The latest on the coronavirus pandemic : Covid-19 LIVE UPDATES

12 min readNov 22, 2020

Sen. David Perdue campaign spokesperson Casey Black says the Georgia senator will remain at home until Sen. Kelly Loeffler receives confirmation of her test results.

What is this about: As CNN reported Saturday, Loeffler’s campaign confirmed that the Georgia Republican tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday but a subsequent test came back as inconclusive on Saturday evening.

Loeffler was maskless with Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Perdue during campaign events most of the day Friday. The trio rode on a bus from the airport to two campaign events for Georgia senate seat runoff elections.

Here’s how US medical experts are celebrating Thanksgiving this year
As Americans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving next week, some doctors shared what they’re planning for the holiday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR’s Rachel Martin on Morning Edition Tuesday that his Thanksgiving will be “significantly” different this year than previous holidays.

His three adult daughters — who live in separate parts of the country — said that they did not want to put him, as an elderly person, at risk. Fauci is 79 years old.

He and his wife will have a meal and Zoom with his daughters to spend time with them.

“I don’t like it that way, but I think they’re making a prudent decision in trying to protect their father and I’m proud of them for that,” he said.

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta also said he won’t be visiting family this year. “I have three daughters, and with my elderly parents living in a different state, this is usually the time of year when we get to see each other,” he wrote in an article explaining why he’s staying home. “But this holiday season, our interactions will be on screens — with promises and hopes that next year will be different.”

And CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen — who has urged Americans to skip indoor gatherings, but said it’s possible to visit family by socializing outdoors — described how she has hosted outdoor get-togethers.

“I like to have a big table in the middle, where I put all the drinks and plates,” she said. “I also have chairs set up so that every household is spaced at least 6 feet apart. I’ll pour drinks and then have people come up, individually, to pick them up. Food should be plated separately; no buffets or people reaching into a common bowl. We won’t share food or drinks.”

White House vaccine czar says political pressure had nothing to do with Operation Warp Speed timeline

The expedited timeline of Operation Warp Speed has had nothing to do with political pressure, its chief scientific officer, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union on Sunday.

“One hundred percent,” Slaoui told Tapper when asked if the timeline was due to health reasons, not because of pressure from any politician. “The operation has operated on full speed, based on science, focusing on patients and people’s need. No political interference, no bureaucracy, no red tape.”

He continued to tell Tapper it’s been “an incredible visionary approach to put together science and the Department of Defense and industry in incredible partnership, frankly it’s been, it’s been exceptional.”

More than 1 million Americans traveled by air on Friday ahead of Thanksgiving

Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, more than 1 million passengers traveled through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at US airports on Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

This is only the second time during the pandemic that the US saw that high passenger volume. The TSA topped 1 million passenger screenings at the end of the long Columbus Day weekend.

Here’s a look at the numbers this weekend:

On Friday, 1,019,836 passengers went through TSA checkpoints across the US.
On Saturday, 984,369 passengers went through TSA checkpoints across the US. That’s the third most passengers since the beginning of the pandemic.
March 16 was the last day going into the pandemic that the US routinely had 1 million passenger days, according to the TSA. On March 16, 1,257,823 passengers traveled through TSA checkpoints. The following day, March 17, that number dropped below a million passengers with 953,699 passengers.

Here’s the White House vaccine czar’s message to Americans concerned about getting a vaccine

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of the White House’s coronavirus vaccine effort, said he hopes that the high efficacy rates of the vaccine candidates will encourage those who may we have concerns about vaccines to get one.

“I think people have misunderstood the level of efficacy that the FDA aimed for, which was to say, at least 50% efficacy. Maybe people thought that was the efficacy of the vaccine,” he told CNN this morning. “It’s 95%. It’s almost a full insurance against this pandemic. I think and I hope that’s gonna change people’s perception.”

He added that it’s “very unfortunate” that the vaccine development process has become political.

“I really think it’s very unfortunate that the whole process has been politicized and, therefore, the context has created conditions whereby people’s perception has been exacerbated and we are where we are today,” he said.

He added that the vaccines are safe for Americans. Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the White House vaccine czar, told CNN’s Jake Tapper today that he expects children will be able to receive the coronavirus vaccine some time in the middle of next year.

Slaoui, who is the head of the US government’s efforts to develop a vaccine, said at this point the lowest age that children have received a vaccine during the trials has been 12- to 14-year-olds in the Pfizer trials.

