Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has moved here.
South Korea recorded 880 new coronavirus cases on Monday, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Of the new cases, 32 were imported. The country also recorded 13 additional virus-related deaths.
The new figures raise the country’s total to 44,364 confirmed cases and 600 fatalities.
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the government was now weighing up whether to introduce the highest level of coronavirus restrictions.
Alert levels in South Korea range from 1 – the least concerning situation – to 3, signifying the toughest measures necessary. Levels rise in increments of 0.5.
Currently, the country is at Level 2 national alert, but the greater Seoul area and the southeastern port city of Busan are at Level 2.5 – the second-highest level.
If the government raises the alert to the highest level, that means a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people, work from home for all non-essential employees, and a shift to online for all schools and church services.
“Considering the gravity and impact of Level 3 measures, there is a need to calmly check on ourselves first – if we’re abiding by the current measures properly,” Chung said, adding that raising the alert to Level 3 would “come with irreversible pain.”
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak reinstated an order Monday to prevent people who can’t afford their rent from being evicted from their homes.
The eviction moratorium only applies when a resident cannot afford to pay due to financial hardship caused by Covid-19. It does not apply to tenants who are being evicted for non-financial reasons.
The order does not forgive past-due rent nor prevent landlords from adding late fees when the moratorium ends on March 31.
Additionally, property owners can get an exception to the moratorium if they can prove that failure to get rental payments would result in the property going into foreclosure.
Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, was one of the first Americans to receive the new Covid-19 vaccine on Monday.
She wanted to “lead by example,” she told CNN.
“I have seen tremendous pain, suffering, fear in the eyes of my colleagues every day that we come to work courageously to save lives,” Lindsay said. “I don’t ask people to do anything that I would not do myself and so I was happy to, to volunteer to be among the first,” she added.
She said she felt “great,” and that it didn’t feel any different from the annual flu shot.
“I have no fear. I trust my profession is deeply rooted in science … What I don’t trust is getting Covid-19 because I don’t know how it will affect me and the people around me that I could potentially transfer the virus to,” she said.
Vaccine distribution: The first coronavirus vaccine was shipped to all 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico Monday after a weeks-long authorization process and a massive distribution plan.
The Covid-19 vaccine has arrived in the United States, but it has been greeted with unusually high public skepticism. Although the percentage of Americans willing to take the vaccine is rising, health officials are still struggling to combat distrust – especially among the Black community.
Do you have questions about the vaccine? International correspondents and experts will join CNN’s town hall on Friday to discuss the vaccine and why some in the Black community are reluctant to receive it. Submit your questions and concerns below:
US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Monday he is worried about vaccine skepticism among minority communities, but is working to help overcome it.
“Nothing has been in my heart more than this issue over the past several weeks to months,” Adams told CNN. “I’ve been working with Pfizer, with Moderna, with AstraZeneca, with Johnson & Johnson to make sure we have appropriate numbers of minorities enrolled in these vaccine trials so that people can understand that they are safe.”
Adams said he’s working with leaders in the minority community, including faith leaders and fraternities and sororities.
Adams said he’s heartened to see the numbers increasing among Americans who say they’ll get the vaccine when it becomes available. That figure is close to 80% today, a sharp rise from just 30% four weeks ago.
History behind mistrust: Adams emphasized that there are now independent review boards and regulations to protect against incidents like the Tuskegee experiment.
Between 1932 and 1972, Black men in the Tuskegee syphilis study were deliberately left untreated so doctors could study the “natural course” of the disease, which can damage the organs as it progresses, including the brain, other nerves, eyes and heart.
On Monday, Johns Hopkins University reported 193,454 new cases of coronavirus in the US.
Monday also marked the day that the US gave out the the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. Health experts are warning it’s likely the US won’t see any meaningful, widespread impacts from vaccinations until well into 2021.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misreported the number of new Covid-19 cases in the US on Monday. There were 193,454 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
California is expected to receive an additional 393,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine early next week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a short video posted on his Twitter account Monday.
California received its first vaccine shipment of 33,150 doses on Monday, and expects a total of 327,000 doses this week.
The first vaccines were distributed to four locations in the state, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Eureka, and San Francisco, Newsom said.
He added that 24 additional locations will have received vaccines by Tuesday, and five more locations on Wednesday.
Surging infections: This comes as California recorded more than 30,000 new Covid-19 cases for the fourth straight day on Monday, continuing an unprecedented surge of infections and hospitalizations that is stretching health care facilities to the brink.
In remarks following today’s Electoral College vote that affirmed his election victory, President-elect Joe Biden took a moment to acknowledge the US’ latest solemn coronavirus milestone.
Earlier today, the US surpassed 300,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
He continued: “My heart goes out to all of you who have fallen on hard times through no fault of your own. Unable to sleep at night, staring at the ceiling, weighed down by the worry of what tomorrow will bring for you and equally important for your family.”
Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, said the US will get through the pandemic together.
“We’ve faced difficult times before in our history. I know we’ll get through this one — but together. That’s how we get through it: together,” he said.
Watch Biden speak here:
The United States reported 110,549 Covid-19 hospitalizations on Monday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).
This is the thirteenth consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 hospitalizations.
According to CTP data, these are the highest hospitalization numbers:
Operation Warp Speed’s Gen. Gustave Perna told governors today that another 4.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine would be authorized for release this Friday, according to a source familiar with the call.
Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also suggested that there would be additional recommendations coming no later than Saturday on how to determine who should be in group 1b for vaccinations.
As far as the spread in the US, Dr. Deborah Birx said there was “evidence of improvement” in the middle of the country, but warned that caseloads are rising on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.
Administration officials also appear to be grappling with how best to capitalize on monoclonal antibody treatments.
Birx, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar all encouraged governors to push the use of monoclonal antibodies early in treatment for coronavirus.
Azar said it’s “almost too late” to use monoclonal antibodies once a patient is already admitted to the hospital.
As the first Covid-19 vaccines were administered in the United States Monday, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams warned there’s a still a long way to go.
The US death toll from the coronavirus just surpassed 300,000 and hospitals are nearing capacity in cities across the country.
“Because even if you weren’t worried about Covid, your loved one who’s in labor may not have a hospital bed, your loved one who’s having a heart attack or who gets in a car accident may not have a bed,” Adams said.
“I was in Montana over the last several days and I talked to hospitals around the state. They’re over capacity in those hospitals. You’ve got hundreds of health care workers who are either in isolation or quarantine.”
Adams said Americans need to continue wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands frequently.
He also urged people who have recovered from Covid-19 to donate plasma.
Adams encouraged anyone with questions about the new vaccine to talk to their health care provider.
Watch the moment:
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams called the rollout Monday of the nation’s first Covid-19 vaccine “tremendous.”
“Today we really did get a shot of hope,” he added.
Adams was at George Washington University Medical Center Monday as frontline health care workers got the vaccination.
“We’re not talking about development. We’re not talking about the approval process – actual vaccines going into arms,” Adams said.
But he cautioned that there’s still a long road ahead: “We’ve got a long way to go, make no mistake about it, and we still need to be appropriately cautious,” Adams said.
“We still need to understand how severe this virus is and the surge that is going in the wrong direction, but we’ve got some hope finally,” he added.
All 50 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico have now received their first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, according to statements from the state departments of health, governor’s offices and local hospitals.
Watch the moment:
Shipping companies FedEx and UPS tell CNN they completed all first-day coronavirus vaccine deliveries as scheduled Monday.
FedEx said the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was delivered to 70 to 80 sites on Monday.
UPS spokesperson Matt O’Connor told CNN that it “delivered 100% of its Covid vaccines on-time today.”
Operation Warp Speed, the federal government operation overseeing the vaccine program, said roughly 145 sites would receive the vaccine on Monday with another 425 on Tuesday and the remaining 66 deliveries on Wednesday.
Vaccine shipments began on Sunday morning when trucks departed Pfizer’s massive manufacturing facility near Kalamazoo, Michigan.
All 50 states — as well as Washington, DC and Puerto Rico — have received their first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, according to statements from the state departments of health, governor’s offices, and local hospitals.
Remember: Not all of these states have begun administering the vaccine, but they have received it.
