December 4 coronavirus news

A healthcare worker administers a nasal swab test at a Covid-19 testing site in San Francisco on Tuesday, December 1.

Six San Francisco Bay Area jurisdictions issued a stay-at-home order Friday ahead of the governor’s statewide mandate, restricting activities and limiting capacity at businesses in an effort to reduce the spread of Covid-19 as hospitals and intensive care units see a surge of patients.

The regional order applies to the Northern California counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco and the city of Berkeley. The order, which will affect more than 5.8 million people, speeds up the timeline of the statewide regional stay-at-home order announced Thursday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Under the new local health orders, businesses will be required to further reduce occupancy to 20%, and will be required to write and enforce plans to ensure proper face coverings and maximum capacity rules are followed. Restaurants must close outdoor operations and convert to takeout and delivery only. Hair cutting and nail cutting services have also been ordered to close, officials said.

The new health orders will go into effect Dec. 6 and will remain in effect until Jan. 4, Contra Costa Health Director Chris Farnitano said.

The Bay Area was projected to be the last region in the state to be subject to the governor’s stay-at-home order, predicted to surpass the threshold by mid to late December. But Friday’s decision means the region will instead be the first.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams appears before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss vaccines and protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic on September 9 in Washington D.C.

US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said he expects to see a rise in positive Covid-19 cases during the Christmas holiday.

“The measures people take now will help determine how long this surge lasts and how big it gets,” Adams told Fox News’ John Roberts on Friday. “We also expect to see another bump over Christmas.”

Adams said he is concerned about the increase in gatherings during the holiday season. 

Adams encouraged Americans to celebrate safely, with immediate members of their household, and limit travel as much as possible.

“Find out how to do it safely because the actions we take now will determine how many people make it with us to this finish line that is so close,” he said.  

As the country anticipates the authorization and distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine, Adams is encouraging everyone – particularly leaders – to continue following public health measures such as wearing a mask and social distancing.

“More people than ever are doing the right thing,” he said. “We just need to hang on a little bit longer.” 

He added: “To all the leaders out there, we need to lead by example over the next couple of weeks and really help people get over the finish line because, again, it’s in sight.”

President-elect Joe Biden said “there’s a lot more that has to be done” when it comes to distributing any possible coronavirus vaccine. 

The Trump administration has “clued us in on their planning on how they plan to distribute the vaccine to the various states,” Biden said. “But there is no detailed plan that we’ve seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody’s arm. It’s going to be very difficult for that to be done and it’s a very expensive proposition.”

Biden said he agrees with prioritizing first-responders, nursing home residents and health care workers, but there also “has to be some equity in the way this is distributed.”

Biden called Covid-19’s effects on Black and Latino populations a “mass casualty event.”

He said delivering the vaccine to “major drug chains does not get you into a lot of these neighborhoods, and it doesn’t guarantee that it gets around, so we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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A woman walks past a shop selling masks in Edinburgh, Scotland on September 22.

Masks are “critical” in controlling the spread of coronavirus — and that includes at home sometimes, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

A CDC review of what works makes it clear that mask use, physical distancing, avoiding crowds and washing hands all could help control the spread of the virus – and would allow kids to go back to school and businesses to reopen.

“Consistent and correct use of face masks is a public health strategy critical to reducing respiratory transmission of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in light of estimates that approximately one half of new infections are transmitted by persons who have no symptoms,” the CDC summary of guidance reads.

The CDC has gradually been strengthening its recommendations on mask use. “Compelling evidence now supports the benefits of cloth face masks for both source control (to protect others) and, to a lesser extent, protection of the wearer,” the team wrote.

Masks work so well that certain communities should consider giving them out, the CDC team said. 

“A community-level plan for distribution of face masks to specific populations, such as those who might experience barriers to access, should be developed,” the CDC team wrote in the agency’s weekly report.

Physical distancing is also important.

“Although the impact of physical distancing is difficult to disaggregate from other interventions, one study estimated that physical distancing decreased the average number of daily contacts by as much as 74%,” they added. Consistent physical distancing could stop the spread, the CDC said.

President-elect Joe Biden said one of the most important aspects of the $900 billion relief package being negotiated on Capitol Hill is the money it will provide to public health as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage in the US.

Biden was emphatic that “Congress and President Trump have to get this deal done for the American people.”