“I don’t know whether the FDA will approve the vaccine for use down to that age. Maybe they will stop at 18 years of age and above,” he said.

Slaoui said that the government is planning to run clinical trials into younger adolescents, and then toddlers and infants on “an expedited basis” in the coming months.

He said that he expects by May 2021 that “ toddlers, 4, 5 years old and down to 12 months old” could receive a vaccines, adding that first, “we need to run those clinical trials on an expedited basis.”

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of the government’s effort to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, said the first Americans to receive a coronavirus vaccine could get it as soon as Dec. 11.

On Friday, Pfizer submitted an application to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for their Covid-19 vaccine candidate, and an FDA vaccine advisory committee is slated to meet December 10.

Slaoui said that means, if approved, the vaccine could be rolled out the next day. “Our plan is to be able to ship vaccines to the immunization sites within 24 hours from the approval, so I expect maybe on day two after approval on the 11th or the 12th of December,” he told CNN Sunday morning.

Remember: Experts have said that initially there won’t be enough vaccine for everyone. The highest-priority groups, which include health care workers, the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, will get the vaccine first.

The Canadian province of Ontario reported 1,588 new coronavirus cases Saturday, according to government statistics, which CNN affiliate refers to as the “highest seen in the pandemic so far.”

The province also reported 21 virus-related deaths on Saturday.

Across Ontario, 513 coronavirus patients are now hospitalized, including 146 in the intensive care units and 87 on ventilators.

The surge in cases comes as the country’s biggest city Toronto is set to go into a lockdown on Monday to limit the spread of Covid-19.

The lockdown will last for at least 28 days and it includes Peel Region, which is part of the Greater Toronto Area.

“We cannot afford a province-wide lockdown, so we are taking preventative action today by moving Toronto and Peel into Lockdown level restrictions and other regions into higher levels of restrictions,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Friday.

These are the lockdown rules:

Indoor social gatherings or events won’t be allowed except with members of the same household, and outdoor gatherings will be limited to no more than 10 people, according to the release.
Wedding services, funerals, and religious ceremonies where physical distancing can be maintained indoors or outdoors will also be limited to no more than 10 people.
Retail will be allowed to operate for curbside pick-up or delivery only. Certain businesses such as grocery stores and pharmacies will be allowed to open at 50% capacity.
Schools and childcare will remain open, and post-secondary education will move to virtual learning except for training that can only be provided in person.
Other parts of the province will move to higher levels of restrictions starting Monday as well, according to the release.

Members of the Texas National Guard have been mobilized to El Paso County, Texas, to help with the morgue crisis as the state battles a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.

A team of 36 National Guard troops has been deployed to “provide mortuary affairs support,” according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM).

The team was mobilized Saturday morning “after completing an assessment of the situation on the ground in El Paso County this week,” TDEM spokesman Seth Christensen said.

“As we’ve seen a rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations, we are unfortunately also seeing a spike in deaths. We have been working closely with funeral homes and mortuaries to assist with increased capacity and coordination of resources,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said in a statement on Twitter.
“The Texas Military will provide us with the critical personnel to carry out our fatality management plan and we are very grateful to them for their ongoing support.”

The US Food and Drug Administration on Saturday issued an emergency use authorization for Regeneron’s antibody cocktail to treat Covid-19 in high-risk patients with mild to moderate disease.

President Donald Trump received the therapy, called REGEN-COV2, when he was hospitalized for coronavirus. The treatment has to be infused into the bloodstream and is meant to mimic an immune response to infection.

The cocktail reduced Covid-19-related hospitalizations and emergency room visits in some patients within 28 days of treatment, the FDA said in a news release.

Regeneron’s chief executive officer, Dr. Leonard S. Schleifer, said in a statement that demand may initially exceed supply, “making it even more critical that federal and state governments ensure REGEN-COV2 is distributed fairly and equitably to the patients most in need.”

Some context: An emergency use authorization (EUA) is a lower regulatory bar than full approval by the FDA. An EUA allows products to be used under particular circumstances before all the evidence is available for approval.

When used to treat Covid-19 for the authorized population, the known and potential benefits of these antibodies outweigh the known and potential risks,” the FDA said.

Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler has tested positive for Covid-19, her campaign announced.

Loeffler tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday, but a subsequent test came back as inconclusive on Saturday evening, according to campaign spokesperson Stephen Lawson.

