December 1 coronavirus news

Just one day after Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont expressed cautious hope that the state’s Covid-19 positivity rate might be declining, new data released by the state instead showed that Connecticut’s daily positivity rate jumped to 5.88% on Tuesday. 

The state previously reported a positivity rate of 4.4% on Monday and had averaged a rate of 4.7% over the previous week, state data shows.

Rising cases in the state brought Connecticut’s overall case count to 118,754, with 1,459 new cases reported on Tuesday. With an additional 20 deaths announced Tuesday, the state has now lost 5,040 residents to Covid-19. 

Hospitalizations also continue to rise in Connecticut, with an additional 54 people admitted on Tuesday, with 1,152 people hospitalized overall, new data from the state shows.

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

December started out strong with a stock market rally. 

Wall Street finished higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both logging fresh all-time highs, surpassing their records from last week. 

Investors are optimistic that there will be additional government stimulus before the end of the year, and are hopeful that the near-term distribution of a vaccine will help the economic recovery.

Here's how things closed on Tuesday:

Oklahoma is nearing 200,000 total Covid-19 cases, according to state data.

The state is reporting at least 199,492 cases of Covid-19, up 1,737 from Monday's report. There are also 15 new deaths being reported today, bringing the total to 1,758.

The Oklahoma State Department of Health shows that at least 1,718 patients are currently hospitalized with the virus. The dashboard shows that the state currently has 57 ICU beds available. 

Note: These numbers were released by the state's public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Michigan recorded 10,428 new Covid-19 cases and 98 new deaths Sunday and Monday, according to the state Covid-19 dashboard. 

The average number of new confirmed cases was 5,214 per day, according to the dashboard.

The positivity rate is now 13% across the state, down from 14% on November 16, Michigan Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said at a press conference Tuesday. 

It is too soon, however, to determine whether the statewide "pause" will be extended next week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at the press conference. 

Whitmer said state officials are bracing for a holiday-related surge in cases, despite the first two weeks of the three-week limited shut down showing positive results.

Note: These numbers were released by the state’s health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and our Covid tracker.

The US Food and Drug Administration will look closely at vaccine clinical trial data to understand how coronavirus vaccines will work for various subsets of the population, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said Tuesday.

“It’s not as easy as saying the top line results are X percent effective and X percent side effects,” said Hahn. “Let's look at these groups, let's look at side effects and let's look at efficacy in each of these groups.”

“When we go through the 44,000 patient data lines that are in these clinical trials, we have to ask those questions. We have to examine it and crunch the data, looking at subsets of patients,” he added. 

If a vaccine does not appear to work for a certain portion of the population, the FDA will say so, Hahn said. 

Hahn said the FDA will be looking at the data to understand how these vaccines work for pregnant women, children, those with existing health conditions and people from minority communities. 

“We did not require a pregnancy test for entry into the clinical trials, which means that you know when we look at the data there are likely going to be women of childbearing age who have gotten pregnant,” Hahn said. “Will that be enough data for us to have confidence in say, pregnant women should be vaccinated? I think that's something that we'll have to take a look at. I think it's unlikely, but we need to look at the data.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Tuesday that a second wave of the virus was compromising Canada’s economic recovery and pledged more than $77 billion more in stimulus. 

The program will prioritize young families and other impacted communities. Trudeau added that the historic stimulus will be equal to more than 3% of GDP.

Canada’s average weekly test positivity rate has soared to more than 7% on average in the last week of November according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. 

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Tuesday, Trudeau said that given the current spike in cases in Canada and worldwide, he would continue to ban most non-essential travel to Canada, including maintaining a partial border closure with the US. 

“Until the virus is significantly more under control everywhere around the world, we’re not going to be releasing the restrictions at the border,” Trudeau told the CBC. 

Note: These numbers were released by Canada's public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Wisconsin reported a daily record number of deaths on Tuesday, as the state continues to see a high rate of hospitalizations due to Covid-19, health officials said.

At least 107 deaths from Covid-19 were reported Tuesday — the second time the state has reported more than 100 new fatalities. There are now 3,420 total deaths statewide, the state's dashboard shows. 

Hospitals across the state are reporting "current and imminent critical staffing shortages," Department of Health Secretary-designee Andrea Palm said during a news conference today. The state dashboard currently shows that 15% of the state's staffed hospital beds are available.  

As CNN reported on Monday, nearly one in four people hospitalized in Wisconsin due to Covid-19 are in the intensive care. Gov. Tony Evers said today that more than 1,800 people are currently hospitalized due to the virus. 

Wisconsin reported 4,078 new cases Tuesday, bringing the state's total to 391,313.  

"As we continue to move through the holiday season and winter months, we must be as vigilant as ever," Evers said as he encouraged Wisconsinites to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Note: These numbers were released by the state's public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Although federal officials expect to have 40 million doses of coronavirus vaccine available by the end of December, those doses will not all be available at once, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisers were told Tuesday.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is meeting to vote on who should be the first to get any vaccines that win emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration. ACIP is expected to designate health care workers in the first group.

One consideration: All 40 million doses would not be available right away, the CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver told the meeting.

Oliver said the CDC expects between 5 million and 10 million doses will become available each week for the first few months as vaccine makers ramp up manufacturing.

That means ACIP may need to designate sub-groups to receive priority for vaccination, she said. 

Two companies – Pfizer and Moderna – have applied for EUA from the FDA for coronavirus vaccines.

Sen. John Cornyn, a member of GOP leadership, tells reporters that he met last night with the bipartisan Covid-19 relief group.

The group remains at an impasse over how to structure liability protections and Cornyn went over to help them talk through some ideas last night. Cornyn said he wasn’t ready to sign off on their proposal so far, but “I think it has some merit.”

Asked if this sent a message to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Democrats are willing to go much smaller than $2 trillion, Cornyn said, “I think it helps to show where some of the votes are.” 

He also added that Pelosi has a narrow path to victory as speaker.