The Biden administration said Friday there's enough monkeypox vaccine available now but health officials say the shots aren't getting to some of the people who need the protection the most.

About 10% of monkeypox vaccine doses have been given to Black people, even though they account for one-third of U.S. cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new numbers come from 17 states and two cities, and represent the most comprehensive details yet on who has been getting the two-dose vaccines. Similar disparities had been reported previously by a few states and cities.

Most U.S. monkeypox cases have been in men who have sex with men, but officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.

Experts offered several possible explanations for the disparity. It may be related to how and where shots are being offered and publicized. It may be that some Black men don't trust doctors and government public health efforts. Or they may be less willing to identify themselves as a person who is at higher risk of catching the disease.

The gap is an echo of disparities seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when certain racial groups were a disproportionately large share of cases but a smaller fraction of the people initially receiving vaccinations, said Dr. Yvens Laborde, director of global health education at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.

"If we're not careful, the same thing will happen here" with monkeypox, he said.

Available information suggests that Black men are a growing proportion of monkeypox cases, said Caitlin Rivers, a Johns Hopkins University expert on government response to epidemics.

"This is a problem that is not resolving," she said.

The Biden administration said Friday it has shipped enough monkeypox vaccine to deliver the first of two doses to the group at highest risk of infection. That's an estimated 1.6 million men who have sex with other men, but the CDC does not have a racial breakdown of the group. The administration expects to have enough for second doses available by the end of next month.

Earlier this month health officials authorized a plan to allow injection of smaller doses of the vaccine into the skin instead of into muscle, which has helped stretch supplies. With the help of that new method, which requires about one-fifth the usual dose, the administration says it has now shipped enough vaccine for at least 1.6 million doses.

According to the administration, only 14 jurisdictions of 67 have used enough vaccine to request more from the federal stockpile.

Some experts say health officials need to make sure Black men have more access to vaccinations, testing, treatment and other types of information and assistance.

The government hadn't previously reported on vaccine recipients' demographics, because such information sharing is voluntary. The CDC has been calling on states and some large cities to share the data.

The numbers released Friday reflect information on about 208,000 doses administered as of earlier this week, out of more than 1 million shipped. Age, sex, racial and ethnic information was not available for every recipient.

But, based on what information was available, the data shows:

—About half of vaccine recipients were white and about a quarter were Hispanic. About 10% were Black and another 10% were Asian.

—About 94% were identified as male, and 6% female.

—More than half were between the ages of 25 and 39.

The gaps nationally echo those seen in statistics from Georgia, North Carolina, New York City and Washington, D.C. In all four locales, Black men accounted for many or most of the cases, but were a smaller proportion of vaccine recipients.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals. It wasn't considered a disease that spreads easily among people until May, when infections emerged in Europe and the U.S.

There have been more than 45,000 cases reported in countries that have not historically seen monkeypox.

The U.S. has the most infections of any country — more than 16,000. About 98% of U.S. cases are men and about 93% were men who reported recent sexual contact with other men. No one in the U.S. has died, but deaths have been reported in other countries.

Officials say the virus has been spreading mainly through skin-on-skin contact, but they warn it might also transmit in other ways, including through touching linens used by someone with monkeypox.

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Associated Press writer Nicky Forster contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says health care providers in several regions are seeing young patients with enterovirus D68 (EV-D68).

The virus has been associated with neurologic complications, albeit rare, involving limb weakness, primarily affecting children, the CDC stated.

An alert has been sent out to providers to watch out for EV-D68. Symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, and wheezing. Fever was reported in approximately half of the known cases, according to the CDC.

"Children with a history of asthma or reactive airway disease may be more likely to require medical care, though children without a known history of asthma can also present with severe illness," the CDC said.

The peak season for EV-D68 is late summer and early fall, the CDC warns.

To help protect against the virus, people are encouraged to routinely wash their hands and avoid close contact with people who are sick.

There is currently no vaccine or specific treatment for EV-D68.

NEW YORK (AP) — Some U.S. health officials are conceding that monkeypox is probably not going away anytime soon.

The disease’s spread is slowing but the virus is so widespread that elimination is unlikely, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That conclusion was in a recent CDC report, and echoed Friday by Marc Lipsitch, director of science in the agency's disease-forecasting center.

Lipsitch hesitated to say monkeypox is permanently here to stay, but he said it stands to be a continuing threat for the next few years.

“It's in many geographic locations within the country" as well as in other countries, Lipsitch told The Associated Press. “There's no clear path in our mind to complete elimination domestically.”

The virus has mainly spread among gay and bisexual men, though health officials continue to stress that anyone can be infected. It's important that people at risk take steps to prevent spread and that vaccination efforts continue, Lipsitch said.

The CDC report contained some good news: The U.S. outbreak seems to have peaked in early August. The average number of daily cases being reported — fewer than 150 — is about a third what it was reported in the middle of the summer, and officials expect the decline will continue for at least the next several weeks.

