(WASHINGTON) — The Army has announced that 14 senior leaders and enlisted personnel at Fort Hood have been fired or suspended following an independent panel’s review of the command climate and culture at the base launched in the wake of the disappearance and killing of Spc. Vanessa Guillen.
The panel found that the Army’s sexual harassment prevention office at the post and Army-wide was “structurally flawed” and needed to be addressed. The Texas installation leads the Army in the number of violent crimes and cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment cases.
“I have determined that the issues at Fort Hood are directly related to leadership failures, leaders drive culture and are responsible for everything a unit does or does not happen to do,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday.
“I am gravely disappointed that leaders failed to effectively create a climate that treated all soldiers with dignity and respect,” he said, “and have failed to reinforce everyone’s obligation to prevent and properly respond to allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
“Because of this — to restore trust and accountability — I have directed the relief and or suspension of commanders and other leaders from the Corps to the squad level.
Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt, who was the top military commander at the post when Guillen was killed, was being relieved of duty, McCarthy said.
The entire command team for Guillen’s unit, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was also relieved of duty. The command leadership of general officers who run the 1st Cavalry Division have also been suspended pending further results of a new investigation into the division’s command climate.
Lt. Gen. Pat White, the senior commander of III Corps, was not punished because he was deployed to Iraq as the senior American military commander when Guillen disappeared.
McCarthy had ordered the independent review of the base’s culture after Guillen’s family claimed that the 20-year-old soldier had been sexually harassed but was too afraid to step forward with her allegations because she feared retaliation.
The independent panel found that the Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) Program at Fort Hood was “structurally flawed” and said it “was ineffective, to the extent that there was a permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment.”
“No Commanding General or subordinate echelon commander chose to intervene proactively and mitigate known risks of high crime, sexual assault and sexual harassment,” the panel wrote in the report’s executive summary. “The result was a pervasive lack of confidence in the SHARP Program and an unacceptable lack of knowledge of core SHARP components regarding reporting and certain victim services.
The report found that a lack of training, resourcing and staffing at the SHARP office led to “significant underreporting of sexual harassment and sexual assault” at the installation.
A separate investigation of Fort Hood’s leaders and the handling of the Guillen sexual harassment claim, headed by Gen. John Murray, is still underway and will be released at a later date.
“I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed, we’re heartbroken,” McCarthy said in August following a visit to Fort Hood. He also promised changes there in the wake of Guillen’s death.
“Vanessa was our teammate; we let her down, we let her family down, and it hurts,” said McCarthy.
“We’re going to do everything we can to prevent these types of things from happening again, to learn from this, and to move on,” said McCarthy. “We will do everything we can to protect her legacy by making enduring changes.”
Guillen’s family was notified of the actions being taken today, said Gen. John McConville, the chief of staff of the Army, who then told reporters about his conversation with Guillen’s mother.
“I told her that we’re going to fix these issues that allowed them to happen,” he said. “I told her we must and will provide a safe and secure environment for America’s sons and daughters that serve in the Army.”
“We are holding soldiers accountable,” McConville added.
McCarthy said in a video message to the Army in November that his preliminary review of the independent panel’s report had led him to a troubling conclusion — that the Army’s program to assist victims of sexual harassment had failed in its mandate to create “a climate that respects the dignity of every member of the Army family.”
“We must do better,” said McCarthy. “Leaders, regardless of rank, are accountable for what happens in their units and must have the courage to speak up and intervene when they recognize actions that bring harm to our soldiers and to the integrity of our institution.”
“If we do not have the trust of America — nothing else matters,” said McCarthy.
(NEW YORK) — The Virginia Military Institute removed the statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from its Lexington campus on Monday following allegations from Black cadets of racism at the school.
The institution’s board voted to remove the statue from campus in late October after The Washington Post reported on students’ allegations of an “atmosphere of hostility and cultural insensitivity” at the school.
After the story was published on Oct. 17, Virginia lawmakers approved a $1 million budget to open an independent investigation into the student’s allegations.
Soon after, the school’s superintendent, retired Army Gen. H. Binford Peay III, announced his resignation. At the time, Peay said he made the decision to step down after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam‘s “chief of staff conveyed that the governor and certain legislative leaders had lost confidence in my leadership.”
Northam’s press secretary, Alena Yarmosky, said in a statement to ABC News at the time that “change is overdue at VMI, and the Board of Visitors bears a deep responsibility to embrace it.”
