New Information- Infected- Deaths- Shutdowns- Covid19

Coronavirus update: US shatters daily cases and hospitalizations; Moderna readies Phase 3 data
Anjalee Khemlani · Senior Reporter, Thu, November 12, 2020, 11:27 AM MST

Daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. continue to set record highs as the pandemic sweeps over the U.S. once again, in a new wave that health experts warned about but didn’t expect to hit so quickly.

For more than a week, the country has set records in daily cases, with more than 100,000 recorded each day and hospitalizations surpassing 60,000 in the past two days — shattering a record of 59,900 in April.

The result has been patchwork of restrictions, curfews and school closings around the country. North and South Dakota are faring the worst, when considering cases as a percentage of the population.

A recent study of mobile data by Stanford University showed that hotels, restaurants and gyms — places where people spend significant amounts of time in an enclosed place — have lead to a significant portion of recent case spikes around the country. The study, published in the journal Nature, noted that these while venues in Chicago accounted for 10% of the potential venues that could cause spreading, they were sites where 85% of predictable infections occurred.

The study adds to what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated, focusing on small indoor gatherings and extended indoor time contributing to infections.

The unbridled outbreak has left health care workers with still too-few tools to treat and care for patients. Even as the first antibody treatment from Eli Lilly (LLY) was granted emergency use authorization, it is in limited supply considering the record rate of hospitalizations.

It’s a point noted by Dr. Anthony Fauci and colleagues in a new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“While several treatments such as remdesivir and dexamethasone are either available or in development for severe COVID-19, interventions that can be administered early during the course of infection to prevent disease progression and longer-term complications are urgently needed,” the authors said.

Meanwhile, on the vaccine front, Pfizer (PFE) recently announced its anticipated strong positive results for its candidate and anticipates filing for emergency use authorization before the end of the year. Meanwhile, Moderna (MRNA) said Wednesday it is ready for an independent monitoring board to begin a first look at the data from the Phase 3 trial.

Since cases have been rising across the country, it has meant increased potential exposure for trial participants, and as a result in the past week Moderna said the number of infections within the trial pool also rose to meet the necessary threshold.

Biden’s COVID-19 team

President-elect Joe Biden’s team has hit the ground running with discussions around a national strategy to address the pandemic when he takes office in January.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy (CIDRAP), and a member of Biden’s COVID task force, told Yahoo Finance there is no detailed agenda, but the group is looking to address the myriad efforts of states and cities.

“This is the virus versus us, this is not the virus versus one group of politicians versus another, or one regional area against another,” Osterholm said.

Ben Isgur, who leads PwC’s Health Research Institute, told Yahoo Finance that the Biden team is going to be faced with the same issue President Trump had to deal with at the onset of US infections: a strained medical health supply chain.

The pandemic has “really pressure-tested the U.S. medical health supply chain. We quickly realized there are gaps there,” Isgur said.

It begs the question, will Biden invoke the Defense Production Act and move quickly to incentivize onshoring of production? Isgur said that while that is a longer-term play, the health systems have had to deal with the here-and-now and in the interim found alternate sources for their needs. But with the strain on health systems rising, it’s possible some immediate action will be required to address not only the supply chain but also health care worker burnout.

“We were talking about that during the spring ... That’s coming back as ICUs in some cities are filling up,” Isgur said.

Dr. Esther Choo, an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health and Science University, pointed to the struggle of a sector facing labor shortages while also managing the strain of the pandemic, on Twitter.

“Yes we are delivering better and more effective COVID care,” Choo said. “But we can’t pull nurses, techs, APPs, docs, or other (essential) team members out of thin air.”

Coronavirus: California hits one million cases as outbreaks grow across US
Published 5 hours ago

Following Texas, California became the second US state to hit one million Covid cases as regions across the country face growing outbreaks.

The US reported another record high of 153,496 new infections on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University, as well as 919 deaths.

Daily cases have topped 100,000 for the last 10 days and over 67,000 people are currently in hospital.

The nation has seen over 10.5 million cases and 242,000 deaths thus far.

Full story and graphs at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54935700

Covid: US records quarter of a million deaths from coronavirus
Published3 hours ago | BBC

The US has recorded more than 250,000 deaths from Covid-19, a bleak marker as cases soar once again across the country.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the country has now reported 250,029 deaths and nearly 11.5 million cases.

