The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had distributed 102,353,940 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and administered 78,631,601 doses in the country.

The tally included both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, the agency said.

The tally posted on Feb. 28 showed the agency had administered 75,236,003 doses of the vaccines, and distributed 96,402,490 doses.

The agency said 51,755,447 people had received one or more doses, while 26,162,122 people have had the second dose as of Tuesday.

A total of 7,178,616 vaccine doses have been administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-cdc/us-administers-786-million-doses-of-covid-19-vaccines-cdc-idUSKCN2AU2DA

Johnson & Johnson is currently working on a booster to help its Covid-19 vaccine deal with coronavirus variants, CEO Alex Gorsky told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Monday.

“While we’re encouraged and we’re confident in the current vaccine that we have, you’ve always got to be preparing for the future, and frankly for the unknown," Gorsky said. "So, we’re doing that as we speak.”

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-03-01-21/h_a3a215720177e6958995c55169a94c65

The number of new cases of the deadly coronavirus in California have not been as low as the number reported Saturday since September.

State officials on Saturday reported 3,993 new cases of the virus and 157 deaths, well below the average for the past week, bringing the total number of cases in California to 3,541,67 and total deaths to 51,979.  With cases low, officials were also encouraged by the  introduction of a new vaccine by Johnson and Johnson, which the FDA authorized Saturday.

The addition of a third vaccine in the U.S. means that more than 100 million people – nearly one-third of the U.S. population – could be vaccinated by the end of March.

Across the Bay Area, the average number of cases and deaths has also fallen. On Saturday, officials in the nine-county area reported 734 new cases, below the average of 814 for this week, bringing the total to 406,301 cases. Nine people were reported to have died from the virus, well below the average of 27, for a total of 5,354 deaths.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/28/coronavirus-cases-across-california-continue-to-go-down-as-johnson-and-johnson-releases-new-vaccine/

Nearly half of the U.S. population ages 65 and older has received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, White House senior adviser Andy Slavitt said.

The U.S. has doubled the pace of vaccinations since President Biden took office on Jan. 20, Mr. Slavitt said at a briefing Friday by the White House Covid-19 response team. Nearly one in five Americans have received a first dose of the vaccine, he said.

Mr. Slavitt said he would hold a call later Friday with thousands of business owners to seek help in vaccination efforts. The administration will ask U.S. companies to offer vaccination incentives to employees, such as paid time off or compensation for those getting vaccinated; to require masking and social distancing on their premises; and to amplify messaging by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccines and mask-wearing.

The Biden administration has said it reached deals to secure enough doses to inoculate most of the American population by the end of July. On Thursday, Mr. Biden marked the 50 millionth coronavirus vaccine administered in the U.S. since he took office, which marked the halfway point of the president’s 100-day goal of 100 million doses.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nearly-half-of-u-s-population-65-and-older-has-received-a-first-covid-19-vaccine-dose-11614357767

New coronavirus infections continued their sharp decline over the past week, and are now back down to pre-Thanksgiving levels.

The big picture: Given the U.S.’ experience over the past year, it can be hard to trust anything that looks like good news, without fearing that another shoe is about to drop. But the U.S. really is doing something right lately. Cases are way down, vaccinations are way up, and that’s going to save a lot of lives.

By the numbers: On average, just under 65,000 Americans were diagnosed with coronavirus infections every day over the past week. That’s a 20% drop from the week before, and continues a steep downward trend that has lasted more than a month.

Caseloads got worse over the past week in four states — Idaho, New Hampshire, Washington and Wyoming — and improved in 34 states.

Hospitalizations were unchanged over the past week, but deaths fell by 24%. The coronavirus is now killing about 2,000 Americans per day.

The U.S. conducted an average of about 1.4 million coronavirus tests per day over the past week, and is administering about 1.4 million vaccine doses per day.

What’s next: It’s true that more contagious variants of COVID-19 could cause cases — and therefore hospitalizations and deaths — to spike again. But the best protection against that risk is to curb the virus’ spread and ramp up vaccinations — which we’re doing.

The bottom line: If we can keep this up, some form of post-pandemic life is within our reach.

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-vaccine-good-news-71bd9285-1666-4554-9aca-72342c7b5b0f.html

Throughout the pandemic, there has been perhaps nowhere more dangerous than a nursing home. The coronavirus has raced through some 31,000 long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 163,000 residents and employees and accounting for more than a third of all virus deaths since the late spring.