Lipsitch attributed the good news to increasing vaccinations, cautious behavior by people at risk and infection-derived immunity in the highest risk populations.

Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agreed that it's unlikely that spread of monkeypox will stop in the U.S. anytime soon, but he said it's still possible in the long term.

If domestic transmission were stopped, infections may still continue if people catch the virus while traveling internationally, he said. But the declining cases makes it seem like “we’ve turned a real corner.”

“The efforts underway are succeeding, and should be continued, if not intensified," he said.

With case numbers going down, this is a good time for local health departments to take a new stab at doing intensive contact tracing to try to stop chains of transmission, he said.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals, but it wasn’t considered a disease that spreads easily among people until May, when infections emerged in Europe and the U.S.

There have been more than 67,000 cases reported in countries that have not historically seen monkeypox. The U.S. has the most infections of any country — more than 25,600. One U.S. death has been attributed to monkeypox.

More than 97% of U.S. cases are men. The vast majority have been men who reported recent sexual contact with other men.

Though cases have been declining, the proportion of new cases that have information about recent sexual contact is also down, officials said. That's causing a growing blind spot about how the virus may be spreading, Lipsitch noted.

Three years on since the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a global pandemic and another new coronavirus variant has surfaced.

The omicron subvariant named XBB.1.5 has caused just over 40% of new coronavirus infections in the United States, the CDC says.

About 75% of new coronavirus cases in the Northeastern U.S. are from the XBB.1.5 strain.

Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of the CDC's proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, said, "We're projecting that it's going to be the dominant variant in the Northeast region of the country and that it's going to increase in all regions of the country," CBS News reported.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said, "Probably the worst variant that the world is facing right now is actually XBB," according to Reuters.

Dr. Jay Varma of Cornell Medicine said this is a very "precarious" time for the U.S. health care system and public health experts worry about a possible surge in infections.

Varma also said that Americans shouldn't be overly alarmed as the variant is expected to cause similar issues seen earlier this year, he told PBS.

Experts urge the public to take similar precautions as people were asked to do earlier in the year and last year to slow the spread, including wearing a mask whenever possible, such as when traveling.

The CDC said that at this point, there isn't the belief that "XBB.1.5 is more severe" compared to COVID-19.

Public health officials also haven't reported additional symptoms tied to the XBB.1.5 strain outside of symptoms listed with previous variants and COVID-19.

Axios reported that in October, health officials deemed the XBB.1.5 variant as well suited to evade COVID-19 immunity.

A Wall Street Journal report pointed to health experts who have highlighted studies suggesting that this new variant can evade existing vaccines, antibodies from prior infections along with existing monoclonal antibody treatments.

A study in the journal Nature said, “Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of multiple variants with enormous growth advantages is unprecedented.”

The COVID-19 vaccine for kids under five is on hold again.

On Friday, the FDA said it was delaying an advisory committee meeting to review the vaccine for children six months and up.

New data from Pfizer indicates while the vaccine appears safe, it may not work well enough to meet FDA standards.

“What we see, particularly among two- to five-year-olds, the data is not so compelling in terms of it being effective," said Eyal Oren, who runs the public health program at San Diego State University. "Meaning two doses did not promote an effective or strong immuno-response in these kids."

He says FDA officials say they want to wait on a decision until there is data available about a third dose of the vaccine.

Some doctors hope a vaccine is approved soon because kids are still sick.

“The younger the child, they could have difficulty breathing as that mucus gets in the lungs," said Dr. Joe Perno, the vice president of medical affairs at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. "So breathing problems where they’re breathing fast, where it’s sucking in around their ribs, they’re panting, those types of things. Those are come see us in the emergency room right away."

He says it’s important to note how safe the vaccine has been in other age groups.

“There are over eight million kids in the U.S. alone that have received at least one dose of the vaccine over the age of five, and the safety profile is astronomical," said Perno.

The FDA hasn't said when it would review this topic again, but Pfizer said it would have data on the third dose available in April.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Friday that it has issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for Eli Lilly's new monoclonal antibody treatment.

Clinical trials have shown the treatment to be effective against the COVID-19 omicron variant.

“Today’s action makes available another monoclonal antibody that shows activity against omicron, at a time when we are seeking to further increase supply,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “This authorization is an important step in meeting the need for more tools to treat patients as new variants of the virus continue to emerge.” 

According to the Center's for Disease Control, omicron is the dominant variant in the U.S.

The EUA covers treatment for patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of hospitalization or death.

It can be used on children as young as 12 if they weigh at least 88 pounds, the FDA says.

Prior to the authorization, the U.S. agreed to purchase 600,000 doses. They are to be delivered no later than March 31, Eli Lilly said.

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to decline, there's growing concern about another condition that's on the rise. It's called multisystem inflammatory syndrome and it's still a risk among children who also contract COVID-19.

