Covid-19 News: Live Updates – The New York Times

Arkansas, Delaware and Wisconsin announced plans on Tuesday to open vaccinations up to those 16 or older by next week, bringing the total to 39 states that have announced plans to open vaccinations to all adult residents by mid-April.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Republican of Arkansas, said those residents would be eligible to be vaccinated as of Tuesday and lifted the state’s mask requirements, despite an urgent call from President Biden the day before for states to keep or reimpose mask mandates, even as vaccinations increase. Wisconsin’s eligibility change goes into effect on Monday and Delaware’s on Tuesday.

Ending the mask mandate in Arkansas was “appropriate” Mr. Hutchinson said, who said that new virus cases and hospitalizations had decreased across the state. While there will no longer be a mandate, Mr. Hutchinson still urged people to continue to wear masks. “It’s important to be courteous to others and to be mindful that we need to protect ourselves and others,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday.

In Arkansas and other states, cases and hospitalizations have been declining. But the number of new virus cases has been slowly mounting across the country, including in Delaware and Wisconsin. This is adding pressure to getting more Americans vaccinated before worrisome variants spread into a possible fourth surge. In what they see as a race against time, federal health officials have been asking states not to lift restrictions prematurely.

“Don’t let the Covid-19 fatigue get the best of you when we are this close to the finish line,” Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “With eligibility opening up to all Wisconsinites next week and especially with the holiday weekend upon us, we need folks to be as diligent as ever.”

After weeks of decline earlier this year, followed by a plateau, new virus cases are rising again, with a nearly 19 percent rise on Monday compared with the number of cases two weeks earlier, according to a New York Times database.

Similar upticks in the past have led to major surges in the spread of the virus. Still, new cases and deaths have declined from the early January peak. The seven-day average of new deaths remains near 1,000 a day, and the nation surpassed 550,000 virus deaths in total on Tuesday, according to The Times database.

Federal health officials are pleading with Americans to stay vigilant, warning of a potential fourth surge as some states, like Arkansas, Texas and Florida, relax or eliminate virus restrictions.

Health officials are also concerned about variants like the one that walloped Britain, called B.1.1.7, which has led to a new wave of cases across most of Europe. The United States remains behind in its attempts to track them, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s efforts to locate them has recently improved and will continue to grow.

Mr. Biden on Monday called for governors and mayors to maintain or reinstate mask mandates and warned against “letting up on precautions” before the virus is more under control.

“We are giving up hard-fought, hard-won gains,” he said.

Some scientists predicted weeks ago that the number of infections could curve upward again in late March, at least in part because of the rise of variants of the coronavirus across the country. The B.1.1.7 variant isrising exponentially in Florida where it accounts for a greater proportion of total cases than in any other state, according to numbers collected by the C.D.C.

Hours before Mr. Biden’s warnings on Monday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., was emotional as she spoke during a news briefing. She said that while the nation had “so much reason for hope,” she could not shake the recurring feeling of “impending doom.”

“While we have so much hope on the horizon, we are just asking you to hang on just a little bit longer. Wear your masks, continue to distance and do the things that keep you safe,” Dr. Walensky said on Tuesday during a news conference at a vaccination site in Massachusetts, reiterating the pleas she made a day earlier.

Dr. Walensky’s remarks have come at a striking moment when there has been optimism about the availability and effectiveness of vaccines. Three dozen states are set to open eligibility to the general public by mid-April, well before Mr. Biden’s earlier pledge of May 1.

More than one in three American adults have received at least one shot and nearly one-fifth are fully vaccinated, but the nation is a long way from reaching so-called herd immunity, the tipping point that comes when the spread of a virus begins to slow because enough people, estimated at 70 to 90 percent of the population, are immune to it.

“We continue to be at war with the virus,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Tuesday during a news conference. As cases increase, Ms. Psaki said, the Biden administration responds in kind. She pointed the efforts to broaden vaccine eligibility across the country and increasing vaccine supplies to states.

