The life expectancy for the entire US population fell to 77.8 years, similar to what it was in 2006, Deidre McPhillips reports . "A year of life expectancy lost doesn't really give you a true sense of how serious this has been. "The two ways that we can counter that is one, continue to do the kinds of public health interventions that we talk about all the time," he said. The UK contract also confirmed the UK could receive vaccines manufactured in the EU, another point of contention between Brussels and AstraZeneca during their spat. Lab studies suggest Pfizer, Moderna vaccines can protect against coronavirus variantsA report published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine can protect people against concerning new coronavirus variants, including one first seen in South Africa called B.1.351.

Source: CNN February 18, 2021 12:22 UTC