Most doctors will tell you we're not out of the woods yet with COVID-19. While it's encouraging to see case numbers and hospitalizations going down, doctors at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, are seeing cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome go up. It's a syndrome that takes hold after recovering from COVID-19.

“You can still develop this huge inflammatory response, you know, a few weeks later,” Children’s Mercy Hospital Dr. Angela Myers said. “Which can affect the liver, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, develop a rash and high spiking fevers,”

Myers said the syndrome didn't seem to be a problem with the delta variant, but omicron is different. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome cases have again risen to what they were before there was any vaccine available.

“Even though a young child might not have significant symptoms with a COVID-19 infection, they are at risk for developing this multisystem inflammatory syndrome later,” Myers said.

That's why doctors are pushing for more children to get vaccinated and to keep COVID-19 prevention methods in place.

Children under the age of 5 could be eligible to receive Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the month if Food and Drug Administration regulators give the OK.

So far, 22% of elementary-aged kids are fully vaccinated. That's compared to a little more than half of 12 to 17-year-olds.

Watch the video above for the full story.

The U.S. surpassed 900,000 COVID-19 deaths on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University, as the country deals with the after-effects of record spread caused by the highly contagious omicron variant.

But, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the daily case rate is falling following the spread of omicron, the number of deaths caused by the recent outbreak continues to climb.

It's been about six weeks since the U.S. surpassed 800,000 COVID-19 deaths in December. Since then, the average daily death toll has risen to more than 2,000 a day — a level not seen since last February.

Trends in COVID-19 deaths tend to trail behind trends in COVID-19 cases, so the daily death rate will likely fall in the weeks ahead. But hospitals in some parts of the country remain overwhelmed with patients sick with the virus.

The tragic milestone comes a year after the initial distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. According to the CDC, 80% of those eligible for a vaccine in the U.S. have gotten at least one shot.

While the omicron variant has shown some resistance to vaccines compared to past variants, the shots are still extremely effective in preventing severe infection or death. According to a recent study released by the CDC, between Dec. 25 and Jan. 8, unvaccinated people were 23 times more likely to be sent to the hospital with omicron than those who were fully vaccinated and boosted.

According to a database kept by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. continues to lead the world in both deaths and total cases of the virus. Brazil (630,000) and India (500,000) are the only other countries that have recorded more than half a million COVID-19 deaths.

The migration brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is putting a strain on professional moving and storage companies across the country and in Canada.

"We were moving a tremendous number of people out to Colorado, Texas, Florida from Chicago, New York, L.A., etc.," said Chuck Kuhn, the CEO of JK Moving Services. "It was truly a mass exodus of the major cities, and it's still continuing on those two years later."

Kuhn says that his company has had a 40% increase in volume for the last two years. Typically, it's around 10-12%.

That growth has increased the need for truck drivers.

JK Moving has a $100,000 minimum pay guarantee to all their long-haul drivers. They're looking to hire 100 more immediately.

"With the business volumes we have today, one of the nice accommodations we can make to the drivers is figuring out what their needs and desires are for getting back to their homes and what area of the country they want to run in," Kuhn said. "We can we can target that area for them and help their quality of life."

JK's drivers can be based anywhere. They can drive regionally and spend about three days a week away from home or drive cross country and be gone for weeks at a time. They have the flexibility to make their schedule.

For those that need to hire movers soon, Kuhn says to allow more planning time. Start calling at least two months in advance, get two or three different estimates, and do the homework to ensure it's a quality company.

"Just drive to the location, look at the quality of their vehicles, look at how they're maintaining their fleet, look at the facility that your items will be stored in, looking at the people that she'd be interacting with during the move," Kuhn said.

NEW YORK — This week’s remaining episodes of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” have been scrapped after the host tested positive for COVID-19.

Meyers tweeted Tuesday about his positive result but said he felt fine, thanking the vaccine and a booster shot.

"The bad news is, I tested positive for COVID (thanks, 2022!) the good news is, I feel fine (thanks vaccines and booster!) We are canceling the rest of the shows this week, so tune in next Monday to see what cool location we will try and pass off as a studio!!!" Meyers tweeted.

NBC has canceled shows scheduled from Tuesday to Friday.

“Late Night with Seth Meyers” is just the latest TV show to grapple with the new surge in the pandemic.

“Saturday Night Live” had to scramble to broadcast a new show last month without a live audience and with taped sketches.

Fellow NBC TV host Jimmy Fallon revealed Monday that he had a positive COVID-19 result before Christmas.

The pandemic is taking its toll on kids in more ways than one. Doctors are calling mental health in our children a second pandemic. Sister station KOAT spoke to a pediatrician about the strain COVID-19 has put on our children.

Dr. Alex Cvijanovich is the president of the New Mexico Pediatric Society. She said mental health has been declared an emergency.

After months of home lockdown and isolation protocols because of COVID-19. Cvijanovich said our children face a mental health crisis, and it's something parents should take very seriously.

"I think it was here before COVID-19, but it has really exploded during the COVID pandemic. Take your child's concerns seriously and trust your instincts," she said.