“But any package passed in the lame duck session is not going to be enough overall. It’s critical, but it’s just a start. Congress are going to need to act again in January,” the President-elect said.

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President-elect Joe Biden speaks on the latest unemployment figures at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware on December 4.

President-elect Joe Biden called today’s job’s report — the last of 2020 — “grim,” and said that the coronavirus pandemic has put millions of Americans into financial trouble “through no fault of them own.”

He said the federal government must step up “now.”

Biden applauded the bipartisan effort in the Senate for a coronavirus relief package.

What was in today’s job’s report: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the US economy added 245,000 jobs in November on a seasonally adjusted basis. It was 224,000 fewer than economists had expected, as the job recovery continues to slow.

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Specimen bags at a Covid-19 testing site in San Francisco, California, on December 1.

California has shattered its own Covid-19 records in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions.

The state added 22,018 new Covid-19 cases Friday, a new record for California’s daily infection figure. The total number of confirmed cases is at least 1,286,557 since the start of the pandemic. 

Hospitalizations are also at the highest level seen yet, with more than 9,940 admitted patients. More than 2,200 of those are in intensive care units.

ICU capacity is the single threshold that will trigger California’s new stay-at-home order by region. If and when each of the five regions dip below 15% ICU capacity, the stay-home order will be enacted. None of the areas currently meets that threshold.

The positivity rate in California stands at about 7.5% with an average of about 210,000 tests being conducted each day.

To note: These numbers were released by the California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

A Department of Health and Human Services employee holds a Covid-19 vaccine record card on November 13 in Washington, D.C. The cards will be sent out as part of vaccination kits from Operation Warp Speed.

By the end of this year, it’s expected that at least 20 million people in the United States will be able to get Covid-19 vaccines, Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir said Friday.

“We have the expectation that at least 20 million Americans will be able to receive Covid vaccines by the end of this year,” Giroir said in recorded remarks during a meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee hosted by the US Department of Health and Human Services Friday.

Remember: The US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved any coronavirus vaccine.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a panel of independent experts, will meet Thursday to review Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine candidate and make a recommendation about whether to authorize the vaccine. A similar FDA committee meeting for Moderna’s vaccine candidate is set for Dec. 17.

FDA officials say their decisions on the vaccines could come days to weeks after the meetings — it depends on what questions come up.

More than 1,000 migrant children in US government custody have tested positive for coronavirus since March, according to the federal agency charged with their care. 

In total, there have been 1,061 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases among unaccompanied migrant children in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a federal agency that falls under the Health and Human Services Department.

Of the 1,061 cases, 943 children have recovered and been moved from medical isolation, according to the agency. 

Currently, 118 children have tested positive and remain in medical isolation, though none of the children have required hospitalization. 

HHS funds a network of more than 100 shelters where migrant children who arrived in the United States without parents or guardians are provided care until they’re released to sponsors. 

Children who have had coronavirus while in care were in shelters in New York, Oregon, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Virginia, California, and Florida.

In a November court declaration, the acting ORR director, Nicole Cubbage, suggested that children are becoming infected prior to entering custody.

The Trump administration has argued that children should be swiftly removed from the United States after being apprehended from the southern border – a change from prior practice which required children be turned over to HHS after being taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security.

Last month, a federal judge blocked the administration from turning back unaccompanied migrant children at the US-Mexico border under a public health order implemented in March. The administration has since appealed the ruling. 

Over the course of two months, the coronavirus positivity rate in Florida’s Miami-Dade County has spiked 91%, according to the county’s Chief Medical Officer Peter Paige. 

During a roundtable discussion on Friday, Paige said overall numbers in the county continue heading in the wrong direction.

Paige said the county is currently at 9.77% positivity for the number of coronavirus infections in comparison to two months ago where the positivity rate was 5.11%. 

Paige says hospitalizations have also spiked 139% over the last 60 days. As of Thursday, there are 815 patients hospitalized due to Covid-19 in comparison to two months ago where there were only 341 covid-19 patients, Paige said. 

Intensive care unit rates have also jumped 58% in the last two months, Paige said.

“This is particularly concerning considering we really don’t know that the most challenging days may still be ahead of us,” Paige said. 

Paige said it’s even more critical at this point to prepare for the future and is urging people to follow strict Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to help slow the spread of the virus. 