The president on Monday pledged to have vaccination sites within five minutes from where 90 percent of adult Americans live. To do this, Ms. Psaki said, the administration is adding another 23,000 pharmacies with vaccines to the federal pharmacy program, in addition to the 17,000 pharmacies that have already been getting vaccines. She said governors were told on Tuesday that another 33 million vaccine doses will be allocated to different jurisdictions and programs.

“We know that the more people who can get vaccinated, the more accessible it is, the more effective we are going to be. And that’s where we’re putting our efforts,” Ms. Psaki said.

Apoorva Mandavilli and Allyson Waller contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — Citing what they call “the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s,” the leaders of more than two dozen countries, the European Union and the World Health Organization on Tuesday floated an international treaty to protect the world from pandemics.

In a joint article published in numerous newspapers across the globe, the leaders warn that the current coronavirus pandemic will inevitably be followed by others at some point. They outline a treaty meant to provide universal and equitable access to vaccines, medicines and diagnostics, a suggestion first made in November by Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, the body that represents the leaders of the European Union countries.

The article argues that an international understanding similar to the one that followed World War II and that led to the United Nations is needed to build cross-border cooperation before the next global health crisis upends economies and lives. The current pandemic is “a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe,” the leaders write.

The suggested treaty is an acknowledgment that the current system of international health institutions, symbolized by the relatively powerless World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations, is inadequate to the problem.

“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the leaders note. “We believe that nations should work together toward a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response.”

The treaty would call for better alert systems, data sharing, research and the production and distribution of vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment, they said.

“At a time when Covid-19 has exploited our weaknesses and divisions, we must seize this opportunity and come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis,” the leaders write. “Building our capacities and systems to do this will take time and require a sustained political, financial and societal commitment over many years.”

The article is not clear, however, about what would happen should a country choose not to cooperate fully or to delay sharing scientific information, as China has been accused of doing with the W.H.O.

China has not signed the letter, at least so far. Neither has the United States.

In a news conference on Tuesday in Geneva, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that when discussions on a treaty start, “all member states will be represented.”

Asked if the leaders of China, the United States and Russia had been asked to sign the letter, he said that some leaders had chosen to “opt in.”

“Comment from member states, including the United States and China, was actually positive,” he said. “Next steps will be to involve all countries, and this is normal,” he added. “I don’t want it to be seen as a problem.”

As well as European countries and the W.H.O., the letter’s signatories included nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

New York can begin vaccinating anyone 30 or older on Tuesday and will make all residents 16 or over eligible on April 6, beating President Biden’s goal of making every adult eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by May 1, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday.

New York was one of only a few states that had not yet set a timeline for universal adult eligibility. Five states had already expanded eligibility fully by the end of last week; six did so on Monday; seven more will follow later this week, and another six on April 5. At least 11 states have said they will wait until May 1.

Though Mr. Cuomo has gradually loosened vaccine eligibility criteria over the last month, he expressed reluctance last week to set a specific target date for doing away with the state’s requirements. The governor said he did not want to outline a timeline for more widespread vaccination until he was more confident that New York would have adequate vaccine supply on hand for its population.

“I just want to make sure that the allocation projections that we’re getting from the feds are right, frankly,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference last week. “I don’t want to say, ‘We’re going to open up to 30-year-olds in three weeks,’ and then something happens with the allocation.”

Mr. Cuomo’s announcement comes as New York has been adding new virus cases at one of the highest rates among U.S. states. As of Monday, the state had a seven-day average of 49 new virus cases a day for every 100,000 residents, according to a New York Times database, second only to New Jersey. (The nation as a whole was averaging 19 new cases per 100,000 people.)

Even as the number of new cases continues to mount, the state has not faced anywhere near the level of devastation that it experienced a year ago, when hospitals were overwhelmed with patients and morgues were overflowing.

