopia crash, told ABC News. "Having those coffins opened up and being traumatized by what we saw, what was left of our loved ones, and then maybe they would be forward thinking maybe if they walked a mile in our shoes as the people who have had to pay for their negligence. They would think twice before going ahead and putting this aircraft back up."

When asked for comment, the FAA deferred to the Justice Department.
ABC News' Sam Sweeney contributed to this report

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Boeing charged by DOJ with 'conspiracy to defraud the US' over 737 MAX

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The U.S. Justice Department charged The Boeing Company with "conspiracy to defraud the United States" -- concluding after a lengthy investigation that the company knowingly misled regulators while seeking approval for its 737 MAX aircraft. In October 2019 pilots struggled to regain control of the MAX and it plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia.

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Nancy Pelosi is calling for the resignation of top Congress Security Advisors. This comes after terrorists raided the capital yesterday afternoon.

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Stenger and House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving are both under pressure to step down after the deadly and embarrassing breach of security.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said ultimate blame lies with "unhinged criminals" that desecrated the Capitol, but nonetheless suggested that the Congress would have to address the "shocking failures in the Capitol's security posture and protocols."

McConnell's office has not yet commented on Stenger.

The House and Senate sergeants-at-arms are on the most immediate chopping block, according to multiple sources in both parties. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund will also face intense scrutiny. And President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration could see changes.

"The Capitol Police will and should really do a quick review here of what went wrong and what they need to do to be sure nothing like that could happen again," Senate Rules Chair Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters early Thursday. "You want to take one more really hard look at what you thought your crowd security concerns might be for Jan. 20."

Eva Malecki, a spokesperson for the Capitol police, said: "the Chief has no plans to step down.

The change with Stenger could happen sooner than the shift of power on Jan. 20, according to sources. Irving, the House sergeant-at-arms since 2012, is also under intense scrutiny and is expected to be pressured to step down following the rioting and violence that took place inside the Capitol Wednesday.

McConnell and Speaker Nancy Pelosi had no immediate comment. Sund put out a statement saying that the Capitol Police had a "robust plan" for demonstrators, "but make no mistake - these riots were not First Amendment activities."

The frustration was evident as senators gathered in a secure room in the Capitol complex on late Wednesday. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) briefly but pointedly dressed down sergeant-at-arms staff about the unprecedented security breach in the Capitol, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), the House Democrat who oversees funding for the Capitol police, told reporters there would be swift fallout from the deadly security breach.

Ryan praised the rank-and-file Capitol police for doing "everything they could" to hold back the mob but said higher ranking officials will be taken to task and likely fired. At least 15 police officers were hospitalized due to the chaos with one in critical condition, according to Ryan.

"For us not to have an expeditious plan - the breach happened at 1 hour and 15 minutes of the Capitol police being able to hold off the mob," Ryan told reporters Thursday. "You can be assured that somebody's going to be held responsible for this."

And Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Ryan's counterpart in the Senate, said "we need a full investigation on how the Capitol's security was breached this quickly."

"Being outnumbered, ill-equipped, and unprepared is not the fault of officers, rather the responsibility of their superiors," Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who was among those in the chamber as rioters breached the Capitol, said via text message Thursday morning. "Yesterday's security failure was preventable, inexcusable and requires a full investigation and the removal of those responsible from their positions."

The House floor was buzzing with talk of immediate firings Wednesday night as lawmakers gathered to restart certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Lawmakers did not coalesce around a specific plan but generally agreed that there needed to be swift leadership changes both within the Capitol Police, including Sund, and the Sergeant-at-Arms offices, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversations.

Ryan and House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) on Thursday announced an investigation of the Capitol Police failures that led to Wednesday's mob-rule.

Rioters stormed the Capitol, crashing through glass windows and busting down doors, invading some of the most secure areas of the Capitol, including the Senate chamber and Pelosi's office. Ryan said he was disturbed by videos from Wednesday that appeared to show Capitol police opening the barriers to allow the rioters onto Capitol grounds and then later freely leave the Capitol after destroying it. One woman was shot and killed inside the complex during the chaos.