Remember: The positivity rate is not a measure of how many cases there are, it is the percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that show someone has Covid-19.

A health worker injects a person during clinical trials for Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine at Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Florida on September 9.

The Department of Health and Human Services launched their national ad campaign promoting awareness about the forthcoming coronavirus vaccines with a modest $150,000 ad buy on YouTube.

The ads, which will stream across the platform, come from snippets of a public service announcement from October featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci. The ads will link to the full video that breaks down exactly how the vaccine works and includes FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn on the approval process and why the vaccine will be safe. 

In the public service announcement, Fauci touts the importance of vaccines.

According to an administration official, HHS will be spending $250 million on a national education campaign and is planning for a much larger push using digital and social media to begin as early as next week to help “prepare the nation for the vaccine when it is available for public distribution through the states.” 

An HHS spokesperson said the work on the public health education campaign began last summer, when officials announced a controversial, $15 million celebrity-fueled ad campaign intended to “defeat despair” around coronavirus.

Democrats lambasted the idea as an effort to promote President Trump ahead of the election, and it was scuttled.

Following questions from Congress in October, HHS Secretary Alex Azar testified that he had “ordered a strategic review of this public health education campaign.”

The review was completed on Nov. 13.

According to an administration official, the government then canceled that contract and has since shifted strategy on their education campaign to a “science-based” approach and is working on a “new creative for vaccine acceptance- based on focus group, public surveys and secondary research.” 

Health care officials have raised concerns that there is not currently a national education or advertisement campaign in effect to help promote the vaccines safety, offer information and temper expectations. 

“For this administration, the vaccine has been the silver bullet. But, they aren’t explaining to people that they need to be patient,” one health care official in touch with Operation Warp Speed said. “What happens when mobs of people show up on December 15, demanding the vaccine? That’s why we need an education component.”

Karen and Steve Coma, a North Carolina couple, said it was “public service” and “doing our part” that compelled them to volunteer in the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine trial.

“We both — my mother, Steve’s parents — have people that are at an at-risk age or state and felt it was important for us to help expedite this,” Karen said. 

Her mother, who has dementia and is in a long-term care facility, just tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday. 

Her mother does not have any symptoms and is “doing fine,” Karen said.

While they do not know if they received the actual vaccine or if they received a placebo, they have a guess. 

Steve said he had some mild muscle ache and tiredness, while Karen and their daughter — who also participated in the trial — did not experience any side effects. 

“It would not prevent me from going to work, really just sort of mild symptoms,” he said. 

Their message for anyone wary about taking a vaccine?

“Overcome that hesitation and get vaccinated … Break the cycle,” Steve said. 

Watch:

What a difference a week makes.

On Monday, it looked like nothing was going to happen on stimulus. Now, it’s possible a deal is brokered in a matter of days.

It’s crunch time. If a bipartisan group of lawmakers is actually going to unlock a stimulus agreement and present it in writing by Monday, there is a lot of work left to do.

Here’s what’s happening now: Aides familiar with the process tell CNN that members are working around the clock and have broken into teams to hammer out specific sections of the bill. Democratic Sen. Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas are quietly working on a compromise for the liability insurance section. 

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia are working on a formula that could work for state and local governments, including possibly setting a cap at how much any one state could receive. The intention would be to block large states from getting as much money as they might have gotten in the last round based on the old formula.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear, according to multiple aides involved, that he’d like to see a proposal Monday. That’s what Manchin has said publicly, too. 

So what’s actually in the plan? The proposal includes:

Until last week, Riley Behrens was a healthy 23-year-old rugby player. Then he contracted Covid-19.

“I really did not believe it at first,” he told CNN. “I thought if I get sick, if I test positive, I’m just going to have a little bit of trouble but I’ll be OK. And I was not OK.”

Doctors told Behrens that he had a mini stroke stemming from Covid-19.

Behrens thinks the virus possibly reached him through a wedding that he was not at but someone he knows attended, because several attendees from that wedding had gotten sick.

The ordeal has left Behrens weak and still in recovery, while he is being told he will “likely never return to contact sports because of lasting lung and brain damage. The risk for a second stroke will always be there, and another head injury could be fatal,” he tweeted Sunday.

Watch more:

A health worker in Hollywood, Florida, injects a person during clinical trials for a Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on September 9.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained four key areas that countries need to invest in to help end the coronavirus pandemic.

