Europe has recorded a 60 percent drop in new coronavirus infections over the past month, the World Health Organization said Thursday, encouraging news that comes as the continent plans to reopen its borders. Still, “this progress is fragile,” a top agency official cautioned.
On Wednesday, the 27 member states of the European Union agreed that the bloc would reopen its borders to nonessential travelers who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus with an approved shot, as well as to those coming from a list of countries where the coronavirus is relatively under control.
The rules are set to become formal policy next week, and could be implemented immediately. Under the E.U. plan, the bloc would accept visitors who have completed their immunization at least two weeks before their arrival, using one of the shots approved by the union’s own regulator or by the W.H.O. That covers the vaccines from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinopharm, according to a draft of the rules seen by The New York Times.
Most countries are likely to introduce changes slowly and conservatively, but some of them, like Greece, have already removed quarantine requirements for vaccinated travelers or those who have a negative PCR test from no more than 72 hours ago. England, France, Spain, Poland, Italy and other countries in the bloc have already started easing restrictions.
The W.H.O.’s announcement of declining cases is welcome for the soon-reopening bloc, as tourists and other nonessential travelers who have been mostly barred for more than a year will be able to return and could invigorate the struggling tourism and hospitality sectors of many countries.
The number of new cases reported weekly across Europe dropped from 1.7 million in mid-April to close to 685,000 last week, reported Dr. Hans Kluge, the W.H.O.’s European director. But as regulations are relaxed, increased social gatherings and travel during the summer holiday season could result in more transmission of the virus, he said, and worrisome variants that appeared to be spreading within the bloc remained a cause for concern.
“This progress is fragile, we have been here before,” Dr. Kluge told reporters at a news conference, advising vigilance over outbreaks “that could quickly evolve into dangerous resurgences.”
The B.1.617 variant, which was first identified in India and has been deemed a variant of concern by the W.H.O., has now spread to 26 of the 53 countries the W.H.O. includes in its European region. Dr. Kluge said that although most cases of the variant were connected to international travel, transmission of the variant was occurring within Europe.
“We are heading in the right direction, but need to keep a watchful eye on a virus that has claimed the lives of nearly 1.2 million people in this region,” Dr. Kluge said.
Dr. Kluge added that the vaccines had so far been effective against variants, but that the slow vaccine rollout in Europe had only reached a small percentage of the population, and that precautions like social distancing and wearing masks were still necessary.
“Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot be blinded by that light,” he said.
President Alberto Fernández of Argentina ordered a nine-day lockdown in the hardest-hit parts of the country to help curb the spread of the coronavirus as the nation struggled to contain a second wave of the outbreak.
In a speech broadcast nationally on all radio and TV stations, Mr. Fernández ordered a lockdown that starts on Saturday and ends on May 30 in those regions. That will be followed by another nine days of restrictions, the severity of which will be determined by how much the country is able to control the spread of the virus.
“We are living the worst moment since the start of the pandemic,” Mr. Fernández said. “If we follow the guidelines, we will reduce the impact of this second wave. It is imperative that every local jurisdiction strictly apply these guidelines. There is no space for speculation and there is no time for delay.”
Argentina, like many of its neighbors in Latin America, saw an alarming spike in cases in April that has shown little respite as the region struggles to vaccinate people quickly enough to slow the spread. In the last seven days, the country’s daily average of new cases and deaths has spiked to the fourth- and fifth-highest in the world, respectively.
On Thursday, Argentina recorded 39,652 new cases and 494 new deaths. So far 18 percent of the population has received at least one dose and 4.7 percent are fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Meanwhile, neighboring Chile has fully vaccinated 40 percent of its population.
It’s not every day that an American governor appears alongside a man dressed as a lottery ball.
But that’s exactly what happened on Thursday as Gov. Larry Hogan announced that Maryland would partner with the state’s lottery to provide $2 million in prize money for residents who get vaccinated.
“Our mission is to ensure that no arm is left behind and we’re committed to leaving no stone unturned and using every resource at our disposal to achieve that goal,” Mr. Hogan said.