It has more reported infections and a higher death toll than any other country worldwide.

And cases have once again started to soar throughout the US, hitting new daily highs in the last week.

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, top US infectious diseases Dr Anthony Fauci said the country was "going in the wrong direction at a very precarious time", with people more likely to gather inside as the weather gets colder.

Is this Covid wave in the US the worst yet?

New York City - the epicentre of the US outbreak in the spring - has ordered the closure of its schools from Thursday, amid a spike in cases.

The decision to close the US's largest public school system came as positive test rates for the virus surpassed the 3% threshold, officials say. It will affect some 300,000 children.

What did Dr Fauci say?

In an interview on the BBC News channel, Dr Fauci warned about the new surge in cases leading to more deaths.

"It's a very serious situation because there are lagging indicators," he said. "So when you see the massive increase in cases as we're seeing now particularly as more and more people are doing things inside, we're in a very difficult situation."

Chart showing the number of confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic
He repeated his call for people to "double down" on public health measures, such as wearing face coverings, physical distancing and avoiding crowds.

"They sound so simple and we know they can work. But there's a degree of Covid fatigue - people just are worn out with these restrictions," Dr Fauci said.

He urged people to "hold out for just a little longer because help is on the way" in the form of vaccines.

At the end of March - when the US had recorded 2,200 deaths - Dr Fauci predicted the pandemic could kill up to 200,000 Americans and infect millions more.

On Wednesday data released by Pfizer and BioNTech said the vaccine they had developed to tackle the virus appeared to protect 94% of adults over 65 years old.

Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech published preliminary data suggesting the vaccine offered 90% protection against Covid-19 and said there were no safety concerns.

This was followed by data on a vaccine made by US company Moderna suggesting nearly 95% protection and similarly promising results from trials of another developed in Russia called Sputnik.

What's happening in New York?

A letter from New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza released on Wednesday informed parents that all schools would close and classrooms would immediately shift to online learning "until further notice".

"You will hear from your principal shortly about next steps for you and your student. Please note that this is a temporary closure, and school buildings will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so."

The move comes only eight weeks after the school system reopened to students. It is the latest city to close school and shift to online learning after Boston and Detroit, with Las Vegas and Philadelphia delaying plans to return pupils to classrooms.

Bill de Blasio, the New York mayor, said: "No one is happy about this decision. We all in fact are feeling very sad about this decision because so much good work has been put into keeping the schools open, opening them up to begin with."

However, he said that officials had "set a very clear standard" on safety metrics that needed to be met in order for schools to take pupils, "and we need to stick to that standard".

"I want to emphasise to parents, to educators, to staff, to kids that we will intend to come back and come back as quickly as possible," he said.

The school closure is the latest measure amid attempts to curb a fresh outbreak of cases.

Last week further restrictions were put into place - including bars and restaurants moving to takeaway-only after 22:00 and parties at private residences being limited to 10 people.

Officials in other states are taking similar measures. On Wednesday Minnesota and Kentucky ordered all restaurants and bars to temporarily stop indoor eating.

The decision to close the schools is in contrast to measures in Europe, where businesses have closed but schools largely remain open.

The move, which represents a major backslide for the city's coronavirus recovery, has also left parents scrambling for last-minute childcare options.

How are hospitals coping?

As infections rise throughout the country, the healthcare system is struggling to cope.

In the Texan city of El Paso the convention centre was recently converted into a makeshift hospital. Some patients are being airlifted elsewhere in the state due to the overcrowded facilities, and authorities have requested ten refrigerated trailers to use as mobile morgues.

But the problems are spreading across the US. Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee's director of critical care, Alison Johnson, has told the Associated Press that she drives to and from work some days in tears.

"We are depressed, disheartened and tired to the bone," she said. The agency reports that doctors in Idaho say they are almost at the point where they need to ration care, while the Renown Regional Medical Center in Nevada has started putting some coronavirus patients in its parking garage.

U.S. counts 13M COVID-19 cases, its fourth million-milestone of November
Joe Murphy
Fri, November 27, 2020, 4:18 PM MST

The U.S. reached 13 million diagnosed cases of COVID-19 on Friday, another milestone in a month riddled with them.

