Struggling California hit by setbacks
With the COVID-19 death toll in the United States nearing 400,000, Californians have been told that a variant of the coronavirus has spread widely across the state. The announcement from health officials on Sunday coincided with a setback in the hard-hit state’s vaccination program after a batch of vaccines was found to cause allergic reactions.
The variant, known as L452R, was first detected in Denmark in March and appeared in California in May.
In December, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, sequenced genomes of coronavirus gathered from around the state and found that the variant was present in 3.8 percent of their samples. By January, it had jumped to 25.2 percent.
The variant differs from a highly contagious one that was first identified in the United Kingdom. The latter doesn’t appear to cause more severe illness.
California’s public health department said it is not yet clear whether the variant at large in the state is highly contagious or is just being identified frequently as lab work becomes more sophisticated.
On Sunday, in response to the apparent allergic reactions reported among vaccine recipients, California’s top epidemiologist told healthcare providers to stop using a batch of Moderna’s vaccine after a “higher than usual” number of people suffered the reactions at a San Diego vaccination clinic.
Erica Pan said that “out of an extreme abundance of caution”, providers should stop administering the doses until federal, state and company officials finish an investigation.
California has received about 330,000 doses from the Moderna lot in question: No 041L20A. The doses amount to about 10 percent of all the state’s supply, from both Moderna and Pfizer, that has been distributed.
Apparent allergies
The apparent allergic reactions occurred at a drive-through mass vaccination site near San Diego’s Petco Park stadium, according to the state public health department.
The counties of San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara and Contra Costa in the Bay Area said local healthcare providers received doses from the vaccine lot in question, ABC-TV in San Francisco reported on Monday.
The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County — the most populous in the country and the epicenter of the pandemic in the US — is about one person every six minutes, officials said.
The total number of US coronavirus cases surpassed 24 million on Monday, and the country has had the most COVID-19 deaths in the world since April last year. The death toll stood at 398,981 on Tuesday morning, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
Daily deaths in California from the virus are averaging 528, an increase of more than 15 percent from a week ago. Much of the state, including the southern region, remains under a stay-at-home order.
In Los Angeles County, an airquality regulator has suspended for 10 days the limit on the number of cremations than can be authorized to deal with the backlog of bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.