The United States prepared to roll out a coronavirus vaccine within days as the country’s daily death toll surpassed 3,000 on Wednesday, a grim milestone in the hard-hit country.
The U.S. has seen more than 15.3 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with more than 289,000 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracking tool.
Health-care professionals and support staff, exhausted by the demands of the pandemic, have been watching patients die alone as millions of Americans refuse to follow medical advice to wear masks and avoid crowds in order to curb the spread of the virus.
As a potential help in reining in the outbreak, a vaccine could start reaching health-care workers, first responders and nursing home residents as soon as Sunday, though more likely early next week, according to Trump administration officials.
U.S. Army Gen. Gustave Perna, the chief operating officer of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program, said all the vaccine doses remained in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies.
“But we’ve worked many rehearsals and planning cycles … and that’s why I’m confident that as soon as EUA (emergency use authorization) comes aboard, we’ll start packing to the final destinations and distribution will begin within 24 hours,” Perna said.
A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide on Thursday whether to recommend a vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
FDA consent could come as early as Friday or Saturday, followed by the first U.S. injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, told Fox News.
WATCH LIVE | U.S. panel discusses Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine:
The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel is meeting to discuss the data behind the new vaccine. 0:00
A second vaccine developed by Moderna is a week behind. Widespread inoculations, however, could take months.
In the meantime, intensive care units at hundreds of hospitals across the country were at or near capacity, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed.
Ten mostly rural counties in California reported having no ICU beds on Wednesday, according to state health figures analyzed by Reuters.
What’s happening across Canada
As of 11:10 a.m. ET on Thursday, Canada’s COVID-19 case count stood at 439,155, with 73,071 of those cases considered active. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 13,051.
In Ontario, health officials reported 1,983 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, with more than 1,000 of those cases in hard-hit Toronto and Peel Region. Health Minister Christine Elliott said in a tweet that the province had completed more than 61,800 tests.
Ontario is reporting 1,983 cases of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> and over 61,800 tests completed. Locally, there are 515 new cases in Peel, 496 in Toronto and 208 in York Region. There are 1,804 more resolved cases.<br> <br>Today’s numbers will be available at 10:30 a.m. at <a href=”https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn”>https://t.co/ypmgZbVRvn</a>.
The province also reported 35 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 3,871.
Hospitalizations increased yet again on Thursday, with 829 COVID-19 patients in hospital. Of those, 228 were in intensive care units, according to a provincial health dashboard.
Quebec on Thursday reported 1,842 new cases of COVID-19 and 33 additional deaths, bringing the death toll in the province to 7,382.
Quebec has been forced to postpone surgeries again to make room for the rising wave of COVID-19 patients. With a lingering backlog from the first wave, doctors fear delaying even non-essential procedures comes with real risks. 1:29
In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia reported six new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, while New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador each reported one new case.
There were no new cases reported in Prince Edward Island.
Across the North, there were nine new cases of COVID-19 reported in Nunavut on Wednesday, all of them in Arviat. Health officials said there were 48 active cases in the small community on the western shore of Hudson Bay.
There were no new cases reported in Yukon or the Northwest Territories. But the government of N.W.T. said it has found COVID-19 in wastewater in Yellowknife.
Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola said this means there is likely an undetected case of COVID-19 in the capital. The virus was detected through a wastewater monitoring program, which analyzed samples taken between Nov. 30 and Dec. 2.
As a result, the government asked anyone self-isolating in Yellowknife since Nov. 30 to get a COVID-19 test, even if they don’t have symptoms. Essential workers who have been in Yellowknife since Nov. 30 should also get a test.
WATCH | Can you choose which COVID-19 vaccine to get?
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Susy Hota answers viewer questions about the COVID-19 vaccine including whether people will be able to choose which vaccine they get and whether they can be mixed and matched. 4:21
In British Columbia, health officials reported 619 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 16 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 559. The province reported 338 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, including 75 in intensive care.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Wednesday that the upcoming vaccination rollout will be the “most complex and comprehensive immunization program ever delivered in B.C.”
Vaccines will save lives and ease the “immense pressure” on the province’s health-care system, she said.
Alberta reported 1,460 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 13 additional deaths, which brings the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in the province to 653. The province reported having 685 COVID-19 patients in hospital, including 121 people in intensive care units.
The province imposed tough new restrictions earlier this week, including a mask mandate and a ban on social gatherings, in a bid to get control on rising case numbers.
In Saskatchewan, health officials reported 302 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and five additional deaths, bringing the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in the province to 71.
Manitoba health officials reported 280 new cases of COVID-19 and 18 additional deaths on Wednesday. The province — which has now seen 438 deaths since the pandemic began — reported having 300 patients in hospital with COVID-19, including 38 in intensive care.
