By Julia Hollingsworth, Brett McKeehan, Nada Bashir, Eoin McSweeney, Hannah Strange and Meg Wagner, CNN
From CNN Health's Ben Tinker & Jacqueline Howard
The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized Pfizer and BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.
A Pfizer spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Friday that an EUA had been granted, following the recommendation of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
On Thursday, 17 committee members voted to recommend the FDA issue an EUA for the vaccine. Four voted no and one abstained.
From CNN's Pete Muntean and Greg Wallace
The US Federal Aviation Administration is urging airports nationwide to be ready for flights carrying the coronavirus vaccine even if the airport is not scheduled to receive it.
The agency told airports “to ensure they are fully prepared for aircraft carrying Covid-19 vaccines.”
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson directed airports to ensure delivery trucks have priority access to the airfield, and that adequate security is in place for vaccine shipments.
“This includes both those airports identified for shipments that will transition at airports as well as those that may serve as alternate/divert airports, even if they will not be a primary destination for aircraft carrying Covid-19 vaccines,” the FAA said in a statement.
On Thursday, the FAA told CNN it would direct air traffic controllers to give priority clearance to flights carrying the vaccine. The agency said the flights will be monitored from its command center in Warrenton, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
From CNN Health’s Deidre McPhillips
Newly released data from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shows more than 85% of hospitals nationwide had more patients with Covid-19 last week than they did a month ago.
Overall, about 1 in 5 hospital inpatients were confirmed to have Covid-19 last week – nearly double from a month earlier.
Among America’s 10 largest cities, the share of hospital patients with Covid-19 ranged from about 9% in New York to 23% in Chicago.
They are: New York, 9%; Los Angeles, 16%; Chicago, 23%; Houston, 11%; Phoenix, 22%; Philadelphia, 22%; San Antonio, 16%; San Diego, 16%; Dallas, 20%; San Jose, 19%.
But in smaller cities the situation can be even worse. In El Paso, Texas, for example, more than 50% of patients in city hospitals were confirmed to have Covid-19 – nearly double the national average for the seven-day period between November 27 and December 3.
HHS had previously reported Covid-19 hospitalization data at the state level, but this dataset – released Monday – is the first from the national government to report local, facility-level data.
From CNN’s Haley Brink
The United States reported 108,044 Covid-19 hospitalizations on Friday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).
This is the tenth consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 hospitalizations.
According to CTP data, the highest hospitalization numbers are...
From CNN's Nikki Carvajal
President Trump has signed a one-week stopgap funding bill by voice vote to avert a government shutdown at midnight.
The bill was passed by the Senate earlier Friday.
Some background: The short-term spending bill would extend government funding by a week to Dec. 18 and is aimed at giving lawmakers more time to reach an agreement on Covid relief and broader funding legislation for a new fiscal year. It passed the House earlier this week.
So far, however, stimulus talks remain at an impasse over critical sticking points, creating uncertainty over whether an agreement can be reached.
Lawmakers now have just one additional week to work out thorny issues that are currently holding up an agreement or potentially witness the collapse of the talks.
From CNN's Jon Passantino
Los Angeles County has recorded a record number of new Covid-19 cases for a second straight day, raising the total number of residents in the nation's most populous county who have tested positive to more than a half-million, in what health officials called "uncharted territory."
"We're on a very dangerous track to see unprecedented and catastrophic suffering and death here in L.A. County if we can't stop the surge," Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 13,815 new cases of Covid-19 Friday, raising the countywide total to 501,635 cases. Another 50 deaths linked to complications from the coronavirus were also reported, for a total of 8,199 fatalities.
"These numbers are overwhelming," Ferrer said. "We have doubled the number of new cases in about 10 days."
Los Angeles County reported 12,819 cases Thursday, the previous record high in a dramatic surge of new infections sending a rising number of new patients to hospitals.
Ferrer warned the unprecedented number of new cases in Los Angeles County is putting "extraordinary stress" on the health care system, and pleaded with the public to "stay home as much as possible.
Covid-19 restrictions: L.A. County's 10 million residents are under a nightly curfew and Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order after the region's intensive care unit capacity plunged below 15% and continues to quickly dwindle.
In Southern California, just 6.2% ICU capacity remained Friday. The dire situation comes just days before the county expects to receive an initial shipment of 82,875 doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine early next week.
"I want to sound an alarm that we've been sounding for the last month," Ferrer said. "In L.A. County we're in uncharted territory at this point. We're seeing daily numbers of cases and hospitalizations that we have not experienced and frankly did not anticipate."
From CNN's Shelby Lin Erdman
Operation Warp Speed Chief Adviser Moncef Slaoui is urging Americans to keep an “open mind” about the upcoming coronavirus vaccine.
Slaoui said he is aware some Americans are worried about getting a new vaccine.
“I would say two words: keep an open mind and transparency,” Slaoui told CNN. “The ask from people is please keep an open mind. The ask from us, from the FDA, from all those involved is 100% transparency of the data of everything, every single thing that we look into."
As the government and Pfizer prepare to roll out a Covid-19 vaccine, there is concern about vaccine hesitancy among some Americans, including minority communities.
Slaoui emphasized that the experts reviewing the data on the Pfizer vaccine have concluded that the shot has “exceptional efficacy” and an “excellent safety profile that is comparable to many approved vaccines.”
More context: In terms of getting a stronger message out to hesitant Americans, Slaoui said experts had been unable to talk about the specifics of the data before the information was public.
“Now that that is the case, we have to go out there and engage with all of the leadership at all levels in our communities to help explain the features of the vaccine, its performance, and hopefully engage with people and convince them," Slaoui said. “Frankly, we couldn't do it effectively before because we couldn't be very specific.”
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant an emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine within days.
Watch:
From CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen
Pfizer and the US Food and Drug Administration are “negotiating” what information should be on the label for the company’s coronavirus vaccine, considering two people in the UK had adverse reactions to the shots this week, according to the acting chairman of an FDA vaccine advisory committee.
“They’re going back and forth about what wording should be on the label – that’s what’s happening right now,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, acting chairman of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which voted Thursday to recommend authorization of the vaccine.
Monto also said the FDA and Pfizer are negotiating whether there should be special information on the label about 16 and 17 year olds, since relatively few people that age were included in Pfizer’s clinical trials.
“I think they’re going to issue the authorization down to age 16 – that’s pretty clear – but I don’t know if they’re going to require that the label say that the data for people that age is not as extensive,” said Monto, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
He said these and other issues are being discussed before the agency issues an emergency use authorization for the vaccine.
“They want to move as fast as they can, but they have to get all these things decided before the vaccine can be approved,” he said.
From CNN's Maggie Fox
The federal government plans to buy 100 million more doses of coronavirus vaccine from Moderna, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday.
“The purchase announced today brings the total doses of mRNA-1273 owned by the federal government to 200 million. Moderna began manufacturing the first 100 million doses while clinical trials were getting underway,” HHS said in a statement.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue emergency use authorization for Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine at any moment, and the federal government has denied reports it turned down an opportunity to buy 100 million extra doses of Pfizer’s vaccine last summer. Vaccine advisers to the FDA will meet next week to discuss an emergency use authorization for Moderna’s vaccine.
“If authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use as outlined in agency guidance, doses of the vaccine will begin shipping immediately. The vaccine would be provided at no cost to Americans,” HHS said.
Both Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines have been shown to be about 95% effective in preventing symptomatic infections. Moderna’s vaccine does not need to be kept as cold as Pfizer’s does during shipment and storage.