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) announced on Nov. 13 that retired Army Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins would be the school’s interim superintendent. Wins is the first Black leader to serve in that role.
The school’s board also announced other changes on Nov. 23, including the creation of a permanent diversity office.
The statue has been a focus of controversy for years, but the school had committed to keeping it in place as recently as July 2020, when Peay wrote in a statement, “We cannot eliminate our history nor do we desire to do so. Instead, we desire to build upon our past and will do our part to continue to build a strong Institute.”
“I hope you will see that these four goals and five pillars take us positively to the future and address in deeper ways racism and equity than the simple means of removing statues and renaming buildings,” he added.
Wins said that the statue will be relocated to a nearby Civil War museum.
“It is an understatement to say the relocation of the statue has evoked strong opinions on both sides of the issue,” Wins said Monday.
“The history of VMI over the past 181 years is well documented. Stonewall Jackson’s ties to Lexington and the Institute, as an instructor, are part of that history,” Wins said. But “VMI does not define itself by this statue and that is why this move is appropriate.”
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 67.1 million people and killed over 1.5 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Dec 07, 1:10 pm Ordinary New Yorkers may get vaccines by early April: Fauci
On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci painted a grim future for the United States if Americans don’t adhere to public health measures during the holidays. “Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a really dark time for us,” Fauci said during a news conference held by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Americans need to keep social distancing until 75% to 80% of the population can get the COVID-19 vaccine, which would provide an umbrella of community-level protection, Fauci explained. “By the time you get to the beginning of April, you’ll start getting people who have no high priority, just the normal man and woman, New Yorker in the street who’s well, has no underlying conditions [getting the vaccine],” he added.
As of Monday, New York State’s testing positivity rate was 4.7%, according to Cuomo. The governor estimated that more than 70% of infections spreading in the state were connected to small gatherings. -ABC News’ Rachel Katz contributed to this report. Dec 07, 10:52 am US averaging nearly 2,200 COVID-19 deaths per day for 1st time
For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is reporting an average of nearly 2,200 deaths from the disease per day, according to an ABC News analysis of data collected and published by The COVID Tracking Project.
The national seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths per day day is currently 2,171. That figure has increased by 139% in the past month.
Last week, there were nearly 15,000 fatalities from the disease recorded nationwide, including five days where the daily death toll surpassed the 2,000 mark. That’s roughly equivalent to 88 COVID-19 deaths reported each hour.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported over 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day for more than a month straight, including three consecutive days where the daily count topped 200,000.
Just in the last month, the national seven-day average of daily new cases has doubled, now averaging 191,736 — the highest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic.
There were 1,018,657 cases recorded nationwide in the first five days of December. To put that in perspective, it took nearly 100 days from the first recorded COVID-19 case in the U.S. for the country to surpass 1 million confirmed cases.
Hospitalizations continue to surge to unprecedented levels, with over 101,000 patients currently hopitalized with COVID-19 across the country — a new national record.
In the past two months, current hospitalizations have more than tripled, increasing by 223%. ABC News’ Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Kim Soorin and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report. Dec 07, 10:23 am South Africa urges students to quarantine after ‘super-spreader’ parties
South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has called on final-year students who attended end-of-year parties to immediately self-quarantine for 10 days to prevent spreading the novel coronavirus.
Mkhize made the plea to students and parents on Sunday, after numerous people who recently attended “Rage” parties in Ballito and Jeffrey’s Bay tested positive for COVID-19. The events are hosted every year in South Africa as thousands of students celebrate the end of matriculation.
“We confirm that we have now identified a number of COVID-19 confirmed cases arising from these super-spreader events,” Mkhize said in a statement. “This therefore means that if you attended any of these Rage events, you are now regarded as a contact.”
In addition to quarantining, Mkhize also urged attendees to get tested as soon as possible.
South Africa has the highest tally of COVID-19 infections in all of Africa, with more than 814,000 confirmed cases including over 22,000 deaths.
Dec 07, 9:14 am UK prepares for Tuesday’s rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations
Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have been delivered across the United Kingdom, ahead of the launch of the country’s immunization program.
The potentially-life saving vaccine will be administered nationwide starting Tuesday morning, and some 800,000 doses were expected to be in place for the first day of what will be the largest-scale immunization program in U.K. history.
Vaccinations will be rolled out in phases, with elderly care home residents and their carers first on the priority list, followed by anyone else aged 80 and over, as well as frontline health and social care workers.