Hawaii’s largest private hospital confirmed it received the state’s first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine Monday, meaning that all 50 states had doses available only one day after shipping began.
The Queen’s Medical Center took delivery just before 8 a.m. local time.
The hospital said vaccinations will begin Tuesday, with priority given to health care workers who are caring directly for Covid-19 patients and other at-risk populations.
The Hawaii Department of Health has not confirmed how many total doses the state received Monday, but The Queen’s Medical Center said they will work to acquire more shipments.
President-elect Joe Biden will herald the scientific success of the Covid-19 vaccine tonight in a speech to the nation following the Electoral College vote that affirmed his election win — but he is not expected to shed any more light on when he will be vaccinated.
Biden, 78, has repeatedly said he will get the vaccination whenever Dr. Anthony Fauci declares it safe to do so. Of course, that has happened, along with the Food and Drug Administration and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But advisers to Biden say the timing of the vaccination is still being worked out. He is expected to receive the vaccine in a public way, as part of his effort to persuade Americans of its safety, but the details are still being discussed in conversations with Fauci, his doctor and other officials.
He also intends to focus his message tonight on the grim American death toll, rather than his own vaccination plans. While no one suggests Biden shouldn’t receive it, one aide said optics were at play, and they wanted frontline workers to get it in the first few days.
He is not expected to mention his own plans for a vaccination tonight, but look for that to come into sharper focus in the coming days. It is the expectation that he will get it soon, an adviser says, but likely not imminently.
With the two-shot requirement, aides say, time is an issue here if Biden wants to be fully vaccinated before taking office in five weeks.
Delaware received doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, Gov. John Carney announced on Facebook.
The governor went to say that the “the vaccine’s arrival does not mean we are in the clear.”
“In fact, now more than ever, we need to step up our efforts to keep each other safe. That means wear a mask, wash your hands, and do not gather with your friends and family outside of your household. We know that’s hard, particularly at this time of year, but we are almost through this. We just need to stand firm in our resolve to beat the virus,” Carney said.
The bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing a package with a $908 billion price tag held a news conference Monday afternoon to formally release their legislative text.
The group decided to split the plan into two bills with one of the bills dealing with the thorny issues of state and local aid and liability protections, while the other bill deals with provisions expected to win more widespread bipartisan support.
Congressional leaders have not yet signed off on any deal – a point that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia gave a nod to when he said, “Now it’s up to the leadership and make this happen on a timely basis.” But Manchin struck an optimistic tone, saying at the end of the news conference as he pointed to the bill text sitting on a podium, “help is on the way.”
It’s also not yet clear whether Democrats will broadly embrace the bill dealing with state and local aid and liability protections. Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine addressed that point, saying, “the other piece involving state and local aid and liability, we couldn’t come to a uniform consensus although there is still work going on in that area.”
GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine praised the bipartisan effort, saying, “I think we’ve had a Christmas miracle occur in Washington.”
Echoing Manchin’s point on next steps, she said, “My hope is that our hard work will spur our leadership on both sides of the aisle in the Senate and in the House and in the administration to take our products and use them as the basis for a Covid relief package that is urgently needed.”
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska referred to the stack of legislative text as “hope.”
“I think it’s important that you’re hearing and seeing that there is a unity in purpose here,” she said.
GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio shared that he has lost multiple friends to coronavirus.
“I just lost my third friend to Covid,” Portman said. “He died in a hospital after a painful process of being in the ICU and going through with his family the grief and the pain.”
Four hospitals in California received a total of 33,150 Covid-19 vaccine doses today, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced, just minutes after some of the first health care workers in the state were vaccinated at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center.
Strikingly, the number of doses received in the state were equal to the number of new infections recorded today.
Today’s shipments were sent to hospitals in Los Angeles, San Diego and Northern California. On Tuesday, 24 additional sites are expected to receive vaccine shipments, and five more sites will receive the doses on Wednesday, Newsom elaborated.
“We are very close within the next week or so anticipating that to be replicated in other parts of this state,” Newsom said. “We are in the midst of the worst moment of this pandemic so today is hopeful and reason to be optimistic, but let’s be mindful of where we really are, in terms of this pandemic and forgive me for saying that.”
Both Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed awe at the moment the scientific milestone brings.
“The hope of this moment to witness the vaccines that we just saw, brought a tear to my eye, because it shows human ingenuity. It shows the stubbornness, that human beings have, we want to survive. We want to thrive. And we will make it through this,” Garcetti gushed.
Newsom plans to be vaccinated, but said he will wait until it is available to him, “I will not be cutting in line” in front of critical workers, he said.
Garcetti also intends to get vaccinated when appropriate, and assured residents of the safety of the vaccine. “I just also wanted to spell out for any communities, because at the federal level, and with a double check at the state, these vaccines have not been infected by power. You can trust them. You should trust them. I trust them.”
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Monday that he wants to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as he can.
Azar added that he would be “delighted” for any public official to get vaccinated on TV. Tapper said that President-elect Joe Biden announced he would do so when his time comes to get vaccinated.
“If President-elect Biden comes to you, would you inoculate him, would you vaccinate him? Or perhaps have somebody do so?” Tapper asked Azar.
“Of course we would,” Azar said. “Any of those types of efforts that signal to the American people the importance of getting vaccinated and that we as leaders are willing to put our money where our mouth is — of course we’d be very supportive of that and make sure that would happen.”
Watch the moment:
People across the United States should learn from their local public health authorities and providers when they may be eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine — especially older adults and people with underlying medical conditions, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Monday.
“So we could be seeing in the end of February, into March, more general vaccination programs,” he said.
Azar added that his “personal hope” is that the individuals who are elderly and particularly vulnerable will be in some of those next groups in February, “but they’re going to learn that from their governor and local health authorities.”
Watch:
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called the rising death from Covid-19 in the United States a “terrible tragedy.”
“Any death from Covid is a terrible tragedy,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper as Covid-19 deaths surpassed 300,000 in the US.
“Any death in this context and not just directly from Covid,” said Azar, who lost his father earlier this year.
“I wasn’t able to see him for the month and a half before. I’ve gotten to experience the pain that individuals who can’t be with their relatives who are in a nursing home, be with the relatives who are dying in intensive care units, what they experience. The pain and the anguish in our health care system and our country is real, and that is why I wake up every day with a fervid commitment to deliver vaccines like we’re doing … Because we want these deaths to stop, we want to turn around these hospitalizations, we want cases to go down, ” Azar explained.
Azar also pushed back against claims that the rush to approve the vaccine was politically motivated.
Watch the moment:
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday said eight more hospitals across the state are expected to receive the Pfizer tomorrow to begin vaccinating its health care workers.
Speaking during a news briefing this afternoon, DeWine said those hospitals “were selected based on geography, population, and access to ultra-cold storage capacity.”
The hospitals are:
“Next week we hope Moderna is approved, that we will see vaccines going to many, many hospitals throughout the state of Ohio,” DeWine said.
Vaccination began for health care workers at OSU Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Cincinnati earlier today.
DeWine said the state will begin vaccinations in nursing homes starting Friday.
Between five and 10 nursing homes will begin vaccination on Friday, DeWine added. The governor did not specify which nursing homes or care facilities will be among the first to participate in this launch.
Health officials in Wisconsin said that they expect 49,725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to be delivered this week.
In a news conference Monday afternoon, Deputy Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Health, Julie Willems Van Dijk said that at least two hubs have received shipments of nearly 10,000 doses earlier on Monday. The state has partnered with eight hubs throughout the state that have the storage capabilities necessary for the vaccine, including the freezer capacity.
According to a news release from Gov. Tony Evers’ office, the state expects increased doses in shipments scheduled in the coming weeks.
Earlier today, the University of Wisconsin health system said they received the first doses of the vaccine. In a tweet, they said that they will start vaccinating employees this afternoon.
The state of Alaska received its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccine Sunday night, according to an announcement from the Department of Health and Social Services. The vaccine supply created by Pfizer and BioNTech was flown to the state by UPS. Alaska is the first state outside the contiguous United States to confirm receiving a shipment.