Buoyed by its vaccination progress, the state has also been gradually reopening businesses in the last several weeks. Mr. Cuomo allowed sporting events and concerts to resume at large venues last month and movie theaters to bring back audiences this month. Restaurants in New York City are now allowed to serve diners indoors at 50 percent capacity, their highest level of indoor dining since Mr. Cuomo closed them last year at the onset of the pandemic.

As of Monday morning, 29.6 percent of people in New York State had received at least one shot of a vaccine, while 16.8 percent were fully vaccinated, according to the state’s data.

Currently, all people 50 and over are eligible to receive the vaccine in New York, in addition to teachers, some essential workers and people with certain medical conditions that make them more susceptible to serious illness from the virus.

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White House Calls for ‘Transparency’ on Pandemic’s Origin

On Tuesday, the White House called for more answers into the origins of the coronavirus, stating the report released by the World Health Organization lacked crucial data.

“The American people, the global community, the medical experts, the doctors, all of the people who have been working to save lives, the families who have lost loved ones, all deserve greater transparency. They deserve better information. They deserve steps that are taken by the global community to provide that. There are steps from here that we believe should be taken. There’s a second stage in this process that we believe should be led by international and independent experts. They should have unfettered access to data. They should be able to ask questions of people who are on the ground at this point in time. And that’s a step the W.H.O. could take. Well, the report is still being reviewed by our team of experts, 17 experts are reviewing it.” Reporter: “We know the headline of it, and it’s not sufficient.” “We agree. And we have long said, as I just stated, it lacks crucial data, information. It lacks access, it lacks transparency. It certainly — we don’t believe that in our review to date that it meets the moment, it meets the impact that this pandemic has had on the global community. And that’s why we also have called for additional forward-looking steps.”

The White House on Tuesday accused China of hampering the World Health Organization’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus and demanded Beijing be more “transparent” by providing greater access to data about the initial outbreak in late 2019.

The joint report from a W.H.O. team and Chinese scientists, released on Tuesday, was inconclusive, but surmised that the pandemic most likely began from animal-to-human transmission and began widely circulating in the city of Wuhan, China, as Chinese officials have long asserted.

Some observers, including Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have questioned that theory, arguing that the virus might have originated in a government lab, although U.S. intelligence officials have said they do not have evidence to determine where the virus came from.

“The report lacks crucial data information and access — it represents a partial and incomplete picture,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a news conference on Tuesday, adding that Chinese officials “have not been transparent, they have not provided underlying data.”

W.H.O. officials should have been given “unfettered access” and “should be able to ask questions of people who were on the ground,” Ms. Psaki said.

“That certainly doesn’t qualify as cooperation,” she added, summing up the White House view of China’s cooperation at a moment of already heightened tensions between the two nations.

Later in the day, the United States co-signed a letter with officials from Israel, Australia, Japan, Canada and Britain calling for a “transparent and independent analysis” of the origins of the virus free from “undue influence.”

At times, Ms. Psaki intermingled her criticism of Beijing with skepticism about the W.H.O.’s investigation, and the value of Tuesday’s report.

“It doesn’t lead us to any closer of an understanding or greater knowledge than we had six to nine months ago about the origin,” she said. “It also doesn’t provide guidelines or steps, recommended steps, on how we should prevent this from happening in the future. And those are imperative.”

Some of the Biden’s administration’s frustrations with China and the W.H.O. echo former President Donald J. Trump’s scathing criticism of the W.H.O. — although Mr. Biden opposed Mr. Trump’s effort to cut off federal funding to the agency or withdraw as a member over its handling of the virus crisis. Officials with the agency have argued that they have no enforcement authority, and do not have the power to demand greater cooperation from nations.

Ms. Psaki said Mr. Biden, while supportive of international health agencies, had no plans to disengage from the W.H.O., but said he had long expressed frustrations with China’s actions in the crisis.

“He believes that the American people, the global community, the medical experts, the doctors — all of the people who have been working to save lives, the families who have lost loved ones, all deserve greater transparency, they deserve better information,” she said.

