CoronavirusCovid News: Coachella Festival To Return Without Mask or Vaccine Requirements

When the Coachella outdoor music festival returns for the first time in two years this April, performers will be greeted by a sea of unmasked — and potentially unvaccinated — fans as the struggling concert industry stirs back to life.

Organizers said on Tuesday that attendees would not be required to wear masks or be vaccinated or tested for the coronavirus at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which drew up to 125,000 fans a day to Southern California and was one of the biggest music festivals of the pre-pandemic era.

“There is no guarantee, express or implied, that those attending the festival will not be exposed to Covid-19,” Goldenvoice, a division of the global concert giant AEG Live, said on the Coachella website.

Goldenvoice noted, however, that the festival’s Covid policies may change “in accordance with applicable public health conditions.”

Goldenvoice also said on Tuesday that Stagecoach, a country music festival in Southern California, would have no requirements for guests to be masked, vaccinated or tested. The festival was set to run for three days in late April and early May.

It has been a turbulent two years for the concert and touring industries as a number of events were canceled because of the coronavirus. In the last year, since Covid vaccines became widely available, organizers have grappled with decisions over whether to hold the events at all and whether to require masks, vaccines and testing.

Over four days last summer, the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago ran at full capacity, with its 400,000 attendees being required to show either proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test. According to data released by the city after the festival, infection rates among the concertgoers were low.

Coachella did not run in 2020 or 2021, and was canceled three times over the pandemic, including a rescheduled date in the fall of 2020.

Before the pandemic, Coachella, which is widely seen as a bellwether for the multibillion-dollar touring business, had put on a show every year since 1999 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. It typically runs over two weekends in April.

The organizers of Coachella announced in January, after weeks of speculation, that the festival would be back this year. It is set to be headlined by Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and Kanye West.

Infants whose mothers received two doses of an mRNA coronavirus vaccine during pregnancy are less likely to be admitted to the hospital for Covid-19 in the first six months of life, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, maternal vaccination was 61 percent effective at preventing infant hospitalization, the researchers found.

Vaccination later in pregnancy — after the first 20 weeks — appeared to provide better protection for infants than earlier vaccination, the study suggests.

The new study is the first real-world, epidemiological evidence that maternal vaccination can protect infants from Covid-19, likely because they are born carrying their mother’s antibodies.

“The bottom line is that maternal vaccination is a really important way to help protect these young infants,” Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman, chief of the Infant Outcomes Monitoring Research and Prevention Branch at the C.D.C., said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

The C.D.C. recommends that women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or trying to become pregnant be vaccinated against Covid-19, which can be dangerous for pregnant women and their children. Research has shown, for instance, that the disease can increase the risk of a variety of pregnancy complications, including preterm birth and stillbirth.

Prior research on other diseases has suggested that women who are vaccinated against other pathogens during pregnancy can pass antibodies to the fetus through the placenta, and scientists have previously found signs that the same antibody transfer might happen after vaccination for Covid-19.

The new study focused on children under six months of age who were admitted to one of 20 U.S. pediatric hospitals between July 1 and Jan. 17. Of the 379 infants included in the study, 176 had been admitted for Covid-19 or had symptoms of the disease; all of these children tested positive for the virus. The remaining 203 children tested negative for the virus.

Among the infants with Covid-19, 16 percent of mothers had been vaccinated during pregnancy, compared to 32 percent of the mothers of hospitalized children without the virus.

Vaccination during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy was 32 percent effective against Covid-19-related hospitalization for infants, the researchers found, whereas later vaccination was 80 percent effective.

But because of the relatively small sample size, more research is needed to determine the optimal timing of vaccination during pregnancy and whether a booster during pregnancy might provide similar protection for infants whose mothers have already received their first set of shots.

“For right now, we want to ensure that we are protecting both the mom and the infant, and so as soon as a pregnant woman is willing to be vaccinated, we recommend that she go ahead and do so,” Dr. Meaney-Delman said.

She added, “Unfortunately, vaccination of infants younger than six months old is not currently on the horizon.”

The study was also not large enough to determine whether maternal vaccination was equally protective against Delta, which was the dominant variant when the study began, and Omicron, which had displaced Delta by the time the research ended.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has urged the Hong Kong government to “take all necessary measures” to curb the city’s worst-ever Covid-19 outbreak as soon as possible, according to a statement carried by state-run newspapers Wednesday.