The sergeant-at-arms has more than 800 employees who oversee security of the Capitol, congressional office buildings and staff, while the Capitol Police has 2,300 employees and officers.

During other moments like Trump's impeachment or the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the security and law enforcement presence inside the building was pronounced, but at times on Thursday there were barren halls turned over to the rioters. And not until the trespassers were expelled from the Capitol did the number of officers reach overwhelming levels.

"It was unfathomable," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told MetroNews in West Virginia on Thursday. "I think it was the lowest day."
Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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Schumer to sack top Senate security official after pro-Trump riot

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Stenger and House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving are both under pressure to step down after the deadly and embarrassing breach of security. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said ultimate blame lies with "unhinged criminals" that desecrated the Capitol, but nonetheless suggested that the Congress would have to address the "shocking failures in the Capitol's security posture and protocols."

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Facebook has placed a block on Trump's  Facebook and Instagram accounts that will last at least the next two weeks, and possibly indefinitely. They think having him on the platforms is too big of a risk.

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facebook bans trump from posting for remainder of his term in office - cnn

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Facebook bans Trump from posting for remainder of his term in office

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Facebook and Instagram will ban President Donald Trump's account from posting for at least the remainder of his term in office and perhaps "indefinitely," Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on Thursday.

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Doctors in Zimbabwe are concerned that the health system there could collapse because of a rush of coronovirus patients. Even more scary, most of the patients have a new strain of it that is harder to treat.

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doctors warn zimbabwe healthcare could face collapse as hospitals are overwhelmed amid covid cases spike  - cnn

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Zimbabwe health system overwhelmed as country goes on new strict lockdown, doctors say

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Doctors in Zimbabwe have said the health system is overwhelmed and could collapse as the country battles a new wave of infections that has prompted a strict new 30-day lockdown.

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With a slower than expected COVID vaccine rollout, federal officials and drugmakers are racing to find ways to expand the supply. The National Institutes of Health is looking to see if they can double the supply by cutting required dosages in half.

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The N.I.H. and Moderna are examining whether doses of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine can be halved to double the supply, while scientists look for other ways to extend availability.

A medical worker receiving the Moderna vaccine in Jersey City in December. Any dosing changes would have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Credit... Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Federal officials and drugmakers, faced with a slower-than-expected rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, are racing to find ways to expand the supply, looking at lowering the required dosage and extracting more doses from the supplies they have.

Just weeks into the vaccine program, scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the drugmaker Moderna are analyzing data to see if they can double the supply of the company's coronavirus vaccine by cutting doses in half. The study, though long planned, is increasingly urgent in the face of looming shortages as the country tries to fight off a surging pandemic.

Officials are also rushing to find supplies of more efficient syringes that could extract an additional dose from vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. That could bolster the Pfizer supply by 20 percent.

With more than 355,000 Americans already dead of Covid-19, nearly 21 million cases reported in the United States and hospitals overflowing, the need to inoculate people grows more urgent every day. The nation is facing twin problems. At the moment, it has only enough vaccine on order to cover 185 million Americans by the end of June. At the same time, doses that vaccine makers rushed out of their factories are sitting unused and are in danger of expiring.

The Trump administration has shipped more than 15 million vaccine doses, and millions more are already in the federal government's hands. Yet only 4.5 million people have received them so far. State and local public health officials, already overwhelmed with rising infections, are struggling to administer the vaccine to hospital workers and at-risk older Americans while most people remain in the dark about when they might be protected.

Countries in Europe are grappling with their own rocky vaccine rollouts, only adding to a sense of panic as a new, more contagious variant of the novel coronavirus spreads across the globe.

"The total supply of vaccine has always been a concern," said Dr. John R. Mascola, director of the N.I.H.'s Vaccine Research Center, adding, "It's important to do these analyses that we're doing, and have all that data in our pocket in the event that there's a need to use it."

