The Latest: More than 100,000 have died of COVID-19 in Italy
MILAN — Italy surpassed 100,000 dead in the pandemic, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go on lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The Italian Health Ministry on Monday said 318 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 100,103, the second highest in Europe after Britain.
Italy recorded its first virus death on Feb. 21, 2020, when 78-year-old retired roofer Antonio Trevisan from a winemaking town west of Venice who had been hospitalized with heart issues died.
Italy’s total virus cases surpassed 3 million last week, with a new surge powered by the highly contagious variant that was first identified in Britain.
Nearly 14,000 new positives were recorded Monday as the number of people in ICUs rose to 2,700 — 95 more than a day earlier. Italy imposed a draconian nationwide lockdown last March 9, which continued for seven weeks and included a shutdown of all non-essential manufacturing.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— CDC: Fully-vaccinated people can gather without masks
— From vote to virus, misinformation campaign targets Latinos in US
— UK schools reopen widely, backed by frequent virus testing
— Russia finds its Sputnik V vaccine in hot demand overseas but questions arise over whether it can produce the millions of vaccine doses ordered
— Vaccine rollout offers hope but also prompts envy, judgement and distrust
— Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will deliver his first primetime address to speak to the nation on Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden would note the sacrifices and losses suffered by Americans during the last 12 months. More than 525,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus.
It was March 11, 2020 when the pandemic hit home for many Americans and lockdowns began. That was the night the NBA suspended play, actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson announced they had tested positive and then-President Donald Trump addressed the nation.
The anniversary comes as the administration has bolstered vaccine supply, and some states have begun reopening even as worries remain about virus variants.
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BERLIN — A German lawmaker has resigned his seat immediately following pressure from fellow members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union bloc in response to revelations that his company profited from deals to procure masks early in the pandemic.
Nikolas Loebel had originally said he would step down in August, shortly before Germany’s national election, but faced sustained criticism from party colleagues fearing a backlash from voters in two regional elections this weekend.
His resignation comes after a second Union bloc lawmaker, Georg Nuesslein, lost his parliamentary immunity amid a criminal investigation into whether he breached the law by brokering mask procurement deals.
German weekly Der Spiegel reported that almost two dozen lawmakers were involved in similar deals, though it is unclear how many came to pass and whether they received any commission from them.
Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state who is hoping to succeed Merkel as chancellor in September, had called for elected officials who tried to profit from the pandemic to leave parliament immediately.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico on Monday expanded eligibility for vaccinations to all school teachers, early childhood educators and other staff with the goal of getting the group its first shots by the end of March.
The state is making the move as part of a directive by the Biden administration to get more schools reopened as the coronavirus pandemic continues. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and state Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins said last week that the ability of New Mexico to meet the timeline will depend on the federal government increasing vaccine supplies.
Collins said the state was in discussions with the White House last week about how the directive would affect vaccinations for other groups in the state. Under the plan, the state will start with educators outside of the Albuquerque area this week. The second week will involve those in the metro area, likely at a mass vaccination site.
The state already has vaccinated more than 15,000 educators as some were eligible as part of New Mexico’s first phases of the vaccine rollout.
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PHOENIX — Arizona is reporting a daily number of new COVID-19 cases below 1,000 for the first time in months along with no new deaths.
State health officials on Monday said there are 783 new confirmed cases of the virus. With that latest figure, the state’s pandemic total number of cases is now at 827,237. The death toll remains 16,328.
The number of vaccine doses administered around Arizona was up to 2.1 million with more than 1.3 million people having received at least one shot. That’s more than 19% of the state’s population.
The number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide dipped to 919, the fewest since Nov. 1. The number of ICU beds used by COVID-19 patients fell to 256, the fewest since Nov. 6.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greek health authorities say they have approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine to include people aged 65 and over, following international studies on its effectiveness
Officials announced the extended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday. It had previously been administered to people aged 18-64.
Authorities also said they had recorded 1,165 new confirmed infections – about half in the greater Athens area — and 39 deaths over the past 24 hours. The country of 10.5 million has registered a total 206,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections and about 6,800 deaths.
More than 1.1 million doses of the vaccine have been administered so far, with 373,000 people having received both doses.
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WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control says vaccinated people can gather with those at low risk for the coronavirus without masks but should still cover their faces in public.
