Covid-19: California’s Governor Reserves Vaccines for Teachers

California’s governor sets aside vaccine doses for teachers.

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California Will Reserve Vaccine Doses for Teachers and School Staff

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting on March 1, California will set aside 10 percent of the state’s first doses of Covid-19 vaccine for educators and school employees.

Thirty-five counties in the state of California currently are prioritizing vaccinations for teachers and educators. We want to operationalize that as the standard for all 58 counties in the state. So effective March 1, not only are we doing that through our third-party administrator, but we are also setting aside 10 percent of all first doses, beginning with a baseline of 75,000 doses every single week that will be made available and set aside for those educators and childcare workers that are supporting our efforts to get our kids back into in-person instruction. That’s effective March 1. And the reason we can do that more formally, even though we have allowed for it over the course of the last number of weeks, is the window of visibility into the future with more vaccinations that we know are now coming from the Biden administration.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting on March 1, California will set aside 10 percent of the state’s first doses of Covid-19 vaccine for educators and school employees.CreditCredit...Dean Musgrove/The Orange County Register, via Associated Press

Under pressure to reopen classrooms in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that, starting March 1, the state will reserve 10 percent of its first doses of Covid-19 vaccines for teachers and school employees.

Noting that the federal government has been steadily increasing the state’s vaccine allotment, the governor said he would set aside 75,000 doses each week for teachers and staff members planning to return to public school campuses in person. Although California prioritizes teachers for the vaccine, supply has been an issue. Only about three dozen of the state’s 58 counties have had enough doses on hand to immunize those who work at public schools.

Most of California’s large school districts — including those in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco — have been operating remotely for the majority of students for almost a year. Mr. Newsom said reopening schools would be particularly important for single parents whose children have been learning from home.

As big school districts up and down the West Coast have mostly kept their buildings closed, Boston, New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago have been resuming in-person instruction.

New guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urge school districts to reopen have not changed the minds of powerful teachers’ unions opposed to returning students to classrooms without more stringent precautions.

In Oregon, the governor prioritized teachers and school staff members for vaccination — ahead of some older people, which went against C.D.C. guidelines.

Mr. Newsom’s announcement was aimed at appeasing California’s teachers’ unions, which have demanded vaccination as a condition of returning to what they regard as a potentially hazardous workplace. The California Teachers Association this week began airing statewide television ads noting that the coronavirus is still a threat and demanding that the state not reopen classrooms without putting safety first.

The governor, who faces a recall effort over the state’s lockdowns, was also responding to fellow Democrats who control the Legislature and who on Thursday introduced a fast-track bill to reopen schools by April 15, using prioritized vaccines for teachers and hefty financial incentives.

The legislative plan calls for spending $12.6 billion in state and federal funding to help districts cover reopening costs, summer school, extended days and other measures to address learning loss. It largely aligns with the priorities of the unions, and state lawmakers said they expect it to pass swiftly.

On Friday, Mr. Newsom said he was very pleased with the plan but felt it didn’t push districts to open fast enough, and threatened to veto the bill if it passes.

“April 15!” he exclaimed. “That’s almost the end of the school year.”

The governor also noted that the C.D.C. recently issued new guidelines saying that teacher vaccination need not be a prerequisite to reopening schools, as long as other health measures were enforced.

In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, issued an emergency order on Friday requiring schools to offer in-person instruction to all students starting March 8.

“The data and science is clear — kids can and should learn in-person, and it is safe to do so,” said Mr. Sununu in a statement. “I would like to thank all school districts, teachers and administrators who have been able to successfully navigate this path.”

Pfizer’s vaccine works well after one dose, and doesn’t always need ultracold storage.

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Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Phoenix.Credit...Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

Two positive developments this week could potentially expand access to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a time when nations around the world are trying to ramp up vaccinations.

A study in Israel showed that the vaccine is robustly effective after the first shot, echoing what other research has shown for the AstraZeneca vaccine and raising the possibility that regulators in some countries could authorize delaying a second dose instead of giving both on the strict schedule of three weeks apart as tested in clinical trials.

Although regulators in the United States have held fast to the requirement that people receive two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine three weeks apart, the British government decided to prioritize giving as many people as possible an initial dose, allowing delays of up to 12 weeks before the second dose. The Israeli study could bolster arguments for emulating that approach in other countries.

Published in The Lancet on Thursday and drawing from a group of 9,100 Israeli health care workers, the study showed that Pfizer’s vaccine was 85 percent effective 15 to 28 days after receiving the first dose. Pfizer and BioNTech’s late-stage clinical trials, which enrolled 44,000 people, showed that the vaccine was 95 percent effective if two doses were given three weeks apart.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases and an adviser to President Biden, said at a White House news conference on the pandemic on Friday that the results of the study are not significant enough to change the U.S. recommendations.

He pointed out that the people in the study were on the younger and healthier side and the researchers could not say how long the protection from one shot of the vaccine would last. He also said it was possible that a less-than-optimal dose might not kill the most powerful variants of the virus, theoretically allowing them to spread more quickly in the population.

“We want the public not to be confused. The recommendation from the F.D.A. is two doses, just as it always has been,” Andy Slavitt, a White House virus adviser, said during the briefing.

Pfizer and BioNTech also announced on Friday that their vaccine can be stored at standard freezer temperatures for up to two weeks, potentially expanding the number of smaller pharmacies and doctors’ offices that could administer the vaccine, which now must be stored at ultracold temperatures.

In a statement, the companies said they have submitted the new temperature data to the Food and Drug Administration, which would need to sign off on guidance to providers that would allow them to store the vaccines at the new temperatures.

Distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been complicated by the requirement that it be stored in freezers that keep the vaccines between -112 and -76 degrees Fahrenheit. The vaccines are shipped in a specially designed container that can be used as temporary storage for up to 30 days, if it is refilled with dry ice every five days. The vaccine can also be refrigerated for up to five days in a regular refrigerator, if it has not yet been diluted for use in patients.

A similar vaccine from Moderna, by contrast, can be stored in standard freezers and then in a refrigerator for up to 30 days, which has allowed it to be used more readily at smaller vaccination sites.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday about 41 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including about 16.2 million people who have been fully vaccinated.