The DHSS says it will take until Wednesday before vaccines arrive in some locations that have ordered them. “Following receipt of the first shipments, some health care workers could begin receiving vaccinations either later that day or soon thereafter at hospitals and health care facilities,” the department said in its press release Monday.
In addition to the health care facilities that have directly ordered a vaccine supply, the state is working with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to get doses to Alaska’s substantial number of remote indigenous communities.
There have been at least 300,267 reported deaths from Covid-19 in the United States since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
There have been at least 16,388,504 total coronavirus cases in the US, Johns Hopkins data shows.
Johns Hopkins recorded the first death from Covid-19 on Feb. 29 in Washington state. Two earlier deaths in California were posthumously confirmed to be from Covid-19 later in the spring.
The next Covid-19 vaccine under consideration for emergency use authorization is Moderna’s candidate and, if authorized, the United States plans to ship about 6 million doses across the country in initial shipments, said Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed.
“We’re shipping it to 3,285 locations across the country. It will be a very similar cadence that was executed this week with Pfizer,” Perna said. “Where we’re hitting initial sites on Monday, follow on Tuesday and Wednesday and then by the end of the week we’re just in a routine cadence of execution.”
Google employees won’t be returning to the office until September. And when they do, they might not be going five days a week.
In an email to employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company will test the idea of a flexible workweek where employees would work at least three days a week in the office for collaboration and at home for the rest of the time. The news was first reported by The New York Times.
This summer, the company told workers they could work from home until July 2021.
Google isn’t alone in its approach to a flexible work schedule.
In October, Dropbox announced plans to become “virtual first.” That means the company’s nearly 3,000 employees will continue to work remotely most of the time, but will occasionally go into the office for more collaborative and team-building work. To help facilitate this, the company will revamp its offices, turning them into what it calls “Dropbox Studios.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in May as many as 50% of the company’s employees could be working remotely within the next five to 10 years. While Twitter has said some employees who want to work from home permanently, can.
When asked what was his proudest moment of the year was, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “successfully doing the unimaginable” by having had a vaccine for a brand-new virus.
“To have a virus that was brand new, and first recognized, and sequenced in January of 2020, and then in December of 2020 speaking to you today, as we speak, Steve, people are getting vaccine injected into their arms, with a vaccine that’s 94-95% effective against clinical disease, and very, very effective against serious disease – I mean, that is a historic, unprecedented achievement,” he added.
Additionally, Fauci said the darkest moment of 2020 has been the disease burden and death.
“We have almost 300,000 deaths. That’s the worst public health catastrophe in 102 years – since the 1918 pandemic,” Fauci said.
Oklahoma received its first delivery of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine today and it is now being distributed to health care workers on the front lines, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced during a press conference.
The initial delivery to Oklahoma includes 33,000 doses and the state is expecting a total of around 166,000 doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by end of month, Oklahoma State Commissioner of Health Dr. Lance Frye said.
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, who joined this afternoon’s press conference, cautioned against irrational exuberance over today’s vaccine arrival, saying “just because you saw a nurse receive the vaccine on television, does not mean that you have magically received the vaccine.” Oklahoma City is currently averaging almost 1,000 cases a day and has been averaging about 600 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, the Mayor said.
“What you’re seeing today is absolutely an encouraging glimpse of our future, but for most of us, it is not our present. So please, resolve to maintain and even enhance your precautions, recognizing that there is an end date now,” Mayor Holt said.
Maine received the first two shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine this morning, Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said during a news conference today.
The shipments, which included 1,950 doses, arrived at Mercy Hospital and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The state needs roughly 2.6 million doses to fully vaccinate everyone, Shah said.
Maine is expecting additional shipments of the vaccine tomorrow at Central Maine Medical Center, Maine Medical Center, A.R. Gould Hospital and Maine General Medical Center in Augusta, Shah added.
Week one of the vaccination efforts will be focused on hospital workers “who have been providing daily direct, close patient care to Covid-19 positive patients for months now,” including workers in the ICU, Emergency Room and Covid-19 positive wings, Shah said.
The World Health Organization launched a global initiative on Monday to respond to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on young people.
The Global Youth Mobilization For Generation Disrupted was launched by an alliance of several youth movements and organizations including the Young Men’s Christian Association, World Young Women’s Christian Association, World Organization of the Scout Movement, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award.
“The big six youth organizations, WHO, and the UN Foundation will engage young people around the world in the design of community initiatives to turn around the impact of the pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual briefing. “We hope that it will become a platform for supporting progress towards other health goals, including universal health coverage.”
Several youth leaders were also invited to speak during the briefing. They said that these initiatives were critical to address the social, economic, and environmental challenges faced by young people as a result of the pandemic.
“The quality of the access to education should not be compromised during a pandemic,” said Shi Jie Chew, a member of the International Federation of Red Cross Youth Commission. “People should not have to sacrifice educational opportunities in exchange for our livelihoods and health.”
Tharindra Arumapperuma, an international council member of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, said the issues with the struggling global economy are not isolated to the older generation.
Tedros said the initiative will issue a call for proposals from youth groups to develop solutions to address the impacts of Covid-19 and scale-up existing efforts. He also said that $5 million has been allocated to the movement from the WHO Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
A select amount of full-time federal prison employees are expected to receive the Covid-19 vaccination on Wednesday, a spokesperson from the Bureau of Prisons told CNN.
The first rounds of vaccines have been administered Monday to front-line workers in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus that has taken the lives of almost 300,000 people in the United States. Operation Warp Speed determined that law enforcement, including correctional officers were eligible for the first round of the vaccine since the facilities have a higher potential for outbreaks because of the population of inmates.
Emery Nelson, spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons, said Monday in a statement to CNN that “a few” of the facilities are expected to begin receiving the vaccine on Wednesday, and it will be made available to full-time employees.
To date, there are over 1,700 Bureau of Prisons staffers who have tested positive for the coronavirus—compared to the over 7,100 inmates who are positive.
“A plan has been developed to offer the Vaccine to the inmate population when additional doses are available. However, the BOP does not determine when doses will be made available to inmates, OWS will do that,” Nelson said.
CNN has requested further comment on which facilities will receive the vaccinations and if the staffers are mandated to have them.
More than half of the states across the nation have received their first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine.
According to statements from the state Departments of Health, governor’s offices and local hospitals, 36 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have all received their first shipment of the vaccine.
Remember: Not all of these states have begun administering the vaccine, but they have received it.
Those places are:
The first Covid-19 vaccine doses have arrived in Oregon, the state’s health agency announced in a statement.
Two hospitals, Holladay Park in Portland and Meridian Park in Tualatin, took delivery of one package of 975 doses each of the Pfizer vaccine today at around 7 a.m., the statement said.
“Additional doses are expected at three other locations in Oregon on Tuesday,” the statement added. According to the Oregon Health Authority, all three locations are expected to receive 975-dose packages.
“The remaining 30,225 Pfizer vaccine doses from this week’s allocation of 35,100 dose for Oregon will arrive at hospitals throughout the rest of the week, with 10,725 doses going to skilled nursing facilities for vaccinations that start next week,” the statement said.
The first vaccine shipment has arrived at the Illinois Strategic National Stockpile, according to a release from the governor’s office.
Approximately 43,000 doses of the first shipment arrived this morning, according to the release. The “vast majority” of those doses will be sent to Regional Hospital Coordination Centers around the state to allow local health departments to pick up and begin their distribution of the vaccine, the release said.
Gov. JB Pritzker also said in the release that Chicago received a direct shipment, and four additional local health departments will receive direct shipments later this week.
The state will receive 100,000 doses in this initial allocation. Last week, Pritzker had said the state would receive 109,000 doses.
“Today marks a momentous occasion – not just this year, but in American history. Eleven months after scientists the world over first got their hands on the genetic sequence of this virus – and we are seeing the beginning of the end of this pandemic,” Pritzker said in the release. “May we all take a moment to feel hope today.”
As some Americans are getting the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine today, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the public won’t be able to “throw the masks away” until the late fall or early winter of 2021.
“I don’t believe we’re going to be able to throw the masks away and forget about physical separation in congregate settings for a while, probably likely until we get into the late fall and early next winter, but I think we can do it,” he added.