It was the fourth such marker the country has counted in November, which has seen 3.8 million cases of the coronavirus. The U.S. is on pace to tally more than 4 million cases this month alone, more than doubling the previous record of 1.9 million cases set in October.

More than 264,000 people in the U.S. have died of the disease according to NBC News’ count.

The U.S. crossed the 12 million-case threshold less than a week ago, on Nov. 21.

The most-recent million was driven by surging case counts in Texas and Illinois, each which saw more than or close to 80,000 new cases in the previous six days. More than half the states counted 10,000-plus cases in that time.

Thanksgiving Day saw Arkansas and Nebraska setting single-day case count records, part of a surge that has touched most of the country. Outbreaks have been reported everywhere from weddings to nursing homes, and while the news of vaccines brings hope, experts say it’s the first step in a long process.

The CDC had recommended Americans avoid traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, but U.S. air travel hit a new pandemic peak Wednesday, following a peak over the preceding weekend.

After urging residents to stay home, Denver’s mayor Michael Hancock traveled for the holiday.

Certain states have issued new travel mandates or recommendations in an effort to curb the spread

Coronavirus: US hits record Covid cases and hospitalisations
Published 7 minutes ago | BBC

The number of people in hospital with coronavirus has more than doubled since early November

The US has recorded new records for Covid infections and hospitalisations, with fears they will not slow in the run-up to Christmas.

The number of people in hospital passed 100,000 for the first time, a figure that has doubled since early November, Covid Tracking Project data showed.

Also on Wednesday new cases rose by a record 195,695. The daily death toll of 2,733 was also close to a new high.

Infections are closing in on 14 million, with more than 264,000 deaths.

These numbers have continued to soar in recent weeks, with around a million new infections reported every week in November. - equivalent to 99 every minute.

In response to surging numbers, US authorities have warned that the country's healthcare system faces an unprecedented strain this winter.

Is this Covid wave in the US the worst yet?

What does UK vaccine approval mean for US?

"The reality is that December, January and February are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation," said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has issued a stay-at-home order due to rising infections;

California, Texas and Florida - the three most populous US states - are among the worst-affected areas of the country, and have each registered more than one million cases.

In the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an emergency order for residents to stay home with immediate affect, following an unprecedented surge of infections.

A similar order is already in place in Los Angeles county - the current epicentre of America's outbreak - where some hospitals are already approaching full capacity. Authorities reported 5,987 cases on Tuesday, bringing the county's total to 414,185.

Chart shows reported cases and deaths in the United States



US officials have said they expect infection numbers to continue rising over the next few days because many people travelled over the Thanksgiving holiday, ignoring government advice."Travel volume was high over Thanksgiving," said Cindy Friedman, chief of the travellers' health branch at the CDC.

"Even if only a small percentage of those people were carrying the disease and passed it on to other people, that can translate into hundreds of thousands of additional infections."

Five challenges of distributing a Covid-19 vaccine around the world.

The CDC has urged people to refrain from travel over Christmas.

But the public health body has also relaxed its guidelines for how long people should quarantine after coming into contact with an infected person - shortening it from 14 days to between seven and 10.

Although the number of deaths is still rising, one set of brighter figures is that of deaths in relation to infections.

The CDC says the share of cases resulting in death fell from 6.7% in April to 1.9% in September, reflecting that health workers are now more successful in treating the disease.

On Wednesday, top Democratic lawmakers signalled support for a $908bn (£677bn) coronavirus relief framework - a major concession following months of deadlock with Republicans over policy disagreements.

Exact details of the framework have yet to be publicly disclosed, but it broadly includes funding for state and local governments, unemployment benefits, small businesses and other areas of the economy impacted by the outbreak.

U.S. coronavirus case tally climbs to 15 million from 14 million in just five days
Published: Dec. 9, 2020 at 11:28 a.m. ET
By Ciara Linnane

U.S. sets fresh record for COVID-19 hospitalizations; Angela Merkel pleads with Germans to limit gatherings during holidays

• U.S. case tally climbs to 15 million from 14 million in five days

• Birx and Fauci say Americans must stop gathering in large numbers

• President-elect Joe Biden pledges to deliver 100 million vaccine shots in first 100 days in office

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel pleads with Germans to limit gatherings in emotional speech

The global case tally for the coronavirus illness COVID-19 climbed above 68 million on Wednesday and the U.S. tally rose above 15 million as the virus continued to race across the nation, filling hospitals with record numbers of patients.