They are:

“The pandemic has proven that a health crisis is not just a health crisis; it is a social, economic, political and humanitarian crisis,” Tedros said during a special session of the United Nations on Friday. “If the world is to avoid another crisis on this scale, investments in basic public health functions — and especially primary health care — are essential.”

Tedros called for national leaders to come together in solidarity.

“The risks of under-investment in health have wide-ranging impacts, and so do the benefits of investing in health,” he said.

“Health is an investment in successful societies. It enables individuals, families, communities and nations to flourish. The world spends $7.5 trillion on health every year — almost 10% of global GDP. But most of this spending is in the richest countries, and is disproportionately directed to treating disease, rather than promoting and protecting health,” Tedros continued. “We need a radical rethink of the way we view and value health.” 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, speaks in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 15.

The spread of Covid-19 can be stopped, and it takes using proven public health tools, not conspiracy theories, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a special session of the United Nations on Friday.

“Although this is a global health crisis, it’s important to remember that not all countries have responded equally, and not all countries have been affected equally,” Tedros said. 

Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of the Biden-Harris transition Covid-19 advisory board, said the Biden-Harris team doesn’t have a plan for a national shutdown. 

“I mean we can drill down to ZIP code level now, we know who is more likely to be transmitting, and what settings, so for example, schools are less likely to be sources of transmission than our indoor dining and gyms,” she continued.

Gounder said the main goal is to target places where the transmission is a problem as opposed to a “broad shutdown” and she believes schools should remain open. 

“I think we know enough now to say that schools really should remain open, unless there is extremely widespread community transmission. At the same time, we need to be supporting schools so that they can do that safely,” Gounder said, adding that funding for PPE for schools will also be needed.  

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Dr. Celine Gounder on December 4.

Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of the Biden-Harris transition Covid-19 advisory board, said the politicization of masks needs to stop in order for President-elect Joe Biden’s 100-day mask plan to work.

“So, if what you care about is being able to continue to go to work, have your paycheck, you know, all of those kinds of basic things, then you really should be working with us, working with your family, your community, to get everybody to wear a mask,” she added.

Biden yesterday announced he’ll urge everyone in the US to wear masks during the symbolic first 100 days of his presidency

Additionally, Gounder said that Biden’s strategy for approaching this pandemic will be different by scaling up testing.

“You’re going to see much more emphasis on testing. The current administration has said we are testing too much, and the fact is, we are not testing nearly enough,” Gounder said.

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A deceased patient in a body bag is seen in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston on November 29.

Covid-19 is the leading cause of death in the United States this week, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the University of Washington.

In a news release Friday, IHME said that daily deaths in the last week increased to an average of 1,660 per day, up from 1,470 the previous week.

Behind Covid-19 – with a total of 11,820 deaths – the other top causes of death were…

One thing to note: IHME made its calculations by assuming uniform deaths of non-Covid causes throughout the year. 

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

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The US economy added 245,000 jobs in November on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

It was 224,000 fewer than economists had expected, as the job recovery continues to slow.

The unemployment rate inched down to 6.7%, from 6.9% in October.

Eight months after Covid-19 brought the economy to a screeching halt and following better-than-expected improvements over the summer months, the recovery is running out of steam.

The economy is still down 9.8 million jobs since February, before the crisis began.

Millions of Americans continue to struggle with joblessness through no fault of their own. The pandemic unemployment benefits introduced by the CARES Act in the spring will expire at year-end unless Congress acts fast.

Dr. Carlos del Rio on December 4.

Following President-elect Joe Biden’s remarks on CNN that he will ask Americans to commit to 100 days of wearing masks as one of his first acts as president, Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, said doing so could decrease Covid-19 deaths by 66,000. 

“While we are excited about the vaccine, the reality is the model says the vaccine probably by April first will only save about 10,000 or to 11,000 deaths. The vaccine is great, but it’s not going to be immediate the solution to this problem,” del Rio said while speaking to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota this morning.

When asked why the vaccine is only going to save 10,000 lives, when 20 million people are going to get the vaccine, del Rio said that 20 million is a “very small” number of people. 

“Twenty million, Alisyn, is a very small number, the reality is that the virus right now is running pretty rampant, so you probably have a significant number of people already infected, that are not going to benefit from the vaccine and they’re gonna get sick in the next, you know, two to three weeks and then they’re gonna be in the hospital, and then they’ll die,” del Rio said.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has apologized for his apparent criticism of British regulators who have authorized the Pfizer vaccine and said he had “faith” in the UK scientific community.

