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

December 3, 2020December 3, 2020 WKXA

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, 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.