Beginning May 25, the Maryland lottery will randomly select and award $40,000 to a vaccinated Marylander every day through July 4, when a final drawing will be held for a grand prize of $400,000. Any Maryland resident who has been vaccinated in the state will be automatically enrolled in drawings.
“The sooner you get your shot the more lottery drawings you will be eligible for,” he said, adding that “there’s no better time than now and there should be no more excuses.”
The state has administered about 5.7 million vaccines, and 44 percent of the state is fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database. But like other states across the country, vaccination rates have tapered off. States have turned to an array of incentives — including beer, money, transit cards and joints — to get shots into the arms of more Americans.
“Promotions like this are just one more way that we’re reinforcing the importance of getting every single Marylander we can vaccinated against Covid-19,” Mr. Hogan said. All funding will be provided from Maryland’s lottery marketing fund.
“Get your shot for a shot to win,” he said, adding “that’s a good line.”
Maryland isn’t alone in trying to lure residents with the chance of big winnings. Earlier this month, Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, offered a $1 million lottery prize for five people who get vaccinated. That effort would be paid for by federal coronavirus relief funds, Mr. DeWine said during a statewide televised address.
And in New York, the state will hand out free scratch-off tickets for the “Mega Multiplier” lottery to those 18 and older who get their shot at 10 state mass vaccination sites next week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. The pilot program lasts from next Monday to Friday. The tickets could yield prizes from $20 to the $5 million jackpot, he said.
People in Africa who become critically ill from Covid-19 are more likely to die than patients in other parts of the world, according to a report published on Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet.
The report, based on data from 64 hospitals in 10 countries, is the first broad look at what happens to critically ill Covid patients in Africa, the authors say.
The increased risk of death applies only to those who become severely ill, not to everyone who catches the disease. Over all, the rates of illness and death from Covid in Africa appear lower than in the rest of the world. But if the virus begins to spread more rapidly in Africa, as it has in other regions, these findings suggest that the death toll could worsen.
Among 3,077 critically ill patients admitted to the African hospitals, 48.2 percent died within 30 days, compared with a global average of 31.5 percent, the Lancet study found.
The study was observational, meaning that the researchers followed the patients’ progress, but did not experiment with treatments. The work was done by a large team called The African Covid-19 Critical Care Outcomes Study Investigators.
For Africa as a whole, the death rate among severely ill Covid patients may be even higher than it was in the study, the researchers said, because much of their information came from relatively well-equipped hospitals, and 36 percent of those facilities were in South Africa and Egypt, which have better resources than many other African countries. In addition, the patients in the study, with an average age of 56, were younger than many other critically ill Covid patients, indicating that death rates outside the study could be higher.
Cruises from United States ports came one step closer to restarting this summer when the House approved a measure on Thursday that will temporarily allow large cruise ships to sail to Alaska and bypass a legal requirement to stop at Canadian ports, which have banned cruise ships until 2022 because of the pandemic.
Most major cruise lines had canceled their summer Alaska voyages because most of the ships are foreign-owned and under maritime law they are required to visit at least one foreign port when traveling between states. Cruises between Washington and Alaska typically stop in Canada. Canada’s ban had effectively killed the Alaskan summer cruise season, which provides many of the state’s tourism dollars.
The scenic port town of Skagway, set along a popular cruise route in southeast Alaska, usually sees close to 1.3 million tourists over the course of the summer, with $160 million flowing into its economy from the cruise industry each year.
The Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, which the House passed Thursday, was passed by the Senate last week and still needs to be signed into law by President Biden. It will allow cruise ships to sail directly to Alaska without having to visit Canada.
The development comes as a relief to the United States cruise industry, which has been grounded for over a year and is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to restart sailings by mid-July.
The C.D.C. has gradually eased restrictions for vaccinated passengers in its Conditional Sailing Order, which outlines the steps that cruise companies are required to follow to restart operations in U.S. waters. Last week the agency issued updated guidance saying that cruise lines are not required to test fully vaccinated passengers for Covid-19 before they embark on a ship or when they return to port.
Norwegian Cruise Line resumed ticket sales for voyages to Alaska after the bill passed the Senate last week and on Thursday, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and Carnival Cruise Line announced plans to resume Alaska cruises from July for fully vaccinated guests.