“I do have confidence. It came out wrong and that was not the way I meant it to be,” he added.

Some background: The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Thursday said UK regulators had not scrutinized the trial data as carefully as the US Food and Drug Administration.

In an interview with CBS News, Fauci remarked that the UK authorities “just took the data from the Pfizer company and instead of scrutinizing it really, really carefully, they said, ‘OK, let’s approve it. That’s it.’”

But he told the BBC later on Thursday that the US simply did things “a little bit differently” to the UK.

Fauci assured everyone that ultimately, the vaccine was going to be safe and effective.

He explained that there was a lot of tension in the US over the credibility, safety and efficacy of vaccines.

“If we had, for example, approved it, yesterday or tomorrow, there likely would have been pushback on an already scrutinizing society that has really, in some respects, in the United States, too much skepticism about the process,” he said.

He said that the FDA “has gone over all of the raw data in real time, in a way that could not possibly have been done any more quickly” and it would take at least another week “to get to the point where the FDA will be able to, with confidence, make a statement regarding safety and efficacy.”

This comes as UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma announced Friday that the UK expects to have 800,000 doses of the vaccine by next week.

Speaking on Sky News, Sharma defended the UK’s rapid processing of the vaccine saying that the UK regulator is “regarded as a gold standard of regulation by international scientists and people around the world.” 

Empty tables are seen outside a restaurant on December 2 in London.

London is at risk of being placed into England’s highest Tier 3 category of restrictions with Covid-19 infection rates “still far too high,” according to a top health official for the capital.

Professor Kevin Fenton, London regional director for Public Health England, said that case reductions during England’s national lockdown, which ended on Wednesday, had started to slow.

Fenton said there was a “mixed picture” across London, with the highest cases in the north-east of the city, but that “even in those areas that have had the biggest declines, rates are still far too high.”

He called on residents to “remain vigilant” as the city approaches its first weekend under Tier 2 restrictions since the month-long lockdown ended, saying that action in the weeks ahead will make a big difference to the outlook into the New Year.

His warning came as the Office For National Statistics said that the number of people testing positive for coronavirus in England decreased in the week from 22-28 November. Infection rates decreased in all regions except the North East.

Around 1 in 105 people tested positive, with around 25,700 new infections per day.

The UK became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BionNTech vaccine this week, with the first doses delivered from Belgium on Thursday and shots expected to start in days.

But the rollout will take time as the vaccine has to be kept in freezing temperatures. It is set to be delivered initially to care home workers, health workers and the elderly, with 800,000 doses promised in the coming week.

A health worker in Hollywood, Florida, injects a person during clinical trials for a Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on September 9.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should authorize coronavirus vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Moderna within a week of meetings held to discuss them, a top official said Thursday.

Pfizer’s vaccine will be discussed by the FDA’s vaccine advisers December 10 and Moderna’s December 17, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told an American Medical Association webinar.

It’s a piece of good luck that the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines appear to have a 95% efficacy, Marks said.

“By August to October of this year it became clearer to us that the first vaccines that came through would indeed likely be granted emergency use authorization because of the incredibly pressing nature of this crisis,” Marks added.

Doctors cannot yet tell patients how long the vaccines will protect them from infection, Marks said.

“We know that we’re going to get at least months of protection out of this. And it’s months of protection that will help us all climb out of this Covid-19 crisis,” he said.

Volunteers in the clinical trials will be followed for at least two years and regularly checked to see how long the vaccines’ protections last, Marks said.

Medical staff stand by a bag that contains a deceased Covid-19 patient at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston on November 25.

An update from an influential University of Washington model paints a staggering picture of Covid deaths in the coming months – and suggests that even a rapid vaccine rollout won’t reduce that number by much.

The update from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Friday morning projects 538,893 Americans could die from coronavirus by April 1. The model suggests daily deaths will peak in the range of 3,000 in mid-January before gradually falling. 

How vaccine developments could affect that: The data suggest that a “rapid vaccine rollout” would still mean about 527,704 deaths by April 1 – a reduction of only about 11,000. The model covers primarily the period before vaccines are expected to be widely available to the public. 