So how can you tell if your child is struggling with mental health? Cvijanovich said the first signs are changes in eating habits, your child isolating themselves more than usual, sleeping through the days or not enjoying activities they usually love.

Cvijanovich said she sees these symptoms every day, and if you see them in your child, it's essential to act fast. If you can catch it early, you'll minimize the impact.

"Try to talk to your child if your child is willing. If the child or teenager has had a counselor or a therapist, a psychologist before, get back in touch," Cvijanovich said. "We need to be extremely careful. We are seeing much higher rates of attempted suicides and suicides. Parents, Grandparents, and caregivers know the kids in their house the best. And if they are concerned about their child's mental health, act on it."

The doctor adds that putting the suicide hotline number somewhere in your house or in your child's phone is the best way to keep them safe when you're not around. That number is 1-800-273-8255.

Watch the video above for the full story.

CINCINNATI —

Preparation is everything according to health experts as the new variant, omicron, continues to spread across the globe.

The tools we do have, masking, social distancing and getting vaccinated, are what health experts are recommending as we wait to find out more information about omicron and its transmissibility, how sick it makes us and if our current vaccines work effectively against it.

"People panic and what we need to do is focus on another p-word and that is preparation," UC Health's College of Medicine Dr. Lou Edje said.

Karl Hosterman got his booster shot with the Hamilton County Health Department Tuesday afternoon.

"I guess the jury is still out about whether the vaccine is going to work against the variants," Hosterman said.

That's true when it comes to this omicron variant, according to Edje.

As for the delta variant, which is still most widespread in the U.S., she said that the third shot is proven to help.

"We do know that the boosters that we have give you a thirty to 40-fold increase in virus-neutralizing antibodies that is huge," Edje said.

Getting your 5 to 11-year-old's vaccinated is also crucial as we wait to learn more about omicron.

What we have heard this entire pandemic is the way to get out of this thing is by getting everybody vaccinated so as soon as the vaccine became available for our kids we signed up," Alex Linser of Mt. Washington said.

Pediatrician Chris Peltier with Pediatric Associates of Mt Carmel agrees.

"I still have probably a quarter to maybe a third of my practice that's ineligible and can't get vaccinated so we need to protect our youngest patients," Peltier said. "We see less severity of disease in kids so hopefully that would continue with this new variant although we just don’t have experience to say that."

COVID-19 infections in the U.S. are on the rise.

During a virtual meeting of the White House COVID-19 Response Team, Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky say the seven-day rolling for COVID-19 infection is 92,000. That's an increase of about 18% from the week prior.

"Infections among the unvaccinated continue to drive this pandemic," Dr. Walenksy said.

The uptick comes as millions of Americans gather for the holidays. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Walensky reiterated, however, that vaccinated Americans should feel comfortable being around their loved ones this year.

"We certainly want families to gather and we certainly don't want these issues to create wedges in families," Dr. Walensky said.

On Friday, the U.S. expanded eligibility to booster shots for all Americans. Adults 18 and over can now get a Moderna or Pfizer booster shot six months after their first series. Adults can also get the Johnson & Johnson booster two months after receiving their first dose.

"Not only do boosters work, they work even better than the peak dose, the peak response after the second dose," Dr. Fauci said.

Fauci added that they don't have the data yet to show when Americans may need a fourth shot. He said he's hopeful that will remain highly effective for longer than the first two shots.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control, signed off on a recommendation to expand eligibility for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots.

Walensky's decision came after the vote of approval from a key CDC advisory panel.

"Booster shots have demonstrated the ability to safely increase people’s protection against infection and severe outcomes and are an important public health tool to strengthen our defenses against the virus as we enter the winter holidays. Based on the compelling evidence, all adults over 18 should now have equitable access to a COVID-19 booster dose," Walensky said.

Earlier in the day, the FDA approved Moderna's and Pfizer's boosters for all U.S. adults who completed their first series of vaccines six months prior.

Previously, the FDA and the CDC approved booster shots of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for people aged 65 and up, people who have underlying health conditions that make them susceptible to the virus and those who are at an increased risk of contracting the virus because of their job or living situation. At the same time, regulators approved the mixing and matching of vaccine brands when it comes to booster shots.

The CDC reports that more than 32 million Americans have already gotten a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot. However, the agency says 47 million Americans are still not vaccinated.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing "a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering."

The U.N. chief said anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.

Guterres says migrants and refugees have been vilified as a source of the virus and then denied access to medical treatment.

He says older people, journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are also being targeted.

Guterres appealed for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally."

While all hands are on deck to combat the novel coronavirus, there is another virus that experts are keeping their eyes on – the EEE virus, commonly known as the "Triple E."

It stands for eastern equine encephalitis.

You may have heard of the virus last year when we started seeing more cases outside of Gulf Coast states, where the virus is normally seen.

"Triple E" can cause inflammation in the brain, which can be deadly.