Last week, the U.K. became the first country in the world to authorize the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use. The vaccine was shown in late-stage clinical trials to be more than 95% effective in preventing COVID-19.
Dec 07, 8:26 am Biden transition team says Trump administration still hasn’t shared vaccine distribution plans
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team said the Trump administration still has not shared its distribution plans for COVID-19 vaccines.
“We have yet to see any kind of detailed plan,” Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist who is a member of Biden’s transition COVID-19 advisory board, said in an interview Monday on CBS This Morning.
“We really need to understand what their plan for distribution is,” she added. “We’ve already been trying to get a handle on how many doses will be available to us from each of the companies and by when, but we do need some internal information on that from the federal government. We also need to understand where they are with their plans.”
Dec 07, 8:07 am ‘My colleagues are dog-tired,’ US surgeon general says in plea to Americans
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams urged people to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously and follow public health guidelines as infections and hospitalizations soar across the country.
“I want the American people to know this virus is incredibly unforgiving, cases are going up, hospitalizations are going up, my colleagues are dog-tired and we need you to hang on just a little bit longer because we’ve got vaccines coming but we want as many people to be alive to get them as possible and a lot of that is going to depend on your behavior,” Adams told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Monday on Good Morning America.
Although “more people than ever are wearing masks,” Adams said he’s “very” concerned by the number of people who still “don’t understand how much spread is occurring by people who don’t have symptoms.”
About 20 million “full doses” of COVID-19 vaccines will be available by the end of the year, according to Adams, who urged every American to be immunized against the virus as soon as a vaccine is authorized and made available.
“It’s a way that we can ultimately end this pandemic, but it doesn’t matter if people won’t get the vaccination,” the surgeon general said. “We know that vaccine levels are only about 50% for adults for flu and they go down to about 40% for African-Americans.”
Adams said he is working with historically black colleges and universities as well as faith communities to bolster vaccine confidence among all populations. The White House is also hosting a vaccine summit Tuesday, he said.
“One thing you can all do right now, it’s national flu immunization week, get your flu shot because half a million people were hospitalized last year with the flu,” Adams said. “We simply can’t afford for that to happen this year with hospitals being overwhelmed.”
The surgeon general said the current surge in infections across the country “is different than earlier surges,” because it’s not about a lack of masks or personal protective equipment, nor is it due to a lack of testing.
“It’s really about health care capacity, and certain places are just being overwhelmed,” he said. “So we know that we can actually help them with their health care capacity by immunizing their health care staff. We’re going to leave it up to the states, but we’re going to give them guidance.”
Adams noted it’s also important to vaccinate those who are most likely to die from COVID-19.
“We know that 40 to 50% of the deaths are occurring in people who are in longterm care facilities who are older,” he said.
Dec 07, 7:29 am Hong Kong installs vending machines for COVID-19 test kits
Hong Kong has installed vending machines for COVID-19 test kits in 10 subway stations across the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
The regional government said it will be supplying about 10,000 self-administered test kits to the mass transit authority for distribution to the vending machines across all 10 stations daily, according to a press release.
Hongkongers can purchase the kits using their Octopus transit card.
A recent surge in COVID-19 cases has prompted Hong Kong authorities to tighten restrictions, including banning most social gatherings to just two people. Another 95 new cases were confirmed on Sunday, bringing Hong Kong’s total to 6,898 cases with at least 112 deaths.
Dec 07, 6:57 am Biden announces key members of health team
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced key nominations and appointments of his health team, a slate of experts and public officials who will lead his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives and back to their loved ones,” Biden said in a statement. “This team of world-class medical experts and public servants will be ready on day one to mobilize every resource of the federal government to expand testing and masking, oversee the safe, equitable and free distribution of treatments and vaccines, reopen schools and businesses safely, lower prescription drug and other health costs and expand affordable health care to all Americans, and rally the country and restore the belief that there is nothing beyond America’s capacity if we do it together.”
California Attorney General Xavier Beccera is nominated to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Dr. Vivek Muthy, a physician and research scientist, is nominated to be the Surgeon General, a role he served during the Obama administration.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, an expert on virus testing, prevention and treatment, is nominated to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, an expert on health care disparities, will serve as the COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair.
As Biden said last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci will stay on in his current role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci will also serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19.