Tracking the Coronavirus ›

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Many U.S. states are clawing back vaccine doses from unused stockpiles for nursing homes and second doses.

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Portable freezer containers in which Covid-19 vaccines are shipped in Fargo, N.D.Credit...Tim Gruber for The New York Times

In states across the country, officials are trying to pry loose millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine that have been sitting in freezers because they were allocated in excess to nursing homes or stockpiled for second doses.

Federal officials estimate that as many as six million doses are unnecessarily stowed away. Freeing them up could increase the number of doses administered by more than 10 percent — significantly stepping up the pace of the nation’s inoculation program at a time when speed is of the essence to save lives, curb disease and head off more contagious variants of the virus.

So far, 56 million shots have been administered in the United States, and only 12 percent of the population have received one or more doses. And the idea that doses are sitting in cold storage while millions of people languish on waiting lists has deeply frustrated government officials.

Part of the problem stems from when the federal vaccination program for long-term-care facilities began late last year. At the time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based allotments on the number of beds, even though occupancy rates are the lowest in years. Then the C.D.C. doubled that allotment to cover staff. But while four-fifths of long-term-care residents agreed to be vaccinated in the first month of the program, 63 percent of staff members refused, the agency reported. More have since agreed, although exactly how many is not clear.

Despite the lack of uptake, the pharmacy chains that administer the program continued tapping their allotments from the federal government. At one point in Virginia, they had used fewer than one in every three doses they had on hand, according to Dr. Danny Avula, the state’s vaccine coordinator.

The New York Times surveyed all 50 states, and found that at least 20 said they had shifted or planned to shift doses that had been set aside for long-term-care facilities.

The get-tough approach has begun to pay off. The gap between the number of doses shipped to states and the number injected into arms is narrowing: More than three-fourths of the doses delivered are now being used, compared with less than half in late January, according to the C.D.C.’s data tracker.

And many doses have been held back for second shots, though the White House has discouraged the practice and is providing three-week projections of supply as reassurance that they will not come up short.

California’s small business owners, suffering from the lockdown, push to recall Governor Newsom.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom of California speaks at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara this month about the conversion of the stadium to a mass vaccination facility. Since March, 1.5 million Californians have signed a petition to oust Mr. Newsom.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

California was one of the earliest states to go into lockdown last spring, and it is now emerging from a second lockdown, which started in December. That stop-start-stop has created a groundswell of anger toward Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat in the third year of his first term, that is increasingly fueling a movement to recall him from office in one of the bluest of blue states.

Since March, 1.5 million Californians have signed a petition to oust Mr. Newsom, enough to trigger an election for a new governor. If enough of the signatures are verified, it will be the fourth recall election of a governor in American history.

The recall campaign has been funded by the Republican National Committee, which committed $250,000, as well as Silicon Valley tech investors such as Chamath Palihapitiya, who donated $100,000. Small-business owners have also been an engine behind the effort, said Randy Economy, the spokesman for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign.

“He’s broken the back of small-business owners and put many of them out of business for the rest of their lives,” Mr. Economy said.

Nearly 40,000 small businesses had closed in the state by September — more than in any other state since the pandemic began, according to a report compiled by Yelp. Half had shut permanently, far more than the 6,400 that had closed permanently in New York.

Few of the pandemic choices that Mr. Newsom has faced have been easy. California has suffered enormously from Covid-19, with more than 3.5 million cases and 47,000 deaths.

Dan Newman, a political strategist for Mr. Newsom, said the governor was focused on vaccinations and reopening the state. Mr. Newman blamed “state and national G.O.P. partisans” for supporting “this Republican recall scheme in hopes of creating an expensive, distracting and destructive circus.”

In places such as Los Angeles County, where Mr. Newsom won 72 percent of the vote in 2018, and neighboring Orange County, a more conservative area, the small-business anger is particularly intense. One local business owner leading the movement to open California’s economy is Andrew Gruel, 40, a chef who owns Slapfish, a seafood restaurant chain.

Mr. Gruel argued in an interview last month that California’s lockdown rules were confusing and hurt small businesses disproportionately. “None of the rules make sense,” he said one afternoon from the Slapfish in Huntington Beach.

As evidence, Mr. Gruel pointed to the Walmart just up the road. While local restaurants could not have diners sit outside in the first lockdown, even six feet apart and with plexiglass between them, a Burger King inside the Walmart remained open, he said.

“And that was legal,” he said. “It’s like W.W.E. in there, people cross-body blocking each other for B.K. delight.”

Thomas Fuller contributed reporting.

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Under fire in a scandal over nursing home deaths, Cuomo again lashes out and draws a new critic.

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Cuomo Addresses Nursing Home Investigation

At a news conference on Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pushed back on accusations that there had been a purposeful delay in reporting coronavirus deaths in nursing homes across the state.

This is a horrendous situation. But I want you to have the facts, because I don’t want you to have more pain from this noise. All the information that the state put out about all the deaths — hospital deaths and nursing home deaths from Day 1, this is how many people died in hospitals. This is how many people died in nursing homes. Total deaths, the same number. This information of total deaths was provided always. We get a request from the Department of Justice in August, with other Democratic governors only, by the way, nursing home deaths happened nationwide — Democratic states, Republican states. We get a request letter from the Department of Justice, same day, just Democratic governors. OK, I guess that was coincidental. I guess that wasn’t political by the Trump Justice Department. We provided the Department of Justice with truthful information in our response. It is a lie to say any numbers were inaccurate. That is a lie. Total deaths were always reported to nursing homes and hospitals.

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At a news conference on Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pushed back on accusations that there had been a purposeful delay in reporting coronavirus deaths in nursing homes across the state.CreditCredit...Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Trying to quell a growing outcry over the state’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday launched into a 90-minute defense of his actions while lashing out at critics he said were operating in a “toxic political environment.”

Mr. Cuomo said he understood the outrage over his monthslong undercounting of deaths in those facilities, but insisted no state policy contributed to that toll. At the same time, however, the governor unveiled a series of reforms to address the management and safety of nursing homes, saying, “that is the only way families will have peace of mind.”