The Moderna dosage research, which also involves scientists from Operation Warp Speed, the government's vaccine initiative, could take two months, said Dr. Mascola, who described the work in an interview Tuesday. Any dosing changes would have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

For the moment, the biggest problem is not a shortage of vaccine, but the difficulties that state and local governments face in distributing the doses they have. But in interviews, both Dr. Mascola and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, warned of possible shortages to come.

"To me, what appears to be the imminent problem that's right in front of us is getting people vaccinated with the doses that we have," Dr. Fauci said. "That could change."

Those struggles will be global. Already, Italy, Greece and other countries are reporting shortages of needles. Spain has not trained enough nurses. France has only managed to vaccinate around 7,000 people. Poland's program was rocked by scandal after it was revealed that celebrities were given preferential treatment. There are calls in Germany to take control over vaccine purchases from the European Union authorities. Nearly every country in Europe has complained about burdensome paperwork.

In Washington, congressional Democrats are demanding an explanation for vaccination delays. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, said in an interview on Tuesday that states needed more support and guidance from the federal government - an issue she said she raised on Monday with Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed.

President Trump "wants us all to just give him a lot of credit for having a vaccine this fast," Ms. Murray said. "But as the Trump administration has done with testing and everything else, it's, 'We did this - now it's up to the states.' Well, the state's don't have capacity, and there isn't stability in the supply chain."

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A testing site in Nashville in December. With more than 355,000 Americans already dead of Covid-19, and nearly 21 million cases reported in the United States, the need to inoculate people is becoming more urgent. Credit... William DeShazer for The New York Times

Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, conceded on Tuesday that the vaccine rollout was going slowly, and urged states not to stick rigidly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines about whom to vaccinate first. If fewer health care workers are willing to be vaccinated, he said, states should "move quickly to other priority groups," such as people older than 75 and essential workers.

"Your headline today really should be, 'Surgeon General Tells States and Governors to Move Quickly to Other Priority Groups,'" Dr. Adams said on NBC's "Today" show. "If the demand isn't there in 1a, go to 1b and continue on down. If the demand isn't there in one location, move those vaccines to another location."

Some states, like Texas and Florida, have already begun offering shots to people 65 and older who are not nursing home residents, and to those of any age with medical conditions that raise their risk of dying if they contract Covid-19. That has led to a desperate scramble among those eager to get vaccinated.

"People want to know: When is my turn? Is this happening? Where do I go?" Ms. Murray said.

Even if distribution kinks smooth out, a vaccine shortage looms in coming months because only two products so far - one developed by Moderna and the other by Pfizer-BioNTech - have been authorized for emergency use. Both vaccine makers have committed all their doses until midyear. That still leaves uncovered about 60 million of adult Americans eligible to be vaccinated.

Officials also have high hopes for a third, single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. The company is finishing its clinical trial this month and its vaccine could be authorized for emergency use in February. But even if it passes those tests, it is unclear how many more doses will be ready for distribution and by when.

With the proper syringes, federal officials hope to extract an extra dose from Pfizer's vials that were initially believed to contain only five doses, stretching Pfizer's vaccine further. But the government has yet to sign contracts to supply enough of those syringes, according to two experts familiar with the vaccine distribution system.

That has made prospect of doubling the supply of Moderna doses that much more tantalizing. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, said Sunday on the CBS program "Face the Nation" that data from Moderna's clinical trials demonstrated that people ages 18 to 55 who received two 50-microgram doses showed an "identical immune response" to the standard of two 100-microgram doses.

Both Dr. Mascola and Dr. Fauci confirmed that research.

But Dr. Slaoui went a step further, saying that the F.D.A. and Moderna were already discussing the possibility. The F.D.A. issued a statement on Monday that called the proposal "premature and not rooted solidly in the available science," although worthy of clinical research.

The finding Dr. Slaoui cited came from an early Phase 2 clinical trial, which involved 600 people and was meant to test only for immune response, and not for the effectiveness of the vaccine, according to Dr. Fauci and others. It compared the immune response in people given 50 micrograms with those given 100 micrograms.