Loeffler was maskless with Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. David Perdue during campaign events most of the day Friday. The trio rode on a bus from the airport to two campaign events for Georgia Senate seat runoff elections in January.

“Senator Loeffler took two Covid tests on Friday morning. Her rapid test results were negative and she was cleared to attend Friday’s events. She was informed later in the evening, after public events on Friday, that her PCR test came back positive, but she was retested Saturday morning after conferring with medical officials and those results came back inconclusive on Saturday evening,” Lawson said in a statement.

“She has no symptoms and she will continue to follow CDC guidelines by quarantining until retesting is conclusive and an update will be provided at that time,” Lawson said.

The campaign official added that Loeffler is notifying those with whom she had direct contact with while she awaits further tests.

Mississippi reports highest single-day surge of Covid-19 cases

Mississippi reported 1,972 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, the highest single-day jump in infections since the pandemic began.

The previous peak of 1,775 cases was recorded on July 30, according to Mississippi State Department of Health Communications Director Liz Sharlot.

The state also saw 15 virus-deaths Saturday, bringing its death toll to 3,657. It has reported a total of 142,401 coronavirus cases so far, according to the health department.

Currently, there are 897 coronavirus patients hospitalized in the state, including 223 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), according to the department.

Hong Kong reports highest daily increase in new coronavirus cases in 3 months

Hong Kong recorded 43 new coronavirus cases on Saturday — the biggest daily jump in more than three months, according to a statement from the city’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP).

Of the newly reported cases, 36 were locally transmitted, the statement said.

“Given that the situation of Covid-19 infection remains severe, and that there is a continuous increase in the number of cases reported around the world, members of the public are strongly urged to avoid all non-essential travel outside Hong Kong,” the CHP spokesperson was quoted saying in the statement.

The CHP also called on members of the public to avoid going out, having social contact and dining out.

The announcement of the new cases comes after Hong Kong postponed a much-hyped “travel bubble” with Singapore due to a rise in coronavirus cases in the city.

Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development, announced the two-week delay during a press conference on Saturday.

“We had planned to launch the HK-Singapore travel bubble tomorrow,” Yau said. “But in the light of the recent upsurge of local cases, we have decided together with Singapore government that we would defer the launching of the air travel bubble by two weeks.”

California reports record number of new coronavirus cases for the second day in a row
From CNN’s Hollie Silverman and Cheri Mossburg

The California Department of Public Health announced 15,442 new Covid-19 cases in a press release Saturday.

This marks a record high in newly reported cases in the state, shattering Friday’s highest case count of 13,005. The previous high was reported in July with 12,807 new cases.

There have now been a total of 1,087,714 confirmed cases in California, the release said.

The seven-day positivity rate is 6.1% and the 14-day positivity rate is 5.4%, according to the release.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged world leaders to allocate coronavirus vaccines fairly today during a virtual G20 summit.

Tedros said there is a need for an immediate investment of $4.5 billion for vaccines.

The Group of 20, or G20, summit is a gathering of world leaders to discuss international issues.

Tedros noted that the G20 — which represents two-thirds of the world’s population and 80% of the global economy — will play a vital role in not only ending the coronavirus pandemic, but preventing future pandemics.

“To prevent future outbreaks and their impact on lives, livelihoods and economies, all countries must invest in preparedness and universal health coverage,” he said.

There have been at least 12,019,960 cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The US has added about 2 million new coronavirus cases in the past 12 days.

Johns Hopkins recorded the first case of coronavirus in the United States on January 21. After that …

98 days later, on April 28, the US hit 1 million cases
44 days later, on June 11, the US hit 2 million cases
27 days later, on July 8, the US hit 3 million cases
15 days later, on July 23, the US hit 4 million cases
17 days later, on August 9, the US hit 5 million cases
22 days later, on August 31, the US hit 6 million cases
25 days later, on September 25, the US hit 7 million cases
21 days later on October 16, the US hit 8 million cases
14 days later, on October 30, the US hit 9 million cases
10 days later, on November 9, the US hit 10 million cases
6 days later, on November 15, the US hit 11 million cases
6 days later on November 21, the US hit 12 million cases
At least 255,414 people have died in the United States from coronavirus since the pandemic began.

The latest on the coronavirus pandemic : Covid-19 LIVE UPDATES

Written by Week 12