What’s happening around the world
From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 12:20 p.m. ET
WATCH | U.S. dry ice maker gears up for COVID-19 vaccine arrival:
The CBC’s Susan Ormiston visits Roberts Oxygen, a U.S. company that specializes in products like dry ice, as the country prepares to receive coronavirus vaccines that need special handling. 1:16
As of early Thursday afternoon, more than 69.1 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported around the world, with more than 44.5 million of those cases considered resolved or recovered, according to Johns Hopkins. The global death toll stood at more than 1.5 million.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday pledged an additional $250 million US to support the development of low-cost and easier to deliver treatments and vaccines against COVID-19.
The Gates Foundation’s latest contribution, its largest to date, comes on top of the $70 million in funding that it added in November. This brings its total commitments to the global pandemic response to $1.75 billion, the foundation said. The contribution will also support the delivery of tests and vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.
South Africa’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says the country is seeing a dramatic rise in coronavirus cases. The country, the hardest hit in Africa, recorded 6,700 new cases on Wednesday, the country’s highest number since August.
Mkhize warned that South Africa is in a second wave that could overwhelm hospital capacities in some regions.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said South Africa’s spike in infections highlights that a second surge in cases is beginning on the continent of 1.3 billion people.
He urged the United Nations to summon a special session to discuss the ethical, fair distribution of vaccines — calling it a “moral issue” — to avoid “this North-South distrust in respect to vaccines, which is a common good.”
In the Asia-Pacific region, the governor of South Korea’s most populous province called for mass testing for coronavirus.
An employee disinfects subway train handles as a precaution against the coronavirus at a subway station in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday. (Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press)
South Korean officials were scrambling to build hospital beds in shipping containers to ease strains on medical facilities stretched by the latest coronavirus wave.
Meanwhile, the number of new coronavirus infections in Japan’s capital topped 600 in a day for the first time. Experts on Tokyo’s virus task force said the surge in infections has placed an added burden on hospitals, making it difficult for many of them to carry out treatment for ordinary patients.
Tokyo reported 602 new cases Thursday, while the daily tally for the entire nation was 2,810. Japan has reported 168,573 infections since the pandemic began, with 2,465 deaths.
In Europe, Italy reported 887 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday, a steep rise from 499 the day before, the Health Ministry said. The first Western country hit by the virus, Italy has seen 62,626 COVID-19 fatalities since its outbreak emerged in February, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain.
England’s COVID test and trace system is making a £500 pound (roughly $845 Cdn) support payment available for people who self-isolate after receiving a notification via its app, it said on Thursday.
The money was already available for people told to self-isolate by contact tracers via phone, email or test message, but not previously through the app due to its anonymous nature. Any individual who receives a self-isolation alert in the app is now able to register their details to receive the payment, the service said.
WATCH | U.K. warns those with severe allergies to avoid COVID-19 vaccine for now:
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine caused an allergic reaction in two health-care workers in the U.K. prompting warnings from health officials there for people with severe allergies to hold off taking the vaccine. 3:23
Germany has reported its highest one-day total of new coronavirus cases, while the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 has climbed above 20,000.
The national disease control centre, the Robert Koch Institute, said Thursday that 23,679 new cases were confirmed over the previous 24 hours. That’s just above the previous record of 23,648 from Nov. 20.
A partial shutdown that started Nov. 2 has succeeded in keeping the surge from picking up speed, but the number of daily new cases has remained around the same high level in recent weeks rather than falling. Momentum is building for a harder lockdown over Christmas and New Year’s, and some regions already are introducing new restrictions.
That’s partly because deaths, which have been relatively low in Germany compared with several other European countries, have increased markedly. Another 440 deaths were reported on Thursday, following a single-day record of 590 on Wednesday. That brought the total so far to 20,372. Germany has reported some 1.24 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.
In the Americas, Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa decided on Thursday to allow temporary emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines and set rules for companies to apply for the option that did not exist in the country now facing the world’s third worst coronavirus outbreak.
The decision will potentially allow emergency use of vaccines that are being tested in Brazil by AstraZeneca, Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen and China’s Sinovac Biotech.
Mexico on Wednesday signed an agreement to buy 35 million doses of Chinese firm Cansino Biologics’ COVID-19 vaccine.
In the U.S., the usually stoic health director of Los Angeles County became emotional while describing “a devastating increase in deaths,” with the total hitting 8,075. Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday that this week the county recorded an average of 43 daily deaths — up from about 12 a day in mid-November.
Test specialist Lester Gopar works at a COVID-19 testing site in Los Angeles on Dec. 9. Most of California entered a new lockdown this week in an effort to curb spiralling coronavirus infections and hospitalizations. (Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press)
Ferrer fought back tears as she called the deaths “an incalculable loss to their friends and their family and the community.”
Hospitals in Los Angeles are dealing with a surge in COVID-19 patients, with new admissions running near 500 a day. Officials anticipate that number will increase to 700 a day by next week.
In the Middle East, Israel received its first shipment of coronavirus vaccines on Wednesday and a distributor predicted the country would have enough for about a quarter of the population by the end of the year.
Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, said it will resume economic, tourist and entertainment activity within two weeks, while Oman said it will exempt nationals of 103 counties from needing an entry visa for a stay of up to 10 days.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