The larger Phase 3 trial that found the vaccine was 94 percent effective involved 30,000 people, half of whom were given the 100-microgram dose and half of whom were given a placebo.

To provide the F.D.A. with the kind of data it would need to approve a change in dosing, scientists must first study blood samples from patients who participated in the Phase 3 trial to determine precisely what immune response correlates with protection against Covid-19.

Then, Dr. Mascola said, researchers would have to either look back at patients from the Phase 2 trial, or conduct a new one, to demonstrate that patients who received the 50 microgram dose developed the threshold immune response. If the results looked promising, he said, "all this then needs to be put together as a data package for review and discussion with F.D.A."

Because the vaccine was developed in a climate of intense partisan polarization, any effort to shift the dosing schedule must proceed cautiously and be balanced against the risk that it could scare those who have been hesitant to to be vaccinated, experts said.

"There would need to be a very strong rationale to shift off of the dose that was used in the study, and my concern would be that it would confuse people just as acceptance is increasing for a vaccine that's 95 percent effective," said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a former deputy commissioner of the F.D.A. who now teaches at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Richard E. Besser, a former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said rigorous scientific research, clear communications about the findings and a public discussion by outside experts would be essential to making changes.

"Public trust is in short supply right now with these vaccines to begin with," he said, "and the more that there can be transparency around any changes to the approach to vaccination, the more you will be able to maintain and expand on that trust."

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Warning of Shortages, Researchers Look to Stretch Vaccine Supply

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The N.I.H. and Moderna are examining whether doses of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine can be halved to double the supply, while scientists look for other ways to extend availability. WASHINGTON - Federal officials and drugmakers, faced with a slower-than-expected rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, are racing to find ways to expand the supply, looking at lowering the required dosage and extracting more doses from the supplies they have.

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England entered a nation lockdown. It is said that one in every 50 people have covid there. Covid cases increased by 70% in the two weeks leading up to December 30th.

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What you need to know

England entered another national lockdown on Tuesday as coronavirus cases surge in the UK.

Hospitalizations in the US continue to rise following the holidays - and the case surge has also limited the vaccine rollout, officials say.

As California battles its devastating Covid-19 surge, some Los Angeles County ambulance crews were given guidance not to transport patients with little chance of survival.

The head of WHO is "very disappointed" that scientists investigating the origins of Covid-19 were prevented from entering China due to delayed paperwork.

Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has moved here.

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has tested positive for coronavirus, he announced Tuesday.

"Tonite the Office of House Physician informed me that I've tested positive for Covid 19 & am quarantined," he tweeted. "As recommended, I received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine Dec 18 & also recently tested negative for Covid on New Years Day."

Brady -- who was on the floor voting this week, including on Sunday -- added that he will "Begin treatment tomorrow" and should "be fine."

Over 50 members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19 or coronavirus antibodies, or were presumed positive.
Read more:

The federal government's Operation Warp Speed said it distributed more than 3 million coronavirus vaccines on Tuesday, meaning that the government has now distributed more than 19 million vaccines across the United States.

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration have been promising to speed up vaccine distribution. They have admitted they have fallen far short of promises to have vaccinated 20 million people by the end of 2020.

"On behalf of Operation Warp Speed, I am proud to report that today, 3,087,100 vaccines were distributed to the American people," Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said in a statement.
"Today's great work brings the total number of doses distributed to 19,141,175 over the last 21 days since the first vaccine doses showed up at administration sites."

Earlier Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 17 million vaccine doses had been distributed and more than 4.8 million people had been given their first doses of vaccine.

North Korea kicked off a rare political event that's supposed to happen every five years or so with about 5,000 people -- including leader Kim Jong Un -- gathered indoors without masks and seated close together on Tuesday.

While it's impossible to verify if face coverings were worn at any point in time, none of the images released by North Korea's state-run KCNA news Wednesdayof the Workers Party Congress show people wearing masks indoors.

From a propaganda standpoint, the images make sense: North Korea claims to not have recorded a single case of Covid-19, so holding a high-level meeting without masks is a way to reinforce that narrative.