But for the first time since the American outbreak began roughly a year ago — at a nursing care center in Kirkland, Wash. — the threat inside nursing homes may have finally reached a turning point.

Since the arrival of vaccines, which were prioritized to long-term care facilities starting in late December, new cases and deaths in nursing homes, a large subset of long-term care facilities, have fallen steeply, outpacing national declines, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. The turnaround is an encouraging sign for vaccine effectiveness and offers an early glimpse at what may be in store for the rest of the country, as more and more people get vaccinated.

From late December to early February, new cases among nursing home residents fell by more than 80 percent, nearly double the rate of improvement in the general population. The trendline for deaths was even more striking: Even as fatalities spiked over all this winter, deaths inside the facilities have fallen, decreasing by more than 65 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/25/us/nursing-home-covid-vaccine.html

Pfizer Inc expects to deliver more than 13 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine per week to the United States by the middle of March, more than doubling its shipments from early February, a top Pfizer executive said in prepared testimony ahead of a Tuesday congressional hearing.

Pfizer is on track to deliver 120 million doses of its two-dose regimen by the end of March, said John Young, Pfizer’s chief business officer.

Pfizer is also prepared to provide a total of 300 million shots to the United States by the end of July and has raised global production expectations for 2021 to at least 2 billion doses, he said.

In his own prepared remarks, Moderna Inc President Stephen Hoge said the drugmaker plans to deliver 100 million doses of its two-dose shot by the end of March, and 300 million by the end of July.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-vaccines-idUSKBN2AM2LW?taid=6034458fc833cc0001df48fa

The U.S. vaccine supply for next month just got bigger. 

​On Tuesday, Johnson & Johnson said it will be ready next month to ship 20 million doses of its one-shot vaccine. That adds to a coming surge in vaccine availability, according to a Bloomberg analysis of drugmaker promises.

Along with vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., which both require two doses, the delivery targets through next month will be enough to fully vaccinate 130 million Americans.

Bloomberg’s analysis is based on company statements, data on the number of shots already delivered and conversations with people familiar with the efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity. The analysis assumes J&J’s shot, which hasn’t been approved yet, is cleared for use and that drugmakers meet their new delivery targets — not a guarantee.

The vaccine makers are appearing before Congress Tuesday to give an overview of the rollout so far. J&J will be ready to hand over 4 million doses upon approval and a total of 20 million doses in March, Richard Nettles, J&J’s vice president of U.S. medical affairs for infectious diseases and vaccines, told Congress Tuesday. That new promise updates an analysis Bloomberg published last week that had assumed J&J would deliver fewer shots early on.  

“We are confident in our plans to deliver 100 million single-dose vaccines to the United States during the first half of 2021, and we are continuing to partner with the U.S. government to explore all options to accelerate delivery,” Nettles said. The company should be able to produce a billion doses globally by the end of the year, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-23/more-vaccine-doses-they-re-coming-say-u-s-drugmakers

The United States has administered 57,737,767 doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Thursday morning and delivered 73,377,450 doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, the agency said.

According to the tally posted on Feb. 17, the agency had administered 56,281,827 doses of the vaccines, and distributed 72,423,125 doses.

The agency said 41,021,049 people had received one or more doses while 16,162,358 people have got the second dose as of Thursday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-cdc/u-s-administers-57-7-million-doses-of-covid-19-vaccines-cdc-idUSKBN2AI2R8

California’s coronavirus numbers continue to show signs of improvement.

The percentage of coronavirus tests that came back positive over the past seven days — a closely watched indicator for reopening the economy — has dropped to 3.5%. That’s down from over 11% a month ago.

Hospitalizations for coronavirus patients have dropped 38% over 14 days, and the rate of infection in the state has fallen to 0.65 — meaning each infected person infects fewer than one other person.

“That’s the lowest I’ve seen it,” California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Tomás Aragón said at a meeting of a state vaccine advisory committee on Wednesday. “That’s really good news.”

The falling transmission could help more counties move from California’s purple — or most-restrictive — reopening tier to the slightly-less-restrictive red tier, in which indoor dining at 25% capacity and some additional activities are allowed.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-s-coronavirus-positivity-rate-has-15957740.php