Fauci also said that this is “the worst public health catastrophe in 102 years, since the 1918 flu pandemic,” and he said he hopes that Americans learn from all their actions and inactions during 2020 to not repeat the same mistakes in the future.
“It’s eerie that there were things that went on back in 1918 that are so strikingly similar then that we see now, including the denial some states and cities that there really was a problem; the reluctance to wear masks on some parts of the country; the reluctance to shut down things — some cities shutdown, some didn’t — and it was clear that those that shut down did better both from a health standpoint and an economic standpoint,” he said.
“That was 102 years ago, and it’s sort of almost repeating itself now in 2020, so I hope we don’t have that kind of forgetfulness after this,” Fauci added.
Two public health locations in coastal Georgia received the state’s first shipments of Covid-19 vaccine today, the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) announced.
The shipments contain 5,850 doses of vaccine and the Coastal Health District will start vaccinating front line public health staff this afternoon, DPH said.
According to DPH, additional shipments of vaccine are expected at facilities in other parts of the state, including metro Atlanta, later this week.
DPH is following CDC recommendations by prioritizing health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities for vaccination.
In Georgia, the vaccine is being given through closed points of dispensing or “PODs,” which include sites like public health clinics, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and pharmacies, and are only accessible to individuals in the current defined priority groups, DPH said.
New York State could face a second shutdown if the current trajectory of Covid-19 metrics does not change, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference Monday.
Cuomo said that the current trajectory shows that by January, there could be 11,000 patients in hospitals due to Covid-19 and an additional 3,500 dead.
Cuomo identified Erie, Monroe, Central New York, and particularly New York City as areas of concerns.
“New York City is different, there is more density,” Cuomo said. “We know how fast it takes off in New York City.”
Addressing the concerns of business owners who are unhappy with current capacity rates, Cuomo said that people should be more worried about a shutdown if the current trajectory doesn’t change.
“We go back to where we were, all nonessential business closed, they go to zero.” Cuomo said. “Yes we are trying to change the trajectory, you should be happy, if we don’t change the trajectory then we are going to close.”
In order to avoid another shutdown, Cuomo said that two things need to be done:
“It’s difficult to stop during the holiday season,” Cuomo said. “I think of it as a footrace between holiday spread and hospital capacity and vaccination critical mass. The problem is experts say vaccination for the critical mass isn’t for six to nine months.”
Cuomo said New York state today conducted what he believes was the first vaccine administered in the United States.
“We are in the process of administering 10,000 vaccinations today,” Cuomo said.
The University of Michigan Hospital is preparing to inject its first round of Covid-19 vaccines.
The doses come frozen because the vaccine requires a storage temperature of -70 degrees Celsius. Once taken out of storage, they need to warm up before it can be mixed in with a bit of saline and then administered.
Watch a health care worker sanitize and prep the shot:
Four hospitals in Texas have received the first shipments of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the state’s Department of State Health Services.
According to a news release, 19,500 doses were delivered Monday morning to hospitals in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. An additional 75,075 doses will arrive on Tuesday at 19 hospitals throughout the state.
Texas should be receiving a total of 224,250 doses during the first week of distribution, which will be shipped to 110 providers, according to the release.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says the state received a shipment of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine this morning and as a gesture to let people know he is “all in,” he will receive a dose today at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Justice said the first shipment arrived in Kanawha and Monongalia Counties and will be distributed to long-term care facilities and health care workers first.
The governor also announced he is working to initiate mandatory testing of all 18- to 35-year-old students that are on campuses across the state.
CNN asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moments ago if she’s open at all to dropping state and local aid as part of the relief talks, and she said: “I very much support state and local.”
Asked if the aid amounted to a red line in the talks, Pelosi said: “We are in negotiations.”
If Democrats drop state and local aid, their key priority, it could ease a path to a Covid-19 relief deal.
Read more on the state of the negotiations here.
The first shipments of Covid-19 vaccine have arrived in New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced today on Twitter.
Dr. Tracie Collins, New Mexico’s Health Secretary, also said on Twitter that “more than 17,000 vaccine doses are on their way to hospital workers this week.”
Grisham noted that the doses “will begin to be administered to health care workers on the frontlines of the pandemic later today.”
At least half of the states across the US have received their first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
According to statements from the state’s departments of health, governor’s offices and local hospitals — 25 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have all received their first shipment of the vaccine.
It is important to note, that not all of these states have started administering the vaccine, but they have received it.
CNN will continue to update this list as the week goes on and as more shipments are received.
Here’s a list of the states that have received a shipment of the vaccine so far:
The District of Columbia also received a shipment of the vaccine.
Pennsylvania announced today it has started administering the Covid-19 vaccine to residents, as the commonwealth reported 18,646 new cases of Covid-19 and 330 deaths over the weekend, according to the state’s Department of Health.
The vaccine was given to health care workers at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh this morning, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said during a news conference.
The commonwealth’s positivity rate leapt from 14.4% to 16.2% for the week ending on Dec. 10, according to the governor’s office.
More on the vaccine: The state expects to receive 97,500 Covid-19 vaccine doses this week, which will go to 83 hospitals throughout Pennsylvania, according to Levine.
Philadelphia has a separate vaccine plan, although the county is working closely with the state, she added.
The US can expect to see an additional 581 shipments of Covid-19 vaccine through the rest of the week, Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, said during a news conference on Monday.
Those shipments are part of the initial 2.9 million doses that will be distributed nationwide.
As of Monday, coronavirus vaccines already are being sent to 145 sites.
Of those 145 shipments, “we know that 55 have been received. And we’ll track the remaining 95 accordingly as we go through the day. We know that the shipments for tomorrow’s deliveries have already been packed and checked, and we’ll be managing each of those to include Wednesday’s shipment,” Perna said during a news conference on Monday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on MSNBC Monday that he is certain President-elect Joe Biden will get vaccinated and discussions about when that will take place are happening now.
About the vaccine: The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine Friday, and it’s widely expected to grant EUA to Moderna’s similar vaccine next week. Vaccinations in the US started this morning.
A personal support care worker in Toronto was among Canada’s first recipient of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine Monday as the country began distributing its first 30,000 doses across the country.
Anita Quidangen has been a personal support worker for nearly three decades and provincial officials say she has worked tirelessly at the Rekai Centre, one of Toronto’s hard hit long-term care homes.
Applause broke out after Quidangen received her shot, as more health care workers lined up for their vaccinations. It is a mostly symbolic rollout as Canada works to secure vaccines more quickly from Pfizer-BioNTech and other international manufacturers.
Canada says it expects to receive about 249,000 doses of the vaccine before the end of the year but is awaiting at least 20 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech.
The country completed a “dry-run” of vaccine distribution last week and officials reported no problems providing a timely and secure delivery.
Canada’s doses will be distributed from Pfizer’s European production hubs and not from the US supply of vaccine.
Earlier Monday federal officials say they are continuing to negotiate “hard” to receive as many vaccine doses as possible, as quickly as possible.
“Notably, our portfolio consists of signed agreements with seven vaccine manufacturers that will provide us with access to up to 414 million doses, the most number of doses per capita of any country in the world,” said Anita Anand, Canada minister of procurement and the woman who has led efforts to put together Canada’s vaccine portfolio.
Canada also announced it would spend about $400 million more to help developing countries access testing, therapeutics and vaccines. Federal officials say they have so far contributed more than $800 million dollars in the global effort to help developing countries cope with Covid-19.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story described as Anita Quidangen as Canada’s first recipient of the Covid-19 vaccine. She was among the first to receive the vaccine.
Covid-19 vaccinations are expected to start in nursing homes this week, said Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed.
“We’re working through the state plans and the guidance that was put out was that long-term health care facilities slash nursing homes was one priority, but as well as the first-line medical personnel,” he said. “Allocations for vaccines went out to the states, to the locations that they directed, and they are identifying in those populations who is first.”
Perna added, “On Monday, a week from today, over 1,100 long-term health care facilities and nursing homes will also begin vaccinations.”
US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said during the news conference that the date of Dec. 21 for vaccinations came up during discussions that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had in working with CVS and Walgreens.