But almost no one believes North Korea has been spared from a pandemic that has infected more than 86 million people and killed nearly 2 million. In fact, Kim's regime recognizes the danger of the virus and has gone to incredible lengths to stop its spread.

Almost all travel into the country ceased shortly after the virus emerged a year ago, and internal travel is also heavily restricted. North Korean state media regularly carries articles reminding its people on the importance of its emergency anti-epidemic campaign. And the regime reportedly had two people executed for not following Covid-19 guidelines, including a customs official who did not follow virus prevention rules while importing goods from China.

Experts believe Pyongyang is enacting a vigilant response because it knows its dilapidated healthcare infrastructure likely cannot contain a major outbreak of Covid-19.

That makes the photographs from the meeting Tuesday all the more puzzling. Perhaps North Korea believes the safeguards it put in place were good enough to allow attendees not to wear masks to the meeting. This is a unique event that North Korea does not want to postpone -- it's just the eighth Party Congress in North Korea's history and the second of Kim's tenure. The last one held before Kim took power was in 1980.

But holding it is a risk. If just one of the 5,000 people who traveled from across the country to attend the meeting had Covid-19 and was infectious, it means Kim may have just kicked off an incredibly important political meeting with a super-spreader event.

Countries around the Asia-Pacific region have closed borders and imposed strict quarantine requirements, essentially sealing themselves off from the world.

But in many jurisdictions there's a key exception to those rules: flight crews.

For months, flight crews in a number of places -- including Taiwan and Australia -- have been able to avoid the tough quarantine rules imposed on other international travelers. But rule breaches by airline staff in both places in December have prompted questions about whether exemptions for aviation workers are creating an unnecessary risk to the public.

Taiwan has now tightened its quarantine rules for flight crews, something two Australian states did in December.

But it's a tricky predicament. While health experts say that treating flight crews differently is a loophole in an otherwise tough border approach, aviation industry officials say exemptions are needed to keep the industry operating -- and avoid jeopardizing flight crews' mental health.

What happened in Taiwan? When Taiwan reported its first locally-transmitted case in more than 250 days on December 22, authorities quickly pin-pointed a foreign pilot as the source of infection.

Authorities said a New Zealand pilot in his 60s infected a woman in her 30s after completing the required three days of quarantine required for pilots, Taiwan state media CNA reported. That pilot has now been fined by Taiwanese authorities for not disclosing his complete contact history and fired by his company.

What happened in Australia? A series of incidents in December prompted questions over quarantine exemptions for flight crews. A Sydney van driver who had transported international flight crews tested positive at the start of December.

Later that month, New South Wales Police fined 13 international air crew members 1,000 Australian dollars ($760) each for going to a number of Sydney venues when they should have been quarantining. And just before Christmas, a Qantas crew member tested positive after flying into Darwin from Paris and then boarding a domestic flight.
Read the full story:

Medical regulators in Colombia have authorized Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, Colombian President Ivan Duque announced on Tuesday.

Speaking in his daily news briefing, Duque said: "This was a process completed in record time ... In less than two days, our technicians reviewed more than 22,000 pages of documents."

This is the first coronavirus vaccine that Colombia's medical authority, INVIMA, has authorized for emergency use. Duque said discussions were ongoing with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson for future authorizations of their coronavirus vaccines.

In previous statements the Colombian government announced it had secured 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that some members of the international scientific team investigating the origins of Covid-19 were told at the last minute that they did not yet have the necessary permissions to arrive in China -- including some who were already en route.

Tedros said that some members of that scientific team had already begun their travels from their home countries to China in the 24 hours prior to learning arrangements that had been agreed to between WHO, the Chinese government and countries that the team were to travel through on their way to Wuhan had not been finalized.

"I am very disappointed with this news given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute," Tedros said Tuesday, according to a transcript of his remarks on the WHO website.

The WHO Director-General went on to say he had been in contact with Chinese officials to "once again made clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team."