Jeff Zients, co-chair of Biden’s transition team who led the Obama administration’s National Economic Council, will serve as coordinator of the COVID-19 Response as well as counselor to the president.
Natalie Quillian, a national security expert, will serve as deputy coordinator of the COVID-19 response.
Dec 07, 6:14 am Germany to begin COVID-19 vaccinations in early January
COVID-19 vaccinations are expected to begin in Germany “in the very first days” of 2021, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff.
In an online interview Sunday with German newspaper Bild, Helge Braun said he and Merkel will get vaccinated “when it’s our turn.” The trained doctor also noted that he’s prepared to help vaccinate people himself.
“That won’t work at every hour of the day or night as chief of staff, but at the weekend I’m prepared to join in,” Braun told the Bild.
The European Union’s drug regulator is expected to make a decision by Dec. 29 on approving the first COVID-19 vaccine for use. In the meantime, Germany is preparing special vaccination centers.
Dec 07, 4:41 am US reports over 175,000 new cases
There were 175,663 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Sunday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
It’s the 34th straight day that the U.S. has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Sunday’s tally is less than the country’s all-time high of 227,885 new cases confirmed on Dec. 4, according to Johns Hopkins data
An additional 1,114 deaths from the disease were also registered nationwide on Sunday, down from a peak of 2,879 fatalities on Dec. 3, according to Johns Hopkins data.
COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over Thanksgiving followed by a potentially very large backlog from the holiday.
A total of 14,760,627 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 282,312 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up over the summer.
The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4 and reaching 200,000 for the first time on Nov. 27.
(NEW YORK) — A nor’easter brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow to parts of New England on Saturday.
The impacts from the storm caused hundreds of thousands of power outages and accidents across the region.
A wide swath of heavy snow was reported in parts of eastern New England from the storm with many locations from eastern Connecticut to Maine seeing 8 to 10 inches of snow.
Some of the more extreme snowfall totals include, locally, over a foot of snow in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and 10 inches of snow Union, Connecticut.
Wind gusts across the region were peaking at 40 to 50 mph but along the coast line the gusts where even higher, especially around Cape Cod where winds gusted up to 68 mph.
Precipitation fell mainly as rain from Delaware to New York City with widespread rain totals of 1 to 2 inches.
Attention now turns to the new critical fire threat that is on the way to Southern California on Monday and Tuesday.
Winds on both days could reach locally 70 mph in the mountains in southern California where low relative humidity is expected.
This combination could lead to rapid fire spread and there are critical fire conditions expected both days.
Meanwhile in the rest of the country, there will be a brief break in truly widespread impactful weather.
A few different systems will rapidly move through the southeast in the next 30 hours with the most noteworthy impact being some strong to severe storms across parts of Florida late Sunday into Monday.
There could be some snow showers across parts of the Central Appalachians and into parts of Virginia early Monday morning as well.
Accumulations are expected to be light as these systems race off into the open Atlantic Ocean.
In the Central U.S., a notable mild trend is occurring with temperatures expected to run about 10 to 15 degrees above average in the next few days.
Denver and Cheyenne are both expected to see temperatures into the 50s for the beginning of this week.
Minneapolis and Chicago will be making a run at the upper 40s by Tuesday and Wednesday.
The next widespread weather event looks possible by the second half of the upcoming week when, perhaps, ingredients for a large storm will come together over parts of the central U.S. tracking eastward by next weekend.
Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ERIN SCHUMAKER, IVAN PEREIRA and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 65.5 million people and killed over 1.5 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Dec 05, 5:42 pm ICU capacity triggers new stay-at-home orders in Southern California, San Joaquin Valley
Two California regions will have to enact new stay-at-home orders because their intensive care unit capacities have dipped below 15%.
ICU capacity is at 8.6% in San Joaquin Valley and 12.5% in Southern California, the state health department reported on Saturday.
Hair salons, barbershops, museums, bars, playgrounds and more must close based on a new regional stay-at-home order introduced this week. Residents are also instructed to stay home as much as possible.
The order, which goes into effect at midnight Sunday and will last for at least three weeks, impacts 23 counties between the two regions.
The new policy comes as cases continue to surge in California. The state saw a record 25,068 new COVID-19 cases on Friday. There were 209 new deaths, which is approaching an August peak.
-ABC News’ Matt Fuhrman contributed to this report
Dec 05, 2:55 pm New Mexico may move to rationing care depending on patients’ likelihood of survival
Hospitals in New Mexico may soon move to “crisis standards of care,” meaning doctors would ration services based on a patient’s likelihood of surviving.