“But there’s no prohibition on distributing and vaccinating sooner,” Azar said.
“In fact, we encourage it sooner,” he added. “We expect to see vaccinations this week.”
Some Americans across the US are getting the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine today.
But the milestone comes as the coronavirus pandemic is surging across the country.
The United States reported more than 109,300 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Sunday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
And the US is also nearing 300,000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic began.
Experts are urging Americans to not let up their guards despite today’s good vaccine news. Remember: It will be several months before most Americans can get a Covid-19 vaccine.
The director of the National Institutes of Health warned that even those who get the vaccine should keep wearing masks for the foreseeable future.
Maricopa County Public Health has announced that it has received their first shipment of the Covid-19 vaccine today in a tweet.
“The countdown to dispensing is on…” the county added.
Maricopa is Arizona’s most populous county.
See the full tweet:
Dr. Anthony Fauci told MSNBC Monday that people living in the US with no underlying health conditions should expect to get a Covid-19 vaccine at the end of March or the beginning of April.
Additionally, Fauci said that by the second quarter of 2021, we could see the “overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated.”
“I believe if we’re efficient about it, and we convince people to get vaccinated, we can accomplish that by the end of the second quarter of 2021, namely, by the end of the late spring early summer, I believe we can get there by then, so that by the time we get into the fall, we can start approaching some degree of relief, where the level of infection will be so low in society, we can start essentially approaching some form of normality,” Fauci said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear greeted a UPS truck delivering the first shipment of Pfizer’s vaccine to the University of Louisville Hospital this morning.
During a news conference, a visibly emotional Beshear said the vaccine is “nothing short of a modern, medical miracle” as he watched five health care workers receive the vaccine. Dr. Jason Smith, the hospital’s chief medical officer, was among the first people in Kentucky to receive the vaccine.
Beshear announced more than 12,500 initial doses of the two-stage Pfizer vaccine are being distributed to 11 regional hospitals that will receive them within the next three days. According to the governor, more than 25,000 doses are going to CVS and Walgreens, which has a federal contract to vaccinate residents at long-term care facilities.
“We have to focus on our long-term care residents first for the moral side, they make up 66% of the deaths here in the Commonwealth. Just think about it, our goal is in the next two months to vaccinate all of them, meaning we can deal this virus a deadly blow while we are pushing towards victory,” added Beshear.
He said he hopes the first allotment of the Moderna vaccine will be shipped this week and available to hospitals by early next week.
A 31-year-old frontline nurse at Tampa General Hospital was one of the first people to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the state of Florida.
Vanessa Arroyo was vaccinated during a news conference held by Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday morning.
Arroyo is a frontline nurse in Tampa General’s Covid-19 unit, DeSantis said.
She has worked for Tampa General for eight years.
According to University of Florida Health in Jacksonville, Dr. Leon L. Haley Jr., a board-certified emergency room physician, CEO of UF Health Jacksonville and dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine Jacksonville, is thought to be the first in the state to be vaccinated.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described frontline nurse Vanessa Arroyo as the first person to receive a vaccine in the state of Florida. Dr. Leon L. Haley Jr. is believed to be the first person to be vaccinated in the state.
The US Department of Health and Human Services will start to track and announce new allocations of Covid-19 vaccines in the nation each week, Secretary Alex Azar said on Monday.
“This week, everyone’s work starts to pay off. This weekend’s shipment of vaccines is 2.9 million doses,” Azar said, adding, “With 2.9 million doses held back and sent in 21 days for people to receive their second dose.”
Pulmonary and critical care specialist Dr. Stella Ogake received her Covid-19 vaccine at the OSU Wexner Medical Center in Ohio this morning.
“When I saw the truck coming out of the Pfizer manufacturing plant yesterday, I was so emotional just thinking about all the work that we had to put in to get here,” she added.
Getting the vaccine alleviates her fear of getting the virus or taking it home to her family, she said, adding she wants this moment for other Americans too.
“Just seeing patients in the hospital and seeing what they go through, my biggest fear is getting it myself or taking it home to my son or my husband, or my other family members. And for them to get as sick as the people I take care of, that’s definitely my biggest fear,” she said Monday.
Right after taking the vaccine, she said she was feeling good and it wasn’t painful.
The first shipment of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine has arrived in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced during a news conference Monday morning.
DeSantis said he had the pleasure of being at the loading dock at Tampa General when the state received its first doses of the vaccination from FedEx.
Broward Memorial and UF Shands in Jacksonville also received their vaccines on Monday, DeSantis said.
On Tuesday, Jackson Memorial in Miami and Advent Health in Orlando will receive their shipment of the vaccination, Desantis said.
DeSantis says the state of Florida anticipates having all 100,000 doses of the vaccination for all five hospitals by tomorrow morning.
The first doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine have arrived in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted just before 10 a.m. ET.
Cooper is urging all residents to continue wearing masks and acting responsibly while the state works to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Here’s the tweet:
Dr. Anthony Fauci says he believes he could get vaccinated against Covid-19 within a week.
“I’m gonna wait to see. We’re getting a shipment, or maybe already have a shipment here on the NIH campus. As soon as my turn comes up, which likely will be very soon, I’m going to be available to get vaccinated publicly so that people can see that I feel strongly that this is something we should do, and hopefully that will encourage many more people to get vaccinated,” he added.
A doctor in Queens was one of the first people to get the coronavirus vaccine in New York state this morning.
“How are you feeling, doctor?” someone asked after he got the vaccine.
Watch the moment:
The first shipment of Pfizer vaccines are being shipped to five New York City hospitals, the New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi announced in a Monday news conference.
“Beyond the logistics, let me just take a moment to acknowledge what a remarkable and poignant milestone in our fight against Covid-19,” he added.
Subsequent shipments are expected at 37 hospitals on Tuesday and 2 more on Wednesday, he said. All of the shipments are being transported by truck or plane.
After the initial vaccinations, the data will be reported to the city’s immunization registry within 24 hours, according to Chokshi.
Chokshi did not immediately detail the five hospitals, though earlier in the day the first vaccines in the state were administered at Long Island Jewish Hospital in Queens.
Chicago will receive and store vaccines at undisclosed locations.
“Officials here have said that’s for security reasons,” CNN’s Omar Jimenez reported. “Though when it gets time for that first dose to happen, we do expect, based on conversations we’ve had with health officials, that there will be some sort of access to show what that process is like.”
What’s also different for Chicago is that the city will be the single entity to receive shipments of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and it will distribute the batches to hospitals in the area. Since not all hospitals have the capacity to store the vaccine at the -70 Celsius temperature that the vaccine requires, the city department will store some for them.
Officials expect more than 20,000 doses for the city in the first round.
The University of Michigan received and unboxed its first batch of coronavirus vaccines after it was delivered at 8:45 a.m. ET Monday.
The vials are now stored in an ultra cold freezer that has to stay at least -68 to -70 degrees Celsius for the vaccines to remain safe, effective and ready to be administered.
CNN’s Sara Sidner walks through the facility and explains how the vials were transported here.
Watch more:
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said today that the state’s first vaccines have arrived at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.
Speaking to reporters as the first truck arrived at the loading dock, Walz said he wanted to be there for the first shipment’s arrival so he could see them in person.
He said as cold as it is in Minnesota today, the vaccine has to be stored about 100 degrees colder.
“There’s backup generators to backup generators to make sure that if we lost power for whatever reason, those vaccines are safe,” Walz said.
The island of Puerto Rico has received the first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, according to a tweet by Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced.
“We have our first vaccines! #PuertoRico worked diligently on the logistics with the federal government and today we have it on our island. It’s time to move to the first phase and vaccinate the vulnerable!” the tweet said in Spanish.
See her tweet:
When asked when he would get vaccinated, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he doesn’t want to be an example of someone “cutting the line,” but said “the sooner I can, I will.”
“I’m 59 years old, in good health, I’m not working in the front line. So, my type is not recommended to get vaccinated,” Bourla told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on Monday.
However, Bourla stated that they are still considering the possibility for him to get vaccinated sooner than anticipated to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine to the public, and to encourage people to get vaccinated.