He added that he was given assurances that China was speeding up the internal procedure for "the earliest possible deployment."

"We are eager to get the mission underway as soon as possible," he said.

The United States reported 131,195 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

This is the 35th consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.

According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers were recorded on the following days:

1. Jan. 5: 131,195 people hospitalized

2. Jan. 4: 128,210 people hospitalized

3. Jan. 3: 125,562 people hospitalized

4. Dec. 31: 125,379 people hospitalized

5. Dec. 30: 125,218 people hospitalized

Seven people from five countries tested positive for Covid-19 after a long-haul flight from Dubai to New Zealand in late September, despite taking pre-flight precautions, according to a case study published Tuesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Five of the passengers tested negative several days ahead of the 18-hour flight, including two traveling from Switzerland who likely brought the virus onboard the plane. The rest of the passengers who later tested positive for Covid-19 sat in aisle seats up to two rows away from those traveling from Switzerland, according to the study.

Five of the seven passengers reported wearing masks and gloves, which were optional during the flight. Upon arrival in New Zealand the passengers were taken to a government quarantine facility, where they later tested positive. The study says one of the cases was likely infected in the quarantine facility by a family member who was among the other six cases.

The study serves as a cautionary counterpoint to other research suggesting that viruses don't spread easily on planes because of air circulation and filtration systems. The study authors note the system that controls the cabin air would likely be turned off for about a half-hour during a refueling stop in Malaysia.

Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that getting tested three days before traveling reduces the risk of spreading the virus by only 5 - 9%. However, testing on the day of departure may reduce that risk by 37 - 61%, according to their paper, which was posted online in November and has not been peer-reviewed.

The November paper notes that pre-departure tests "can still miss infected travelers who are in their latent period, as they may not have enough viral shedding to be detected."

There have been at least 21,007,694 total cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 356,540 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Johns Hopkins recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on Jan. 21, 2020.

Seventeen other countries have reported more than 1 million total Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.

Here's a breakdown of the countries and their total number of coronavirus cases:

India has more than 10 million total cases

Brazil has over 7 million total cases

Russia has more than 3 million total cases

France, United Kingdom, Turkey, and Italy have over 2 million total cases

Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Iran, Ukraine, Peru, and South Africa all have over 1 million total cases each

What you need to know

England entered another national lockdown on Tuesday as coronavirus cases surge in the UK.

Hospitalizations in the US continue to rise following the holidays - and the case surge has also limited the vaccine rollout, officials say.

As California battles its devastating Covid-19 surge, some Los Angeles County ambulance crews were given guidance not to transport patients with little chance of survival.

The head of WHO is "very disappointed" that scientists investigating the origins of Covid-19 were prevented from entering China due to delayed paperwork.

Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has tested positive for coronavirus, he announced Tuesday.

"Tonite the Office of House Physician informed me that I've tested positive for Covid 19 & am quarantined," he tweeted. "As recommended, I received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine Dec 18 & also recently tested negative for Covid on New Years Day."

Brady -- who was on the floor voting this week, including on Sunday -- added that he will "Begin treatment tomorrow" and should "be fine."

Over 50 members of Congress have tested positive for Covid-19 or coronavirus antibodies, or were presumed positive.
Read more:

The federal government's Operation Warp Speed said it distributed more than 3 million coronavirus vaccines on Tuesday, meaning that the government has now distributed more than 19 million vaccines across the United States.

Officials in President Donald Trump's administration have been promising to speed up vaccine distribution. They have admitted they have fallen far short of promises to have vaccinated 20 million people by the end of 2020.

"On behalf of Operation Warp Speed, I am proud to report that today, 3,087,100 vaccines were distributed to the American people," Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said in a statement.
"Today's great work brings the total number of doses distributed to 19,141,175 over the last 21 days since the first vaccine doses showed up at administration sites."

Earlier Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 17 million vaccine doses had been distributed and more than 4.8 million people had been given their first doses of vaccine.

North Korea kicked off a rare political event that's supposed to happen every five years or so with about 5,000 people -- including leader Kim Jong Un -- gathered indoors without masks and seated close together on Tuesday.

