November 13 coronavirus news

Japan reported 1,649 new Covid-19 cases Thursday, the highest single-day number of cases in the nation. But Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the current situation still does not require the reintroduction of a state of emergency or the cancellation of the government's campaign to boost domestic tourism.

An expert panel advising Suga said part of the reason the country is not declaring a state of emergency yet is because the virus is not spreading particularly fast and hospitals are not that full.

Hospital bed occupancy is just above 10% and the rate of new infections is fewer than five people for every 100,000.

The country’s northernmost prefecture and island, Hokkaido, saw the highest number of new infections at 236 cases for Thursday. Tokyo posted 393 new cases on Thursday, the Japanese capital's highest since August 8, while Japan’s second biggest city, Osaka, reported 231 new infections.

The nationwide total stands at 114,010 cases.

Researchers say they have found more evidence that a mutant version of the coronavirus that has overtaken an older strain to spread across much of the world is in fact more easily transmitted, but does not appear to be any more dangerous.

Also, because it hasn’t changed its physical shape, it should be just as vulnerable to the body’s immune response -- whether natural or induced by a vaccine.

Scientists have been reporting about this new variant of the virus -- so-called D614G -- since April.

The research team tested the strain in lab animals and in lab dishes containing the cells that line the human respiratory tract.

The findings validate earlier studies showing the new strain spreads more easily and support evidence the change has not made the virus more likely to cause severe disease. 

What the mutation may do is help the virus thrive better in the nose and upper respiratory tract -- something that would help it spread among people. 

As Covid-19 cases soar to alarming levels around the United States, some schools are moving back to online-only instruction.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan's largest, is one of the latest to announce the move back to digital learning. In-person instruction will be suspended Friday until January 11 or possibly sooner, school officials said on Thursday.

In New York, a one-time hotspot where cases are again rising, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday the city is preparing to shut its schools down if the Covid-19 test positivity rate continues to rise.

And in especially hard-hit Utah, the board of education of the Jordan School District in Salt Lake County called an emergency meeting Wednesday night that resulted in the decision to transition 14 schools to online-only.

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Germany has recorded its highest number of coronavirus infections in a single day, according to data from the country’s Center for Disease Control.

According to the figures published this morning, 23,542 cases of Covid-19 were identified in the past 24 hours. The previous high was announced Saturday.

Another 218 people died from the virus on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 12,200.

Germany is just one of many European countries seeing a new spike in cases as winter approaches.

To date, there have been 762,832 cases of Covid-19 in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University's global tally.

US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday continued to reject the call from Democrats for a big coronavirus stimulus package, saying, "that's not a place I think we're willing to go" and reiterated his push for a bill that's "highly targeted at what the residual problems are."

McConnell said of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, "I gather she and the Democratic leader in the Senate still are looking at something dramatically larger. That's not a place I think we're willing to go."

Pelosi and Schumer signaled during a news conference earlier on Thursday they're not willing to change their call for a large coronavirus package even as efforts to negotiate remain stalled. The Democratic leaders instead argued that the result of the presidential election was a mandate for Joe Biden, which in turn strengthens their position in an effort to get a Covid package in the lame duck session.

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Authorities in the Indian capital region of Delhi said 104 people died of Covid-19 on Thursday, the highest number of fatalities there in a single day.

At least 7,228 people have now died in Delhi from the novel coronavirus.

Delhi reported 7,053 cases on Thursday, bringing the total in the capital region to 467,028. Of those, 43,116 cases are considered active. 

While cases are picking up in Delhi, the number of reported coronavirus infections in the country as a whole have dropped since September. India recorded 44,879 new cases across the country Thursday, the sixth day in a row that number was fewer than 50,000.

India hit its current peak on September 17, when authorities report 97,894 new cases in a 24-hour period.

To date, 8,728,795 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in India, 93% of whom have recovered.  

The United States reported 153,496 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University -- the country's highest daily caseload and the first time the number of coronavirus infections have exceeded 150,000 in a single day.

It's also the tenth consecutive day cases have topped 100,000.

To date, the US has identified 10,552,821 Covid-19 cases and least 242,423 virus-related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. At least 919 deaths were reported Thursday. 

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 in the US here:

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Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

A total of 10,015 people have died of Covid-19 in the US state of Massachusetts since March, according to state Department of Public Health data. 

Twenty-one new deaths were reported by the state on Thursday, bringing the death toll past 10,000.

Cases have spiked dramatically in Massachusetts. Governor Charlie Baker said earlier this week that Covid-19 infections have increased by more than 300% and hospitalizations by 200% since Labor Day.

The state is preparing for this surge by increasing hospital capacity and building field hospitals "where and when the needs are,” Baker said.

These numbers were released by the Massachusetts’s health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Pfizer released surprisingly positive data about its experimental coronavirus vaccine this week and may hope to apply for regulatory approval by the end of the month, but it will take several weeks more to get a vaccine through the approval process, experts noted.

Americans should not be hoping for any authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration before the last half of December, experts agreed.

That's because Pfizer, which appears to be the first company to be getting its vaccine trial data to the finish line, could not possibly get it together before the end of next week, which is already the end of November. After that, weeks of FDA review remain.

Dr. Larry Corey of the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who is leading the coronavirus vaccine trials network in the United States, told CNN he thinks it will take about 10 days for the FDA to review Pfizer's clinical trial data. The agency also needs to review Pfizer's manufacturing data to make sure the facilities where the vaccine is being made are up to standard.

"I'm not sure how long that review will take, but it could be two weeks. I think that's reasonable," Corey said.

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