“On the other hand, our company ran a lot of polls to see what would take people to believe it, and one of the highest ranking, even higher than if Joe Biden takes it, even higher than if the other President takes it, it is if the CEO of the company takes it,” Bourla said.
“So, with that in mind, I’m trying to find a way that I would get vaccinated despite that it’s not my time, just to demonstrate the confidence of the company.”
Additionally, Bourla said that if he does end up taking the vaccine earlier, it will not give other Pfizer executives access to the vaccine.
See more here:
Beaumont Health’s Dr. Nicholas Gilpin will be the first person at his Michigan hospital to get the Pfizer vaccine this afternoon.
“I’m an infectious disease doctor, and I’m taking care of a lot of Covid patients, so I have sort of a front-line caregiver role,” he told CNN. “I’m fortunate to be looked at by our health care providers as a leader. I think, as a leader, my job is to be a good ambassador for the vaccine and show our front-line staff that it is safe, and it is effective.”
He added:
While Gilpin says he will be on a mission to advocate for the vaccine, he does not expect a lot to change in the short term.
Watch the interview:
New York state administered its first non-trial vaccine this morning to a health care worker. The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was administered to Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York City, at about 9:20 a.m. ET Monday during a livestream organized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
After getting her first shot, Sandra said she felt hopeful:
Watch the moment here:
US stocks posted solid gains Monday morning as the first doses of Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine have arrived following approval for emergency use by the FDA Friday night.
Ongoing stimulus talks are also boosting sentiment on Wall Street.
Here’s how the markets opened Monday:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday the possibility of a full pause and shutdown exists in the city because “we’re seeing the kind of level of infection with the coronavirus we haven’t seen since May and we have to stop momentum.”
He made the comment during an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota.
The mayor said his “number one job” is to protect the health and safety of residents.
He also noted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told the New York Times a larger shutdown for the city is possible.
De Blasio called this time the “last big battle against the coronavirus here in New York City” on the same day the vaccine arrived in the city.
WATCH:
A UPS delivery woman received a round of applause as she delivered the first batch of the coronavirus vaccine to the University of Michigan Hospital this morning.
Eleven months after the earliest recorded case of coronavirus in the United States, medical workers are preparing to give the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine today.
Thousands of vials of the vaccine were collected for distribution across the country Sunday after it passed its last regulatory hurdle.
Watch the moment:
George Washington University hospital’s first doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine were delivered this morning.
Around 8 a.m. ET, 975 doses were delivered. The doses arrived in a large white box.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams are expected to be onsite to see some of the first healthcare workers at the hospital get vaccinated later today.
CNN’s Sara Murray reports from the scene:
Willis-Knighton Health System in Shreveport, Louisiana, will receive their first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine by 11:30 a.m. ET Monday morning, Public Relations Manager Terrie Roberts tells CNN.
Roberts says about 975 doses will be arriving at their facility via UPS and will then be distributed at their campuses in the Shreveport-Bossier area thereafter.
The first recipients of the vaccine will be the critical frontline healthcare workers, Roberts said.
Read more about the vaccines’ roll out here.
“This is a 94% effective vaccine. It’s going through every, every, aspect of FDA process with integrity and transparent data,” US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Monday on “Today.”
He reiterated that the US should have enough vaccine to inoculate 20 million people by the end of the month.
“We know we have a vaccine available to get to 20 million people by the end of December, and then a total of 50 million by the end of January, and, as Dr. Slaoui said, 100 million people by the end of March – but should have 100 million shots in arms by the end of February, between first and second doses.”
More on the vaccine: Eleven months after the earliest recorded case of coronavirus in the United States, medical workers are preparing to give the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, with deliveries set to arrive at administration sites this morning.
Thousands of vials of the vaccine were collected for distribution across the country Sunday after it passed its last regulatory hurdle.
It’s up to states to allocate their share of vaccines, but the CDC has recommended that frontline health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities get the vaccine first. Officials warn it could be months before the vaccine becomes available to many Americans as the virus continues to surge, breaking grim state and national records.
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta provides analysis:
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he will watch frontline workers get vaccinated in Washington, DC on the first day of the rollout.
“I’m just excited that I’m going to get to see some frontline health care workers today, as part of the plan to George Washington Hospital vaccination, and get to see them getting vaccinated – some of the first people in the county,” Azar told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on “Today.”
First vaccinations for public could start in February: Azar said he believes the general public should be able to start getting vaccinations by late February and March – earlier than some other experts have forecasted.
“If we get the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccine approved in January, when their data comes in, we’ll have significant additional supplies. And again, late February, in the March time period, I think you’ll start seeing much more like a flu vaccination campaign – people going into their Kroger, their CVS, or Walgreens, Walmart.”
Watch Dr. Celine Gounder on New Day:
The United States is currently negotiating an additional order of 100 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. This is Bourla’s first interview since his company’s vaccine was authorized for emergency use in the United States.
“We can provide them – the additional 100 million doses – but right now, most of that we can provide in the third quarter. The US government wants them in the second quarter,” Bourla said. “We are working very collaboratively with them to make sure that we can find ways to produce more or allocate the doses in their second quarter as well, but we haven’t signed this agreement yet.”
Bourla said he was “not at all” concerned the quality of the vaccine will diminish as manufacturing ramps up, because the firms have strict “high standards of quality.”
“The 1.3 billion that we believe we will provide, they will definitely meet the highest standards of quality,” Bourla said of doses expected in 2021. “Already we know how to do it and although it looks like a giant step, for us it’s what we do every day. So right now, I feel quite comfortable that we will be able to do it smoothly.”
Watch Here:
Germany is set to receive 11 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by March, the country’s health ministry announced Monday.
“Eleven million vaccine doses will be available from BioNTech by March,” he added.
Kautz said that Germany expects the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to approve the BioNTech vaccine by the end of December, which will then be confirmed by the European Commission. “Immediately thereafter, inoculations can commence,” Kautz said.
BioNTech is a German company.
On Sunday, German Health Minister Jens Spahn called on EMA to speed up the approval process for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
It has already been approved by the United Kingdom, which started distributing it last week, and the United States, where it is being rolled out on Monday.
A Belgian care home where 75 people were infected with coronavirus and one resident died made an “error in judgement” by allowing a visit by a man playing the Christmas character Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas), the local municipality says.
The municipality of Mol in Belgium’s Flanders region said that “in-depth scientific research” would be needed to definitively say whether the visit was the cause of an outbreak at the Hemelrijck care home.
So far 61 residents and 14 staff members have tested positive, and one resident has died, according to the municipality.
How it happened: The man who played St. Nicholas, the son of a resident, tested positive for coronavirus after his visit, it said. He “was not feeling sick at the time of the visit,” the municipality said, and “the activity was not cleared beforehand with the crisis center, otherwise negative advice would have been given.”
CNN has reached out to the care home’s operator, Armonea, for comment.
One resident who was already in a “palliative stage” has died, and one other with symptoms is being given oxygen therapy at the care home, the municipality said. The “vast majority” of those infected are doing well and not showing symptoms, it said.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has not taken the company’s Covid-19 vaccine yet, he told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Monday morning.
Bourla gave a nod to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that the first vaccine doses should go to health care workers and long-term care facility residents.
“There are very strict allocation rules,” he said. “We are very sensitive to not cut the queue.”
1.3 billion doses next year: Bourla said there will be around 1.3 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine manufactured globally next year.
“This year we will have around 50 million doses available, most of them have already been manufactured,” Bourla told Gupta on Monday.
“Next year we will do 1.3 billion doses,” Bourla said. “We are working very diligently to increase this number.”
Japan will suspend its “Go To” travel subsidy as it battles a winter wave of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Monday.
Discounted travel to Tokyo and Nagoya provided by the Go To government campaign will be suspended immediately until January 11. Go To travel subsidies will be suspended nationwide from December 28 at least until January 11.
The Go To scheme offers travelers up to 50% discounts on transportation, hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and shopping, in an effort to encourage domestic travel during the pandemic downturn.
Suga said discouraging travel would help curb a current spike in cases.
