India recorded a single-day high in new coronavirus cases on Thursday. The embattled country recorded 400,000 cases in a single day, a new global high, and\u00a0the highest daily death toll in any country outside the United States at 3,980 deaths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pope Francis says he is thinking especially of all those who have lost loved ones in India, and praying for \u201cperseverance, strength and peace\u201d for hospital workers, ambulance drivers, and others tending to the sick.<\/p>\n
Also in the news:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u25ba\u00a0Australia\u2019s prime minister said on Friday that an India travel ban will end with three government-chartered flights to repatriate Australians by the end of May.<\/p>\n \u25baFrench President Emmanuel Macron is joining the Biden administration in saying\u00a0he supports sharing the technology behind COVID-19 vaccines\u00a0but said the immediate priority is for wealthier countries to donate more doses to poorer countries.<\/p>\n \u25baKansas has requested less than 9% of its federal allocation of COVID-19 vaccine doses for this week, as Republican state lawmakers try to revive proposals to ban government vaccine passports and restore limits on tracing the close contacts of people exposed to the virus.<\/p>\n \u25baInitial analysis of Phase 2\/3 testing of Moderna’s vaccine\u00a0in adolescents\u00a012 to 17 years showed vaccine effectiveness of 96%, the company says. The vaccine was “generally well tolerated,” and there were\u00a0no serious safety concerns identified thus far, the company said.<\/p>\n \u25baThe true death toll from COVID-19 across the nation is probably over 900,000, more than 50% higher than the most commonly used tallies, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcc8\u00a0Today’s numbers:\u00a0The U.S. has nearly 32.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 580,000 deaths,\u00a0according to\u00a0Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: Over 155.65\u00a0million cases and 3.25 million deaths. More than\u00a0324.6 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S. and nearly 251.9 million have been administered,\u00a0according to the CDC. Almost 109 million Americans have been fully vaccinated.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcd8\u00a0What we’re reading:<\/strong> Jennifer\u00a0Price tells\u00a0herself it wasn\u2019t her husband who died by suicide on one of their farms\u00a0the morning of Feb. 28. She believes he was\u00a0taken over by what some health care professionals call\u00a0\u201cCOVID psychosis.\u201d<\/p>\n Keep refreshing this page for the latest updates. Want more?\u00a0Sign up for our Coronavirus\u00a0Watch newsletter\u00a0for updates to your inbox and\u00a0join our Facebook group.<\/em><\/p>\n The troubled Tokyo Games may get a boost from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.<\/p>\n The companies announced Thursday that they will\u00a0donate COVID-19 vaccines to\u00a0athletes\u00a0and officials involved in this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Japan.<\/p>\n Delivery of initial doses is expected to begin at the end of May to ensure participating athletes and staff receive second doses ahead of arrivals in Tokyo. The Summer Olympics are scheduled to begin on July 23. The Paralympics begin about a month later.\u00a0The Games had been scheduled for last summer\u00a0but were postponed one year because of\u00a0the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cThe return of the Olympic and Paralympic Games represents a monumental moment of world unity and peace after a grueling year of isolation and devastation,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “We are proud to play a role in providing vaccines to athletes and national Olympic delegations.\u201d<\/p>\n Even though international spectators won’t be allowed at the Olympics because of the pandemic, the large majority of the Japanese public continues to be opposed to the Tokyo Games being held in July out of health concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n An online petition calling for their cancellation has gained tens of thousands of signatures in a few days. Tokyo, Osaka and several other areas are under a state of emergency with rising coronavirus infections. The headline in English of the petition reads: \u201cCancel the Tokyo Olympics to protect our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n On a cloudy spring day, hundreds lined up in their cars on the Canadian side of the border crossing that separates Alberta and Montana. They had driven for hours and camped out in their vehicles in hopes of receiving the season\u2019s hottest commodity \u2014 a COVID-19 vaccine \u2014 from a Native American tribe that was giving out its excess doses.<\/p>\n The Blackfeet Tribe in northern Montana provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines last month to its First Nations relatives and others from across the border, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the United States and Canada are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.<\/p>\n More than 95% of the Blackfeet reservation’s roughly 10,000 residents who are eligible for the vaccine are fully immunized, after the state prioritized Native American communities \u2014 among the\u00a0most vulnerable\u00a0U.S. populations \u2014 in the early stages of its vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n The tribe received vaccine allotments both from the Montana health department and the federal Indian Health Service, leaving some doses unused. With an expiration date fast approaching, it turned to other nations in the Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes the Blackfeet and three tribes in southern Alberta that share a language and culture.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea was to get to our brothers and sisters that live in Canada,\u201d said Robert DesRosier, emergency services manager for the Blackfeet tribe. \u201cAnd then the question came up \u2013 what if a nontribal member wants a vaccine? Well, this is about saving lives. We\u2019re not going to turn anybody away.\u201d<\/p>\nPfizer, BioNTech will vaccinate summer Olympians<\/h2>\n
Blackfeet Tribe shares vaccine with relatives, neighbors in Canada<\/h2>\n