The U.S. took just five days to get from 14 million confirmed cases of the virus to 15 million. It took six days to get to 14 million from 13 million. At the start of the outbreak, it took 98 days to go from an initial case on Jan. 21 to 1 million on April 28.

There were 104,600 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals on Tuesday, according to the COVID Tracking Project, beating the record set a day earlier. Hospitalizations have topped 100,000 and set fresh records for seven straight days. At the height of the pandemic in spring, hospitalizations remained below 60,000 at peak levels.

Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Task Force created to manage the U.S. response to the pandemic, said transmission has moved from public spaces to private ones as Americans mingle indoors more, including for the recent Thanksgiving celebration, when millions of people traveled to see family. That has meant that as improvements are seen in states that were overwhelmed in the spring or summer, the virus is spreading fast in other areas, including rural areas with fewer hospitals.

“If we don’t change how we gather, we will continue to have this surge across the country,” Birx told a Wall Street Journal event.

Published 28 mins ago
US tops daily coronavirus death toll
US has been logging over 200,000 daily infections
By Kayla Rivas | Fox News

The U.S. hit yet another record daily COVID-19 death toll on Wednesday at 3,124, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The nation has been logging over 2,000 daily deaths in recent days, and reported 2,804 virus-related fatalities last Wednesday, which broke previous record-highs. Mexico continues to see the highest case-fatality ratio worldwide at 9.3%, compared to 1.9% in the U.S.

Italy, Spain and the U.K. are experiencing the most deaths per 100,000 people, at 102.16, 100.62 and 92.45, respectively. In the U.S., the COVID-19 death rate stands at more than 88 per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

News of record-breaking daily deaths follows an all-time high of 227,828 daily cases on Dec. 4, with the nation also exceeding 15 million total infections this week.

The U.S. painfully distinguishes itself from the top 10 most affected countries worldwide in terms of a 7-day moving average of daily new cases.


Daily new cases in the U.S. are topping 200,000, per a 7-day moving average, depicted in the solid green line. (Johns Hopkins University)

Infections in the U.S. are soaring with over 200,000 cases every day, while all other countries are below the 50,000 mark, per the 7-day moving average. The U.S. does have the highest test rate per capita, but experts have not reached a consensus on a recommended target for the raw number of tests that should be given or even the rate of tests per capita, according to JHU.

U.S. sets record for COVID deaths and California confirms second case of highly infectious new strain
Published: Dec. 31, 2020 at 10:53 a.m. ET
By Ciara Linnane

Operation Warp Speed officials acknowledge delays in distributing vaccines, experts say government must do more to help states

The U.S. set fresh records for one-day fatalities from the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19 and number of patients hospitalized on Thursday, as California became the second state after Colorado to find a case of the new COVID-19 variant that is racing across the U.K.

A day after a man in his 20s from Colorado was reported to have the first confirmed case of the new variant, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Golden State had also detected a case. Newsom announced the news during an online call with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd. It’s to be expected,” Fauci said.

The new variant is understood be more infectious than the original virus but it does not make people sicker. But with hospitals already at full capacity in parts of California and elsewhere, there are growing concerns that more rapid transmission could totally overwhelm health care systems and workers.

California set a record of 432 deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to the state health department, boosting the total since the start of the outbreak to 25,000.

Already, hospitals are turning ambulances away in Los Angeles and EMT workers are being directed not to transport patients who do not have a pulse, while hospitals have started to ration care to prioritize patients with the best chances of survival.

Officials from Operation Warp Speed, the federal government program created to accelerate the development of COVID vaccines and therapies, acknowledged that vaccine distribution and administration was lagging early targets.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 2.79 million people had been dosed as of 9.00 a.m. Wednesday, and 12.4 million doses had been distributed. That’s well below the early promise for 100 million doses to be delivered by year-end, which was later reduced to 40 million and then 20 million.

“We agree that that number is lower than what we hoped for,” said Moncef Slaoui, scientific adviser of Operation Warp Speed, said at a press briefing. “We know that it should be better, and we’re working hard to make it better.”

General Gustave Perna, who is heading logistics for Operation Warp Speed, said winter weather and lags in reporting during the holiday season had slowed the program. And hospitals and other centers that will handle the administering of vaccines are dealing with the challenge of the need to store vaccines at ultra-low temperatures.