While it's impossible to verify if face coverings were worn at any point in time, none of the images released by North Korea's state-run KCNA news Wednesdayof the Workers Party Congress show people wearing masks indoors.

From a propaganda standpoint, the images make sense: North Korea claims to not have recorded a single case of Covid-19, so holding a high-level meeting without masks is a way to reinforce that narrative.

But almost no one believes North Korea has been spared from a pandemic that has infected more than 86 million people and killed nearly 2 million. In fact, Kim's regime recognizes the danger of the virus and has gone to incredible lengths to stop its spread.

Almost all travel into the country ceased shortly after the virus emerged a year ago, and internal travel is also heavily restricted. North Korean state media regularly carries articles reminding its people on the importance of its emergency anti-epidemic campaign. And the regime reportedly had two people executed for not following Covid-19 guidelines, including a customs official who did not follow virus prevention rules while importing goods from China.

Experts believe Pyongyang is enacting a vigilant response because it knows its dilapidated healthcare infrastructure likely cannot contain a major outbreak of Covid-19.

That makes the photographs from the meeting Tuesday all the more puzzling. Perhaps North Korea believes the safeguards it put in place were good enough to allow attendees not to wear masks to the meeting. This is a unique event that North Korea does not want to postpone -- it's just the eighth Party Congress in North Korea's history and the second of Kim's tenure. The last one held before Kim took power was in 1980.

But holding it is a risk. If just one of the 5,000 people who traveled from across the country to attend the meeting had Covid-19 and was infectious, it means Kim may have just kicked off an incredibly important political meeting with a super-spreader event.

Countries around the Asia-Pacific region have closed borders and imposed strict quarantine requirements, essentially sealing themselves off from the world.

But in many jurisdictions there's a key exception to those rules: flight crews.

For months, flight crews in a number of places -- including Taiwan and Australia -- have been able to avoid the tough quarantine rules imposed on other international travelers. But rule breaches by airline staff in both places in December have prompted questions about whether exemptions for aviation workers are creating an unnecessary risk to the public.

Taiwan has now tightened its quarantine rules for flight crews, something two Australian states did in December.

But it's a tricky predicament. While health experts say that treating flight crews differently is a loophole in an otherwise tough border approach, aviation industry officials say exemptions are needed to keep the industry operating -- and avoid jeopardizing flight crews' mental health.

What happened in Taiwan? When Taiwan reported its first locally-transmitted case in more than 250 days on December 22, authorities quickly pin-pointed a foreign pilot as the source of infection.

Authorities said a New Zealand pilot in his 60s infected a woman in her 30s after completing the required three days of quarantine required for pilots, Taiwan state media CNA reported. That pilot has now been fined by Taiwanese authorities for not disclosing his complete contact history and fired by his company.

What happened in Australia? A series of incidents in December prompted questions over quarantine exemptions for flight crews. A Sydney van driver who had transported international flight crews tested positive at the start of December.

Later that month, New South Wales Police fined 13 international air crew members 1,000 Australian dollars ($760) each for going to a number of Sydney venues when they should have been quarantining. And just before Christmas, a Qantas crew member tested positive after flying into Darwin from Paris and then boarding a domestic flight.
Read the full story:

Medical regulators in Colombia have authorized Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, Colombian President Ivan Duque announced on Tuesday.

Speaking in his daily news briefing, Duque said: "This was a process completed in record time ... In less than two days, our technicians reviewed more than 22,000 pages of documents."

This is the first coronavirus vaccine that Colombia's medical authority, INVIMA, has authorized for emergency use. Duque said discussions were ongoing with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson for future authorizations of their coronavirus vaccines.

In previous statements the Colombian government announced it had secured 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that some members of the international scientific team investigating the origins of Covid-19 were told at the last minute that they did not yet have the necessary permissions to arrive in China -- including some who were already en route.