The declaration was likely to come Monday, Gov. Michelle Lynn Lujan Grisham said in an interview with the Washington Post., with each hospital making its own decision about whether to move to the crisis plan.
As of Saturday, New Mexico had reported 104,935 infections and 1,706 deaths from the virus, according to the state health department.
Dec 05, 2:54 pm US death toll passes 280K
The United States death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 280,000 Saturday afternoon.
At least 280,090 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. surpassed 270,000 deaths on Tuesday.
The seven-day average for daily deaths is 1,949, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted this week that the U.S. death toll from the virus could reach 329,000 by Dec. 26.
-ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway
Dec 05, 1:44 pm Logistical details remain in handling of Pfizer vaccine
As states begin dry runs for distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and the federal government are still hammering out logistics around handling the company’s candidate, ABC News has learned.
HonorHealth in Phoenix ran a simulation on Friday for how it would distribute a vaccine to health care workers once the FDA approves a candidate. But it was incomplete due to the remaining logistical questions.
After each vial of Pfizer’s vaccine is removed from ultra-cold storage at minus 80 degrees Celsius, it is thawed, then diluted with saline by trained chemists who then portion it out into five separate syringes.
But some intricacies of the process are unknown, such as how many times the vaccine’s shipping container can be opened, how much time can elapse between thawing and injection, and how the dose should be transported to the injection site.
The hospital is also uncertain how many doses it will receive and when, should the FDA authorize emergency use of Pfizer’s vaccine.
Pfizer has not commented on the specific handling of the vaccine once it’s taken out of the freezers and thawed.
-ABC News’ Matt Gutman
Dec 04, 10:52 pm LA mayor: ‘This is the greatest threat to life’
An exploding number of cases in Southern California had Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti pleading with residents Friday to take the pandemic seriously.
“If things don’t change by year’s end, the lives lost will surpass 11,000 deaths,” Garcetti said. “That means 3,000 additional deaths in a single month. To put things in perspective, it’s a decade of homicides.”
“This is the greatest threat to life in Los Angeles,” he added.
The county reported 8,860 cases on Friday, a number Garcetti said he “can hardly believe.” The county recorded more cases in the past week than it did in all of October, according to the mayor. It also recorded 60 new deaths on Friday.
Right now, more than 15% of intensive care unit beds remain available, a number that would trigger new closures if crossed. However, the number of beds are quickly filling up. The mayor said the county could cross 85% of ICU beds filled this weekend. A regional stay-at-home order, as has been implemented in the San Francisco Bay area, would be triggered and stay in place for at least three weeks.
Garcetti showed little doubt the percentage would be crossed — and continue to grow.
“At this rate we will be out of beds in two to four weeks,” Garcetti said.
Dec 04, 8:10 pm Pediatricians urge children to wear masks while playing sports
The American Academy of Pediatrics is advising children playing sports to mask up while doing so as part of new COVID-19 recommendations.
“Proper and consistent use of a cloth face mask is especially important right now as so many athletes move indoors for sports during the colder months,” Dr. Susannah Briskin, author of the guidance and a pediatric sports medicine specialist, said in a statement. “While regular exercise is important for our kids’ mental and physical well-being, we must do everything we can to minimize the risk of COVID-19 spread.”
Many schools, still taking place remotely, have canceled or postponed sports seasons. But others have decided to go through with their regular seasons.
The AAP specifically said face coverings were “strongly encouraged” for indoor sports, such as ice hockey.
“The risks and benefits of indoor sports, as well as community prevalence of COVID-19 should be carefully considered when making decisions about continuing or resuming indoor sports,” the AAP writes in its guidelines.
The recommendations also specify sports during which masks should not be worn, such as gymnastics due to the risk of them getting caught in apparatus, and wrestling, where they could become a “choking hazard.” It also specifies swimmers and divers should not wear them and outdoor socially distanced sports, like golf, may not need them.
Dec 04, 7:54 pm Deaths up in 48 states, District of Columbia
The number of COVID-19 deaths has gone up in 48 states and Washington, D.C., from two weeks ago, The COVID Tracking Project said Friday.
There were 2,563 deaths reported on Friday, it said.
There were 224,831 daily new cases reported and 101,276 current hospitalizations — both new highs — according to the tracker.