Still, the Biden administration has no immediate plans to join an effort by the leaders of more than two dozen countries, the European Union and the World Health Organization to create a new international treaty to protect the world from future pandemics.

“We do have some concerns primarily about the timing and launching into negotiations for a new treaty right now,” Ms. Psaki said, “and we believe that could divert attention away from substantive issues regarding the response preparedness for future pandemic threats.”

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W.H.O. Reports Coronavirus Origin Theories

While the W.H.O. report produced by an investigative team in China left many unanswered question, it did suggest that the coronavirus probably emerged in bats.

The current thinking is still that we are looking at the start in and around Wuhan then moving backwards, trying to find out how it came there. And whether it came from another part of China or elsewhere, that will depend on the further studies and research. But because of the strong suspicion of certain bat species being the host of this virus, and having found other relatively close virus strains to SARS-CoV-2 in the region, also in Southeast Asia in general where these bats are living, is a strong indication that that’s where the source is. Of course, there was a lot of interest from both sides. And I think, as you said, of course, there was political pressure from all sides, also outside China. But I think we were able to create a space for the science, a space for the two groups of scientists that were together. We had nothing to hide. So there was no problem working in an open environment, and sharing our work and our discussions.

A World Health Organization report on the provenance of the coronavirus pandemic, released on Tuesday, has raised more questions than answers around the globe, including some from the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said he hoped future studies would include “more timely and comprehensive data sharing.”

Determining the origin of the virus could help prevent another pandemic and aid in the development of vaccines and treatments.

Here is what the Times knows about the report.

• The experts dismissed a lab leak theory. For months, scientists, politicians and others outside China have promoted the theory that the virus might have emerged after a laboratory accident in China. The experts called the theory “extremely unlikely,” after they spoke with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses a state-of-the-art laboratory known for its research on bat coronaviruses.

  Officials there assured the investigators that they were not handling any viruses that appeared to be closely related to the coronavirus that caused the recent pandemic, according to meeting notes included in the report. They also said that staff members had been trained in security protocols.

• The role of animal markets is still unclear. The expert team concluded that the coronavirus probably emerged in bats before spreading to humans through an intermediate animal, but they said there is no firm conclusion for that theory. Early in the pandemic, Chinese officials floated theories suggesting that the coronavirus outbreak might have started at the Huanan market. More than a year later, the role of animal markets in the story of the pandemic is still unclear, according to the report.

• The inquiry’s success will depend on China. The expert team offers a long list of recommendations for additional research: more testing of wildlife and livestock in China and Southeast Asia, more studies on the earliest cases of Covid-19 and more tracing of pathways from farms to markets in Wuhan. But it is unclear whether China, which has repeatedly hindered the W.H.O. inquiry, will cooperate. It took months for the country to allow a team from the global health agency to visit.

As the coronavirus forces a realignment of how people live and work, Ireland is hoping to use the moment to help struggling small towns and villages to narrow the ever-widening gap with urban centers.

The Irish government announced this week that it was prepared to spend about $1 billion to encourage people to settle in rural areas, hoping that an investment in revitalizing town centers and other incentives will lure back younger people who have for years flocked to cities, particularly Dublin.

Like other countries across Europe, the hollowing out of once vibrant villages and small towns has contributed to wider social divisions, and scholars and public policy experts have warned that the split could become a major source of tension in Western democracies.

Ireland’s proposal, “Our Rural Future,” is one of the most ambitious efforts announced in Europe to address the issue, prompted by the changes brought about by the pandemic.

Among other things, it proposes legislation that would give employees the right to request to work from home, the establishment of a network of 400 remote-working hubs, and funding for better internet connectivity nationally.

Nearly half of people in Ireland live in rural areas and small towns, but the government hopes that the proposals will lift that number.

Announcing the plan, the prime minister, Micheal Martin, said, “Ireland is heading into an era of unprecedented change, and with that comes unprecedented opportunity.”