Tedros said that some members of that scientific team had already begun their travels from their home countries to China in the 24 hours prior to learning arrangements that had been agreed to between WHO, the Chinese government and countries that the team were to travel through on their way to Wuhan had not been finalized.

"I am very disappointed with this news given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute," Tedros said Tuesday, according to a transcript of his remarks on the WHO website.

The WHO Director-General went on to say he had been in contact with Chinese officials to "once again made clear that the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team."

He added that he was given assurances that China was speeding up the internal procedure for "the earliest possible deployment."

"We are eager to get the mission underway as soon as possible," he said.

The United States reported 131,195 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

This is the 35th consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.

According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers were recorded on the following days:

1. Jan. 5: 131,195 people hospitalized

2. Jan. 4: 128,210 people hospitalized

3. Jan. 3: 125,562 people hospitalized

4. Dec. 31: 125,379 people hospitalized

5. Dec. 30: 125,218 people hospitalized

Seven people from five countries tested positive for Covid-19 after a long-haul flight from Dubai to New Zealand in late September, despite taking pre-flight precautions, according to a case study published Tuesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Five of the passengers tested negative several days ahead of the 18-hour flight, including two traveling from Switzerland who likely brought the virus onboard the plane. The rest of the passengers who later tested positive for Covid-19 sat in aisle seats up to two rows away from those traveling from Switzerland, according to the study.

Five of the seven passengers reported wearing masks and gloves, which were optional during the flight. Upon arrival in New Zealand the passengers were taken to a government quarantine facility, where they later tested positive. The study says one of the cases was likely infected in the quarantine facility by a family member who was among the other six cases.

The study serves as a cautionary counterpoint to other research suggesting that viruses don't spread easily on planes because of air circulation and filtration systems. The study authors note the system that controls the cabin air would likely be turned off for about a half-hour during a refueling stop in Malaysia.

Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that getting tested three days before traveling reduces the risk of spreading the virus by only 5 - 9%. However, testing on the day of departure may reduce that risk by 37 - 61%, according to their paper, which was posted online in November and has not been peer-reviewed.

The November paper notes that pre-departure tests "can still miss infected travelers who are in their latent period, as they may not have enough viral shedding to be detected."

There have been at least 21,007,694 total cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 356,540 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Johns Hopkins recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on Jan. 21, 2020.

Seventeen other countries have reported more than 1 million total Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.

Here's a breakdown of the countries and their total number of coronavirus cases:

India has more than 10 million total cases

Brazil has over 7 million total cases

Russia has more than 3 million total cases

France, United Kingdom, Turkey, and Italy have over 2 million total cases

Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Iran, Ukraine, Peru, and South Africa all have over 1 million total cases each

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By Joshua Berlinger, Adam Renton, Kara Fox, Ed Upright and Meg Wagner, CNN

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What you need to know England entered another national lockdown on Tuesday as coronavirus cases surge in the UK. Hospitalizations in the US continue to rise following the holidays - and the case surge has also limited the vaccine rollout, officials say.

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The Mega Million and Power ball Lottery have reached over 1 billion dollars combined. This is the highest prize pool each lottery has reached this year.

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Massive Power Ball and Mega Millions jackpots total nearly $1 billion

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Both the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots have climbed to their largest amounts in more than a year, nearly $1 billion combined. Some people say that if they win, they'd give many of their winnings away. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports for TODAY from Florida.

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It was just released that the Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, was tracked down by the FBI using data from her mobile phone, which a court document reveals.

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"The obvious concern is that the phones of those not intended to be targeted could be located," Prof Alan Woodward, from the University of Surrey, said. "What happens to that data is unclear. However, presumably as you need to take a few measurements in order to locate a phone, you shouldn't need to retain data on a phone that is not being targeted."

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FBI found Ghislaine Maxwell using mobile-phone data

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"The obvious concern is that the phones of those not intended to be targeted could be located," Prof Alan Woodward, from the University of Surrey, said. "What happens to that data is unclear. However, presumably as you need to take a few measurements in order to locate a phone, you shouldn't need to retain data on a phone that is not being targeted."