In 2018, the United States only had six cases of "Triple E." In 2019, that number rose to 38, an alarming number considering about a third of people who become infected are expected to die.

With coronavirus at top of mind this summer, experts are concerned people may not take the right precautions for "Triple E."

“You hear all about coronavirus, having to wear a mask,” said Dr. Brittany Campbell, an entomologist with the National Pest Management Association. “We've been doing social distancing for months now, with a little bit of movement. So, I can understand that everyone is a little bit exhausted from being concerned about their health all of the time. But at this time, I really encourage people to remain diligent.”

This can be done by making a habit of dumping out any standing water in your yard and also protecting yourself by wearing repellent.

And when it comes to how rampant "Triple E" will be this mosquito season, experts aren't exactly sure. It really depends on the temperature, climate and rain specific to each region.

Massachusetts saw a large outbreak last year. The state is now looking at a bill that would have the public health department reduce the mosquito population, as a precaution.

Customers are still sitting down for a cold beer at Joyride Brewing in Edgewater, Colorado.

“We always talk about stopping and smelling the hops. It’s all about the joy ride of life,” said Grant Babb, the owner of Joyride Brewing.

That’s despite new state rules that state bars must serve food to stay open, and Joyride doesn't serve food.

“It makes you lose a little sleep at night, not knowing every day when you wake up if you have to do something different. It’s trying to shoot at a bullseye and just watching it constantly move,” said Babb.

Babb had to make arrangements with multiple food trucks and the restaurant down the street to stay open. That’s because the recent spike in COVID-19 cases has led the state to put its economic restart plans on hold.

“In our case, we schedule out food trucks about a month and a half in advance, and we’re working with only the food trucks we’re trusted partners with,” said Babb.

Colorado isn’t the only state backtracking due to the surge. According to a tracker from the New York Times, 15 states are pausing plans to reopen and six are reversing course and shutting some things back down.

Arizona is one of those states where bars, gyms, and theaters have been ordered closed once again. Restaurants there fear the same might happen to them soon if new COVID-19 cases aren’t curbed.

“You can’t simply turn off and turn on a restaurant operation,” said Steve Churci, the head of the Arizona Restaurant Association.

He says the toll of shutting down those businesses for a second time would be crushing.

“If you were to shut down, what happens to the suicide rate? Does that go up? What happens to the homelessness rate, people losing their homes? So, there’s a whole other sad and unfortunate contingent that would be impacted by this,” said Churci.

Churci says service industry workers employ almost a quarter-million people and the state has lost $815 million in revenue from food sales. He says in a normal year, US restaurants sell $900 billion worth of food.

“Almost a trillion-dollar industry. So, we often say we’re the cornerstone of our communities. We’re the heart and soul of America in the restaurant industry, and we are,” said Churci.

For Joyride, the losses have been heavy as well.

“We, we’re down 80 percent in the month of March, April, May. And then June, we’re still seeing a significant decrease, we’re down definitely 40 percent,” said Babb.

For Babb, the money hurt, but letting his staff go was harder.

“It’s the most painful thing you can do is tell an employee that we don’t have any work for you,” he said.

He says it will hurt even more if he has to send his staff home again.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Two sororities at Texas A&M University are forced to quarantine after having been exposed to COVID-19.

The university announced the activities and members of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Delta Delta are experiencing exposure to the virus.

Texas A&M has initiated chapter-wide quarantine and contact tracing for those who live in the sorority houses or elsewhere and were in contact.

The chapters have been responsive and are responsibly following required steps to continue operations, according to the university.

Students, faculty, or staff who receive a positive diagnosis or believe they have been exposed to a positive case must complete a form through the university's reporting portal.

Gatherings have also been restricted to 10 or fewer people.

Texas A&M kicked off the fall semester both online and in-person on August 19.

This story was first reported by Sydney Isenberg at KXXV in Waco, Texas.

ATLANTA — The United States is going to require airline travelers from Britain to get a negative COVID-19 test first.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the new policy late Thursday.

Airline passengers from the United Kingdom will have to test negative for COVID-19 within three days of their flight. The requirement goes into effect Monday.

The U.S. is the latest country to announce travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere. The new of the virus is more contagious than other strains.

The CDC said because of restrictions in place since March, air travel to the U.S. from the U.K. is down by 90%.