Mr. Xi was quoted in the Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, the city’s main pro-Beijing newspapers, as telling the Hong Kong government to mobilize all the personnel and resources possible “to ensure the life safety and health of Hong Kong citizens.”

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, acknowledged Tuesday that the epidemic had “outgrown our capacity” as some overwhelmed hospitals in the city began moving patients to outdoor tents on sidewalks and driveways.

Mrs. Lam played down the possibility of the sort of citywide lockdown used in mainland China, saying that health officials would continue to impose targeted lockdowns on buildings where positive cases had been found or sewer samples indicated the presence of the virus.

For much of the past two years, Hong Kong boasted of having the coronavirus largely under control through a program of social-distancing measures, aggressive contact tracing and one of the world’s longest quarantines for arrivals from overseas. But since the Omicron variant slipped into the city late last year, health officials have found the virus increasingly difficult to contain.

Hong Kong has recorded at least 11 Covid deaths over the past week, including those of a 3-year-old girl and a 100-year-old woman. Before last week, Hong Kong had not recorded a Covid death since September.

Medical researchers have warned that by summer the latest wave could kill nearly 1,000 people — more than four times the number of people who have died of Covid in Hong Kong over the past two years.

The surge in cases comes at a critical time for Hong Kong, which is scheduled to hold its election for chief executive next month. Mrs. Lam has yet to say whether she will run again, and Beijing has made no clear signal whether it wants her to stay on.

The territory’s economy is slumping after years of travel restrictions, tight social distancing rules, and limits on restaurants and other businesses.

Walt Disney World, the entertainment resort in Orlando, Fla., is easing its mask mandate for fully vaccinated visitors beginning Thursday.

Vaccinated patrons can forget the mask in most parts of the resort, though all patrons, vaccinated or unvaccinated, will continue to have to wear them on transportation within Disney World, according to a statement on the resort’s website. People who are not fully vaccinated will still be required to wear masks in all indoor and outdoor areas.

Similar changes will be introduced at Disneyland in California on Thursday.

It was not clear whether the changes will also apply to Disney World and Disneyland employees. Disney World representatives did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Universal Orlando Resort announced similar changes to its mask policy on Saturday. Face coverings are now optional for fully vaccinated patrons there, while people who have not been vaccinated are encouraged to continue to wear masks. The same policy applies to employees.

It was not clear whether the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated guests would be enforced by anything more than the honor system at either park. Florida law forbids businesses from asking customers to show proof of vaccine status.

The parks’ new mask policies come at a time of sweeping changes to mask mandates across the country. In California, the state health authorities joined several other states in easing some pandemic restrictions on Monday, though they left school mask requirements in place.

Florida’s mask stance has remained largely unchanged, with the authorities refusing to issue a statewide mandate.

Kirsten Noyes and Alyssa Lukpat contributed reporting.

Tyson Foods, one of the first national employers to mandate Covid vaccines for its workers, is moving to ease mask requirements for its employees as the number of coronavirus cases in the United States falls.

The meatpacking giant said on Tuesday that fully vaccinated workers at “some facilities” could begin to remove their masks at work. It joined companies like Walmart and states like New York that have moved to loosen restrictions in hopes of achieving a new normal in the absence of revised national guidelines.

“Due to our many efforts and, most importantly, our enterprisewide vaccinated status, we’ve seen lower rates of Covid-19 infection, as well as extremely low rates of serious illness at Tyson,” Tom Brower, the company’s senior vice president of health and safety, wrote in a memo to employees.

“And in recent weeks the number of active cases at Tyson has declined significantly,” he added.

A spokesman for Tyson said the company has “had productive and ongoing conversations with union representatives about the policy change.”

Tyson has 120,000 workers in more than a dozen states. The long hours they spend working in tight quarters make them particularly susceptible to the virus. And the company was criticized early in the pandemic for failing to do enough to protect its workers from the coronavirus, which killed more than 100 of its employees.