Hospitalizations are up in 34 states and Washington, D.C., from two weeks ago, it said.
Dec 04, 4:46 pm New York sees highest number of daily cases since April
New York state reported 11,271 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday — the highest daily figure the state has seen since mid-April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday.
New York’s daily positivity rate stands at 5.41%.
New York has the fourth-lowest infection rate in the country behind Maine, Vermont and Hawaii.
Over 70% of cases are coming from small gatherings, Cuomo said, and he called on local governments to enforce restrictions.
Cuomo said that the focus should be on the hospitalization rate rather than the infection rate.
New York has 4,222 COVID-19 patients in hospitals. The state has 53,000 hospital beds, of which 35,000 are occupied, he said.
Intensive care units have about 40% of their beds available, he said.
-ABC News’ Josh Hoyos and Jamie Aranoff Dec 04, 4:34 pm San Francisco area announces stay-at-home order
Much of the San Francisco Bay Area will soon be under a stay-at-home order.
The order ends indoor and outdoor dining at restaurants, closes hair salons and other personal care services, and prohibits all private gatherings, ABC San Francisco station KGO reported.
The stay-at-home order covers Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, San Francisco counties as well as the city of Berkeley, KGO said.
Most areas will start the stay-at-home order Sunday; Alameda County will start Monday while Marin County will begin Tuesday. The restrictions will last until Jan. 4.
Gov. Gavin Newsom had announced Thursday that a stay-at-home order will go into effect in any region where the ICU capacity falls below 15%. Bay Area officials said they didn’t want to wait until numbers fell to 15%, KGO reported.
Dec 04, 3:11 pm Oregon may see double the case rates by Christmas
In Oregon, modeling shows that case rates will be twice as high by Christmas, Gov. Kate Brown warned.
A record high of 2,100 new cases were reported Friday, Brown said.
Oregon is set to receive 35,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 71,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine this month, Brown said. Front-line healthcare workers and long-term care residents and employees are considered first priority; Brown said she anticipates this entire group can be vaccinated by the end of January.
-ABC News’ Matthew Fuhrman Dec 04, 3:00 pm Nevada to get over 164,000 vaccine doses for December
Nevada is set to receive 164,150 vaccine doses for December, according to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The doses will be used “for hospital staff, skilled nursing facility staff and residents, and other Tier One individuals,” the department said.
Dec 04, 1:55 pm Pence says US is maybe ‘a week and a half away’ from vaccine approval
At a roundtable discussion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Director Robert Redfield said he’s “optimistic that the FDA will get authorized vaccines within the next several weeks and distribution work can begin.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who joined him at the meeting, added, “We are maybe, Bob, just a week and a half away from what will be the likely approval of the first coronavirus vaccine.”
Pence added, “Within 48 hours from the FDA approval, we could be vaccinating people literally in all 50 states and territories all across the country.”
Pence said that a vaccine won’t likely be available for every American until “spring or early summer.” -ABC News’ Elizabeth Thomas
Dec 04, 1:00 pm Virus ‘has entered a phase of high-level transmission’ in US: CDC
A new CDC report is warning that the virus “has entered a phase of high-level transmission” in the U.S. and that it’s more important than ever to follow public health guidelines.
On Oct. 30, the number of new cases reported in the U.S. in a single day exceeded 100,000 for the first time, and by Dec. 2, the daily case number had nearly doubled, with over 196,000 new daily cases, the report said.
“With colder weather, more time spent indoors, the ongoing U.S. holiday season, and silent spread of disease, with approximately 50% of transmission from asymptomatic persons, the United States has entered a phase of high-level transmission where a multipronged approach to implementing all evidence-based public health strategies at both the individual and community levels is essential,” the report said.
The report summarizes these strategies to combat COVID-19: universal face mask use, physical distancing, avoiding nonessential indoor space, increasing testing, prompt quarantine of exposed persons, safeguarding those at increased risk for severe illness or death, protecting essential workers, postponing travel, enhancing ventilation, hand hygiene and achieving widespread COVID-19 vaccination coverage. -ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Dec 04, 11:16 am COVID-19 appears to be 3rd leading cause of death in US
COVID-19 will probably be ranked at least third for leading causes of death in the U.S. this year, Bob Anderson, Chief, Mortality Statistics Branch at National Center for Health Statistics, told ABC News.
“We won’t make that determination officially until all the data are in,” Anderson added.