The vaccines that have been granted emergency use in the U.S. – one developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE, -1.05% with German partner BioNTech SE BNTX, -3.20% and one developed by the biotech company Moderna Inc. MRNA, -3.84% – both need to be deeply refrigerated and both are two-dose regimens.

But critics say the bigger problem is the lack of a national distribution plan with the administration of President Donald Trump leaving it to individual states to deal with the actual work of dosing its residents. States are already struggling with budget deficits after the pandemic slammed revenue. Health departments, overburdened by nine months of managing testing, data analysis, advising businesses and schools and running public information campaigns, are now on the hook for creating vaccine infrastructure.

Dr. William Haseltine, chair and president of ACCESS Health International, Inc., and a former Harvard Medical School professor who is known for his work on HIV/AIDs and cancer, criticized the government response.

“Science will save us, but it’s sad it’s had to come to that,” he said in an interview on MSNBC. “It’s good that we have our science, but our government hasn’t done what other governments have done. Even today, our government isn’t doing what it needs to do. We ourselves aren’t doing what we need to do. Science will come to our rescue and put this thing in a manageable place. It may not eliminate it, but it will put it in a manageable place. But we can help and we should help.”

Fauci told NBC’s “Today” show that the low rate of vaccination so far is “disappointing” but said momentum should pick up heading into January. Fauci agreed that the federal government should allocate more resources to states.

“You have to support the local groups, the states and the cities, to help them to get this task done, which is a very prodigious task.”

The U.S. recorded a record 3,903 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, the most since the start of the outbreak, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Another 226,000 cases were counted and hospitalizations set a record of 125,220.


The U.S. continues to lead the world by case numbers, at 19.7 million, and deaths, at 342,450, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, or about a fifth of the global tally for each.

• The U.K. National Health Service has pushed back the window for people to receive the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech — to a duration the companies tested on only a small percentage of patients, MarketWatch’s Steve Goldstein reported. The NHS wrote a letter to hospitals saying those who are scheduled to receive their second dose after Jan. 4 should be rescheduled from three weeks’ time to 12, with most recipients booked in the last week of that time frame. Pfizer said the safety and efficacy of the vaccine hasn’t been tested at the new interval. “Pfizer and BioNTech’s Phase 3 study for the COVID-19 vaccine was designed to evaluate the vaccine’s safety and efficacy following a 2-dose schedule, separated by 21 days. The safety and efficacy of the vaccine has not been evaluated on different dosing schedules as the majority of trial participants received the second dose within the window specified in the study design,” the company said. It also noted there are no data to demonstrate that protection is sustained after 21 days from receiving the first dose.

• A Wisconsin health system said 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine that had to be discarded after they were left unrefrigerated now appear to have been deliberately spoiled by an employee, the AP reported. Aurora Medical Center first reported on the spoiled doses on Saturday, and said they had been accidentally left out overnight by an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton. In a statement late Wednesday, Aurora said the employee involved “today acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.” Nonprofit parent organization Aurora Health Care is headquartered in Milwaukee and operates 15 hospitals in Wisconsin. Grafton is located about 20 miles north of Milwaukee. The employee has been fired and the matter turned over to the authorities for further investigation.

• Chinese health regulators have given conditional approval to a coronavirus vaccine developed by state-owned Sinopharm, the AP reported. The inactivated, two-dose vaccine is the first one approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes as the country carries out a campaign to vaccinate 50 million people before a major holiday for the Lunar New Year in February. The vaccine was developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, a subsidiary of state-owned conglomerate Sinopharm 1099, +3.40%. The company announced Wednesday that preliminary data from last-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3% effective.

• Moderna Inc. confirmed that it has agreed to supply the South Korean government with 40 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine. Deliveries are expected to start in May of 2021. The vaccine is not currently approved in Korea, so the company will work with regulators to seek approval before distribution.

Latest tallies

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide climbed above 82.8 million on Thursday, the Johns Hopkins data show, and the death toll rose to 1.8 million. At least 4.8 million people have recovered from COVID-19.

Brazil has the second highest death toll at 193,875 and is third by cases at 7.6 million.

India is second worldwide in cases with 10.3 million, and third in deaths at 148,738.

Mexico has the fourth highest death toll at 124,897 and 13th highest case tally at 1.4 million.