If states are able to "diligently vaccinate" people against the coronavirus next year, the U.S. could return to normal life by early fall, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday in an interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom.Although the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is off to a much slower start than expected, if the U.S. is able to catch up, widespread vaccination could be possible beginning in April, said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Government officials had initially promised at least 20 million vaccine doses would be administered by the end of December, but as the year comes to a close, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows about 12.4 million doses have been distributed and nearly 2.8 million have been administered."Let's say in April, it will be what I call open season, namely, anybody who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated," Fauci said in the Facebook interview. "If we then diligently vaccinate people in April, May, June, July, then we will gradually and noticeably get a degree of protection approaching herd immunity."Fauci has estimated that herd immunity — where enough people have antibodies to diminish the spread of the virus — could likely be achieved if about 70% to 85% of the population gets vaccinated."By the time we get to the early fall, we will have enough good herd immunity to be able to really get back to some strong semblance of normality — schools, theaters, sports events, restaurants," he said. "I believe if we do it correctly, we will be there by the early fall."Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said vaccinations will have to increase to more than 1 million per day.It's doable, he said, but, "Do we have the health system to do that? I'm not certain."He said the federal government needs to step up and states need to get funding for the administering of the vaccines.Trump administration officials told CNN that vaccine distribution is on track and claimed the gap was due to a lag in reporting data. Still, Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, acknowledged the number is "lower than what we hoped for.""We know that it should be better, and we're working hard to make it better," Slaoui said.

The U.S. has reached another startling milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic: Roughly one out of every 500 Americans has died of the virus.

According to Johns Hopkins, nearly 667,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 since the virus arrived in the country in early 2020. The Census Bureau reports that the U.S. population as of April 2020 was 331 million.

The U.S. surpassed the milestone as the country continues to deal with the delta variant, a more contagious variant strain of the virus. The average daily case rate in the country has exploded in recent weeks from a low of 8,000 a day in late June to the current case rate of 140,000 a day.

Deaths have also been on the rise in recent weeks. The U.S. is currently losing more than 1,300 people a day to COVID-19 — an amount not seen since March.

The U.S. continues to lead the world in both total COVID-19 cases and deaths despite having the world's largest supply of vaccines.

Despite the spread of the delta variant, vaccinations have been proven to protect people from the most severe cases of COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says who are not yet vaccinated are 11 times more likely to die of the virus and 10 times more likely to be hospitalized.

Video above: Pfizer study says vaccine protects against variant

The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge.

The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and health officials say the high rate of new cases is the main reason. Each new infection gives the virus a chance to mutate as it makes copies of itself, threatening to undo the progress made so far to control the pandemic.

On Friday, the World Health Organization urged more effort to detect new variants. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new version first identified in the United Kingdom may become dominant in the U.S. by March. Although it doesn’t cause more severe illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths just because it spreads much more easily, said the CDC, warning of “a new phase of exponential growth.”

“We’re taking it really very seriously," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, said Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.”

“We need to do everything we can now ... to get transmission as low as we possibly can,” said Harvard University’s Dr. Michael Mina. “The best way to prevent mutant strains from emerging is to slow transmission.”

So far, vaccines seem to remain effective, but there are signs that some of the new mutations may undermine tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of antibody drugs as treatments.

“We’re in a race against time" because the virus “may stumble upon a mutation” that makes it more dangerous, said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Younger people may be less willing to wear masks, shun crowds and take other steps to avoid infection because the current strain doesn’t seem to make them very sick, but “in one mutational change, it might,” she warned. Sabeti documented a change in the Ebola virus during the 2014 outbreak that made it much worse.

MUTATIONS ON THE RISE

It's normal for viruses to acquire small changes or mutations in their genetic alphabet as they reproduce. Ones that help the virus flourish give it a competitive advantage and thus crowd out other versions.

In March, just a couple months after the coronavirus was discovered in China, a mutation called D614G emerged that made it more likely to spread. It soon became the dominant version in the world.

Now, after months of relative calm, “we’ve started to see some striking evolution” of the virus, biologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle wrote on Twitter last week. “The fact that we’ve observed three variants of concern emerge since September suggests that there are likely more to come.”

One was first identified in the United Kingdom and quickly became dominant in parts of England. It has now been reported in at least 30 countries, including the United States.

Soon afterward, South Africa and Brazil reported new variants, and the main mutation in the version identified in Britain turned up on a different version “that’s been circulating in Ohio ... at least as far back as September,” said Dr. Dan Jones, a molecular pathologist at Ohio State University who announced that finding last week.

“The important finding here is that this is unlikely to be travel-related” and instead may reflect the virus acquiring similar mutations independently as more infections occur, Jones said.

That also suggests that travel restrictions might be ineffective, Mina said. Because the United States has so many cases, “we can breed our own variants that are just as bad or worse” as those in other countries, he said.

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TREATMENT, VACCINE, REINFECTION RISKS

Some lab tests suggest the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil may be less susceptible to antibody drugs or convalescent plasma, antibody-rich blood from COVID-19 survivors — both of which help people fight off the virus.

Government scientists are “actively looking” into that possibility, Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters Thursday. The government is encouraging development of multi-antibody treatments rather than single-antibody drugs to have more ways to target the virus in case one proves ineffective, she said.

Current vaccines induce broad enough immune responses that they should remain effective, many scientists say. Enough genetic change eventually may require tweaking the vaccine formula, but “it’s probably going to be on the order of years if we use the vaccine well rather than months,” Dr. Andrew Pavia of the University of Utah said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Health officials also worry that if the virus changes enough, people might get COVID-19 a second time. Reinfection currently is rare, but Brazil already confirmed a case in someone with a new variant who had been sickened with a previous version several months earlier.

