January 24 coronavirus news

California added a total of 24,111 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the state's cumulative number of confirmed positive cases up to 3,109,151, according to an update from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

The health department also reported 429 new deaths, bringing the state's total number of lives lost since the beginning of the pandemic to 36,790.

The number of reported hospitalizations decreased slightly on Sunday with Covid-19 hospitalizations down by 3.5% and Covid-19 related intensive care unit hospitalizations down by 2.2%, according to data collected from hospitals across California.

The County Risk Level for nearly all regions in California still stands at “Widespread,” meaning many non-essential indoor business operations are closed.

To note: These numbers were released by the California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real-time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, President Joe Biden’s nominee for US surgeon general, told ABC that the goal of 100 million doses in the President’s first 100 days in office is “a floor; it’s not a ceiling,” and that the success of vaccine distribution also has to be measured by its equitability. 

Murthy also said the 100 million doses is “a goal that reflects the realities that we face, what could go right, but also what could go wrong.”

He said that the President also understands that the larger goal is that “we’ve got to vaccinate as many Americans as possible."

When asked if there were ways to get more equitable distribution and increase the supply of the vaccine, Murthy said that “success has to be gauged not just by the number of vaccines we deliver, but also by how fairly we deliver those vaccines, how equitably we deliver them.”

The Covid-19 crisis has already shown that rural communities have a harder time getting access to resources, that communities of color have experienced more cases and deaths and that seniors, especially those in long term care facilities, have struggled, he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CBS Sunday that it’s “not the case” that President Joe Biden has deliberately set expectations low by saying that he has a goal of giving 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses his first 100 days in office. 

The US had almost reached that pace before Biden took office. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Saturday, more than 20 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been administered, which represents a 1.5 million increase from the total reported the day before. 

When looking back at what was done in the first 38 days of vaccine administration under the Trump administration, Fauci said that he believed that maybe two of the days had reached the benchmark of one million shots a day and the average during that period was roughly 450,000 per day. 

“This is hard,” he said. “Now what we’ve got to realize that, although more recently there have been a couple of days were you’ve had a million, that has been predominantly in areas that are relatively easy from the standpoint of getting it done,” for example nursing homes and hospital settings.   

Fauci said that he thinks the goal was reasonable, and that “we always want to do better than the goal you set, but it is really a floor and not a ceiling.”  

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced three new cases of a more transmissible variant of Covid-19 on Sunday, bringing the state's total variant cases to six.

Two of the new cases were adult women associated with the University of Michigan, which already had three cases of the same variant. The remaining case was an adult man from Wayne County, which covers Detroit and Dearborn, according to a news release from the department.

Michigan DHHS ordered the University of Michigan to halt athletics after new variant cases were connected to the program.

The new variant cases in Michigan are all of the B.1.1.7 variant, according to the health department.

That variant was first identified in the United Kingdom, but there are other variants first seen in South Africa and Brazil.

While B.1.1.7 may be more easily passed from person to person, "there has been no indication that it affects the clinical outcomes or disease severity compared to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has been circulating across the United States for months," Michigan DHHS noted in its alert.

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, reacted to images of long lines of senior citizens waiting to get Covid-19 vaccines, telling CNN Sunday that it’s "not America, that’s not the way we treat those we consider vulnerable, in need of this vaccine most, that is not America at its best.” 

Becerra said that many states are suffering massive budget deficits and trying to figure out how to get resources for their overburdened health workers, adding that Biden’s plan provides for 100,000 new health care workers to get out and help all the states. 

“It’s a plan that can work if we all get, you know, put our muscle to it together,” he said. 

Some more context: States had previously submitted plans for vaccine distribution to the CDC in October but had said they needed federal money to carry them out.

In September, Congress had initially set aside $200 million to states for preparedness and planning and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added another $227 million for vaccine distribution in December.

But the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials have said they needed $8.4 billion to administer and conduct vaccine efforts of this scale. Former President Trump signed a massive $2.3 trillion relief bill at the end of December which included $8 billion for vaccine distribution. 

More than 85,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Italy, the first European country to be hit hard by the pandemic, Health Ministry figures show.

The number climbed past 85,000 on Saturday and reached 85,461 on Sunday after 299 new deaths were recorded.

There have been at least 25,003,695 total cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 417,538 people have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

The university recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on Jan. 21, 2020.  

There are 17 other countries in the world that have reported more than 1 million total Covid-19 cases, according to the university: 

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, told CNN Sunday that the US can change the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it won’t happen overnight.

On Friday, Biden said “There is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” 

Becerra added that the President has put forward not just a plan, but a rescue plan that should be followed by a recovery plan, “but first you got to rescue the people, you got to rescue the economy."

When asked what the timeframe was for changing the course of the pandemic, Becerra again made it clear that it won’t happen overnight. 

“We can do better, we can not only control Covid but get us back to real normality,” he said. “But it takes everybody, all hands on deck, we’ve got to make sure we’re coordinating and we are talking to people.”

New York’s Covid-19 positivity rate fell to 5.09% on Sunday, with 12,720 new reported cases, according to new data from New York state.

Total Covid-19 hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and intubations are all down from Saturday’s numbers, the data showed.

There are 160 more New Yorkers who have died due to Covid-19, bringing the state’s overall death toll to 34,069, state data showed.

Currently, health department statistics show that New York’s Long Island and Mid-Hudson regions have the highest positivity rates at 6.99% and 6.85%, respectively. New York City has a rate of 5.58%, with the most cases in the Bronx.

To note: These figures were released by the state’s health agency and may not line up exactly in real-time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.