Coronavirus live updates: US virus deaths top 2,800 in a single day for first time

Samara Heisz/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 64.6 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 Thursday. All times Eastern:

Dec 03, 9:00 pm
US reports record new cases, hospitalizations

The U.S. saw record numbers of new COVID-19 cases and current hospitalizations on Thursday, according to The COVID-19 Tracking Project.

There were 210,161 new cases, and 100,667 people are currently hospitalized, it said.

The number of hospitalizations “makes clear exactly how severe the pandemic is,” the project said in its weekly analysis.

That number has more than doubled in the past month as the West and Midwest recently set new records and the South approaches its mid-July peak.

Dec 03, 6:54 pm
LA County sees record number of new cases

Los Angeles County reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases yet on Thursday, as the virus continues to surge in the region.

There were 7,854 new daily cases, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said, breaking a record set on Tuesday.

There were 44 new deaths and 2,572 current hospitalizations, officials said. The county is at 76% occupancy of overall intensive care unit capacity.

Under new restrictions in response to the surge, residents are urged to stay home as much as possible and not gather with people outside their household until Dec. 20.

-ABC News’ Cammeron Parrish contributed to this report

Dec 03, 5:41 pm
CDC: Up to 329K could die by Christmas

Nearly 329,000 people could die from COVID-19 by Dec. 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The agency’s latest national ensemble forecast predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will likely increase over the next four weeks, with 9,500 to 19,500 new deaths likely to be reported in the week ending Dec. 26.

The national ensemble predicts that 303,000 to 329,000 total COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date. The U.S. death toll currently stands at 275,550, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Wednesday, CDC Director Robert Redfield warned that as many as 472,000 people might die from the virus by February.

-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty

Dec 03, 4:59 pm
New stay-at-home advisory issued in Delaware

A new stay-at-home advisory in Delaware will ban residents from gathering indoors with anyone not in their household, reported ABC Philadelphia station WPVI.
 
The order will last from Dec. 14 to Jan. 11.

Gov. John Carney also announced a new mask mandate requiring masks whenever indoors with someone from outside the household.

Dec 03, 4:43 pm
1st vaccine doses arrive in UK

The first vaccine doses have arrived in the United Kingdom after being transported on freezer trucks from the production facility in Belgium, British authorities confirmed to ABC News. The doses are on their way to distribution centers, which will then dole them out to be administered according to the priority list.

The U.K. Department of Health and Social Care announced Wednesday that a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has been approved for use in the U.K.

Vaccinations for some high-priority people could begin next week. The majority of U.K. vaccinations will take place next year.

-ABC News’ Angus Hines

Dec 03, 3:53 pm
New stay-at-home orders announced in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’s “pulling the emergency break” and asking residents to not gather with people outside of their household.

In regions where the ICU capacity is below 15%, a stay-at-home order will go into effect for three weeks, Newsom said.

ABC Los Angeles station KABC reports that latest projections show all of the state’s regions except the Bay Area falling below 15% in the next few days.

In those regions, bars, hair salons and personal care services will close, he said.

“If we don’t act now our hospital system will be overwhelmed… we’ll continue to see a death rate climb,” Newsom said.

Dec 03, 3:32 pm
Facebook to remove false vaccine claims

Facebook said it will remove false claims about COVID-19 vaccines on Facebook and Instagram.

“This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list,” Facebook said in a statement. “We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false.”

Dec 03, 1:11 pm
Fauci predicts vaccines for older kids could be available by spring

Dr. Anthony Fauci told MSNBC Americans should expect some protection after getting the first vaccine shot, but in general, they’ll be “good” about 7 to 10 days after receiving the second dose.

For Pfizer’s vaccine, the doses are given three weeks apart, according to Business Insider.

Regarding children and the vaccine, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases predicted trials could start in January with older children before moving on to trials on younger children. Because the vaccine will have been shown to be safe in adults, the trials for children can be relatively smaller and can move faster, he said.

“If we start in January, a couple to three months after that” we could have a vaccine for older children, Fauci said. Then additional trials would need to be done on younger children, he said.

-ABC News’ Anne Flaherty

Dec 03, 11:18 am
NYC will get over 465K vaccine doses this month

New York City will receive 465,525 vaccine doses this month, with the focus on health care workers and nursing home residents first, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

After that, de Blasio said he wants to prioritize the neighborhoods hardest hit, as well as public housing residents.

The first shipments from Pfizer are expected to arrive as early as Dec. 15 while doses from Moderna, if approved on time, are set to arrive as early as Dec. 22, the mayor said.

New York City’s seven-day positivity rate stands at 5.19%.

-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky

Dec 03, 11:04 am
US reaches highest recorded death toll on a single day

An additional 2,804 deaths from COVID-19 were registered nationwide on Wednesday — the highest recorded death toll on a single day for the U.S., according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The latest daily death toll shatters the previous record of 2,609 new deaths on April 15, according to Johns Hopkins data.

The nations death toll now stands at 273,590.

There were 200,007 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the U.S. on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins — the 30th straight day that the U.S. reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections, and only the second time since the start of the pandemic that the figure has exceeded 200,000. Wednesday’s count is just under the country’s peak of 205,557 new cases recorded last Friday, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Over 13.9 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed.

Dec 03, 10:25 am
Bush and Clinton join Obama by offering to get vaccinated in front of cameras

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have offered to get vaccinated in front of cameras if it will help show Americans they can trust the science.

Bush’s chief of staff, Freddy Ford, told CNN, “The vaccines need to be deemed safe and administered to the priority populations. Then, President Bush will get in line for his, and will gladly do so on camera.”

Clinton’s press secretary, Angel Urena, told CNN on Wednesday, “President Clinton will definitely take a vaccine as soon as available to him, based on the priorities determined by public health officials. And he will do it in a public setting if it will help urge all Americans to do the same.”

Dec 03, 3:52 am
US reports over 200,000 new cases for second time since pandemic started

There were 200,007 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Wednesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It’s the 30th straight day that the United States has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections, and only the second time since the start of the pandemic that the figure has exceeded 200,000. Wednesday’s count is just under the country’s peak of 205,557 new cases recorded last Friday, according to Johns Hopkins data.

An additional 3,157 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide on Wednesday, marking a new all-time high. It’s also the first time that the United States has reported more than 3,000 deaths from the disease in a single day. The latest daily death toll shatters the previous record of 2,609 new deaths on April 15, according to Johns Hopkins data.

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

A total of 13,924,956 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 273,835 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.

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