December 1 coronavirus news

Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, told NBC’s Lester Holt Monday that they are “quite optimistic” when it comes to authorization of their Covid-19 vaccine candidate.

The US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) is scheduled to meet on Dec. 17 to review Moderna’s application for emergency use authorization.

The FDA also has a meeting scheduled Dec. 10 to discuss Pfizer’s application for emergency use authorization for it's Covid-19 candidate.

Once authorized, Hoge said that Moderna would be ready to ship its vaccine quickly.

Like others, he said, Moderna has partnered with Gen. Gus Perna and Operation Warp Speed: “I’ve been told they want trucks rolling within hours, if not a day.”

“So, what we’ve done is we’ve been helping to position the vaccine in the warehouses where they can access it immediately if it’s approved and start distribution,” Hoge said.

When asked by Holt if there was a plan B if the vaccine isn’t approved, Hoge said, “There hasn’t been much of a plan B since about February, you know. We’re all in on this. We hope this vaccine works.”

He added that they are confident in the data, and if FDA comes back with any questions, they will do everything they can do answer them.

During a teleconference call Tuesday, New Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced 7,285 new Covid-19 cases in New York State, with 66 deaths.

The statewide positivity rate excluding “micro-cluster” areas stands at 4.46%. The positivity rate within New York’s “micro-clusters” is 6.27%, he said.

The total hospitalizations are at 3,774. 

Note: These numbers were released by New York Governor’s office and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

Arizona reported 10,322 new Covid-19 cases today, according to the state’s data dashboard. However, the state's health department said "this large number of newly reported cases is a result of the extended four-day weekend.” 

Remember: As CNN has been warning, many states posted much lower than usual cases/deaths on Thanksgiving, and it has taken them a few days to catalog and report the lag, which is why Arizona’s number is so high. 

Prior to today, the highest single day of new cases in the state was more than 4,800 set on July 1.

Regardless of the holiday delays, Arizona has been experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases in the last few weeks with daily case counts regularly topping 3,000 new Covid-19 cases. 

Arizona has reported a total of 337,139 cases of Covid-19 and 6,687 reported deaths to the disease since the pandemic began.

Note: Some of these numbers were released by the Arizona Department of Health Services and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN's database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Sens. Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, Mark Warner, Bill Cassidy, Jeanne Shaheen, Lisa Murkowski, Angus King, Mitt Romney and Maggie Hassan announced what they called a bipartisan and bicameral Covid-19 emergency relief framework aimed at helping Americans affected by the pandemic. 

Manchin called the $908 billion dollar “framework” relief that would go through April 1 “a labor of intense effort” that came together in about 30 days.  

Warner also said he hopes they pass something before Christmas. 

“It’s not going make everybody happy but there's been an enormous amount of work done,” Warner said. “It would be stupidity on steroids if Congress left for Christmas without doing an interim package as a bridge." 

Romney said the group has spoken with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about the framework but he hasn’t weighed in. He also said they’ve spoken to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well. 

“I happened to be a deficit hawk, I don’t like borrowing money, I don’t like spending money we don’t have,” Romney said, but he supports this proposal because $560 billion dollars is money repurposed from the CARES Act so the amount of new money is actually $348 billion dollars.

When asked when there will be a bill, Manchin said the group can put one together. 

“We can put one together,” Manchin said. “We have not had assurances .. for a vote, but I think the American people will put the pressure showing there’s a group of us coming together that this needs to be done.” 

Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Dean Phillips, Dusty Johnson, Tom Reed, Josh Gottheimer, Anthony Gonzalez and Fred Upton of the Problem Solvers Caucus were present as well. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated his call for Congress to pass further coronavirus relief before the end of the year and slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pushing a more expensive and comprehensive proposal than Republicans will agree to.

"Let's hope our Democratic colleagues will finally let us make law in all the enormously important areas where we do not even disagree," he said on the Senate floor Tuesday morning.

Moments before McConnell's speech, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters on Capitol Hill that he will speak to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time this month.

There have been at least 13,554,038 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 268,434 people have died since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

So far today, Johns Hopkins has reported 12,817 new cases and 389 reported deaths.

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

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters while entering a hearing this morning on the CARES Act that he is speaking to Nancy Pelosi this afternoon.

Mnuchin said they're "going to talk about where we are with the appropriations issue, keep the government running, that is the first priority."

On what the White House wants for funding, Mnuchin said, "We would like to see funding, especially for small businesses."

Pelosi and Mnuchin are speaking at 1 p.m. ET by phone today, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN. 

While vaccine authorization is expected “pretty soon,” the coronavirus vaccination program itself may not go completely smoothly, according to Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Frieden said that when millions of people are vaccinated, some people feel sick after vaccination, “and you don’t know whether that was the vaccine, or that was just coincidence.”

He said that this has to be studied carefully “or you’re going to get all sorts of wilds rumors flying around, that’s another place where you really need transparency — this is how many cases of severe adverse effects we may have or may expect, is it higher? Is it related?”   

There could also be production problems, or people who don’t want the vaccine, even if it’s available to them, he added.

“This is probably, George, the single most complicated vaccination program in American history, and I would expect that there are going to be some bumps in the road,” Frieden said.

As the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepares to hold an emergency meeting today to vote on who will get a Covid-19 vaccine first, the US continues to report record-high hospitalizations, and experts worry about hospital capacity as cases surge.

Hospitalizations more than doubled since the beginning of November, and the US saw more Covid-19 deaths last month than the pandemic's combined death toll in Australia, Canada, China, Japan and Germany, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Here's a look at the latest figures in the US:

And the numbers will likely get much worse before a possible vaccine begins to offer some relief in the spring.

Experts say the daily death toll will double in the coming days, while infections will likely see another surge in a few weeks, fueled by Thanksgiving travel and gatherings.