Mr. Cuomo’s remarks, during an hour-and-a-half news conference in the State Capitol, came as he faced one of the biggest political crises of his decade-long tenure, including a federal investigation of his administration and a move by the governor’s fellow Democrats to strip him of the unilateral emergency powers he has exercised during the pandemic.

On Friday, another prominent Democrat, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens, joined a chorus of lawmakers backing investigations into the state’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, noting that “thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers lost their lives.”

“Their loved ones and the public deserve answers and transparency from their elected leadership,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement, issued during Mr. Cuomo’s news conference.

The count of deaths is at the heart of the issues confronting the Cuomo administration. For months, the state now concedes, the official death tally of residents in nursing homes and long-term care facilities was greatly underreported. The state counted the total losses, but they were attributed to the hospitals where the patients died, not the facilities where they had lived, effectively hiding the toll the pandemic took on those facilities.

But in the wake of a scathing report three weeks ago from the state attorney general, Letitia James, suggesting a major undercount of deaths of nursing home and long-term care residents, the state has now updated those numbers, to more than 15,000 from about 8,500 in late January.

On Friday, Mr. Cuomo again said he accepted blame for that undercount — “I take responsibility for all of it, period,” he said. In particular, the governor has said repeatedly, his lack of candor in releasing accurate data had created a space for false information to be propagated.

“We created a void by not producing enough public information fast enough,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding, “and conspiracy theories, and politics and rumors fill the void.”

But he simultaneously sought to reframe the debate, saying the criticism of him constituted politically motivated attacks by Republicans and others operating in a “toxic political environment.”

Mr. Cuomo had repeated a similar message for much of the week, but the crisis did not show signs of abating.

Earlier in the week, Mr. Cuomo verbally attacked a Queens assemblyman, Ron T. Kim, after he told reporters for The New York Times and CNN that Mr. Cuomo had berated him during a call, threatening to publicly tarnish the assemblyman and urging him to issue a statement to change remarks he had made about the nursing home issue.

The vaccines are quite safe, and side effects are rare, the C.D.C. reports.

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A dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was drawn into a syringe at the Community Center in Rohnert Park, Calif.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The two coronavirus vaccines authorized for use in the United States are reassuringly safe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.

As of Thursday, some 41 million Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine; about 16.2 million people have been fully vaccinated. But some people remain wary, concerned that the vaccines may have been rushed to market or that side effects may have gone unnoticed.

The new data provide ample evidence that the vaccines are safe, although adverse reactions have occurred in a few patients.

The C.D.C. gathered reports from a long established national surveillance network and a new safety monitoring system, called V-Safe, created specifically to track the coronavirus vaccines. Participants volunteer to enroll and fill out daily surveys reporting symptoms.

The surveillance is neither uniform nor complete, but the tracking effort nonetheless is “the most intense and comprehensive in U.S. history,” the agency said.

From Dec. 14, to Jan. 13, nearly 14 million doses of the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were administered, mostly to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities.

There were nearly 7,000 reports of adverse events, the C.D.C. reported, but 91 percent were not serious. The adverse events were consistent with those seen in clinical trials of the vaccines. The most common side effects were headaches, fatigue, muscle aches, chills and dizziness. They tended to occur on the day after people got vaccinated.

The C.D.C. reported data on second-dose reactions only for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, finding that they were more frequent than seen after the first dose.

Deaths following vaccination have been rare — just 113 were reported — and they appeared to be coincidental, unrelated to the vaccines. Seventy-eight deaths occurred among residents of long-term care facilities. Half of those residents were already in hospice or had a do-not-resuscitate order at the time of vaccination.

There have been scattered reports that the vaccines may elicit anaphylaxis, an extreme and potentially deadly allergic reaction to the vaccines. It is the reason people given the shots are asked to remain on site for short periods for monitoring.

The C.D.C. found that there were 4.5 incidents of anaphylaxis per million people receiving inoculations. The incidence is similar to that seen with other vaccines, including those for influenza, pneumococcus and shingles. And anaphylaxis can be effectively and quickly treated, the report noted.

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N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments will welcome fans after all.

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The 2015 men’s Final Four game in Indianapolis, Ind. This year’s men’s N.C.A.A. tournament will be played entirely in Indianapolis and San Antonio before crowds of up to 25 percent capacity.Credit...David J. Phillip/Associated Press

The N.C.A.A. announced on Friday that it would welcome fans — tens of thousands of them — to Indianapolis and San Antonio, where the entire men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are to be held this season, in a move that will generate millions in ticket revenue but risk further spread of the coronavirus to and from far-flung regions of the country.

The 68-team men’s tournament, which begins on March 18, will be played in Indianapolis before crowds of up to 25 percent capacity at sites ranging from the quaint 9,100-seat Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the movie “Hoosiers” was filmed, to the cavernous Lucas Oil Stadium, which in a normal year could hold up to 70,000 fans for the regional finals and the Final Four. (An earlier version of this briefing referred to the stadium incorrectly as the Lucas Oil Fieldhouse.)

The 64-team women’s tournament, which begins on March 21, will allow up to 17 percent capacity from the regional semifinals through the championship final in San Antonio. Those games will be played at the Alamodome, which has a 31,900-seat capacity for basketball. (Crowds at the first- and second-round games, some of which will be played in small arenas, will be limited to several hundred friends and family members.) The capacity limits were decided after consultation with local health authorities, the N.C.A.A. said.

Still, several public health experts said they were baffled by the decision.

“I can’t see any good reason to do that, and I can see a lot of bad reasons to do that,” said John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied infectious diseases and served as an adviser for the Pac-12 Conference. “Bringing people from all over the country to a congregate setting is just nuts.”

The N.C.A.A. made the decision to move its entire tournaments, which are each normally played at more than a dozen sites around the country, to Indianapolis and San Antonio to create a more restrictive environment for the dozens of teams involved and give the single-elimination tournaments a greater chance of avoiding interruptions because of positive tests.

Biden says the United States could be ‘approaching normalcy by the end of this year.’

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Biden Promises Vaccines for All Americans by the End of July

After touring a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Friday, President Biden emphasized the safety of approved coronavirus vaccines and said there would be enough available for all Americans by the end of July.