He also announced a $11,500 per month support payment for hospitality businesses, to help owners comply with a shortening of trading hours. Doctors and nurses treating serious Covid-19 patients will receive a bonus payment of $50 per hour.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that the newly authorized Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine “should not be withheld” from people who are pregnant and should be offered to those who are breastfeeding.
The physicians’ group recommended that pregnant people should be able to make their own decision in conjunction with their clinical care team, adding that they would “otherwise be considered a priority population for a vaccine approved for use under EUA [Emergency Use Authorization].”
ACOG recommended that Covid-19 vaccines be offered to lactating individuals “when they meet criteria for receipt of the vaccine” based on the priority order outlined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
ACOG also recommended vaccination among people who actively trying to become pregnant or are thinking about pregnancy.
“Additionally, it is not necessary to delay pregnancy after completing both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine,” said the statement.
UK regulators have said that until more evidence is available, people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or planning to get pregnant within three months should delay their vaccination.
Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday that tougher lockdown restrictions in Germany are vital to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country, calling the situation “dead serious.”
In a rare speech, the German president addressed the nation a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that the country would return to tighter lockdown restrictions from Wednesday over the festive period. Non-essential retail and services as well schools and kindergartens will close down until January 10, 2021.
He said he understood that people are beginning to show coronavirus fatigue but reiterated how vital it is that everyone sticks to the measures announced on Sunday and contributes to bringing down the high infection numbers.
Germany recorded 16,362 new coronavirus infections on Monday – 4,000 more than a week ago – according to data from the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s agency for disease control. The overall number of infected people stands at 1,337,078. The death toll rose by 188 to 21,975, data showed.
On Friday, Germany recorded nearly 30,000 new coronavirus infections and nearly 600 deaths within 24 hours in a record day for both daily infections and fatalities.
The Prime Minister of the tiny African nation of Eswatini died while being treated for Covid-19 at a hospital in South Africa on Sunday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday.
The death appears to make Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini the first head of government confirmed to have died after a Covid-19 diagnosis. He was 52 years old.
In a statement, Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the family and friends of the late Prime Minister, the Swazi Royal Family, the government of the Kingdom, and the nation at large.
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center expects the first doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to be delivered between 9:15 and 9:30 a.m. ET this morning, hospital spokesperson Alexis Shaw told CNN in a statement.
Once the vaccine arrives, Shaw said, they plan to begin vaccinating about 20 to 30 of the hospital’s “prioritized, high risk frontline healthcare workers” within 1-1.5 hours.
The University of Michigan Hospital is expecting to receive its first doses of the shot at 8:45 a.m., a hospital spokesperson told CNN.
Distribution begins: Thousands of vials of the vaccine were collected for distribution across the country Sunday after it passed its last regulatory hurdle. Los Angeles International Airport tweeted just before 10 p.m. local time that it had received its first batch.
Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, said on Saturday that 145 administration sites across all the states were expected to receive the vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday.
Read more here:
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has criticized the UK government’s current Covid-19 restrictions and asked for tighter measures, such as school closures.
“With significant outbreaks among 10 to 19-year-olds, the Government must consider asking schools and colleges to close early and re-open later in January,” Khan said.
In London, 17 local authorities have registered a 7-day case rate higher than 200 cases per 100,000 people. Khan told the government it should consider moving London from Tier 2 to Tier 3 of restriction levels, putting the city on “very high alert.” This would also allow authorities to introduce more restrictions.
On Sunday, local authorities in the London borough of Greenwich announced the closure of all its schools from Monday until the end of the term.
That decision challenges the central government’s policy to keep schools open.
Sharma said 99% of schools across the UK have remained open since the beginning of the school year, and the government will talk to local authorities to discuss changes in restrictions “on a case by case basis.”
Singapore has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and is expecting the first shipments to arrive by the end of December, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Friday.
“We also expect other vaccines to arrive in Singapore in the coming months; if all goes according to plan, we will have enough vaccines for everyone in Singapore by the third quarter of 2021,” Lee said.
Shots will first be administered to those at “greatest risk,” including healthcare workers, frontline personnel, and the elderly population, according to the Prime Minister.
Vaccines will be free of charge to all Singaporeans and permanent residents, but will not be compulsory, Lee said.
Lee also announced that Singapore will start “Phase 3” of reopening and a further relaxation of coronavirus restrictions starting on December 28.
Under the relaxed restrictions:
As of December 13, Singapore has reported 58,325 cases of coronavirus and 29 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
German biotech company CureVac announced Monday that it had taken a step forward in the development of its coronavirus vaccine.
The Tübingen-based company said it has started a Phase 3 clinical trial with an expected enrolment of more than 35,000 participants at sites in Europe and Latin America.
The vaccine candidate uses mRNA technology, like the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna shots.
Following completion of the trial, subjects will continue to be monitored in a one-year extension study, which will collect additional data to evaluate long-term safety, persistence of antibodies and the duration of efficacy.
Eleven months after the earliest recorded case of coronavirus in the United States, medical workers are preparing to give the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, with deliveries set to arrive at administration sites from around 8 a.m. ET.
Thousands of vials of the vaccine were collected for distribution across the country Sunday after it passed its last regulatory hurdle.
It’s up to states to allocate their share of vaccines, but the CDC has recommended that frontline health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities get the vaccine first. Officials warn it could take months before the vaccine becomes available to many Americans as the virus continues to surge, breaking grim state and national records.
Death toll: More than 30,000 Americans died due to Covid-19 in the first 13 days of December, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU). It put the country’s death toll since the beginning of the pandemic at nearly 300,000 as of Sunday night, with more than 16.2 million reported cases.
And hospitalizations have remained above 100,000 for 12 consecutive days, breaking records for eight days in a row Sunday, the Covid Tracking Project (CTP) reported.
Read the full story:
South Korea’s “third wave” of the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to worsen with its caseload to increase, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) warned Monday.
KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong predicted that daily cases will rise to between 950 to 1,200 in the near future, up from 718 new infections declared on Monday.
Officials are particularly fearful over the spread of the virus through religious and nursing facilities, Jeong added.
As cases have spiked over the past week, 32% have been in patients aged over 60, Jeong said, warning that cases among elderly citizens will likely result in further deaths.
A religious facility cluster in western Seoul has grown to 162 patients with 22 new cases discovered, according to the KDCA.
Another religious facility in Dangjin, a city south of Seoul, was linked to 42 new cases on Sunday. KDCA’s tracing team director Park Yeong-jun blamed a group meal taken in the unventilated facility.
Vaccine deal: South Korea has signed a vaccine agreement with AstraZeneca as part of its plan to acquire doses for 44 million people, with the hope to complete contracts with two other vaccine developers by the end of the year.
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has received its first shipment of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, the airport tweeted on Sunday night.
“This is a major milestone for science, our country and our community. Thank you to all those who made this delivery possible, and are part of the incredible effort to distribute vaccines around the world,” LAX tweeted shortly before 10 p.m. PT.
Running out of hospital beds: California reported 30,334 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday and 122 virus-related deaths, according to the state’s Department of Public Health (CDPH).
Hospitals are filling up across the state; ICU capacity is down to 4.2% in Southern California, and even lower at 1.5% in the San Joaquin Valley.
South Korea’s capital Seoul will move classes online for kindergarten, elementary and special education schools starting Tuesday through the end of the year, according to a news release from the city authorities.
Middle and high schools have already been closed and transitioned online.
Just outside of the capital, Gyeonggi province’s Office of Education announced that all kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools will also go online from Dec. 15 to Dec. 31.
Small schools – meaning fewer than 300 students for elementary, middle, and high schools, and fewer than 60 for kindergartens – had previously been excluded from closures. They will now have to transition online as well.
This comes as South Korea declared 718 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, with 217 in Seoul, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn has called on the European Medicines Agency to speed up the approval process for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“This is also about people’s trust in the ability of the European Union to act,” Spahn added.
Germany is seeing a surge in both coronavirus infections and deaths. The country is close to finishing construction of dozens of vaccination centers across the country to distribute the vaccines once they are approved, Spahn wrote.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Sunday that the country will go into a “hard” national lockdown, starting next week and continuing through the Christmas period.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, has warned that the pandemic could drag on if not enough people get vaccinated.