Slaughterhouses became hot spots for the coronavirus as it spread, posing a serious challenge to meat production. In April 2020, President Donald J. Trump said the slaughtering and processing of beef, chicken and pork was “critical infrastructure,” indicating the administration was allowing the plants to remain open despite a growing number of deaths among their workers. The order followed weeks of industry lobbying led by Tyson.

A recent congressional report said that at a Tyson plant in Amarillo, Texas, inspectors had observed that many employees were working with “saturated” masks. At a pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, dozens of workers fell ill and three died. Local officials, including the county sheriff, said the company initially refused their requests to shut down the plant in the spring of 2020.

Tyson says it has spent more than $810 million on coronavirus safety measures and new on-site medical services. It conducted plantwide coronavirus testing and hired its first chief medical officer.

In August, the company announced a vaccine requirement for its packing houses and poultry plants, many of which are in the South and Midwest, where resistance to the vaccines has been high. By November, more than 96 percent of its work force was vaccinated.

Tyson defines fully vaccinated as two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson shot, Mr. Brower said Tuesday. The company has hosted more than 100 clinics offering booster shots, he said, and it continues to “strongly encourage” booster shots for employees.

The number of coronavirus cases has declined about 80 percent nationally since its peak in January, to a national average of 155,000 per day, about the same as it was in late December.

Tyson’s easing of its mask rules is conditioned on local and other applicable laws, as well as federal regulations, which require the continued use of masks at certain facilities, depending on the transmission rate, Mr. Brower said. Tyson plans to inform employees soon which plants and offices will be affected by the change.

It is also reviewing — and considering adjusting — guidelines for social distancing and testing.

Novak Djokovic said he was prepared to miss the French Open, Wimbledon and other tournaments if he was required to get a coronavirus vaccine to compete.

In an interview with the BBC that was broadcast on Tuesday, the Serbian tennis star said he believed the freedom to choose what goes into his body was “more important than any title, or anything else.”

Mr. Djokovic said he understood that his vaccination status meant that he was “unable to travel to most of the tournaments at the moment,” but, he added, “That is the price that I’m willing to pay.”

Mr. Djokovic’s decision to remain unvaccinated, even after he was unable to compete in the Australian Open, may delay his quest to win more Grand Slam titles than his rivals. (The Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal was able to clinch a record 21st Grand Slam title at the Australian Open.)

The French authorities said last month that players must be vaccinated to compete in the French Open, the next of the four Grand Slam tournaments. Mr. Djokovic might be able to compete in Wimbledon in June, but according to recent guidelines, he may not be able to compete in the U.S. Open in August.

Mr. Djokovic told the BBC that he was not against vaccinations generally and that he did not want to be associated with the anti-vaccination movement, but that his decision about the coronavirus vaccine was personal.

“As an elite professional athlete, I’ve always carefully reviewed, assessed everything that comes in from the supplements, food, the water that I drink or sports drinks — anything, really anything that comes into my body as a fuel,” he said in the interview, which was recorded on Monday. “Based on all the informations that I got, I decided not to take the vaccine as of today.”

The Biden administration told key congressional officials on Tuesday that it could need an additional $30 billion in coronavirus relief aid, as part of an effort to boost funding for the pandemic response and a push to improve testing and vaccinations across the country.

The White House has not yet made a formal request for emergency funds, and Republicans have signaled a reluctance to support even more aid after Democrats muscled through a $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package in March along party lines.

But in an informal briefing with key congressional officials, the administration outlined the need for as much as $30 billion, including $17.9 billion for vaccines and therapeutics, $4.9 billion for diagnostics and additional aid to counter future variants, according to one official briefed on the details, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the discussion about both the status of existing funds and the need for additional aid to support vaccines, testing, and research and development. The Washington Post first reported details of the private briefing.

“They haven’t sent us a relief package yet,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader. “But obviously, we’re going to have to do something.”

Some lawmakers have raised the possibility of attaching emergency pandemic aid to an annual spending package needed to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. Lawmakers are currently negotiating the details of that omnibus package, but Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Tuesday that “I’m not eager to add” anything to the overall spending bill, citing the delicate negotiations.

The Senate on Tuesday narrowly confirmed Dr. Robert Califf as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a key federal agency that has been without a permanent chief for more than a yearlong stretch of the coronavirus pandemic.