“Over the course of the pandemic, we have discovered new ways of working and we have rediscovered our communities,” he added.

Dublin has long been a magnet for the country’s nearly five million residents, and the capital’s thriving tech hub has only made the city more desirable in recent years, particularly for younger workers.

But a shift to remote work during the pandemic, which many experts agree is likely to continue in some capacity even after the pandemic recedes, has provided an opportunity for a rethink, the government said.

The proposals announced on Monday could also have the downstream effect of easing a deep housing crisis in Dublin, where small supply and high demand have seen prices skyrocket in recent years.

Many retail and fast-food workers in states like Mississippi and Texas, where governments have removed mask mandates before a majority of people have been vaccinated and while troubling new variants of the coronavirus are appearing, are feeling a heightened anxiety.

It feels like a return to the early days of the pandemic, when businesses said customers must wear masks but there was no legal requirement and numerous shoppers refused. Many workers say that their stores do not enforce the requirement, and that if they approach customers, they risk verbal or physical altercations.

For many who work in retail, especially grocery stores and big-box chains, the mask repeals are another example of how little protection and appreciation they have received during the pandemic.

While they were praised as essential workers, that rarely translated into extra pay on top of their low wages. Grocery employees were not initially given priority for vaccinations in most states, even as health experts cautioned the public to limit time in grocery stores because of the new virus variants. (Texas opened availability to everyone 16 and older on Monday.)

The issue has gained prominence: On Monday, President Biden called on governors and mayors to maintain or reinstate orders to wear masks as the nation grapples with a potential rise in cases.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents nearly 900,000 grocery workers, said this month that at least 34,700 grocery workers around the country had contracted or been exposed to Covid-19 and that at least 155 workers had died.

The recent mass shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., has only rattled workers further and added to concerns about their own safety.

A Kroger representative said that the chain would “continue to require everyone in our stores across the country to wear masks until all our frontline grocery associates can receive the Covid-19 vaccine,” and that it was offering one-time payments of $100 to workers who received the vaccine.

The differing state and business mandates have some workers worried about more confrontations. The retail industry was already trying to address the issue last fall, when a major trade group helped put together training to help workers manage and de-escalate conflicts with customers.

As England took its first step on Monday toward lifting a national lockdown, one piece of news seemed to capture the mood of optimism: just before the regulations were eased, there had been a day with no recorded Covid deaths in London.

The figure for Saturday proved to be not quite the hoped-for zero (another metric recorded two deaths that day and a single death on Sunday), but that did little to dampen the sense that the country was turning a corner.

With the vaccination campaign chugging along — and nearly everyone over the age of 50 now offered at least a first shot — many Britons have started to dare to look forward to the reopening of nonessential services and the return of outdoor dining at restaurants and pubs, scheduled to happen on April 12.

Helped by clear spring skies in the capital on Tuesday, there were signs that the city was edging back to life after a long hibernation. Stores raised shutters and laid out goods in windows. Restaurants set out chairs. Traffic along the Thames was picking up, with the ferries starting to carry passengers.

And in parks across the city, people gathered to bat around a ball, socialize with friends or simply bask in the sun.

Still, the anticipation that the worst of the pandemic could be over was tempered by warnings from officials that, with many European countries in the grip of a fresh wave of cases, the lull in Britain could be short-lived.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “What we don’t know is exactly how strong our fortifications are.”

“Historically, there’s been a time lag,” he added, “and then we’ve had a wave ourselves.”

Vaccinations have helped create a wall against new infections, and that protection would strengthen with the second dose, according to England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, on Monday.

But, he added, it was a “leaky wall.”

A fresh surge of new coronavirus cases is taking a heavy toll in Pakistan, with Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Arif Alvi among several senior officials to have contracted the virus recently, just as the nation struggles to stem the outbreak.

As the number of cases soars, the federal government has imposed a ban on public gatherings, sports events and wedding ceremonies, starting in April.