I came here because I want the American people to understand the extraordinary, extraordinary work that’s being done to undertake the most difficult operational challenges this nation has ever faced. And let me say parenthetically that it’s not enough that we find cures for Americans. There needs to be cures that the world is able to take part in because you can’t build a wall or fence high enough to keep a pandemic out. We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for all Americans by the end of July. It doesn’t mean will be in all Americans’ arms, but enough vaccine will be available by that time. And I know people want confidence that it’s safe. Well, I just toured where it’s being made. It takes more time to do the check for safety than it does actually to make the vaccine. That’s how fastidious they are. But if there’s one message to cut through to everyone in this country is this, the vaccines are safe. Please, for yourself, your family, your community, this country, take the vaccine when it’s your turn and available. That’s how to beat this pandemic.

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After touring a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Friday, President Biden emphasized the safety of approved coronavirus vaccines and said there would be enough available for all Americans by the end of July.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Biden said Friday that he was “confident” the United States would surpass his goal of putting 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots into the arms of Americans during his first 100 days in office, and predicted that the nation would be “approaching normalcy by the end of this year.”

The president’s remarks, during a visit to the Pfizer manufacturing facility outside Kalamazoo, Mich., come as he is under increasing pressure to clarify his administration’s message about when his vaccination campaign will be broad enough to reach every American. He tempered his comments with caution.

“I believe we’ll be approaching normalcy by the end of this year, and God willing this Christmas will be different than last,” he said, “but I can’t make that commitment to you.”

Governors in both parties have been pressing the Biden administration for clearer and consistent messaging about the timeline for the vaccination campaign. Last week, Mr. Biden struck a careful note, saying he did not expect that every American would be vaccinated by the end of the summer.

This week, he said there would be enough vaccine available by the end of July to do so.

Mr. Biden’s visit came after he attended a virtual meeting with fellow leaders of the Group of 7 nations earlier in the day. There, he promised that the United States would renew its bonds with Europe and pledged to donate $4 billion to an international vaccine effort. In Kalamazoo, he spoke of the importance of fighting the pandemic beyond the United States’ borders.

“It’s not enough that we find cures for Americans,” the president said, adding, “You can’t build a wall or a fence high enough to keep a pandemic out.”

The winter storm this week has delayed the shipment of six million vaccine doses, adding a layer of frustration to an already fraught situation. Earlier this week, the National Governors Association sent a letter to Mr. Biden, praising the administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, Jeffrey D. Zients, for “doing great work,” but also asking for better coordination between the federal government and the states. Mr. Zients accompanied Mr. Biden to Michigan.

Mr. Biden has repeatedly promised to get 100 million shots into Americans’ arms by his 100th day in office. His pledge appeared ambitious when he first made it before Election Day, but has more recently been criticized as not ambitious enough.

The country is now vaccinating an average of 1.7 million people a day, and Mr. Biden said the country was “on track to surpass” the 100 million goal.

Mr. Biden was introduced by Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, who said his employees had been “working around the clock” to ramp up vaccine manufacturing and accelerate delivery. Pfizer, in partnership with BioNTech, is one of two companies that have emergency authorization to sell coronavirus vaccines in the United States. The other is Moderna.

Mr. Bourla said that over the next few weeks, Pfizer expected to increase the number of doses for the United States from five million to more than 10 million per week, and that it would provide the government a total of 200 million doses by the end of May, two months ahead of schedule.

Mr. Biden appealed to Americans to be patient as they waited for the vaccine. “I can’t give you a date when this crisis will end, but I can tell you we are doing everything possible to have that day come sooner rather than later,” he said. He also pleaded with Americans to take the vaccine if it is offered to them, and repeatedly vouched that it would help rather than harm them.

“I know people want confidence that it’s safe,” he said. “Well, I just toured where it’s being made. It takes more time to do the check for safety than it does actually to make the vaccine. That’s how fastidious they are.”

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House Budget Committee unveils a 600-page, $1.9 trillion economic relief bill.

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Biden Challenges Detractors of His Coronavirus Relief Bill

President Biden on Friday called on Republicans who have complained that his $1.9 trillion economic relief package is too large to name which specific provisions they would prefer to cut from the bill.

We need Congress to pass my American Rescue Plan that deals with the immediate crisis, the urgency. Now, critics say my plan is too big, that it cost $1.9 trillion, that’s too much. Let me ask them, what would they have me cut? What would they have me leave out? Should we not invest $20 billion to vaccinate the nation? Should we not invest $290 million to extend unemployment insurance for the 11 million Americans? Should we not invest $50 billion to help small businesses stay open when tens of thousands have had to close permanently? If we don’t pass the American Rescue Plan, 40 million Americans will lose nutritional assistance through a program we call SNAP, the old food stamp program. Do we not invest $3 million — $3 billion to keep families from going hungry? I’m grateful that the Senate and the House are moving quickly, and I’m prepared to hear their ideas on how to make the package better and make it cheaper. I’m open to that. But we have to make clear who is helped and who is hurt.

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President Biden on Friday called on Republicans who have complained that his $1.9 trillion economic relief package is too large to name which specific provisions they would prefer to cut from the bill.CreditCredit...Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

The House Budget Committee on Friday unveiled the nearly 600-page text of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief proposal as Democrats raced toward approving help for workers, schools and businesses in a House vote next week.

The Senate will take up the legislation soon after.

In a letter to Democrats on Friday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, vowed that the Senate would pass the bill before unemployment benefits begin to lapse in mid-March. He defended the Democrats’ fast-tracking of the legislation.

“If Republicans are ready to work with Democrats on constructive amendments that will improve the bill, we are ready to work,” Mr. Schumer wrote. “However, we must not allow Republican obstructionism to deter us from our mission of delivering help to Americans who desperately need this relief.”

Republican leaders, who have been searching for a way to derail the proposal even though polls show a large majority of Americans support it, on Friday labeled it a “payoff to progressives.” They said the bill spent too much and included a liberal wish list of programs like aid to state and local governments, which they called a “blue state bailout” even though many states facing shortfalls are controlled by Republicans.

They also objected to the bill’s increased unemployment benefits, which they argued would discourage people from looking for work.

The attacks followed weeks of varying Republican objections to the package, including warnings that it would add to the federal budget deficit, unleash inflation and, they said, do little to help the economy recover and grow.

