December 9 coronavirus news

CNN and Sesame Street are coming together for a new town hall on Saturday, Dec. 19 at 10 a.m. ET to help children and parents understand the latest issues surrounding coronavirus, including details about the vaccine, celebrating the holidays safely and how to stay healthy and happy during the winter months ahead.

The hour-long special will be hosted by CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Anchor Erica Hill, along with Sesame Street’s Big Bird.

Leave your questions for them below.

New York reported an additional 95 deaths from Covid-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today.

New York currently has a 5.44% positivity rate for Covid-19 across the state, the governor said. Without the microclusters, the positivity rate is at 4.86%, but it is at 7.08% in the microcluster zones, he said. 

One note: These numbers were released by the(state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project

The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that a small number of senior leaders would be among the first to receive the coronavirus vaccine, an action that is being taken in order to help convince military personnel that the vaccine is safe. CNN first reported on Tuesday that senior leadership would be among the first to receive the vaccination.

While the bulk of senior military leaders will receive the vaccine after medical personnel, a select few will receive it in the earliest phase.

“Right now we would be looking at current senior leaders, the top four,” he added, listing Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Deputy Secretary David Norquist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten, and the senior enlisted adviser would receive the vaccine in the earliest phase to help convince Department if Defense personnel that the vaccine is safe.

Officials said there were no current plans to offer the vaccine to President-elect Joe Biden’s designate for Defense secretary, retired Gen. Lloyd Austin.

The Pentagon is expected to receive 44,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the coming days.

“Of those 44,000 a huge majority will be for first responders, critical healthcare people and a very very limited number to critical national capabilities in this first tranche,” Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, the Defense Health Agency director said.

Senior leaders are considered “critical national capabilities” by the Pentagon.

The vaccine “is voluntary for everyone” Place said, due to it being expected to only receive emergency use authorization from the FDA, while adding that “the Department is strongly encouraging everyone to take it,” Place said.

The UK can expect to have a “portfolio of three or four vaccines” in use by the middle of next year, England’s Chief Medical Officer told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Thousands of people were vaccinated on Tuesday, the first day of the national rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. 

Asked by lawmakers when the UK regulator would decide on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, chief of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency June Raine said she could not provide a firm date for a decision on authorization.

Raine said regulators have “great interest” in how the two dosing regimens produced different efficacies, and if there is a scientific basis to the different immune responses. 

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed 90% efficacy in one dosing regimen — when the vaccine was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least a month later. It showed 62% efficacy in a second regimen — when two full doses were given to people at least a month apart.

On the issue revaccination, Whitty told lawmakers that the situation may arise where vulnerable people will need to be revaccinated, as it is yet unknown how long protection against the virus can last.

“It might last for a very long time, it might last for […] nine months, I think it's more likely to be somewhere between those two,” Whitty said. 

Asked what lessons have been learned from the pandemic, Whitty admitted that in the early stages of the pandemic, officials underestimated asymptomatic spread.

“We drew comfort wrongly from SARS,” Whitty said, referring to the respiratory illness brought on by a coronavirus that killed more than 700 people in 2002 and 2003.

“In SARS, the great majority — if not all — of the transmission was from people who were symptomatic,” Whitty said. 

Whitty went on to say that the pandemic could have been managed better in the early stages if “data streams” were more complete on mask effectiveness, lockdown timings and travel quarantines. 

He said that limited testing capacity meant officials hadn’t realized how widespread the virus had become in the UK or across Europe. 

On communicating health guidance to Britain’s minority ethnic groups – who have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic – Whitty acknowledged that officials did not get the messaging right in the early stages, adding that social research was and still is not strong enough. 

In a new memo to employees, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian says nearly 700 people have now been placed on its no-fly list for refusing to comply with the airline's mask policy.

The new number an increase from the Delta’s last update on Nov. 12, when the carrier said about 500 passengers had been banned from flying since the start of the pandemic.

Delta began requiring that passengers wear masks on flights on May 4. All major airlines now mandate that passengers wear masks in the absence of any new regulations from the federal government.

President-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed yesterday his call for a federal mask mandate during the first 100 days of his administration including on planes, trains and buses. 

Health Canada, the department of Canada's government responsible for the country's federal health policy, approved Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine under emergency approval Wednesday, indicating in its authorization that there were some "conditions."

More informations is expected at an afternoon news conference where technical details about the vaccine roll out will be outlined.

Canada started a “dry-run” of distribution this week throughout the country.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier this week that Canada would receive an initial shipment of 249,000 doses by the end of the year, and he expects Canada’s first vaccinations to occur sometime next week.

At least three California counties in one of the regions in a stay-at-home order has 0% intensive care unit capacity available, according to data from the state department of public health. 

“Whenever the ICUs get full, it’s really hard to move patients through the emergency department. It’s really hard for us to provide efficient services,” Dr. Rais Vohra said, an emergency physician who serves as the interim public health officer for Fresno County.

Vohra emphasized how dire the situation is, adding that working on the frontlines "gives you a very eye opening perspective."

Vohra warned that 10-15% of all infected cases will need to visit an emergency department and some will require hospitalization and therefore will be a strain on services at hospitals for all patients, including those not battling Covid-19. 

According to information from the California Department of Public Health:

The counties are part of the San Joaquin Valley Region which is under a three-week state mandated stay-home order triggered last weekend by the low number of ICU beds available.

CNN has reached out to the health departments in Kings and Madera counties for comment.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Wednesday said that for America to start flattening the Covid-19 curve and follow the pattern of Europe, everyone needs to admit and own the problem.

In some parts of the country, there is almost denial, Fauci said – people thinking that the pandemic isn’t a big deal, that it’s fake news, or that it’s a hoax.

“It’s not. It’s real. The numbers are absolutely real,” Fauci said, pointing out that there are record numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

“We have a serious issue,” he said, coming out of the Thanksgiving holiday and leading up to the Christmas and Hanukkah season.

There have been at least 15,186,244 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 286,461 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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

So far today, Johns Hopkins has reported 21,085 new cases and 212 reported deaths.