The long-awaited guidance from the CDC begins the process of providing clarity to Americans anxious to learn how the nation will begin returning to normalcy as vaccinations ramp up.
Under the guidelines, fully vaccinated people could gather in groups without masks or social distancing. Vaccinated people could also come together in the same way with people considered at low risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting a healthy child and grandchildren.
The release comes as more than 30 million Americans have completed their COVID-19 regimens, with tens of millions more set to reach that milestone this month.
The CDC says people are not considered “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after receiving the last required dose of vaccine.
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NEW YORK — New York City public high schools will reopen for in-person learning on March 22 after being closed since COVID-19 cases began rising in November, officials announced Monday.
The school system’s 488 high schools will open for the 55,000 students in grades 9 through 12 who have opted for in-person learning, said Danielle Filson, a city Department of Education spokesperson. The rest of the 282,000 students in those grades will continue to learn remotely.
About half the high schools will provide in-school instruction to all or most of their students five days a week, while the others will offer hybrid instruction, officials said.
New York City closed its public school buildings in November in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Elementary schools reopened on Dec. 7 for elementary school students whose parents had chosen in-person learning, and middle schools reopened on Feb. 25.
New York City’s school year ends June 25. Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to open all schools five days a week when the next school year starts in September, though he has said he expects many families will still choose online learning because of coronavirus fears.
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PRAGUE — The first COVID-19 patients from the struggling hospitals in the Czech Republic will be transported for treatment to clinics abroad.
One of the hardest-hit countries in the European Union activated a plan to move dozens of its patients to hospitals in Germany, Poland and Switzerland.
The three countries previously offered treatment in their hospitals together with Austria and Slovenia.
One patient hospitalized in the town of Usti nad Orlici could be taken to Poland Monday or Tuesday, a spokesperson said.
Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek says six others will be transported to Germany.
A highly contagious coronavirus variant found in Britain is blamed for the latest surge in coronavirus infections in the country. Almost 8,000 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized Sunday with 1,728 of them in intensive care, only slightly less than the record of 1,765 set Thursday.
The Czech Republic has the biggest 14-day infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants in the EU, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
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DETROIT — Students in Michigan’s largest school district returned to classrooms for in-person learning Monday for the first time in months.
Detroit schools stopped face-to-face learning in November because of rising COVID-19 infection rates in the city. High schools statewide were also told to suspend in-person learning at that time.
Despite the resumption of in-person classes, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said many teachers have declined to participate. Teachers who agree to work inside classrooms will get a quarterly bonus of $750.
Vitti said online learning has been a challenge for many students but still will be offered.
“Some are doing well but many have been disengaged, have become chronically absent, have disconnected completely,” he said.
The district has about 50,000 students.
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WORCESTER, Mass. — Hundreds of nurses at a central Massachusetts hospital have walked off the job after failing to reach an agreement with management over pandemic staffing levels.
Nurses and their supporters gathered outside St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester at dawn Monday holding signs that said “Safe Staffing Now” and “Picketing for our Patients and our Community.”
The strike started after negotiations with Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, which owns the hospital, broke down.
Nurse Marlena Pellegrino, co-chair of the local bargaining unit of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, says in a statement: “We are sad to see that Tenet holds so little value for our patients, yet we are resolved to do whatever it takes for as long as it take to protect our patients, as it is safer to strike now than allow Tenet to continue endangering our patients every day on every shift.”
The hospital has about 800 nurses.
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LONDON — British children returned to school on Monday after a two-month closure, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying he aimed to get the country “ moving closer to a sense of normality.”
As part of the plan, millions of high school and college students coming back to U.K. classrooms will be tested for the first few weeks. Authorities want to quickly detect and isolate asymptomatic cases in order to avoid sending entire schools home.
“We are being cautious in our approach so that we do not undo the progress we have made so far,” Johnson said as he urged people to get vaccinated.
High schools and colleges could reopen in phases to allow for testing. The U.K. government has distributed nearly 57 million rapid “lateral flow” test kits to schools across the country, but there are concerns about the accuracy of the tests, which may result in pupils being forced to self-isolate unnecessarily.
But Susan Hopkins, a director at Public Health England, told the BBC that evidence from testing over the past eight weeks suggested less than 1 in 1,000 tests resulted in a false positive.
Britain has had Europe’s deadliest outbreak, with nearly 125,000 COVID-19 deaths.
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