Republicans also said Democrats were violating Mr. Biden’s calls for “unity” by proceeding without bipartisan consensus.

“Critics say my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion,” Mr. Biden said at an event in Michigan on Friday. “Let me ask them, what would they have me cut?”

G7 nations increase their pledges for a global vaccination campaign to $7.5 billion.

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President Biden delivering remarks at the White House last month on the fight to contain the pandemic. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

An international effort to speed up the manufacture and distribution of coronavirus vaccines around the globe has gotten a boost.

On Friday, during a virtual meeting with other leaders from the Group of 7 nations, President Biden said that his administration would make good on a U.S. promise to donate $4 billion to the global vaccination campaign over the next two years. Other leaders also announced pledges, and at the end of the meeting, the European Union’s chief executive said that new commitments from the E.U., Japan, Germany and Canada had more than doubled the G7’s total support to $7.5 billion.

The World Health Organization released a statement welcoming the additional pledges for the campaign, known as Covax, and noting that commitments for the program now total $10.3 billion — but also saying that a funding gap of $22.9 billion remained for the campaign’s work this year.

The Covax effort has been led by the public-private health partnership known as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the World Health Organization. It aims to distribute vaccines that have been deemed safe and effective by the W.H.O., with a special emphasis on providing them to low- and middle-income countries.

Public health experts often say that unless everyone is vaccinated, it’s as if no one is vaccinated.

So far, the United States has pledged more money than any other nation, with at least one official noting that diminishing the pandemic’s global impact would benefit the country’s own economy and security. White House officials said the money would be delivered in multiple tranches: an initial donation of $500 million right away, followed shortly by an additional $1.5 billion. The remaining $2 billion will delivered by the end of 2022. The funds were approved last year by a Republican-led Senate when President Donald J. Trump was still in office.

Mr. Biden’s engagement in the global fight against the pandemic stands in stark contrast to the approach of Mr. Trump, who withdrew from the World Health Organization and disdained foreign assistance, pursuing a foreign policy he called “America First.” Mr. Biden rejoined the World Health Organization immediately after taking office in January.

National security experts have said the United States should consider donating vaccine doses to poorer countries, as India and China are already doing in an effort to expand their global influence. But an official said that the U.S. would not be able to share vaccines while the American vaccination campaign is still continuing to expand.

The global vaccination effort also stands to benefit from a commitment by the pharmaceutical company Novavax, whose coronavirus vaccine is still in trials.

Under a memorandum of understanding between Gavi and Novavax, the company agreed to provide “1.1 billion cumulative doses,” though it did not specify a time frame. The vaccine will be manufactured and distributed globally by Novavax and the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

Novavax is expected to provide vaccines primarily to high-income countries, the company said in its announcement, while the Serum Institute will supply “low-, middle, and upper-middle-income countries,” using “a tiered pricing schedule.”

Novovax recently reported that its vaccine showed robust protection in a large British trial, but was less effective against the variant of the virus first identified in South Africa. Trials are also underway in the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

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One vaccine shot could be enough for people who’ve already had Covid-19, studies suggest.

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A Covid vaccination being administered in Fargo, N.D., in December.Credit...Tim Gruber for The New York Times

New studies show that people who have had Covid-19 should only get one shot of a vaccine, a dose that is enough to turbocharge their antibodies and destroy the coronavirus — and even some more infectious variants.

Some researchers are trying to persuade scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend only one dose for those who have recovered from Covid-19, a move that could free up millions of doses at a time when vaccines are in high demand.

At least 30 million people in the United States — and probably many others whose illnesses were never diagnosed — have been infected with the coronavirus so far.

The results of these new studies are consistent with the findings of two others published over the past few weeks. Taken together, the research suggests that people who have had Covid-19 should be immunized — but a single dose of the vaccine may be enough.

A person’s immune response to a natural infection is highly variable. Most people make copious amounts of antibodies that persist for many months. But some people who had mild symptoms or no symptoms of Covid-19 produce few antibodies, which quickly fall to undetectable levels.

The latest study, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, analyzed blood samples from people who have had Covid-19. The findings suggested that their immune systems would have trouble fending off B.1.351, the coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa.

But one shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine significantly changed the picture: It amplified the amount of antibodies in their blood by a thousandfold.

In another new study, researchers at New York University found that a second dose of the vaccine did not add much benefit at all for people who have had Covid-19 — a phenomenon that has also been observed with vaccines for other viruses.

In that study, most people had been infected with the coronavirus eight or nine months earlier, but saw their antibodies increase by a hundredfold to a thousandfold when given the first dose of a vaccine. After the second dose, however, the antibody levels did not increase any further.

Six million vaccine doses were delayed by bad weather, the White House said.

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Winter Storms Delayed Delivery of 6 Million Vaccines, White House Says

Andy Slavitt, a White House pandemic adviser, said a backlog of coronavirus vaccine shipments caused by severe winter storms across the country were expected to be delivered in the next week.

We have a backlog of about six million doses due to the weather. All 50 states have been impacted. The six million doses represents about three days of delayed shipping. There are three places along the distribution chain that have been impacted by the weather. First, FedEx, UPS and McKesson, our logistics and distribution teams, have all faced challenges as workers have been snowed in and unable to get to work to package and ship the vaccines, kits and the required diluent. Second, road closures have held up delivery of vaccines at different points in the distribution process — between manufacturing sites to distribution and to shipping hubs. Third, more than 2,000 vaccine sites are located in areas with power outages, so they’re currently unable to receive doses. Because of 72-hour cold-chain constraints, we don’t want to ship doses to those locations and have them sitting at a site where they might expire. So the vaccines are sitting safe and sound in our factories and hubs, ready to be shipped out as soon as the weather allows. Now, as weather conditions improve, we’re already working to clear this backlog: 1.4 million doses are already in transit today, and we anticipate that all the backlog doses will be delivered within the next week. We’re asking vaccine administration sites to extend their hours even further, and offer additional appointments and to try to reschedule the vaccinations over the coming days and weeks as significantly more supply arrives.

