Health News Roundup: WHO says team in Wuhan to visit labs; 48.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed and more

It also found that the health department did not count the deaths of nursing home residents who were transferred to and died in hospitals in some cases. Pandemic spurs quest to enroll more Black Americans in vaccine trials Infectious disease doctor Angela Branche needed help.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

WHO says team in Wuhan to visit labs, markets and hospitals

A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic will meet Chinese scientists on Friday and plans to visit labs, markets and hospitals in Wuhan, the WHO said. The team left its quarantine hotel in Wuhan on Thursday to begin field work, two weeks after arriving in the Chinese city where the virus emerged in late 2019.

Democrats plan initial steps on Biden COVID-19 relief for next week

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will begin moving forward next week on President Joe Biden's plan to deliver a fresh infusion of COVID-19 relief to Americans and businesses reeling from the pandemic, top Democrats said on Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said his narrowly divided chamber would begin work on a "robust" coronavirus package as early as next week, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted that Congress would complete a key preliminary step before the end of next week.

EU warns it could block vaccine exports, wields legal threat at drugmakers

Europe's fight to secure COVID-19 vaccine supplies intensified on Thursday when the European Union warned drug companies such as AstraZeneca that it would use all legal means or even block exports unless they agreed to deliver shots as promised. The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West's biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc due to production problems.

Exclusive: COVID-19 vaccine shortage delays some first shots in Paris region, source says

A shortage of COVID-19 vaccines has forced Paris and two other regions that together account for a third of the French population to postpone giving out some first doses, a source familiar with the discussion and health officials said on Thursday. Europe faces a vaccine shortfall because pharmaceutical firm Pfizer has temporarily slowed supplies in order to make manufacturing changes, while AstraZeneca said it would cut supplies of its shot allocated to the EU in the first quarter due to production issues at a Belgian factory.

48.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed, 26.2 million administered: U.S. CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 26,193,682 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 48,386,275 doses. The tally of vaccine doses are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, the agency said.

Racing the virus: Why tweaking vaccines to fight variants won't be simple After developing and rolling out COVID-19 vaccines at record speed, drugmakers are already facing variants of the rapidly-evolving coronavirus that may render them ineffective, a challenge that will require months of research and a massive financial investment, according to disease experts. Executives from Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE are considering new versions of their vaccines to respond to the most concerning variants identified so far. That is just one piece of the work needed to stay ahead of the virus, nearly a dozen experts told Reuters.

New York prosecutor says state undercounted nursing home COVID deaths by up to 50% New York state's health department may have undercounted the COVID-19 death toll in state nursing home residents by as much as 50%, according to a report released by the state attorney general's office on Thursday. The report, issued while the state prosecutor's office continues to investigate nursing homes' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, indicated that some facilities underreported deaths to the state health department. It also found that the health department did not count the deaths of nursing home residents who were transferred to and died in hospitals in some cases.

Pandemic spurs quest to enroll more Black Americans in vaccine trials Infectious disease doctor Angela Branche needed help. Branche and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York were running a clinical trial for a vaccine against the coronavirus, which kills Black people at three times the rate it kills whites - yet it was mostly whites signing up. They needed more African Americans.

France new daily COVID-19 cases remain high as third lockdown looms French health authorities reported 23,770 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours on Thursday, down from 26,916 on Wednesday but up from 22,848 last Thursday, adding to fears of a third national lockdown. French Health Minister Olivier Veran said earlier new variants of the coronavirus were circulating more widely every week and that the tighter curfew put in place almost two weeks ago had not managed to curb the spread of the virus.

U.S. finds first cases of South African COVID-19 variant, in South Carolina The United States has found its first cases of a potent coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, health officials in the state of South Carolina said on Thursday. Viruses mutate frequently, and several mutated viruses have been identified. The presence of the South African variant in the United States is especially concerning because several laboratory studies have shown that it reduces vaccine effectiveness.