• U.S. sets yet another record for COVID-19 hospitalizations
• President-elect Biden names his full health team
• Dr. Deborah Birx says vaccine won’t save us from current surge
• Rudolph Giuliani, former New York City mayor and personal lawyer to President Trump, tests positive
The U.S. set another record for hospitalizations with the coronavirus illness COVID-19 on Sunday, while case numbers and fatalities remained high, and the nation braced for what is expected to be a very dark winter.
There are currently 101,487 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, according to the COVID Tracking Project, beating the record of 101,190 set a day ago. The U.S. recorded another 175,663 cases on Sunday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and at least 1,113 people died. Weekend numbers tend to be under-reported because hospitals are more thinly staffed.
The U.S. set a record of 2,733 fatalities in a single day last Wednesday, surpassing peak levels seen in spring. It continues to lead the world with 14.76 million confirmed cases and 282,348 deaths, or about a fifth of each global total.
“As we enter into the holiday season typically full of indoor gatherings and travels, Dr. Fauci warned of a potential “surge upon a surge” as case counts, hospitalizations, and fatalities climb from gatherings and general coronavirus fatigue, and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield predicted that the winter months could be the “most difficult time in the public health history of this nation,’” Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins wrote in a note to clients. “Although recent vaccine data is promising, we must manage expectations; vaccines are unlikely to be available to the general public for several months.”
North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa are leading U.S. states by per capita case numbers, according to Raymond James. All states and Washington, D.C., expect for Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin had higher numbers of patients in hospitals in the most recent week on average compared to the previous week.
The Northeast is also experiencing a surge in cases. Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey set single-day case records on Thursday, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey set fresh records on Friday, according to the New York Times.
Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York and currently incumbent President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a Trump tweet.
The news created a scramble among lawmakers who were exposed to the 76-year old as he crisscrossed the country last week to meet with state legislators as part of an effort to overturn the results of the presidential election on Nov. 3.
Giuliani visited Michigan, Arizona and Georgia last week and videos showed him without a face mask. The Arizona state House and Senate said they would close for a week from today to prevent further transmission, according to local news reports.
President-elect Joe Biden named his full health team on Monday, announcing that he has selected California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his health secretary nominee, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, currently chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meekins from Raymond James said the choice of Becerra was unconventional, “as we cannot recall a state attorney general moving straight into this role.
“Additionally, it is somewhat of a surprise that in the midst of a pandemic, HHS will be led by someone with no health or medical training, nor someone who has worked at the department previously.
“However, as a 12-term congressman, he did work on health issues as a member of the Ways and Means Committee’s Health subcommittee. As California AG, he led the fight to defend the Affordable Care Act from court challenges and defended women’s health issues. As California AG, he ran a large bureaucracy which the Biden transition stated was one reason he was chosen.”
The other members of the team are Dr. Vivek Murthy, who would reprise his previous role as Surgeon General, which he served as under President Barack Obama; Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair; Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Adviser to the President on COVID-19, who will also continue in his role as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Jeff Zients, Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response and Counselor to the President. Natalie Quillian, a former White House and Pentagon senior adviser, will serve as deputy coordinator of the COVID-19 Response.
“This is a team that looks like America and brings together leaders with deep experience in public health, government, and crisis management,” Biden said in a statement. “They are experts in their fields who will restore public trust in the pandemic response by leading with facts, science, integrity, and a laser-focus on bringing COVID-19 under control.”
Health experts continued to urge Americans to comply with the safety measures they have been recommending for months; frequent hand washing, social distancing and wearing a face mask. Those measures are even more key now that a vaccine appears to be in sight.
“The vaccine’s critical,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But it’s not going to save us from this current surge. Only we can save us from this current surge.”
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A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is scheduled to take up a request Thursday to authorize emergency use of Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.53% and German partner BioNTech SE’s BNTX, +2.50% vaccine candidate. Vaccinations could begin just days later, though initial supplies will be rationed, and shots are not expected to become widely available until the spring.
In other news:
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration engaged in a pattern of spin and concealment during the pandemic that misled the public on the worst public health crisis the state has ever faced, a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation has found. DeSantis, a strong backer of President Trump, took an approach that matched the views of the president, who has repeatedly played down the gravity of the threat and told Americans the virus would simply disappear. DeSantis suppressed unfavorable facts, put out dangerous misinformation, dismissed public health professionals and promoted scientific dissenters who supported his approach, the paper found. The governor refused to reveal details on the first case identified in the state and then denied it was spreading person-to-person, it said. Florida has 1.1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and at least 19,177 Floridians have died, according to the state health department.
• The U.K. will start to administer the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, the BBC reported. The U.K. regulator granted the vaccine an emergency use authorization last week and said an initial batch of 800,000 doses would arrive this week. That is enough for 400,000 inoculations, as it’s a two-dose regimen. Front-line health staff, those over 80, and care home workers will be first to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
• France is not meeting the conditions for ending lockdown as planned on December 15, Reuters reported. Health Minister Olivier Veran has told members of parliament that it is unlikely France will bet its daily new case numbers below 5,000 by that date. President Emmanuel Macron has named that threshold as key to ending a nationwide lockdown, while the number of patients in intensive care need to fall below 3,000. France currently has had 2.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, the Johns Hopkins data shows, or fifth highest in the world, and at least 55,247 French people have died.
• The Australian city of Melbourne welcomed its first international flights in five months on Sunday, after it successfully contained the virus spread using strict policies on movement and quarantine, according to local broadcaster ABC News. Passengers, who came from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and other international destinations, will be required to quarantine in hotels.
Latest tallies
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide climbed above 67 million on Monday, the Johns Hopkins data show, and the death toll topped 1.51 million. At least 43 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
Brazil has the second highest death toll at 176,941 and is third by cases at 6.6 million.
India is second worldwide in cases with 9.7 million, and third in deaths at 140,573.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll at 109,717 and 12th highest case tally at 1.2 million.
The U.K has 61,342 deaths, the highest in Europe and fifth highest in the world, and 1.7 million cases, or seventh highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 93,655 confirmed cases and 4,746 deaths, according to its official numbers.
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