Why masks are still so vital: Far more impactful, the model suggests, would be universal mask wearing. The model argues that over 66,000 American lives could be saved.

On the other end of the spectrum, the modeling shows deaths by April would soar to 717,229 if safety mandates are dropped and not renewed as cases rise.

US President-elect Joe Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday that he will ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days after he takes office – in marked departure from President Donald Trump’s approach to the pandemic.

Despite the continued spread of Covid-19 in the US, there continues to be resistance to wearing masks. At an Oval Office ceremony on Thursday, few people were wearing them, according to reporters who were in the room.

A worker in Hong Kong attends to people in line at a Covid-19 testing center on November 24.

Hong Kong reported 112 new coronavirus cases on Friday, with 12 considered imported, health authorities announced at a regular news conference.

This is the third time that the city’s new cases breached the 100 per day mark in its ongoing “fourth wave.” The first time it happened was on November 29 and then on December 2, according to official figures.

Of the 100 local cases reported on Friday:

The head of the Communicable Disease Branch of the Department of Health’s Center for Health Protection, Dr Chuang Shuk-Kwan, warned that the number of confirmed cases was “still on the rise” and has not shown “any downward trend yet”.

The new cases bring the city’s total to 6,702. Two people died from Covid-19 in Hong Kong on Friday, bringing the city’s virus death toll to 112.

The world hit another tragic milestone late Thursday as the number of deaths from coronavirus exceeded 1.5 million worldwide, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Covid-19 cases are now at 65.3 million globally, with the United States having the highest number of reported infections of any country at 14.1 million. It has also recorded more deaths than any other country, at 276,383.

Brazil has the second-highest number of deaths at 175,270, and 6.5 million cases.

India has the second-highest number of cases at 9.6 million and 139,188 deaths.

The floating monument, consisting of the Olympic rings, placed in Tokyo Gulf, as a symbol of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympic Games, in Tokyo, on December 1.

The postponed Tokyo Olympic Games are set to cost $2.7 billion more than initially projected, the organizing committee said Friday, taking the total cost of next year’s event to $15.3 billion.

The extra spend includes:

The entire cost of the games will be borne by the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Government of Japan.

The cost of the Tokyo Olympics was initially projected at $12.6 billion, before the pandemic forced its postponement.

Sums are based on the exchange rate used by the Tokyo Organising Committee (USD 1 = JPY 107). 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that vaccinations will begin “as soon as we get a go-ahead from the scientists,” and that the first phase of the rollout will prioritize frontline healthcare workers and older citizens.

Addressing an all-party meeting on Friday to discuss the Covid-19 situation, Modi said there were “nearly eight vaccines are on different stages of trial with their manufacturing assured in India.” 

Of these, three vaccines from India are at different stages of development, Modi added.

Central and state governments are now working together to coordinate distribution for when a vaccine is approved, Modi said, assuring that “experts think that the vaccine isn’t too far away.”

Case count: On Thursday, India reported 36,595 new cases and 540 additional deaths.

That raises the country’s total to at least 9,571,559 cases and 139,188 virus-related deaths.

South Korea’s capital Seoul will be placed under tougher Covid-19 prevention measures starting Saturday, with the city in a “desperate crisis,” announced Acting Mayor Seo Jeong-hyup on Friday.

The city has already been put under an “emergency period” since November 24, but Seoul must now effectively “stop after 9 pm,” Seo said. The announcement came after the greater metro area recorded 463 new cases from Thursday.

Under the new restrictions: Public venues including cinemas, study cafes, beauty salons and department stores must close after 9 p.m. Supermarkets smaller than 300 square meters (3,229 square feet) will be exempt. Public transport will reduce passenger capacity by 30% after 9 p.m.

The measures will last at least two weeks, Mayor Seo said. 

The whole country faces new rules: The government has designated a “special disease prevention effort period” from December 7 until January 3, during the peak of the holiday season, according to Yoon Tae-ho, a senior Health Ministry official.

During this period, the government will toughen inspections in high-risk facilities like restaurants, entertainment facilities, amusement parks and indoor gyms, all usually busy toward the end of the year.

Yoon urged people to postpone end-of-year meetings, move events online, cancel parties, and switch to online schooling.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla

The makers of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines insist they did not cut corners in the development of the shots, which normally take years.  