Italy has 73,604 fatalities, the highest in Europe, and 2.1 million cases. The U.K. has 2.4 million cases, the most in Europe, and 72,657 deaths, second-highest in Europe and sixth highest in the world.

China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 95,944 confirmed cases and 4,782 deaths, according to its official numbers.

What’s the economy saying?

New applications for state unemployment benefits fell slightly around Christmas and dipped below 800,000 for the first time in a month, but the record coronavirus outbreak is still weighing heavily on the labor market and throwing more people out of work, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.

Initial jobless claims filed traditionally through the states slipped by 17,000 to 787,000 in the seven days ended Dec. 26, the government said Thursday.

Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast initial jobless claims to total a seasonally adjusted 835,000.

It’s possible the decline stemmed from people waiting to apply for benefits until after the holiday. Uncertainty over whether Congress would approved extended jobless benefits before they ran out at the end of the year might have also played a role.

Whatever the case, job losses each week are still extremely high. Another 308,262 applications for benefits were filed last week through a temporary federal-relief program created during the pandemic, putting the total number of new claims last week at 1.15 million. Combined claims have yet to fall below 1 million a week.

President Trump signed a law last week that extends unemployment benefits for jobless Americans and increases payments by up to $300 a week. Benefits could have been cut off for millions of people had Washington failed to act, and some might still face delays in payments.

“Initial jobless claims dropped a bit, but at levels this high and with margins of error this big, they’re essentially stuck at a painful, inflated level due to the coronavirus surge,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

“And as long as that surge continues, even with stimulus, we can expect more than 1 million Americans will lose their jobs weekly, based on state and federal measures.”

Published 56 mins ago, Last Update 24 mins ago
US coronavirus death toll surpasses 350,000 as experts anticipate post-holiday surge
More than 20 million people in the country have been infected
By Danielle Wallace | Fox News

The coronavirus death toll in the United States surpassed 350,000 early Sunday, as experts anticipate another surge in cases and fatalities stemming from Christmas and New Year’s holiday gatherings.

Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed the U.S. passed the threshold early Sunday morning. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected.

The U.S. has begun using two coronavirus vaccines to protect health care workers and those over 80, but the rollout of the inoculation program has been criticized as being slow and chaotic.

Top officials in charge of the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed had set a goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. But according to a count by Bloomberg News, as of Saturday night nearly 4.3 million vaccines had been administered in the U.S. to 1.3% of the population.

Far more vaccine doses are piling up unused. Nearly 13.1 million doses of the two-dose vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna had been distributed in the U.S. by Saturday night, according to the Bloomberg count.

Multiple states have reported a record number of cases over the past few days, including North Carolina and Arizona. Mortuary owners in hard-hit Southern California say they’re being inundated with bodies.

Additionally, three states -- Florida, Colorado, and California -- have reported cases of the new COVID-19 variant first seen in the United Kingdom. The strain is said to be more contagious and prompted travel bans and further restrictions in Britain.

The U.S. by far has reported the most deaths from COVID-19 in the world, followed by Brazil, which has reported more than 195,000 deaths.

Temple wrote:

Obi-- Are you taken care?
you're not out and about, are you?
Get your shot!!
wife got hers !! I'm happy for her..
She is front line and quarantined twice

its enough of this crap everybody
wear a mask and get the shot!

I've outlived everyone I've ever known. Satisfied???

Published 51 mins ago
US sees over 4,000 daily coronavirus deaths for first time
US tallied 4,085 deaths, contributing to the 365,346 total fatalities recorded since beginning of last year
By Alexandria Hein | Fox News

New York needs to open pop-up vaccine centers immediately: Dr. Nicole Saphier

The United States surpassed 4,000 daily coronavirus deaths on Thursday, marking the highest number seen since the outbreak began. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. tallied 4,085 deaths, contributing to the 365,346 total fatalities recorded since the beginning of last year.

The U.S. also added over 274,703 cases on Thursday, with a testing positivity ratio pinned at 13.60%. California leads the country in new cases reported, with Texas, Florida and New York all experiencing spikes of their own.

The data doesn’t mention Arizona, which public health experts warned this week has become "the hot spot of the world."

"It’s way worse than July already, and it’s going to continue to get worse. We’re probably two weeks behind L.A. in terms of our situation," Will Humble, head of the Arizona Public Health Association, told the Associated Press.