The vote was 50-46, with six Republicans crossing the aisle to support him while five Democrats opposed him. One senator voted present.

In recent weeks, Dr. Califf’s odds of a second confirmation looked increasingly long as opposition mounted over concerns about how he would respond to the opioid epidemic and the agency’s handling of abortion drug rules. The White House responded by trying to rally support in Congress and among other allies, with mainstream medical societies and a bipartisan group of six former F.D.A. commissioners coming to Dr. Califf’s defense.

Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, was one of a handful of G.O.P. senators who backed Dr. Califf and offset some Democrats’ opposition. On Tuesday, Mr. Burr called on other senators to confirm Dr. Califf, saying the F.D.A. had gone 391 days without a permanent leader.

“I urge my colleagues to support Dr. Califf’s nomination because he will provide the leadership needed to promote today’s biomedical advancements and help to pave the way for tomorrow’s innovation,” Mr. Burr said.

The office of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, said on Monday that it had recovered more than $400,000 for consumers who were charged by laboratories for premium services like same-day delivery of coronavirus test results, but did not get their results until much later.

The refunds were issued by ClearMD Health and Sameday Health. The attorney general’s office said the companies advertised expedited testing but repeatedly misrepresented turnaround times for results. ClearMD Health was ordered to pay more than $182,000 to 1,198 consumers, and Sameday Health was ordered to pay more than $230,000 to 3,110 consumers.

The companies were also ordered to change their advertising, and train employees to provide accurate information about turnaround times, according to the attorney general’s office.

“It’s simple: Testing sites and labs must follow the law and accurately advertise when consumers can expect their results, otherwise they can expect to hear from my office,” Ms. James said in a statement.

A representative for Sameday Health said in a statement on Tuesday that “We thank the attorney general for addressing this matter quickly and fairly, and nothing we could add to her statement this week on the issue from last year would be of any benefit.”

ClearMD said in a statement Tuesday evening that the company “continues to stand by its commitment to offer rapid and reliable Covid-19 testing,” and had “worked tirelessly to bolster our staff and enhance our daily operations to meet the increased demand” for tests during the surge. “We will continue to proactively refund all customers with delayed results and will stay committed to working with patients individually to resolve any concerns,” the company said.

Ms. James’s office issued warning letters in December and January to six testing companies, including ClearMD Health and Sameday Health, concerning promised turnaround times for test results.

Investigators began looking into the issue after consumers reported waiting as long as 11 days for test results that were promised within 72 hours. Some people said they had paid ClearMD Health as much as $498 to receive test results within two hours but had to wait much longer.

At the time, the Omicron variant was surging in New York and across the United States, causing a spike in demand for coronavirus testing unlike anything seen since the early days of the pandemic. Supplies ran short, lines at testing sites stretched for hours and pharmacies sold out of at-home tests. At the peak of the Omicron wave, 79,777 new cases were identified in New York State on Jan. 9 alone.

To keep up with demand, New York City and federal authorities opened dozens of additional public testing sites and arranged for the distribution of more at-home tests. City officials said recently that at-home kits would be handed out at 14 cultural sites and 27 public libraries throughout the city.

America’s patchwork of Covid restrictions has begun to look more like a crazy quilt.

Since a parade of blue-state governors began loosening restrictions last week in response to rapidly declining caseloads, more states and cities have since followed suit. But officials in some cities and school districts are keeping mandates in place, with rules varying county by county in some cases.

In California, state health authorities said Monday that while some pandemic restrictions would be lifted, schoolchildren would still be required to wear masks for at least another two weeks. And a mask mandate remains in effect in Los Angeles County.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is expected to sign a bill that would make wearing masks in schools voluntary and require schools to offer in-person instruction.

Mask mandates in Rhode Island, Delaware and Nevada ended last week.

Restrictions are loosening despite the United States reporting about 2,400 deaths each day — more than at any point of the pandemic except last winter — and more than 150,000 new cases.

While the movement to ease restrictions began in swing states like Colorado, Pennsylvania and Michigan, its spread to some of the bluest states reflects a country entering a new political phase in the nearly two-year pandemic. Many indoor mask requirements have evolved, but vaccine mandates have largely remained unchanged.

Federal rules still require masks on all forms of public transportation and in transportation hubs, including in subway stations, bus terminals and airports, at least until March 18.