He said that taking out some of the business and financial caution that normally slows down development of drugs helped speed up the process in developing a Covid-19 vaccine.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla agreed no corners were cut in speeding up the development process. He cited the 30,000-person clinical trial as the “gold standard,” too.

“That happens exactly as would happen with any other vaccine,” he told host Lester Holt.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for emergency use authorization for their vaccines from the US Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer’s will be considered December 10 and Moderna’s December 17.

Johnson & Johnson has a coronavirus vaccine that is still in a Phase 3 clinical trial, but company CEO Alex Gorsky said the development process is the same as it would be for any other vaccine.

Dr. Marcella Nunez Smith

The coronavirus vaccines have been developed in record time and an historic partnership between the government and private sector has been forged to deliver the shots – but the biggest challenge is still ahead, according to the co-chair of the Biden-Harris Covid Task Force. 

“In some of our hardest hit communities, we know that there is quite a degree of vaccine hesitance and caution,” Dr. Marcella Nunez Smith told NBC News in an interview that aired Thursday.

People actually have to get the vaccine for it to work, said Nunez Smith, who is Founding Director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at the Yale School of Medicine.

“What we have to do is find out what questions people have. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that trust has decayed between Americans and the federal government, and it will take work to rebuild and restore that confidence.”

The president of biotechnology company Moderna, Stephen Hoge, speaks with NBC.

Vaccine makers said they felt both excitement and relief when they realized they had a Covid-19 vaccine that worked.

The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Albert Bourla, told NBC News on Thursday that his company had invested $2 billion of its own capital into the vaccine, and did not accept any of the $12 billion the US government offered to vaccine developers.

He added that it was “an incredible moment” when he found out Pfizer’s vaccine was 95% effective.

The president of biotechnology company Moderna, Stephen Hoge, said he was relieved when he was told the Moderna vaccine was 94% effective in clinical trials.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for their vaccines. Pfizer’s will be considered December 10 and Moderna’s on December 17.

Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the Food and Drug Administration, poses for a portrait near his home in Washington, DC on August 5.

A top US Food and Drug (FDA) official on Thursday claimed that Britain beat the US to authorizing a coronavirus vaccine because US regulators take more care.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told an American Medical Association webinar that the FDA is taking great care in considering emergency use authorization requests from vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna.

Other countries trust the companies’ data as submitted, he said. 

“There is a cost that another regulator has made this available sooner than we will and that’s because we’re really taking care to make sure that when people get this vaccine, we will have really vetted it for safety and if there is something there, we’ll know about it.”

Earlier this week, Britain authorized Pfizer’s vaccine. The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee December 10 to discuss the emergency use authorization. 

“We’re getting there as fast as we can because we understand people are losing their lives to this virus.”

The United States recorded 217,664 new cases of Covid-19 and 2,879 related deaths on Thursday – the most infections and fatalities in the country in a single day since the pandemic began.

Previously, the highest number of daily infections was 205,557, on November 27. The highest number of daily deaths was 2,804, recorded on Wednesday.

Thursday’s figures raised the country’s totals to at least 14,139,577 cases and 276,325 related deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

See CNN’s live tracker:

In this May 24 photo, a sign warns non-residents to stay out of the Navajo Nation town of Tuba City during the 57-hour curfew in Arizona.

The Navajo Nation has extended its 24/7 lockdown for another three weeks as Covid-19 numbers rise. The lockdown was originally set to expire this weekend.

Under the lockdown, Navajo citizens have been required to remain at home at all times, except for essential activities, emergencies, and outdoor exercise.

Essential businesses can be open only from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Gatherings of more than five people are discouraged.

The Navajo Nation is located in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The Navajo Department of Health has confirmed more than 17,000 coronavirus cases with 663 deaths as of Thursday.

Wuhan, the Chinese city most closely associated with the outbreak of Covid-19, has launched a promotional video to attract travelers to experience its beauty.

Posted on the Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau’s social media page, it highlights the best of the city, from its surreal floating forest in the Zhangdu Lake Wetland to the lit-up historical Yellow Crane Tower, along with Wuhan locals eating noodles.

“Wuhan never hesitates to show its beauty, and those who love it deeply hope that more people can understand it,” says the Facebook post.

“From the myriad twinkling lights along the Yangtze River and the amazing dance and music from the Zhiyin cruise, to the glittering light and beautiful voices from the livehouse……give me five! Everyone! Looking forward to meeting you in Wuhan.”