“We are excited to once again serve our guests from the U.S., and we express our deep gratitude to all national, state and local officials who have worked collaboratively with us, the C.D.C. and our entire industry to make this possible,” Arnold Donald, the chief executive officer of Carnival Corporation, said in a statement on Thursday.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A crush of new coronavirus infections has brought a swift end to the Covid-free normality that residents of Taiwan had been enjoying for more than a year, while many other developed countries were struggling with the pandemic.
By shutting its borders early and requiring two-week quarantines of nearly everyone who arrives from overseas, Taiwan had been managing to keep life on the island mostly unfettered. But all that changed after enough infections slipped past those high walls to cause community outbreaks.
For most of the past week, the government has ordered residents to stay home whenever possible and to wear masks outdoors, though it has not declared a total lockdown. Local authorities are expanding rapid testing, but some health experts worry that too few tests are being done to stay ahead of the virus’s spread.
Schools are closed and restaurants are offering takeout only. Lines at testing sites stretch around the block. Politicians on television urge the public to stay calm.
Taiwan’s latest statistics — between 200 and 350 new cases a day for the past several days, and a few deaths — are still low by the standards of the hardest-hit countries. But they have jolted a population that, until last Saturday, had recorded only 1,290 Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths during the entire pandemic.
Adding to the concern: Only around 1 percent of the island’s 23.5 million residents have been vaccinated against the virus so far.
“This day was bound to come sooner or later,” said Daniel Fu-chang Tsai, a professor at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine. The slow pace of immunizations combined with more transmissible variants to create a perfect “window,” Professor Tsai said, for the island to experience a flare-up.
New York ROUNDUP
New York City public health officials are now trying to reach out to unvaccinated people to overcome vaccine hesitancy in the Black and Hispanic communities.
The city’s vaccination campaign alrealy looks successful by many measures. A second virus wave is receding fast. Pandemic restrictions are loosening. About 59 percent of the city’s adults have received at least one dose.
But Black and Hispanic New Yorkers are getting vaccinated at significantly lower rates than other groups. Citywide, only about 33 percent of Black adults have gotten a vaccine dose. For Hispanic adults, the rate is 42 percent. And demand for the vaccine is dwindling.
The racial disparities are partly the result of access, with more robust health care and vaccine distribution in some neighborhoods than others. But reluctance about the vaccine, which has been well documented in conservative rural areas, also runs strong in major cities, including New York, the epicenter of the pandemic just a year ago.
City officials are urging community groups to start knocking on doors to persuade people to get vaccinated. Those who agree get appointments for vaccine shots in a temporary clinic nearby.
And the city has also hired companies to do door-to-door outreach and talk up the vaccine on street corners, largely in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
One contract went to a Virginia firm that worked on Defense Department contracts in war-torn countries before expanding into contact tracing. Some of the companies have little public health experience, including one owned by a recent New York University graduate who usually works on political campaigns.
From May through September, the city anticipates that these firms will send about 700 people a day to knock on doors and do street outreach in the hopes of reducing racial disparities and increasing overall vaccination rates, which are key to reopening efforts.
City officials say they anticipate that much of the outreach campaign’s costs, which could be up to $60 million, will be reimbursed by the federal government.
Skepticism about the vaccines’ safety is a significant factor contributing to hesitancy, especially among Black New Yorkers, interviews with more than 40 Black and Hispanic residents across the city show.
Elsewhere in the region:
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Next week, New York State will run a pop-up vaccination sites at seven New York airports that will offer the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to all U.S. residents and airport workers, the governor said Thursday. The airports include La Guardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The sites will be open on a first come, first serve basis from next Monday to Friday.
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In an effort to boost the state’s vaccination rate, New York will hand out free scratch-off tickets for the “Mega Multiplier” lottery to those 18 and older who get their shot at 10 state mass vaccination sites next week, the governor said. The pilot program lasts from next Monday to Friday. The tickets could yield prizes from $20 to the $5 million jackpot, he said. Earlier this month, Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, offered a $1 million lottery prize for five people who get vaccinated. That effort would be paid for by federal coronavirus relief funds, Mr. DeWine said during a statewide televised address.