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Andy Slavitt, a White House pandemic adviser, said a backlog of coronavirus vaccine shipments caused by severe winter storms across the country were expected to be delivered in the next week.CreditCredit...James Estrin/The New York Times

The White House on Friday said that six million doses of coronavirus vaccines had been held up because of snowstorms across the country, creating a backlog affecting every state and throwing off the pace of vaccination appointments over the next week.

Andy Slavitt, a White House pandemic adviser, said at a news conference that the six million doses represented about three days’ worth of shipping delays, and that states had already made up for some of the backlog with existing stock. Of the six million doses, 1.4 million were already in transit on Friday, he said, and the rest were expected to be delivered in the next week.

But Mr. Slavitt pleaded with local officials to make up for the lost time in the coming days.

“We’re asking vaccine administration sites to extend their hours even further and offer additional appointments and to try to reschedule the vaccinations over the coming days and weeks as significantly more supply arrives,” he said.

The delay revealed how interconnected the nation’s vaccine distribution network is, vulnerable to substantial interruptions because of extreme weather. Mr. Slavitt said that FedEx, UPS and McKesson — the drug distribution giant that manages Moderna’s vaccine — had been impeded, with workers snowed in and unable to package and ship vaccines, including the kits and diluent that go with them.

FedEx and UPS would make Saturday deliveries this week, he said.

Closed roads on delivery routes were also forming a bottleneck, and more than 2,000 vaccination sites located in areas with power outages could not receive doses. That prompted federal officials to hold off shipping to areas that might not be able to keep them at the frigid temperatures required.

“They’re sitting safe and sound in our factories and hubs, ready to be shipped out as soon as the weather allows,” Mr. Slavitt said.

Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had projected “widespread delays” in vaccine shipments and deliveries because of weather affecting a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS facility in Louisville, both vaccine shipping hubs.

Shipment delays had already been reported in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington, among other states, forcing vaccine sites to temporarily shutter and coveted appointments to be rescheduled.

In Texas, where millions of residents lost power during this week’s powerful storm, a delivery of more than 400,000 first doses and 330,000 second doses had been delayed in anticipation of the bad weather. A portion of those shots — roughly 35,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine — were sent to providers in North Texas on Wednesday, but shipments will continue to depend on safety conditions.

Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Thursday that the state was “asking providers that aren’t able to store vaccine due to power outages to transfer it elsewhere or administer it so it doesn’t spoil.”

On Monday, health officials in Texas scrambled to get more than 5,000 shots into arms after a power outage in a storage facility where they were being kept. But Mr. Van Deusen said that “reports of vaccine spoiling have been minimal.”

The Houston Health Department said Thursday that it would restart vaccinations for second doses this weekend, and schedule additional first and second dose appointments next week.

In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Friday that nearly all of the vaccines that were supposed to be delivered by the federal government had been delayed by the snow. He said the Pfizer vaccines would now arrive on Monday, and Moderna’s would likely arrive in the middle of next week.

No appointments at state-run vaccination sites have been rescheduled so far, he said, though he suggested it was possible if the vaccines did not arrive soon.

“If there is any impact, we’ll let you know right away,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference he held earlier Friday.

The governor had said on Thursday night that most of the vaccines for New York, scheduled for delivery between Feb. 12 and Feb. 21, had been delayed.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Friday during an interview on WNYC that expected shipments of more than 100,000 doses had still not fully arrived from factories, but did not provide an update on when they would come. On Thursday he had said at a news conference that “a vast majority of the resupply we expected for this week has not shipped from the factories yet.”

The city had to hold off on scheduling upward of 35,000 appointments for first vaccine doses because of shipment delays and vaccine shortages, he said then. The opening of two new distribution sites on Thursday had also been postponed, according to the city, with the launch of one at the Empire Outlets on Staten Island moved back to Friday and another in Queens still delayed.

“We still haven’t gotten everything we expect,” Mr. de Blasio said on Friday. “Everything’s been disrupted by the storm.”

In Los Angeles, the city said that appointments for about 12,500 people would be delayed.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said that while 136,000 Pfizer doses had arrived this week, the state had still not received its shipment for the week of 200,000 Moderna doses. He said the shipment could be delayed as late as Monday.

“Because the storms we are seeing in the rest of the country, it’s basically sitting in the FedEx warehouse — and I don’t think they can even get into it because of everything,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday, encouraging those who had appointments rescheduled to “hang in there, the doses are going to get here.”

The White House on Friday also announced the opening of four new federally-supported community vaccination sites in Florida — in Orlando, Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville — that would be able to vaccinate 12,000 people each day. Another new site in Philadelphia would have the capacity to vaccinate 6,000 people a day. All sites would be functioning within two weeks, Mr. Slavitt, the White House adviser, said.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Troy Closson, Amanda Rosa and Mihir Zaveri contributed reporting.

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Are N.Y.C. customers ready for indoor dining again? Cuomo is expanding the capacity to 35 percent next Friday.

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Cuomo Announces Restaurants Can Increase Capacity

On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that restaurants in New York City would be increasing indoor dining capacity to 35 percent due to a decrease in coronavirus cases.

Now is the time to start doing more reopening. If the numbers change, if those dials change, then you close the valve, which we have done a number of times. This has been a constant calibration by data, by data to what the virus is doing. Virus moves left. We move left. Virus moves right, we move right. Reopening New York City restaurants — are now at 25 percent to 50 percent statewide. They’re 50 percent in Connecticut. They’re 50 percent on Long Island. New York City was closed. New York City is now 25 percent — in one week will go to 35 percent in New York City restaurants, which is consistent with New Jersey. What’s happening now is people in New York City, Staten Island, Manhattan, are going to New Jersey to those restaurants. So it’s not really accomplishing a purpose. So New York City restaurants will go to 35 percent next Friday. That will be consistent with New Jersey. Connecticut is still 50, Long Island is still 50. We understand that. But we’re responding to the data. Obviously, we’re more sensitive to New York City because of the density and the concentration, the history. But we’re headed in the right direction. We’re making progress. The numbers continue to be good. We’ll continue to make progress.

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On Friday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that restaurants in New York City would be increasing indoor dining capacity to 35 percent due to a decrease in coronavirus cases.CreditCredit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

In the few days since indoor dining resumed in New York City, customers appeared to be trickling in, but usually in modest numbers, and interviews with owners, workers and industry experts suggested that many people were still leery of being inside.

