President Joe Biden said on February 18 the U.S. national emergency declared in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be extended beyond March 1 due to the ongoing risk to public health posed by the coronavirus.

University of Oxford researchers started clinical trials for a new vaccine that can potentially target a wide range of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) variants. 

A previously undisclosed intelligence report by the U.S. State Department shows that three scientists at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology received hospital care in November 2019 for influenza-like symptoms. The findings were on a State Department fact sheet that said they went to the hospital “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said his company supports Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus-focused plan that is intended to boost vaccination efforts and address the pandemic.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against Covid-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he called a “dismal failure.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned health care personnel not to make any changes to the dosing of Covid-19 vaccines and that doing so would place the public health at risk and undermine “the historic vaccination effort to protect the population.”

As Operation Warp Speed – the Trump administration’s program to develop and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine – struggles to ramp up vaccinations, one of the approaches under consideration is cutting the doses of the Moderna vaccine.

Millions of Covid-19 vaccines were sitting unused in U.S. hospitals and elsewhere a week into the massive inoculation campaign, putting the government’s target for 20 million vaccinations during December in doubt.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence received his Covid-19 vaccine live on television on Dec. 18, seeking to shore up public support for vaccinations after U.S. deaths from the coronavirus topped 3,000 for a third straight day.

Former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton said they were willing to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus on television in order to ease any public skepticism over the safety of new vaccines.