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WHAT TO DO

“We’re seeing a lot of variants, viral diversity, because there’s a lot of virus out there,” and reducing new infections is the best way to curb it, said Dr. Adam Lauring, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Loyce Pace, who heads the nonprofit Global Health Council and is a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said the same precautions scientists have been advising all along “still work and they still matter.”

“We still want people to be masking up,” she said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“We still need people to limit congregating with people outside their household. We still need people to be washing their hands and really being vigilant about those public health practices, especially as these variants emerge.”

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AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed reporting.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WASHINGTON —

As the U.S. enters “what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus,” President Joe Biden is putting forth a national COVID-19 strategy to ramp up vaccinations and testing, reopen schools and businesses and increase the use of masks — including a requirement that they be worn for travel.

Biden also will address inequities in hard-hit minority communities as he signs 10 pandemic-related executive orders on Thursday, his second day in office.

“We need to ask average Americans to do their part," said Jeff Zients, the White House official directing the national response. “Defeating the virus requires a coordinated nationwide effort."

But Biden officials say they're hampered by lack of cooperation from the Trump administration during the transition. They say they don’t have a complete understanding of their predecessors’ actions on vaccine distribution.

They're also depending on Congress to provide $1.9 trillion for economic relief and COVID-19 response. And they face a litany of complaints from states that say they are not getting enough vaccine even as they are being asked to vaccinate more categories of people.

Biden acknowledged the urgency of the mission in his inaugural address. “We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus,” he said before asking Americans to join him in a moment of silence in memory of the more than 400,000 people in the U.S. who have died from COVID-19.

Biden’s top medical adviser on COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also announced renewed U.S. support for the World Health Organization after it faced blistering criticism from the Trump administration, laying out new commitments to tackle the coronavirus and other global health issues. Fauci said early Thursday that the U.S. will join the U.N. health agency’s efforts to bring vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to people in need, whether in rich or poor countries and will resume full funding and staffing support for WHO.

The U.S. mask order for travel being implemented by Biden will apply to airports and planes, ships, intercity buses, trains and public transportation. Travelers from abroad must furnish a negative COVID-19 test before departing for the U.S. and quarantine upon arrival. Biden has already mandated masks on federal property.

Although airlines, Amtrak and other transport providers now require masks, Biden's order makes it a federal mandate, leaving little wiggle room for passengers tempted to argue about their rights. It marks a sharp break with the culture of President Donald Trump's administration, under which masks were optional. Science has shown that masks, properly worn, cut down on coronavirus transmission.

Biden also is seeking to expand testing and vaccine availability, with the goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office. Zients called Biden's goal “ambitious and achievable.”

The Democratic president has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to begin setting up vaccination centers, aiming to have 100 up and running in a month. He's ordering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin a program to make vaccines available through local pharmacies starting next month. And he's mobilizing the Public Health Service to deploy to assist localities in vaccinations.

Some independent experts say the administration should be setting a higher bar for itself than 100 million shots. During flu season, the U.S. is able to vaccinate about 3 million people a day, said Dr. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. “Given the number of people dying from COVID, we could and should do more — like what we’re able to do on seasonal flu,” he said.

Zients said Biden will not follow through on a Trump administration plan to penalize states lagging in vaccination by shifting some of their allocation to more efficient states. “We are not looking to pit one state against another,” he said.

Biden has set a goal of having most K-8 schools reopen in his first 100 days, and he's ordering the departments of Education and Health and Human Services to provide clear guidance for reopening schools safely.

Getting schools and child care going will help to ease the drag on the U.S. economy, making it easier for parents to return to their jobs and restaurants to find lunch-time customers.

But administration officials stressed that reopening schools safely depends on increased testing.

To ramp up supplies, Biden is giving government agencies a green light to use a Cold War-era law called the Defense Production Act to direct manufacturing.

“We do not have nearly enough testing capacity in this country,” Zients said. “We need the money in order to really ramp up testing, which is so important to reopen schools and businesses.”

This means that any efforts to reopen the economy will hinge on how quickly lawmakers act on the $1.9 trillion package proposed by Biden, which includes separate planks such as $1,400 in direct payments to people, a $15 minimum wage and aid to state and local governments that some Republican lawmakers see as unnecessary for addressing the medical emergency. The Biden plan estimates that a national vaccination strategy with expanded testing requires $160 billion, and he wants another $170 billion to aid the reopening of schools and universities.

As part of his COVID-19 strategy, Biden will order the establishment of a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force to ensure that minority and underserved communities are not left out of the government's response. Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans have borne a heavy burden of death and disease from the virus. Surveys have shown vaccine hesitancy is high among African Americans, a problem the administration plans to address through an education campaign.

But Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the top White House health adviser on minority communities, said she's not convinced that race should be a factor in vaccination. Disparities seem to have more to do with risky jobs and other life circumstances.