The state reportedly has the worst coronavirus diagnosis rate in the country, with one out of every 119 people in the state testing positive in the past week.

Experts have warned that the next few weeks may be the most severe the country has seen due to virus spread during holiday travel and gatherings. In Los Angeles County, where emergency services crews have been instructed to ration oxygen supply and avoid bringing patients with low chance of survival to the hospital, has reported that a person is dying every 8 minutes due to COVID-19.

"Folks are gasping for breath. Folks look like they’re drowning when they are in bed right in front of us," said Dr. Jeffrey Chien, an emergency room physician at Santa Clara Valley Regional Medical Center, urging people to do their part to help slow the spread. "I’m begging everyone to help us out because we aren’t the front line. We’re the last line."

The post-holiday surge also comes at a time when a new coronavirus variant from the U.K. threatens to create an additional spread, with infectious disease experts warning that the mutation is highly transmissible, and may even overtake the original COVID-19 virus within a matter of weeks.

More than 50 cases of the variant have been detected in the U.S., with some concerned about how it may impact vaccine efficacy. At least one study from Pfizer suggests that the vaccine will remain effective against the variant, with the company previously touting the flexibility of the mRNA technology should the need for a tweak arise.

Vaccines are increasingly becoming a contention point between medical professionals and political leaders, as slow rollout among many states is seeing millions of doses go unused. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to levy fines on hospitals not moving quickly enough through the allocation, while Mayor Bill De Blasio called for the state to allow seniors and front-line workers to receive their first dose.

Published 14 hours ago
Global coronavirus cases top 100 million
COVID-19 has now infected some 100,032,461 people across the globe
By Madeline Farber | Fox News

The world has now seen more than 100 million cases of the novel coronavirus since the outbreak of the deadly disease began a year ago.

COVID-19 has now infected some 100,032,461 people across the globe, according to estimates from Johns Hopkins University. More than 2 million lives have been lost to the virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China.

The United States leads the world with most cases, with more than 25.3 million total cases as of this writing, according to estimates from the university’s Coronavirus Resource Center. India follows behind with some 10.7 million cases. Brazil, meanwhile, is third in the world for most reported cases of COVID-19, recording some 8.9 million cases to date.

The hopes of putting an end to the deadly pandemic are riding with the development of vaccines, two of which have already seen emergency approval in the U.S. But the rollout of these jabs has been slow, with recently-inaugurated President Joe Biden hoping to speed the process by vaccinating 100 million Americans in his administration’s first 100 days.

States are complaining of limited supplies, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for instance, recently penning a letter to the chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in a bid to have the company — its coronavirus vaccine candidate was the first to be granted an emergency use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — sell its shots directly to the state, bypassing the federal government, in an effort to ramp up such supplies. The company is unable to do so, it later said, citing restrictions under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Limited supplies have left many Americans eager to receive the first dose of either vaccine with canceled appointments, and some states, such as Alabama, threatening to remove vaccine supplies from providers who don’t administer the jabs in a "timely way."

Still, speaking during a White House press briefing late last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, called Biden's goal to see 100 million Americans vaccinated in the first 100 days "reasonable."

"With the full weight of the federal government behind this initiative, it can —  and should — be done," Dr. Eric Dickson, the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care CEO and practicing ER physician, also said of this plan.

Amid the slow rollout, however, Dickson pointed to vaccine supply "predictability" as one of the most important aspects in ensuring this endeavor is a successful one.

"The Biden administration is doing all the right things such as mandating masks during interstate travel, limiting social gatherings and committing to getting as much vaccine to the people that are delivering the shots as soon as possible," Dickson recently told Fox News. "I think the most important thing for the vaccine program will be predictability — making sure that each state and each health care system within the state knows how many vaccines they are going to get over the course of the next few weeks."

Also of great importance in this massive vaccination effort is education, specifically in communities where vaccine hesitancy has been found to be more pervasive compared to others. In the continued fight against COVID-19, the Biden administration has also listed large community outreach initiatives to address vaccine hesitancy as a top priority.

Hmm...

Obi-- did you get the shot??
I'm in the state lottery for it..
not looking good-spring-summer.

Wife got hers a month back-
Looks like we don't get a choice of which we get-
I'd go J&J-