Industry experts also say that allowing restaurants to open their doors to patrons at 25 percent capacity is unlikely to significantly reverse the economic damage that the pandemic has inflicted. Starting next Friday, indoor dining in the city will expand to 35 percent capacity, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Friday at a news conference.

Mr. Cuomo said city residents had been traveling to New Jersey to eat indoors, where the capacity has been at 35 percent. In the rest of New York State, indoor dining has been at 50 percent.

Thousands of New York City’s 25,000 restaurants, bars and nightclubs have closed for good. Many others are barely holding on. They are way behind on rent, furloughing or laying off workers and making a fraction of their usual revenues.

The restaurant industry, one of the city’s most vital economic pillars, once employed 325,000 people. It has shed more than 140,000 jobs.

A survey by the New York City Hospitality Alliance, an industry group, found that 92 percent of restaurants reported being unable to afford their rent in December, up from 80 percent in June.

“We have been the eye of this crisis,” said Andrew Rigie, the alliance’s executive director. “When Covid-19 hit, we were told to socially distance, but restaurants are where we come together to socialize. Restaurants are part of not only the economic foundation, but also the social and cultural fabric of New York City.”

The return of indoor dining has renewed public health concerns after a post-holiday spike in positive test rates rates across the city, the emergence of new virus variants and limited vaccine supplies.

According to a New York Times analysis of state data, New York City’s seven-day average rate of positive test results was 4.3 percent as of Wednesday, which is down from 5.2 percent on Jan. 29, when Mr. Cuomo initially announced that indoor dining would reopen, and a level not seen in the city since the week before Christmas.

W. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, said he would still be cautious about where he dined indoors, despite having been vaccinated. He said he would choose only restaurants that took appropriate safety measures, including spacing tables at least six feet apart, maintaining adequate air flow, installing high-quality air filters and requiring servers to wear masks and gloves.

Not even the draw of a warm seat in the frigid winter could bring some diners inside.

“I’m still not ready to do indoor dining,” said Jennifer Brehm, 37, a teacher who huddled with her 8-month-old daughter, Cassia, at an outdoor cabana at Queen Bar & Restaurant in Brooklyn, noting that Cassia “can’t wear a mask yet.”

Ms. Brehm said she was concerned about new virus variants and had been following the vaccinate efforts. “Until it seems more under control,” she said of local virus caseload, “I won’t be ready to eat indoors.”

John Keefe contributed reporting.

GLOBAL ROUNDUP

The W.H.O. head warns that unequal vaccine distribution poses global risk.

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W.H.O. Warns of Unequal Vaccine Distribution

The World Health Organization on Friday warned that the unequal distribution of vaccines across the globe could further the spread of the coronavirus.

We need a new treaty if we’re serious enough about pandemics. And that will really help and prepare the world for the future. But the key is working together, considering the world as a small village, very much interconnected, and looking inwards wouldn’t help. And we should cooperate. And we have learned this lesson the hard way, by the way. And it’s a must to cooperate and it’s a must to take attention, to give attention to solidarity. Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do. It’s also the smart thing to do. The longer it takes to suppress the virus everywhere, the more opportunity it has to change in ways that could make vaccines less effective and opportunity to mutate. We could end up back at square one.

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The World Health Organization on Friday warned that the unequal distribution of vaccines across the globe could further the spread of the coronavirus.CreditCredit...Christopher Black/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W. H.O., on Friday urged countries and drugmakers to help speed up the manufacture and distribution of vaccines across the globe, warning that the world could be “back at square one” if some countries went ahead with their vaccination campaigns and left others behind.

“Vaccine equity is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smartest to do,” Dr. Tedros said at the Munich Security Conference, arguing that the longer it would take to vaccinate populations in every country, the longer the pandemic would remain out of control.

Wealthy countries have come under increased criticism in recent weeks for stockpiling doses, and keeping them away from low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Tedros used his comments to condemn the approach to public health in many countries, which he called “a failure even in the most advanced economies in our world.”

“It affects everything, and the whole world is now taken hostage by a small virus,” he said.

Speaking before Mr. Ghebreyesus, Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, said that the tragedy now unfolding across the world because of the pandemic could have been largely avoided.

“It is a tragedy that the modest steps that would have been required to contain this epidemic were not taken in advance,” he said.

While Dr. Tedros welcomed new commitments from wealthy countries to fund international vaccine efforts, he said more needed to be done, and faster.

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, who also spoke before Mr. Ghebreyesus, said more than 100 countries had not received a single dose, and humanitarian groups have urged the public-private health partnership leading the international vaccine effort, known as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to start delivering on its promises.

“While the Covax mechanism is designed specifically for equitable distribution and vaccine development, it has yet to deliver a single vaccine to a country,” says Claire Waterhouse, a South Africa-based advocacy coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.

More than 190 million people have been vaccinated worldwide, but almost none in Africa. Bodies have piled up on the streets in Bolivia, while in Mexico, oxygen shortage has led many to die at home.

In other news around the world:

  • The authorities in Madrid announced on Friday the lifting of travel restrictions in 31 areas of Spain’s capital region, as coronavirus cases fall. The decision means that, as of Monday, just over one-tenth of the almost 7 million residents of the Madrid region will remain in areas where they are not allowed to leave, except under special circumstances. Antonio Zapatero, a Madrid health official, said on Friday that the daily number of registered cases in Madrid was now down 35 percent from a week earlier and over 50 percent from two weeks earlier. Madrid is also easing its nighttime curfew, with bars and restaurants allowed to stay open until 11 p.m. rather than 9 p.m.

  • In recent months, Russia has scored a sweeping diplomatic win from an unexpected source: the success of its coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V. So far, more than 50 countries from Latin America to Asia have ordered 1.2 billion doses of the Russian vaccine, buffing the image of Russian science and lifting Moscow’s influence around the world. Yet in Russia things are not always what they seem, and this apparent triumph of soft-power diplomacy may not be all that the Kremlin would like the world to think. While Sputnik V is unquestionably effective, production is lagging, raising questions about whether Moscow may be promising far more vaccine exports than it can supply, and doing so at the expense of its own citizens.

