November 30, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Go Nakamura/Getty ImagesBy MORGAN WINSOR and ERIN SCHUMAKER, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 62.7 million people and killed over 1.4 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:

Nov 30, 1:44 pm
Florida schools, businesses to remain open as state’s outbreak worsens: Governor

Schools in Florida will remain open for in-person learning next spring, Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a Monday press conference in which he referred to school closings as the largest public health blunder in American history.

COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are rising in Florida, according to an ABC News analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project. Despite the worsening statistics, DeSantis said he will not close businesses or issue a statewide mask mandate, nor will he permit local governments to fine residents for failing to wear masks in public.

ABC News’ Scott Withers contributed to this report.

Nov 30, 12:44 pm
Vaccines could be ‘into people’s arms before Christmas’ if proven safe: HHS secretary

HHS Secretary Alex Azar said Monday that if safety and efficacy bear out, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could approve Pfizer’s vaccine within days of an independent FDA advisory committee meeting on Dec. 10.

“We could be seeing both of these vaccines out and getting into people’s arms before Christmas,” Azar told CBS.

Moderna announced Monday that it would seek emergency FDA authorization for its vaccine, making it the second U.S. company to do so. Moderna’s FDA hearing will be held Dec. 17.

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Nov 30, 10:40 am
Rhode Island bucks national trend by opening schools, closing bars

Rhode Island entered a two-week pause Monday, shuttering bars, gyms, movie theaters, bowling allies and indoor sporting facilities. But unlike in many other states, schools will remain open.

“We’ve really got to shut it down for those two weeks,” Gov. Gina Raimondo said at a Nov. 19 press conference. “Because if we do, we can slowly crank up after those two weeks and make it through the end of the year.”

The tightened restrictions are in response to rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the state, which has reported 53,954 infections and 1,346 deaths to date.

Rhode Island’s pause will remain in effect until Dec. 13.

Nov 30, 8:58 am
TSA screens record number of travelers since March

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it screened 1,176,091 people at its checkpoints in airports across the United States on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, making it the busiest day for air travel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The previous pandemic record was set on Wednesday, the day before the holiday, when TSA screened 1,070,967 individuals at airport security checkpoints.

By comparison, 2,882,915 travelers were screened on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year, which remains the highest volume in TSA history.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is recommending that Americans do not travel for Thanksgiving.

“It’s not a requirement, it’s a recommendation for the American public to consider,” Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, told reporters during a call on Nov. 19. “Right now, as we’re seeing exponential growth in cases and the opportunity to translocate disease or infection from one part of the country to another leads to our recommendation to avoid travel at this time.”

Nov 30, 8:20 am
Study shows COVID-19 infections dropped about 30% in England during second lockdown

New research suggests England has seen roughly a 30% drop in COVID-19 infections three weeks into its second nationwide lockdown.

The Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) program, run by Imperial College London and research firm Ipsos MORI, is tracking current cases of COVID-19 in England by testing more than 150,000 randomly-selected people each month over a two-week period. An interim report released Monday from the latest round of testing, which includes results from more than 105,000 at-home tests between Nov. 13 and Nov. 24, shows that an estimated 0.96% of England’s population — or around one in 100 people — is infected with COVID-19.

The study, which is commissioned by England’s Department of Health and Social Care, also found that the overall reproduction (R) number has fallen to below 1 — estimated at 0.88 — meaning the country’s outbreak is currently shrinking rather than growing.

“In this interim report from the seventh round of data collection, we found a reduction in national prevalence of infection by around 30% from the high levels in the latter half of round 6 (26 October to 2 November 2020),” the study’s co-authors wrote in the report. “The national prevalence has now dropped to ~1%, a level last seen 6 weeks earlier. This fall in prevalence covers a period of nearly three of the four weeks of the second national lockdown, and is consistent with an observed reduction in the number of daily swab-positive cases recorded in routine surveillance data.”

Paul Elliott, professor of epidemiology and public health medicine at Imperial College London and director of the REACT program, called the data “encouraging” for England, which was under a regional tiered system of COVID-19 restrictions before entering lockdown again on Nov. 5. A tougher three-tier system will come into force when the lockdown ends just after midnight on Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a fall in infections at the national level and in particular across regions that were previously worst affected. These trends suggest that the tiered approach helped to curb infections in these areas and that lockdown has added to this effect,” Elliott said in a statement Monday. “As we approach a challenging time of year, it’s even more vital that through our actions and behaviors we all play our part in helping to keep the virus at bay.”

