COVID-19 Federal Responses: Monday, January 11, 2021

Health and Human Services (HHS) launched the COVID-19 Education Campaign
Preliminary research suggests Pfizer vaccine may be effective against new strains of the virus

White House and Federal Agencies

President-elect Biden will announce a new COVID-19 vaccination and economic support plan on Thursday. The proposal will include over a trillion dollars of new relief.
Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched the COVID-19 Education Campaign aimed at increasing public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines while reinforcing basic prevention measures, including mask wearing and social distancing. Several HHS leaders (Dr. Anthony Fauci, Rear Admiral Felicia Collins, Dr. Nancy Messonnier) participated in a town hall conversation with Black America about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they can work together to save lives.

CDC released a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) on the Assessment of Day-7 Postexposure Testing of Asymptomatic Contacts of COVID-19 Patients to Evaluate Early Release from Quarantine in Vermont from May to November, 2020. These results indicate that among the persons in quarantine who tested negative at day 7 after exposure, none who were retested between day 8 and 14 were positive.
The CDC updated toolkits with information regarding vaccine resources and additional web resources on COVID-19 for the following groups:

The CDC says that it is acceptable for states to overlap vaccinating priority groups. A state does not need to finish vaccinating one group before moving onto the next group.
As of January 7, 21.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses (both Pfizer and Moderna) have been distributed. 5.9 million doses have been administered as of that date.
Preliminary research suggests that Pfizer’s vaccine is effective against new strains of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
BioNTech, the company that partnered with Pfizer to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, will double its 2021 vaccine output to two billion doses.
The World Health Organization (WHO) approved delaying the time between first and second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for up to six weeks.
Admiral Giroir hosted a media telebriefing update on the comprehensive national testing effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
HHS announced the extension of the Community Based Testing Site program for COVID-19 testing, through partnership with national pharmacy and retail chains CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreens, Quest (through services at Walmart) and service provider eTrueNorth (through services at Health Mart and Topco locations). The partnership has resulted in establishing more than 3,300 COVID-19 testing locations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To date, more than 5.6 million tests have been conducted as a result of this partnership.