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that it was too soon for Americans to take their masks off in indoor public places.

“Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high,” she said during a news briefing last week. “So, as we work toward that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”

As of Tuesday night, the authorities in over a dozen states and Washington, D.C., have changed their mask mandates in the past few weeks, with many of those decisions coming in the past several days.

Here’s a look at where other mandates have and haven’t changed:

• In Connecticut, the statewide mask mandate will end on Feb. 28, and that extends to schoolchildren. Masks will still be required in New Haven, Conn.

• Masks will no longer be required indoors in Illinois starting on Feb. 28. On Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago told reporters that the city’s indoor mask requirement would remain in place until caseloads decline.

• In Massachusetts, a statewide school mask mandate will be lifted on Feb. 28. Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston said the next day that public school students there will still be required to wear masks. The Archdiocese of Boston won’t require its students to wear masks.

• Beginning the second week of March, New Jersey will stop requiring students and school employees to wear masks. The Camden City School District will still require masks.

• New York State will on Wednesday end its requirement that people entering business must wear masks or show proof of full vaccination. In New York City, masks are still required at schools and health care facilities. Owners of stores, restaurants, theaters or other public spaces can still require masks.

• Oregon’s indoor mask mandate, which includes schools, was set to be lifted by March 31.

• In Washington, D.C., starting Tuesday people will no longer have to show proof of vaccination before entering many businesses. On March 1, the city will end its indoor mask mandate in many settings, but not others, including schools.

See Mask Mandates and Guidance in Each State

Follow the changing rules and recommendations on wearing masks, as well as guidance for masks in schools.

New coronavirus cases within the closed Olympic “loop” have dropped to almost nothing, a sign that stringent testing and isolation protocols are having their intended effect.

On Monday, only one person in the loop tested positive. On Saturday and Sunday, three people tested positive each day either in the loop or upon arrival at the airport. The totals have been in single digits on seven of the past eight days. By comparison, in the two weeks from Jan. 24 through Feb. 6, there was not a single day on which fewer than 10 new cases were reported.

The numbers peaked on Feb. 2, when 55 tests came back positive in the loop or at the airport — still a very low positivity rate given that officials are conducting about 60,000 tests per day within the loop alone.

China has placed intense restrictions on its citizens’ lives for most of the past two years to try to keep the coronavirus out after the initial wave. For this month’s Games, it designed the most rigid protocols ever seen at the Olympics, surpassing even the protocols in place in Tokyo last summer. Athletes, journalists, workers and other people involved in the Games are confined to the loop from start to finish — 24 hours a day — and repeatedly tested.

In total, at least 505 people with Olympic credentials, including 183 athletes and team officials, have tested positive for the coronavirus in China. Among those who have tested positive since the Games began are some prominent athletes, including the figure skater Vincent Zhou and the bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor.

In May 1889, a respiratory virus known as the Russian flu began infecting people in the Russian Empire. It swept the world, overwhelming hospitals and killing the old with special ferocity.

More than a century later, the virus is intriguing some researchers and historians who are studying the trajectory of that pandemic for clues about the future of Covid-19.

The Russian flu’s patterns of infection and symptoms — some of the sickened reported lingering exhaustion and a loss of smell and taste — have led some virologists and historians of medicine to wonder: Might the Russian flu actually have been a pandemic driven by a coronavirus? And could its course give us indications about how our pandemic will play out and wind down?

If a coronavirus caused the Russian flu, some believe that pathogen may still be around. Its descendants could be circulating worldwide as one of the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold. If so, it would be different from flu pandemics whose viruses stick around for a while only to be replaced by new variants years later that cause a new pandemic.

If that is what happened to the Russian flu, it may bode well. But there is another scenario. If today’s coronavirus behaves more like the flu, immunity against respiratory viruses is fleeting. That might mean a future of yearly Covid shots.

But, some historians voice caution about the Russian flu hypothesis.

“There is very little, almost no hard data” on the Russia flu pandemic, said Frank Snowden at Yale.

There is, though, a way to solve the mystery of the Russian flu. Molecular biologists now have the tools to pull shards of old virus from preserved lung tissue from Russian flu victims and figure out what sort of virus it was.