  • The Vatican has clarified that employees who refuse a coronavirus vaccine will not be punished, after pushback over an internal decree suggesting that those who did not get vaccinated could be dismissed. Vatican City State said in a statement on Thursday that “alternative solutions” would be found for employees who did not want to be vaccinated. That came in response to a heated debate over a Feb. 8 directive signed by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, the governor of the world’s smallest state. It referred to provisions in a 2011 law for Vatican employees stating that any who refuse preventive health measures can be punished, up to “the interruption of the relationship of employment.”

  • A Thailand hotel guest who posted complaints online faces the threat of a defamation charge. Topp Dunyawit Phadungsaeng spent 14 days in coronavirus quarantine at the Ambassador City Jomtien Hotel after arriving last month from San Francisco. On Monday, after checking out, he posted on Facebook about his stay, including 46 photographs and four videos that he took of the hotel, a government-designated quarantine facility. His posts were widely shared, especially a photo of what he said were the legs of a cockroach in his stir-fried meal. A day after his post appeared, the hotel issued a statement calling on a “certain group of people” to stop posting “false information” with the intent of damaging the hotel’s reputation. Otherwise, the hotel said, it had the right to pursue civil and criminal charges “to the utmost.”

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Two women ‘dressed up as grannies’ tried to get vaccinated in Florida.

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Florida Women Pose as ‘Grannies’ to Get Vaccinated

Florida health administrators said two women in Florida “dressed up as grannies” in order to receive their second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

We haven’t had any lack of willing arms to get vaccinated. Interesting, so we also have people faking to be able to be vaccinated. So yesterday, we realized a couple of young ladies came dressed up as grannies to get vaccinated for the second time. So I don’t know how they escaped the first time, but they came vaccinated. The bonnets, the gloves, the glasses, the whole thing, and they probably were in their 20s. So, it’s a lot of things happening.

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Florida health administrators said two women in Florida “dressed up as grannies” in order to receive their second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.CreditCredit...Octavio Jones/Reuters

Maybe it was the bonnets.

Or the gloves that the two women donned, though the temperatures in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday hovered in the 60s.

In a scene right out of a sitcom, the women went to a coronavirus vaccination site “dressed up as grannies,” said Dr. Raul Pino, the health administrator for Orange County, at a news conference on Thursday. Except they were 34 and 44, not over 65, so despite their get-ups, which included spectacles, they were ineligible to get the shots in Florida.

However, the ruse may have worked before. The women presented valid Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cards indicating that they had already received their first vaccine doses, Dr. Pino said, who did not name them. “I don’t know how they escaped the first time,” he said.

Florida has vaccinated about 42 percent of its more than 4.4 million people 65 and older, according to the state, and health care workers and people with some underlying conditions are also eligible for the shots. It is unclear when the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, will consider that enough of those populations have been vaccinated to open eligibility more widely.

The state is one of many where vaccines are in high demand because of a lag in shipments from weather delays.

Younger people, teachers, police officers and other essential workers are all clamoring for doses, but Florida has not said which group it will prioritize next.

Agencies administering the shots have had to be “very careful” about people “faking it,” Dr. Pino said. “It’s probably higher than we suspect,” he said, adding that at least one man who was too young for a shot tried to pass himself off as his father, who had the same name.

“Our job as a health department is to vaccinate as many people as possible, as fast as possible,” Dr. Pino said, adding that the state’s Department of Health was following the governor’s priorities, which are based on modified C.D.C. guidelines.

On Wednesday, Health Department staff asked sheriff’s deputies to issue trespass warnings to the bonnet-clad women, whose birth dates did not match those that they had used to register for the vaccines, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said.

They were not charged with any wrongdoing. But they did not receive the vaccine.

When passengers will start flying again is still a question for the airlines.

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The day before Thanksgiving last year at a nearly empty LaGuardia Airport in New York City.Credit...Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

Air travel has recovered somewhat in recent months, but it remains deeply depressed compared with 2019, and no one knows when business will return to previous levels.

Now and for the next several months at least, airlines are flying whomever they can wherever they can. That often means catering to a small group of people who are undeterred by the pandemic to travel to ski slopes or beaches.

“As a quick strategy, fly where people are,” said Ben Baldanza, a former chief executive of Spirit Airlines, the low-cost carrier. “That’s been a real smart strategy, but that’s not a long-term way for those airlines to make money.”

Such leisure travel offers limited comfort to an industry so thoroughly clobbered. Tourists and people visiting family and friends typically take up most of the seats on planes, but airlines rely disproportionately on revenue from corporate travelers in the front of the cabin.

Before the pandemic, business travel accounted for about 30 percent of trips but 40 to 50 percent of passenger revenue, according to Airlines for America, an industry association. And those customers aren’t expected to return in great numbers anytime soon.

The four largest U.S. airlines — American, Delta, United and Southwest — lost more than $31 billion last year, and the industry over all is shedding more than $150 million each day, according to an estimate from Airlines for America.

The industry spent much of the past year scrimping and saving, trimming older, less efficient planes from their fleets; renegotiating contracts; and encouraging tens of thousands of workers to take buyouts or early retirement packages.

But it hasn’t been enough to offset a drop of nearly two-thirds in air travel as public health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to discourage travel. Airlines for America does not expect passenger numbers to return to 2019 levels until at least 2023. And airlines might have to wait even longer if the economic recovery falters because of the spread of coronavirus variants or a delay in vaccinations.

Some experts say that corporate travel may never return to peak levels, with many in-person meetings replaced by video conferences and phone calls.

Airlines are more hopeful, perhaps because they rely heavily on corporate travel.

Ed Bastian, Delta’s chief executive, said on a conference call last month that about 40 percent of Delta’s big corporate customers expected their business travel to be fully recovered by 2022, and an additional 11 percent by 2023. Citing the airline’s internal research, he said 7 percent expected that business travel might never be fully restored, while the rest said they were unsure when things would return to previous levels.

American is “very optimistic” that corporate travel will return as vaccines are distributed, Vasu Raja, the airline’s chief revenue officer, told investors and reporters last month. But, he added, “the rate of that is unclear at best.”

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