Amanda Rosa contributed reporting.
India’s federal health ministry raised an alarm on Thursday, asking state governments to immediately report all cases of a potentially deadly fungal infection that appears to be spreading quickly among Covid-19 patients.
The rare condition, mucormycosis, commonly known as black fungus, was present in India before the pandemic, but it is affecting those with Covid or those who have recently recovered.
Many health experts blame the spread on a central coronavirus treatment, steroids. These drugs can limit inflammation of the lungs, but they also dull the response of the immune system, which can allow infections like the black fungus to take hold.
More broadly, Covid patients with weakened immune systems and underlying conditions, particularly diabetes, are especially vulnerable to black fungus, which has a high mortality rate.
Making matters worse, a shortage of antifungal drugs, like amphotericin B, has made it hard to fight the infection once it attacks. Relatives of the sick have been desperately sending messages over social media seeking the drug.
Courts are pressuring local governments to make antifungal drugs available and pushing for stepped up investigations to stop black-market drugs from being distributed.
Before the pandemic, a vial of amphotericin B would cost around $80, but some relatives of sick people say they have paid as much as $500 on the black market.
Video of a woman saying she would jump off the roof of a hospital if it failed to arrange injections of the medication for her husband spread widely on social media early this week.
The woman, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, said, “If I don’t get the injection today, then I will jump off the roof of the hospital and commit suicide. I have no other option left.” She added that the hospital had none of the medication and said of her husband, “Where should I take him in this condition?”
In the western state of Maharashtra, which includes the commercial hub of Mumbai, the authorities said at least 90 people had died of fungal infections and more than 1,500 patients were being treated in hospitals.
Rajesh Topai, the health minister of Maharashtra, told reporters on Wednesday that the state was desperate for more supplies of the medicine and begged the federal government, “do anything, but give more vials to Maharashtra.”
In Delhi, the capital, badly hit by the pandemic, hospitals have recorded 185 fungal infection cases and the local government is setting up three dedicated centers inside government-run hospitals to treat the condition.
M.V. Padma Srivastava, a professor and head of neurology department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, said the number of black fungus cases was increasing every day and the condition was appearing across the country like never before.
She said hospitals received few cases during the first wave of the pandemic but certainly not the numbers they are registering now, amid a virulent second wave.
Of the medication for the disease she said: “It is not one of the common over-the-counter medications. This is a toxic medication by itself. It can’t be given by all and sundry. It is not something which you can take at home. It needs strict monitoring of body parameters because it is a toxic drug.”
The federal government directive requiring state governments to immediately disclose cases follows those of many Indian states that had already required hospitals to report cases of mucormycosis.
Scientists have discovered a new canine coronavirus in a child who was hospitalized with pneumonia in Malaysia in 2018. If the virus is confirmed to be a human pathogen, it would be the eighth coronavirus, and the first canine coronavirus, known to cause disease in humans.
It is not yet clear whether this specific virus poses a serious threat to humans, the researchers stress. The study does not prove that the pneumonia was caused by the virus, which may not be capable of spreading between people. But the finding, which was published on Thursday in Clinical Infectious Diseases, highlights the need to more proactively search for viruses that could jump from animals into humans, the scientists said.
“I think the key message here is that these things are probably happening all over the world, where people come in contact with animals, especially intense contact, and we’re not picking them up,” said Gregory Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Duke University who is one of the study’s authors. “We should be looking for these things. If we can catch them early and find out that these viruses are successful in the human host, then we can mitigate them before they become a pandemic virus.”
Seven coronaviruses are currently known to infect humans. In addition to SARS-CoV-2, which is the causes of Covid-19, there are coronaviruses that cause SARS, MERS and the common cold. Many of these viruses are believed to have originated in bats, but can jump from bats to humans, either directly or after a stopover in another animal host.
Scientists have known for decades that coronaviruses can cause disease in dogs, and recent studies have shown that the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 can infect both cats and dogs. But there has not been any evidence that dogs transmit it, or any other coronavirus, to humans.
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