“It's not inherent to race,” she said. “It's from the exposures.”

There's also support for states in the package. Biden is ordering FEMA to reimburse states for the full cost of using their National Guards to set up vaccination centers. That includes the use of supplies and protective gear as well as personnel. States would also be able to tap FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund to help them get schools back open.

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Associated Press writers Collin Binkley and Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Testing wristbands are in. Mask-wearing is mandatory. Desks are socially distanced.

The clearest sign that there's a new boss at the White House is the deference being paid to coronavirus public health guidelines.

It’s a striking contrast to Donald Trump’s White House, which was the epicenter of no less than three separate outbreaks of COVID-19, their true scale not fully known because aides refused to discuss cases publicly.

While the Trump administration was known for flouting safety recommendations, the Biden team has made a point of abiding by the same strict guidelines they’re urging Americans to follow to stem the spread of the virus.

It’s part of an overall effort from President Joe Biden to lead by example on the coronavirus pandemic, an ethos carried over from his campaign and transition.

“One of the great tragedies of the Trump administration was a refusal to recognize that many Americans model the behavior of our leadership," said Ben LaBolt, a former press secretary to President Barack Obama who worked on the Biden transition.

“The Biden administration understands the powerful message that adhering to their own guidelines and modeling the best public health behavior sends, and knows that that’s the best path to climbing out of this until we can get a shot in the arm of every American.”

To that end, most of Biden’s White House staff is working from home, coordinating with colleagues by email or phone. While the White House aims to have more people working onsite next week, officials intend to operate with substantially reduced staffing for the duration of the pandemic.

When hundreds of administration staffers were sworn in by Biden on Wednesday, the ceremony was virtual, with the president looking out at team members displayed in boxes on video screens.

The emphasis on adhering to public safety guidelines touches matters both big and small in the White House.

Jeffrey Wexler is the White House director of COVID-19 operations, overseeing the implementation of safety guidelines throughout the administration, a role he also served during the transition and campaign. During her first press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested those working in the office would receive daily testing and N95 masks would be mandatory.

Indeed, Biden's new federal mask mandate executive order requires that federal employees, contractors and others in federal buildings and on federal lands wear masks and adhere to social distancing requirements. The executive order allows for agency heads to make “case-by-case exceptions" — like, for instance, Psaki's. She wears one until she steps up to the podium for briefings.

Officials in close contact with Biden wear wristbands to signify they have been tested that day. Every event with the president is carefully choreographed to maintain distancing, with strips of paper taped to the carpet to show the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris and Dr. Anthony Fauci where to stand when Biden is delivering an address.

Related video: Fauci: 'Liberating' to work with new team on virus

When Biden met with his COVID team in the State Dining Room on Thursday, the five people in the room sat at individual tables placed at least six feet apart and four others joined by Zoom to keep numbers down.

Plexiglass barriers have been set up at some desks that are in open areas, but nearly all staff who are already working in the building have enclosed offices. The Biden team already had a robust contact tracing program set up during the transition, which it's keeping around for any possible exposures.

Staffers also were issued laptops with wallpaper displays that offer a list of COVID symptoms and a directive to “call the White House medical unit” if they have experienced any of them.

The Trump White House was another story altogether.

After one virus scare in May, the White House mandated mask-wearing, with a memo from chief of staff Mark Meadows requiring their use in shared workspaces and meetings. Simple surgical masks were placed at the entrance to the West Wing.

But after only a few days of moderate compliance, mask-wearing fell away almost entirely, as Trump made it clear to aides he did not like the visual of people around him wearing masks — let alone wearing one himself.

Trump’s White House reduced staffing capacity during the earliest days of the pandemic, but by late spring, when Trump was intent on projecting that the country was “reopening” from pandemic lockdowns — and the U.S. was at roughly 80,000 deaths — aides quickly resumed normal operations. That provided ideal conditions for the spread of an airborne virus.

It was only after Trump himself tested positive that some aides began staggering their work schedules to provide enhanced distancing and contingencies in case someone tested positive.

Those working for the new administration welcome the stricter guidelines now, but they do pose some potential complications as the Biden team builds out its operation.

Karen Finney, who was a spokeswoman in the Clinton White House, said the first challenge may simply be creating a cohesiveness and camaraderie when some new staffers are brought on board without ever having worked in the same room.

“When you sit in the same office as everyone, it’s just a different dynamic," she said. “There's a sense of, ‘We’ve got each other's backs, we're going to be working together on this.'”

Finney added that most of the staff are used to working remotely at this point, so it's not necessarily a new challenge. But she allowed that the national COVID response itself could be somewhat hamstrung by the COVID requirements at the White House.

“Having to coordinate between limited staff in the office, those working remotely, along with governors, mayors, their staff, those on the Hill — it’s a challenge,” she said. “They’ve had the time to think through how to do some of this, but look, it’s going to be a work in progress."