Nov 30, 7:00 am
Moderna to submit emergency authorization request to FDA

Moderna announced it plans to submit a request on Monday to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the second company after Pfizer to do so.

Moderna said in a press release that the FDA’s meeting to review the safety and efficacy data for its National Institutes of Health-funded vaccine candidate, called mRNA-1273, will likely be scheduled for Dec. 17. The FDA hearing for the vaccine candidate developed by New York-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech is slated for Dec. 10.

Moderna also announced that the final analysis of its Phase 3 clinical trial of mRNA-1273 indicates a vaccine efficacy of 94.1%. Pending FDA authorization, Moderna said it expects to have approximately 20 million doses of mRNA-1273 available in the United States by the end of the year. The Massachusetts-based biotechnology company remains on track to manufacture 500 million to one billion doses globally in 2021.

“This positive primary analysis confirms the ability of our vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease with 94.1% efficacy and importantly, the ability to prevent severe COVID-19 disease,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement Monday. “We believe that our vaccine will provide a new and powerful tool that may change the course of this pandemic and help prevent severe disease, hospitalizations and death.”

Nov 30, 5:48 am
US reports over 138,000 new cases

There were 138,903 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 27th straight day that the country has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Sunday’s count is down from a peak of 205,557 new cases on Friday.

An additional 826 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide on Sunday, less than the all-time high of 2,609 new deaths on April 15.

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 13,384,651 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 266,875 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. 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.

Nov 30, 4:55 am
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients hit all-time high in US

Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in the United States reached an all-time high of 93,238 on Sunday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The figure surpassed Saturday’s record of 91,635 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized. Current COVID-19 hospitalizations have gone up every day since Oct. 25, except for Sunday when the figure dipped slightly to 89,834, which The COVID Tracking Project credited to “the holiday effect.”

Our daily update is published. Our testing, case, and death statistics continue to be affected by the Thanksgiving holiday. Hospitalizations are less affected by the data slowdown and are at the record-high level of 93,238. pic.twitter.com/LVZnxVme4p

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 30, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort launched from The Atlantic magazine to track the U.S. outbreak, has warned of data inconsistencies in the coming days and weeks due to lags over Thanksgiving followed by a potentially very large backlog from the holiday. For instance, some states didn’t report any data at all on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, while others only had partial reports. The totals for testing and new cases were inflated Saturday and Sunday as several states reported two days’ worth of data.

“The data wobbles don’t consist only of some states not reporting at all — though that’s happened a lot — but that most or all states that are reporting do not have a full data pipeline from labs and health departments,” The COVID Tracking Project wrote on its Twitter account Sunday.

However, the group noted that hospitalization numbers “are less affected by the data slowdown.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 29, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Waltham Police Department via FacebookBY: BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC NEWS

(BOSTON) — One man was out for an evening stroll when someone came up behind him and bashed him in the face with a blunt object. Another victim was taking out the trash at his apartment complex when he was ambushed, and a U.S. Postal Service carrier was badly beaten while out delivering the mail after dark.

Residents of Waltham, Massachusetts, are on edge after police said at least 10 men have been targeted by a mystery assailant in a string of unprovoked assaults that have occurred since Nov. 10.

“Waltham police are using all means necessary to bring these cases to an end as quickly as possible,” Detective Sgt. Steve McCarthy said in a statement.

McCarthy said the latest attack occurred around 8 p.m. on Friday when a culprit came up behind a man walking on a residential street, hit him in the face with a blunt weapon and ran off under the cover of darkness. As in the other cases, McCarthy said the person responsible for the serial assaults appears to be lying in wait and attacking victims by surprise.

On Saturday, police released surveillance video of an individual they described as “a suspect in the string of recent assaults around Waltham” and urged the public to contact them with any information on the person’s identity.

The video shows a man dressed in a dark hooded coat, light blue jeans and sneakers running down a street. Police did not specify when or where the video was taken.

Investigators only have a general description of the assailant, saying he appears to be a Black male, 5-foot-6- to 5-foot-10-inches tall and 160 to 180 pounds.

Police also took the unusual step of making reverse 911 calls to alert residents of the city, cautioning them to be vigilant and remain aware of their surroundings, especially after dark.

Authorities said that in all of the “random, unprovoked” attacks, the suspect has struck between 5:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. in the city 22 miles northwest of Boston.

Initially, the assailant appeared to be targeting residents of an apartment complex but has since spread out across the community of roughly 63,000 people, attacking several recent victims in the city’s downtown area, according to police.

