December 17 coronavirus news

California shattered its record for the highest number of coronavirus deaths in a single day Thursday with 379 new deaths reported, according to data from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

The record surpasses the previous all-time high of 293 lives lost reported yesterday.

California also added 52,281 new cases of the virus on Thursday as it continues to see an unprecedented surge in new infections following the Thanksgiving holiday, though state health officials said the figure included an unspecified number of cases from a backlog.

The number was slightly below Wednesday's 53,711 figure, which included a more than 15,000-case backlog from previous days.

The number of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus continues to quickly rise statewide, placing a strain on the state’s health care system. More than 15,000 patients are currently in the hospital, with over 3,000 patients in intensive care.

More data: The intensive care unit bed capacity in Southern California has plunged to 0.0%, and is hovering at near all-time lows in the San Joaquin Valley at 0.7%, according to CDPH.

More than 98% of the state’s nearly 40 million residents are now under a stay-at-home order that officials hope will slow the unprecedented spread of the virus.

To date, California has reported a total of 1,723,362 cases and 21,860 deaths.

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

An at-home Covid-19 test authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday is an exciting development in testing accessibility, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn told Sen. Tim Scott in an Instagram Live on Thursday. 

The tests, from Australian company Ellume, could be available over the counter, and uses a customer’s smartphone to send test data to doctors. 

“It should be available next month,” Hahn said.

Hahn also spoke to Scott about ensuring marginalized communities have access to and can trust a Covid-19 vaccine. 

“It's not only a medical imperative that we get to the point where we have herd immunity we have enough people vaccinated, but it's a moral one as well,” he said. 

“We do in fact need to ensure that our most vulnerable and affected communities have the protection, moving forward to prevent the serious complications of this disease," Hahn said.

Vice President Mike Pence will be vaccinated tomorrow at 8 a.m. ET, his office announced today.

The White House confirmed plans to vaccinate Pence publicly yesterday.

Here's what the White House said:

The explosive spread of Covid-19 in Los Angeles is overwhelming the health care system with record numbers of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, in a situation the county's health director, Barbara Ferrer, calls “untenable.” 

One in every 50 Los Angeles County residents may be infected with Covid-19 at this point as the virus continues to spread out of control in the nation’s most populous county, Ferrer estimated in an interview with Dana Bash on CNN Newsroom.

“This is a post-holiday surge that doesn’t need to be,” Ferrer said. “This is a lot of intermingling that needn’t have happened.”

She blamed three key factors for the explosion of cases: fatigue after several months of modifications, a misunderstanding of what's safe and what's not safe, and the politicization of mask wearing.

Ferrer acknowledged the holidays that are upon us, and urged people to spend time only with those in their households, despite the fatigue.

In recent weeks, Los Angeles has consistently broke records for new daily cases, which have been quickly followed by record-high hospitalizations and fatalities. On Thursday, about 65% of the county’s hospitals were on "diversion," meaning they could no longer accept new patients and had to direct incoming ambulances to other facilities.

Watch:

The US may ship 7.9 million coronavirus vaccine doses to states in the next week, Adm. Brett Giroir, US Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary, said on a call with reporters Thursday.

“Today, as I've said before, the end of the pandemic is in sight,” Giroir said. With two companies making vaccine, that will add to the supply that is slowly being rolled out.

“If the Moderna vaccine is authorized, we expect to ship 7.9 million additional doses of vaccines to states next week,” Giroir said.

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said 2 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s had been allocated for next week, in anticipation of Moderna’s vaccine winning US Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization by the weekend.

He noted that the vaccination program aims to achieve long-term herd immunity, which might start to happen if 75 to 80% of Americans are immunized.

“This will essentially end the pandemic as we know it,” he predicted.

Pennsylvania is reporting 6,346 patients hospitalized, double what it reported in the peak of the spring when the pandemic first took hold, officials said.

Of that number, 1,238 are in the ICU, Pennsylvania Health Department officials said in a news release.

The state reported an additional 9,966 positive cases.

Officials also marked an additional 224 deaths, down from the 278 reported Wednesday, which is the record high of one day additions.

The trend in the 14-day moving average of number of hospitalized patients per day has increased by nearly 5,200 since the end of September, the department noted in the release.

From Dec. 4 to Dec 10, statewide percent positivity was 16.2%.

The most up-to-date daily data is available on the department's website.

Vaccine maker Pfizer denied Thursday it is experiencing delays in making or shipping its coronavirus vaccine.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tweeted that his company “is not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed.

This week we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. government to the locations specified by them,” he tweeted.

Pfizer said it is confident it can deliver 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion doses next year.

Dr. David Martin, the vice president of pharmacovigilance at Moderna, said the company will continue to monitor for allergic events, but hasn’t seen any reactions related to the Covid-19 vaccine during its late-stage clinical trial.

During the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting Thursday, Martin said there were two anaphylaxis reactions among the volunteers in Moderna’s late-stage trial, but the company does not think its vaccine-related. 

One severe allergic reaction was in the placebo group and one was in the group that got the vaccine. 

The allergic reaction in the placebo group happened 10 days after the volunteer got their first dose of the placebo. Doctors believed the allergic reaction was a reaction to a dye used in the placebo.

The person in the vaccine group had a severe allergic reaction 63 days after they got the second dose of the vaccine. This person has a history of asthma and is allergic to shellfish. 

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will receive the Covid-19 vaccine in a public setting, transition officials tell CNN. The exact timing and logistical details remain up in the air. 

President-elect Joe Biden is likely to receive the vaccine early next week and he too, will do it in public.

What is also still unclear is whether both Biden and Harris might receive the vaccine in the same setting. 

The commitment to getting vaccinated in public comes as the incoming Biden administration is focused on building public trust around the coronavirus vaccine as distribution gets underway.

Harris, in particular, has stressed the importance of doing this in communities of color, where there tends to be stronger distrust of vaccines.