Rise in tourism appeal: As the original epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, Wuhan implemented a 76-day lockdown from January 23 to April 8. Not only did the lockdown slow infection rates significantly – the city hasn’t reported a local case since May – but it surprisingly boosted the city’s appeal.

According to a joint study carried out in April by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Tourism Research Center and Tencent Culture and Tourism Industry Research Center, Wuhan was the top destination Chinese citizens wanted to visit after the crisis subsided.

South Korea reported 629 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday – the country’s highest number of daily infections since March 2.

Of Thursday’s new cases, 600 were locally transmitted and 29 were imported from abroad, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency in a press release.

The majority of infections – 463 cases – were found in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. Seven additional deaths were also reported.

The new figures raise the country’s total to 36,332 cases and 536 virus-related deaths.

A worker near the Pfizer facility in Puurs, Belgium, on December 3.

The first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine arrived in the UK on Thursday – a day after the country approved the vaccine for distribution, according to British media.

Pfizer and Downing Street declined to comment to CNN, citing security reasons.

The UK’s Department of Health told CNN that up to 800,000 doses of the vaccine are being made available next week. 

The vaccines were carried by a fleet of unmarked trucks through the Eurotunnel from Belgium and are on their way to undisclosed storage facilities in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, according to CNN affiliate ITV News.

The in-demand vaccine will be distributed from these storage facilities early next week to 50 hospital hubs acting as vaccination points, according to the health ministry.

First vaccine approval: The UK became the first western country to authorize use of a coronavirus vaccine. The country has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer jab, enough to vaccinate 20 million people – roughly a third of the UK’s population – as the vaccination involves two shots administered at least three weeks apart.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday that the state will look to the Michigan National Guard to help distribute Covid-19 vaccines when they become available.

The National Guard will provide logistical and transportation support, according to a release from the Governor’s office. 

This comes after Whitmer secured an extension of Michigan National Guard forces for Covid-19 response through March 31, 2021. 

Cars lined up at Dodger Stadium for Covid-19 testing in downtown Los Angeles on December 2.

Los Angeles County reported an additional 7,854 Covid-19 cases Thursday, breaking the record for the highest number of new cases there since the start of the pandemic for the second time in a week. This brings the total number of cases in the county to 421,881.

Health officials also reported 2,572 people hospitalized with coronavirus in L.A. County, surpassing yesterday’s all-time high of 2,439. If the rate of hospitalizations continues on its current trajectory, the county’s health care system could soon be overwhelmed, officials warned.

County health officials reported 44 new deaths Thursday, raising the number of people who have died due to Covid-19 to 7,345.

While there are 1,119 beds currently available in intensive care units in the county, officials warned the ICU bed capacity is bound to drop below 15% at some point next week. Passing that threshold will prompt stricter stay-at-home orders, as outlined by Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday afternoon.

“A continued surge in cases and hospitalizations is not sustainable because as hospitalizations increase sharply, the health care system can become overwhelmed,” the county’s health department said in a news release.

Los Angeles recently imposed a curfew and closed all in-person restaurant dining to reduce the transmission of the virus. Some businesses that are not adhering to public health orders by closing their doors or limiting capacity in line with public health directives are now receiving citations, the county said.

Medical staff in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, in Houston, Texas.

The United States set a record for the number of people currently hospitalized with Covid-19 on Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).

On Thursday, 100,667 people were hospitalized with Covid-19, according to CTP. This is the second consecutive day that the US has surpassed 100,000 current hospitalizations.

According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers are:

Vaccine maker Moderna said Thursday it expects to have between 100 million and 125 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine available by the first quarter of 2021, with most of those designated for the US market.

The company has applied for emergency use authorization for its vaccine from the US Food and Drug Administration and FDA advisers are scheduled to discuss the application Dec. 17. Moderna has also applied to European drug regulators for conditional approval.

“Today, Moderna re-affirmed its expectation of having approximately 20 million doses available in the U.S. by the end of 2020,” the company said in a statement.

“Additionally, the Company expects to have between 100 million and 125 million doses available globally in the first quarter of 2021, with 85-100 million of those available in the US and 15-25 million of those available outside of the US. These expected first quarter doses are inclusive within the 500 million to up to 1 billion doses that the Company expects to manufacture globally in 2021.”

The Moderna vaccine requires two doses per person, with the shots spaced four weeks apart.