David Cameros, one of the victims, told ABC affiliate station WCVB-TV in Boston, that he was attacked Wednesday night outside his apartment complex. He said he had just taken out his garbage and was talking on his cell phone while having a smoke when he was clobbered in the head by what he believes was a baseball bat.

Cameros said he was knocked unconscious and left with a fractured skull.

“I don’t know if it is only one or there are more attackers. The aggressor always attacks from behind,” Cameros said.

Another victim, who would only give his first name, Emerson, a mechanic, told WCVB he was targeted while out for an evening stroll also on Wednesday evening. Emerson remains in a hospital being treated for several fractures to his face and skull.

Emerson said the attacker came up behind him like a “coward” and that he didn’t have a chance to see his face.

“I did not have the opportunity to defend myself,” Emerson said Saturday, adding that he is awaiting surgery on his face.

Melissa Gallant, a friend of Emerson, said she and other residents of the city have been left rattled by the attacks.

“I know he’s beat up bad, bad, bad and he’s such a nice guy,” Gallant told WCVB of Emerson. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s not right. He helps everybody. He’s a very good man.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 29, 2020 • No Comments • National News

fernandogarciaesteban/iStockBY: ALEXANDRA SVOKOS, ABC NEWS

(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced elementary schools will be reopening in-person on Monday, Dec. 7, in a reversal from a previous decision.

De Blasio said Sunday testing would be done weekly and testing consent forms will be required for students to return. Additionally, district 75 schools that cater to students with disabilities will reopen beginning Thursday, Dec. 10.

The mayor added that the city would be moving to five-day in-person learning as much as possible, moving away from a hybrid model.

The nation’s largest school district shut its doors in mid-November as novel coronavirus rates crept upward in New York City, with a positivity rate above 3% over a seven-day rolling average, a standard the city had set at which schools would close.

It was a move that frustrated many parents, teachers and students — and even prompted questions from public health experts.

The reopening of schools is focusing on younger grades, de Blasio said, as studies have shown that coronavirus impacts younger children less harshly. There is no word yet on reopenings for middle and high schools.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 28, 2020 • No Comments • National News

georgeclerk/iStockBY: REED MCDONOUGH, ABC NEWS

(NEW YORK) — Heavy rain is ongoing along the northern Gulf Coast Saturday morning.

As of Friday evening, several counties reported over 2 inches of rainfall over a 24 hours period, including Polk County, Texas, that saw 3.18 inches and Wharton County, Texas, which saw 4.98 inches of rain.

The frontal boundary is expected to hover over the same area through Sunday, bringing more heavy rainfall in the already-saturated locations.

Localized flooding is expected, along with the potential for some local flash flooding as 3-6 more inches of rain is expected through the weekend in some Gulf Coast locations.

By Sunday afternoon, the system will develop a strong center of low pressure that will get picked up by a jet stream and start quickly moving to the Northeast.

The system hustles into the Northeast with a strong cold front by Monday.

Gusty winds, heavy rain and coastal inundation are expected in some areas of the Northeast and New England by Monday afternoon and evening.

Cold air will rush in on the system’s backside across the Great Lakes, bringing the threat for lake effect snow Monday into Tuesday.

The system will bring up to 2 inches of rain to the Northeast, with some very localized areas receiving more.

By early Tuesday, backside snow will drop 3-5 inches in the lake effect Snowbelt region of northwest Pennsylvania and extreme western New York state.

Wind chill values will be in the 30s for parts of the Gulf Coast and in the middle teens for parts of the Midwest Tuesday morning.

The colder air mass eventually reaches the Northeast by late Tuesday into Wednesday, but not before temperatures jump well above normal into the 60s on Monday and Tuesday from Washington D.C. to Boston.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, as people wake up Saturday morning, the area has several weather alerts, including red flag warnings, frost advisories and freeze warnings.

The fire risk will be critical early Saturday before being reduced to elevated later Saturday into Sunday.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 27, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Myriam Borzee/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, IVAN PEREIRA and MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 61 million people and killed over 1.4 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:

Nov 27, 1:56 pm
Brazil’s president says he won’t take a COVID-19 vaccine

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro insisted he will not take a COVID-19 vaccine.

“I’m telling you, I’m not going to take it. It’s my right,” Bolsonaro said Thursday in a live broadcast streamed on various social media platforms.

The right-wing leader also said that Brazil’s National Congress is unlikely to require citizens to get vaccinated for COVID-19, and he expressed skepticism over the effectiveness of face masks in curbing the spread of the virus.

Bolsonaro, an avid supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, has downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic despite getting infected himself over the summer.