Emergency wards of hospitals in Lahore and Islamabad have been filled to capacity with coronavirus patients, according to health workers. Several neighborhoods in both cities have been placed under strict lockdowns.

Officials said on Tuesday that at least 100 deaths had been reported in the past 24 hours. The country has recorded 14,356 deaths and 663,200 infections since the start of the pandemic.

The virus is also taking a toll in the senior ranks of the government. Mr. Khan was reported on March 20 to have become infected, while Mr. Alvi and the defense minister, Pervez Khattak, tested positive on Monday.

The president’s wife, Samina Alvi, who said she had tested negative, noted that the couple had received a first vaccine dose in mid-March, although it was not clear which vaccine.

“It takes time to develop immunity,” she wrote on Twitter.

Officials said that Mr. Khan was making a steady recovery and had been allowed to resume work.

On Tuesday, Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, the country’s former finance minister, also tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr. Khan removed him from his position on Monday because of Mr. Sheikh’s failure to stem an increasing inflation rate.

Dr. Faisal Sultan, the acting health minister, said that the four provinces of Pakistan had been given permission to independently import vaccines.

The federal government has said that it is in the process of procuring more vaccines from China, but critics have denounced the slow rollout. The vaccination drive was started this month, with people over the age of 60 and health workers eligible for doses developed by the Chinese company Sinopharm.

The German health authority responsible for vaccine guidelines recommended on Tuesday that the country suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in adults under 60 because of concerns about a possible association with blood clots. The action came a day after Canada suspended its use in people 55 and under.

Earlier in the day, a number of local authorities in Germany — including Berlin, Munich and the state of Brandenburg — had made similar moves.

A small district in North Rhine-Westphalia banned use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday for all women below the age of 55, after serious episodes last week involving two women who had received the vaccine: one, 47, died of sinus vein thrombosis and another, 28, became seriously ill.

No causative link has been established between the patients’ conditions and the vaccine.

Chancellor Angela Merkel met Tuesday evening with state governors to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine, and said that Germany would follow the recommendation and hold off using it to inoculate people under 60 unless they have discussed the risks with their doctor first.

France and several Nordic countries have also taken a precautionary stance on the vaccine, even after the European Union’s top drug regulator cleared it as safe this month. Some suspensions in Europe may have been driven as much by political considerations as by science.

In Canada, Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, the chairwoman of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, said at a video news conference on Monday that more study was needed. “Given alternative vaccines are available in Canada, N.A.C.I. feels it is very important to study the risks and benefit as a precautionary measure,” she noted.

The Canadian decision was made after reviewing evidence emerging from Germany, where the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, the country’s vaccine regulatory body, reported earlier this month that at least seven people who had recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine had developed a very rare, potentially fatal condition involving blood clots that can block the drainage of blood from the brain, associated with low blood platelet counts (thrombocytopenia) and bleeding.

(An earlier version of this item referred incompletely to the condition.)

Statistically, seven cases was significantly higher than normal for the population of 1.6 million adults that had received the vaccine in Germany by March 15, the institute said; by its calculations, just one case would have been expected.

The Canadian health authority continues to recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine for older adults, who are much more susceptible than younger people to serious cases of Covid-19, and have not appeared to develop blood clots in studies conducted in Europe, the committee members said.

“We want to prevent hospitalizations and severe disease for those over 55,” Dr. Quach-Thanh said.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, created by Oxford University, was approved in late February for use in Canada but has suffered setbacks there and elsewhere. Soon after its approval, N.A.C.I. recommended that it not be administered to people 65 and older, because of a lack of data about that age group; two weeks later, N.A.C.I. waived its initial concerns and approved the vaccine for all adults.

The vaccine was the third approved in the country, after those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Just over 300,000, or 6 percent, of the doses administered in Canada so far have been AstraZeneca’s vaccine. The Biden administration promised this month to loan Canada 1.5 million more doses of the vaccine, which still has not been approved for use in the United States.