The No. 1 cause of death is heart disease, with 655,381 deaths, followed by cancer with 599,274 deaths, according to CDC data.
COVID-19 is in the No. 3 spot with 276,513 fatalities, followed by accidents which accounted for 167,127 deaths, according to the CDC. Dec 04, 10:09 am Africa aims to vaccinate 60% of population in 2-3 years
Africa aims to have 60% of its 1.2 billion-strong population vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next two to three years, according to the head of the continent’s public health agency.
“We hope that for that for this to be meaningful, our 60% must be reached in the next two to three years,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press briefing Thursday. “We should be deliberate in this.”
More than 2.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including over 52,000 deaths, have been reported across the vast continent so far, representing a fraction of the world’s cumulative count.
Dec 04, 8:59 am Moscow launches mass COVID-19 vaccination program
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced Friday the official start of a mass COVID-19 vaccination program in the Russian capital.
Residents are now able to sign up online to be vaccinated, and Sobyanin said some 5,000 people had registered in the first five hours since the launch.
“Teachers, doctors, social workers, those who today most of all risk their health and lives,” the mayor wrote in a brief post on his blog Friday.
The announcement comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly ordered large-scale vaccination to start next week, despite earlier statements from the government saying the country has yet to produce enough vaccine doses to do so.
The mass inoculation campaigns will use Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, called Sputnik V, which the health ministry controversially registered in August before starting crucial late-stage clinical trials. Vaccinations will be voluntary, with the drives first focusing on teachers and doctors.
Russia was still vaccinating volunteers as part of its phase 3 trial, which has so far only managed to inoculate 20,000 of a planned 40,000 people.
Putin has said that Russia will soon produce two million doses of Sputnik V, but it’s unclear how many doses have been been produced so far and how many people will be able to be vaccinated next week. The country has run into serious manufacturing hurdles and had to significantly cut its planned production from 30 million to two million by the end of the year.
Dec 04, 7:31 am COVID-19 vaccinations will be free of charge in France
French Prime Minister Jean Castex said COVID-19 vaccinations will not be made compulsory but “will be free for all” in the country’s social security system.
“Getting a vaccine is also about protecting others. It is a choice of trust, we must be as numerous as possible to get a vaccine,” Castex said at a press conference Thursday evening, while unveiling the country’s vaccination strategy.
France will launch a COVID-19 vaccination campaign within weeks, pending regulatory approval by the European Medicines Agency. The program will run throughout 2021, staggered over three categories of people.
The first phase is slated to begin in January, with vaccines administered to nursing home residents and staff, representing one million people. A second phase starting in February will see 14 million people inoculated, based on age and medical criteria. The third and final phase, beginning in March, will target the remainder of the population who wish to be vaccinated.
Through deals clinched by the European Union, France has secured some 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from several pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms that developed them and have applied for temporary authorization. Castex said that’s enough doses to inoculate 100 million people — more than France’s entire population.
As of Friday afternoon, France’s health ministry had confirmed a total of 2,257,331 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 54,140 deaths.
Dec 04, 5:18 am Italy reports nearly 1,000 new deaths in all-time high
An additional 993 deaths from COVID-19 were registered in Italy on Thursday, marking a new all-time high, according to data from the country’s civil protection agency.
Italy’s previous single-day record of 969 new fatalities from the disease was set in late March, when the country was the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe.
The Italian civil protection agency also reported 23,225 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 31,772 patients currently hospitalized with the disease, including 3,597 in intensive care.
Since the start of the pandemic, Italy has confirmed more than 1,664,829 million cases, including at least 58,038 deaths, according to the civil protection agency.
The country has the eighth highest case load in the world, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Dec 04, 4:17 am US has worst day yet with record number of new cases and deaths
There were 217,664 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 2,879 additional deaths from the disease registered in the United States on Thursday, both numbers which shattered the country’s previous daily records, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
It’s the most new cases and deaths the U.S. has recorded in a single day since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also the 31st straight day that the country has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections, and the third time since the pandemic began that the daily figure has topped 200,000, according to Johns Hopkins data.
COVID-19 data may be skewed in the coming days and weeks due to possible lags in reporting over Thanksgiving followed by a potentially very large backlog from the holiday.
A total of 14,143,801 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 276,366 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up over the summer.
The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4 and reaching 200,000 for the first time on Nov. 27.
U.S. ArmyBy LUIS MARTINEZ, ABC News