Brazil has the second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world, behind only the United States, and the third-highest number of confirmed cases, after India and the United States, according to a real-time tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nov 27, 1:38 pm
COVID-19 patient with ‘irreversible lung damage’ recovers after transplant

A COVID-19 patient whose lungs had been severely damaged by the virus has made a miraculous recovery after undergoing a double lung transplant at a Texas hospital.

Paul Rodriguez, 52, of San Antonio, had no pre-existing conditions when he contracted the novel coronavirus and fell ill with pneumonia in July. Rodriguez was hospitalized at an area hospital in his hometown and required intubation as well as the use of a ventilator. Then in mid-September, Rodriguez was transferred to Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston for evaluation, “as it became clear that a lung transplant was his only chance of survival,” according to a press release from the hospital, which said the patient had “irreversible lung damage.”

Rodriguez was approved for a transplant and, within a week of listing, he received a brand-new set of lungs on Oct. 15. After being successfully weaned off the ventilator and oxygen support, Rodriguez underwent rehabilitation at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and was discharged on Nov. 24. He is expected to continue the rehabilitation program as part of his recovery, according to the press release.

“Rodriguez is the first double lung transplant the hospital has performed on a coronavirus patient since the pandemic began,” Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center said in a statement. “To date, only a handful of transplant centers in the U.S. have performed lung transplants on patients due to irreversible lung damage caused by the virus.”

Nov 27, 11:49 am
COVID-19 cases in US may be about 8 times higher than reported

The actual number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in the United States reached nearly 53 million at the end of September, according to a model developed by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The scientists estimated the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 in the U.S. population by taking the laboratory-confirmed case counts that were reported nationally and adjusting them for sources of under-detection based on testing practices in inpatient and outpatient settings. Preliminary estimates using the model found that 2.4 million hospitalizations, 44.8 million symptomatic illnesses and 52.9 million total infections may have occurred through Sept. 30.

“This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk, despite already high rates of hospitalization,” the scientists wrote in a report published in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

There were 6.9 million laboratory-confirmed cases of of domestically-acquired infections that were detected and reported nationally through Sept. 30. Since then, the CDC’s tally has increased to nearly 12.5 million. Based on the model’s ratio, the true estimated total would now be more than 95 million.

Nov 27, 8:46 am
UK government asks regulator to assess AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine

U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Friday that he has formally asked the country’s medicines regulator to assess whether a COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford “meets rigorous safety standards.”

The move comes amid questions about preliminary results from late-stage trials of the vaccine candidate, called AZD1222, after the England-based pharmaceutical giant and the university acknowledged that the most positive findings actually stemmed from a dosing error.

On Monday, researchers announced the interim analysis of Phase 3 trials in the United Kingdom and Brazil, which looked at two different dosing regimens. One regimen showed vaccine efficacy of 90% when AZD1222 was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart. A second regimen showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens showed an average efficacy of 70%.

The COVID-19 vaccine candidate is the second to reach the formal assessment stage in the United Kingdom, following one developed by New York City-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

Nov 27, 7:56 am
Moscow sees 311% spike in COVID-19 deaths

Moscow saw a 311% month-to-month increase in COVID-19 deaths for October, health authorities said.

According to the Moscow Healthcare Department, the Russian capital reported 543 COVID-19 deaths in September followed by 2,235 deaths in October — an increase of more than 311% — as a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.

Meanwhile, Russia reported a sharp increase in COVID-19 infections on Friday, with the country’s coronavirus response headquarters confirming a record 27,543 new cases in the last 24 hours. An additional 496 new deaths from the disease were also registered nationwide in the past day. The country’s cumulative total now stands at 2,215,533 confirmed cases, including 38,558 deaths.

Moscow continues to be the epicenter of Russia’s COVID-19 outbreak and recent surge. The city accounted for nearly 29% of the newly reported cases and more than 15% of the newly registered deaths, according to the country’s coronavirus response headquarters.

The Eastern European nation of 145 million people has the fifth-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world, behind only the United States, India, Brazil and France, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nov 27, 6:50 am
US reports over 110,000 new cases on Thanksgiving

There were 110,611 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It’s the 24th straight day that the country has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Thursday’s count is down from a peak of 196,004 new cases on Nov. 20.

An additional 1,232 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide on Thursday, less than the all-time high of 2,609 new deaths on April 15.

COVID-19 data may be skewed this week and next due to possible lags in reporting over Thanksgiving followed by a potentially very large backlog from the holiday.

A total of 12,885,299 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 263,462 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. 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 and crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4.

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