Major League Baseball announced today that Monday’s scheduled game between the Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics at Oakland Coliseum has been postponed due to ongoing Covid-19 issues within the Twins organization.
On Saturday, MLB announced the postponement of the Twins’ game scheduled for later that day against the Los Angeles Angels then later announced the postponement of the Twins’ Sunday game against the Angels.
MLB has tentatively scheduled a doubleheader between the Twins and the Athletics for Tuesday, pending further test results.
Half of all people 18 and older in the US have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, according to data published Sunday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Monday, all people in the US, 16 years and older, will be eligible for the vaccine.
The CDC reported that 129,988,985 – 50.4% – of people age 18 and over have received at least one dose of vaccine.
The CDC also reported that 209,406,814 total doses have been administered, about 79% of the 264,505,725 doses delivered.
Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.
An additional note that while the timestamp on the CDC page says Saturday, April 17, CNN has confirmed the data has been updated as of Sunday, April 18.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he thinks that children of virtually any age should be able to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the first quarter of 2022 and that people need to continue wearing masks.
Fauci reiterated a point he has previously made, that he would be surprised if high school kids can’t be vaccinated by the fall term.
“I think by the time we get to the first quarter of 2022, we’ll be able to vaccinate children of virtually any age, hopefully before then, but I think that’s going to be the latest we’ll see it,” he told CNN.
Fauci then explained the reason why people need to continue to wear masks, even though they have gotten the vaccine.
Firstly, he said that when a person is vaccinated their risk of getting infected dramatically diminishes and is very low.
However, there is a situation where someone can get vaccinated, have no clinical disease, but still be infected without knowing it. They can then inadvertently transmit the virus to someone who has not been vaccinated.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Sunday that he expects a decision to be made about the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine by Friday.
“I don't want to get ahead of the CDC and the FDA and the advisory committee, but I would imagine that what we will say is that it would come back and it would come back in some sort of either warning or restriction," he said.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to meet on Friday to discuss recommendations for the J&J vaccine.
The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration recommended pausing the use of the J&J Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday over six reported cases or “a rare and severe type of blood clot” reported in the US.
However, Fauci said pausing was the prudent thing to do, saying “you want to make sure that you have all the information that you need.”
He compared the J&J clotting reports to that of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which is authorized in much of Europe and has had similar reports of clotting. He noted the AstraZeneca vaccine reports “went beyond just women, there's some with some men involved. There was also a great display of the ages.”
“I hope that we don't see anything extended beyond Friday. We need to get Friday some decision one way or the other," Fauci said.
The ACIP committee originally held an emergency meeting on Wednesday last week but delayed voting on a recommendation until this coming Friday.
India on Sunday reported 261,500 new cases of Covid-19, the fourth consecutive day of more than 200,000 infections and the highest since the start of the pandemic, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.
The health ministry also reported 1,501 new deaths, the highest in almost 10 months.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a special meeting Sunday to deal with the ongoing health crisis brought on by the second wave, asking officials to stick with testing, tracking and treatment.
Indian states have been facing a shortage of oxygen across hospitals, and Modi asked for the installation of 162 oxygen plants across the country to be sped up, according to a press release issued by the Prime Minister’s office.
"Now Kumbh should be carried out symbolically amid the ongoing corona crisis," Modi tweeted on Saturday.
India’s Haridwar district, where the festival is taking place, has reported a total of 5,505 cases since the start of the festival on April 1.
India hit the 13 million mark on April 9 and added a further one million cases in less than a week, surpassing 14 million cases on Thursday. As of Sunday, India has reported a total of 14,788,109 cases of coronavirus and 177,150 deaths, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.