Some 70-80% of the public needs to be immune before the virus “basically gives up and it will be gone,” Collins told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday. “We think we can get there by June or so for almost all of the 330 million Americans who are interested in getting this vaccine.”
“But if only half of them do so, this could go on and on and on,” he said.
On vaccine safety: Collins pointed to the way that the vaccines were designed, tested in trials, the careful analysis by objective scientists and then going before the US Food and Drug Administration and public review, as points of confidence for the vaccine.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a photo of the Pfizer vaccine arriving in Canada on Sunday evening.
“The first batch of doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine have arrived in Canada,” the tweet said, along with a photo of an airplane sitting on the runway.
The vaccines come as the country struggles to get its infections under control. Several provinces – including Quebec and Ontario, Canada’s two biggest – said last week they were facing a rise in numbers, despite new restrictions and lockdowns.
“I know we’re all tired, but we need to make an effort,” said Dr. Mylène Drouin, Montreal’s public health director, during a news conference Thursday.
The Prime Minister of the Southern African country of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, has died, according to a government statement on Sunday. This comes just weeks after the government announced he contracted Covid-19.
The statement did not state the cause of death. It added that the government, in collaboration with the family, will keep the country informed of further arrangements.
A Nov. 23 government statement announced that Dlamini had developed “mild symptoms of the coronavirus” and would be monitored from the hospital.
In a Dec. 1 government statement, the deputy prime minister said Dlamini was “responding well to treatment after contracting COVID-19 and remains stable,” adding that in order to fast track his recovery, he would be transferred to a South African hospital.
Eswatini, bordering South Africa, had its name changed by its king in 2018, to mark the 50th anniversary of independence.
The United States reported 190,920 new Covid-19 cases and 1,389 virus-related deaths on Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The new figures raise the country’s total to at least 16,253,219 cases and 299,168 deaths.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
CNN is tracking cases and deaths:
New Zealand has agreed in principle to establish a much-anticipated travel bubble with neighboring Australia – although there’s still no firm date on when the corridor would start.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on December 14 that a travel bubble can be expected in the first quarter of next year, meaning that people can travel between the two countries without having to complete a 14-day mandatory quarantine at either end.
Since October, travelers from New Zealand have been allowed quarantine-free travel to certain Australian destinations, but they still have to quarantine when they return home.
Ardern’s announcement means that the bubble – which has been discussed for months and has been widely anticipated by people in both countries – will finally allow for quarantine-free travel both ways.
It comes two days after New Zealand announced plans to roll out quarantine-free travel with the Cook Islands in the first quarter of next year.
Read the full story:
High-ranking White House officials are set to receive some of the first coronavirus vaccines in the United States, according to a White House official and a person familiar.
Those vaccinations, which could begin as soon as this week, would come while the vaccine is in extremely limited supply and only generally available to high-risk health care workers.
The President, however, tweeted Sunday evening that White House staffers should receive the vaccine “somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary.”
“I have asked that this adjustment be made,” he said. “I am not scheduled to take the vaccine, but look forward to doing so at the appropriate time. Thank you!”
The New York Times first reported on the White House vaccinations. Other parts of the Trump administration will be vaccinated in the coming days.
Read the full story:
Japan is set to hold a Covid-19 task force meeting on Monday evening to discuss additional countermeasures as new cases rise, the nation’s Chief Cabinet Secretary said.
This comes after Japan reported 2,387 new coronavirus cases and 23 additional virus-related deaths on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health.
The new figures raise the national total to 180,365 cases and 2,598 deaths. As of Sunday, 25,113 patients are still in hospital.
He added that the focus to curb new infections remains on the four major hotspots with high infection rates – Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Hokkaido.
Tokyo, the nation’s capital, reported 480 new cases on Sunday. Osaka, the country’s third most populous prefecture, reported 308.
South Korea reported 718 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, according to a news release issued by the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on Monday.
Among the new cases, 682 were locally transmitted, of which 473 were reported in the Seoul metropolitan area, the KDCA release said. This brings the nation’s total number of cases to 43,484.
Additionally, seven patients died on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 587, the release added.
Tighter restrictions warning: On Sunday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that officials will begin reviewing the possibility of raising the social distancing measures to level 3, the highest level in South Korea’s Covid-19 response, which will close most facilities and restrict gatherings to 10 people or fewer.
The government will additionally secure more than 10,000 hospital beds over the next three weeks, according to Health Minister Park Neung-hoo.
Peru’s clinical trials of China’s Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine were temporarily suspended by the Peruvian National Institute of Health after a participant reported a decrease in muscle strength in his legs, German Malaga, the head of clinical trials at Sinopharm laboratories in Peru told CNN on Sunday.
The 64-year-old patient, with allegedly more than 20 years of badly-controlled diabetes, is in stable condition, Malaga said.
Malaga added that the reason for the symptoms cannot yet be determined and an investigation is ongoing.
The United States reported 109,331 current Covid-19 hospitalizations on Sunday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).
This is the 12th consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.
The US has seen record hospitalizations for eight days in a row.
The highest hospitalization numbers according to CTP data are:
A vaccine kit sent to the wrong state. A hospital system in California expecting to get powdered vaccines instead of frozen vials. And tens of thousands of people expect to get vaccinated in the coming weeks, when in reality they are going to have to wait for months.
The rollout of the first coronavirus vaccine is already messy, and it has only been authorized since late Friday night.
The US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine Friday, and it’s widely expected to grant EUA to Moderna’s similar vaccine next week. Vaccinations are expected to begin Monday.
The federal government’s Operation Warp Speed has been gearing up and holding news conferences headlined by generals promising a military-style rollout. But jokes about military precision aside, experts are already expecting a lot of confusion, a fair amount of fear and more than a little outrage.
“The public has to be cognizant that there is going to be unfairness or error or sometimes just stupidity,” said Juliette Kayyem, a security specialist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration.
Read about some of the problems the US public can expect to see with any mass vaccination effort:
Thousands of vials of the long-awaited Covid-19 vaccine are slated to arrive in all 50 states Monday, as top US health officials express hope that health care workers can begin administering the injections immediately.
The news comes after the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine cleared its final hurdle: Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accepted an advisory committee’s recommendation Saturday that the vaccine may be given to people 16 and older, meaning it can now be administered in the United States.
In a statement issued Sunday, Redfield announced he had accepted the recommendation from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The first vaccinations are “set to start as early as Monday,” he said.
Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, too, said his “greatest hope and desire” is that the vaccinations begin Monday.
“My hope, again, is that this happens very expeditiously, hopefully tomorrow,” Hahn told CNN on Sunday. “We’ve seen the vaccines go out. We’ve seen the press reports of hospitals waiting to vaccinate health care workers and those most vulnerable.”
Vaccines roll out: The decision comes the same day that the first batch of vaccines was loaded onto trucks at a Pfizer plant in Portage, Michigan, and shipped out across the country.
Freight trucks carrying about 184,275 vials of vaccine departed the plant, and the combined 189 boxes of vaccine vials are expected to arrive in all 50 states Monday.
Read the full story:
Germany will go into a “hard” national lockdown, starting next week and continuing through the Christmas period, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday, after agreeing to stricter measures with state governments to stem a wave of coronavirus cases.
As of next Wednesday, all non-essential shops, services and schools will close until January 10, and Christmas Day gatherings will be reduced from 10 people to only five from two different households.
This week, Merkel made an impassioned plea for Germans to limit their social contacts ahead of the holidays: despite the country’s respected health system and early success in containing the virus, a recent partial lockdown has failed to stop the second-wave surge. Germany reported record daily deaths on Friday, with 598 fatalities tallied in a span of 24 hours.
The new measures take aim at traditional festivities: Christmas church services will be subject to prior registration with no singing allowed, alcohol is to be banned from all public spaces and an annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display will be canceled. Some states are also implementing additional measures, such as Bavaria, which will have a 9 p.m. curfew.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has pledged economic help for all businesses affected by the lockdown.
Case numbers: On Sunday, Germany recorded 20,200 new coronavirus infections – 2,000 more than Sunday last week – according to the Robert Koch Institute, the country’s agency for disease control. The overall infection number stands at 1,320,716. The death toll rose by 321 to 21,787, data showed.
