December 28 coronavirus news

The distribution of 200 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech is "scheduled to be completed by September 2021," a European Commission spokesman told CNN Monday. 

"The Commission and the Member States are working to activate the additional 100 million doses," the spokesman added. 

In November, the European Commission concluded a contract with Pfizer for 300 million doses. The first batches were delivered to countries in Europe on Dec. 26, ahead of the first day of vaccinations in the European Union on Sunday Dec. 27.

The deliveries of this vaccine "will continue in December and on a steady weekly basis during the following months,” the spokesman told CNN.

"For most contracts concluded, the majority of delivery is foreseen to be completed in 2021. Under some contracts, first deliveries are expected to already start in the first quarter of 2021," the spokesman added. 

In addition to its contract with Pfizer-BioNTech, the European Commission has also established contracts with:

The above information is according to the Commission’s website.

Famous Mexican composer and singer, Armando Manzanero, age 85, passed away Monday morning in a Mexico City hospital after battling Covid-19 for weeks, Mexico's Society for Authors and Composers confirmed to CNN.  

Manzanero was hospitalized in mid-December after testing positive for Covid-19, CNN reported at the time.  

Manzanero was a prolific composer with more than 600 songs to his name, according to the Mexican Society for Authors and Composers. Some of his songs were interpreted by artists from around the world such Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, Perry Cuomo, Spanish singer Raphael, and fellow Mexican start Luis Miguel.  

Manzanero won a Latin Grammy in 2001 for his album "Duets". He later went on to win a Lifetime Achievement award in 2014, becoming the first Mexican to receive this honor.  

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed condolences in the artist's passing.  

"Armando Manzanero was a sensitive man, a man of the people. That's why I lament his death. He was also a great composer. He also represented Mexican authors and composers," he said during a press conference on Monday.  

Mexico's Secretary of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, released a statement on Twitter, saying she mourns the death "of the Yucatecan musician Armando Manzanero, author of hundreds of songs performed by national and international artists, and a great connoisseur of the bolero tradition of Latin America. RIP."   

Manzanero will be cremated in Mexico City and his remains will be taken to his hometown of Merida, in Mexico's Yucatan state. 

Russia has extended a ban on flights to and from the UK until Jan. 12 in light of the new coronavirus variant circulating across the UK and several other countries, the Russian coronavirus task force said according to state-run news agency TASS. 

Some background: Since the UK imposed a lockdown on Saturday, over 40 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and the Middle East have restricted travel from the UK and in some cases, also travel from other countries that have documented cases with the variant.

Experts say the new variants can spread faster than others.

Wall Street opened higher Monday after President Donald Trump signed into law a massive $2.3 trillion-dollar coronavirus relief and government funding bill. 

While Trump delayed the signing of the bill for days, it still comes in time to avoid a government shutdown and expands pandemic unemployment help, which millions of Americans need to make ends meet. But because of the signing delay, many already enrolled in certain government programs will likely not receive a payment in this last week of the year.

Here's how things looked at the opening:

Remember: This week is another shortened trading week due to the New Year’s holiday on Friday.

Iceland has received its first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to CNN on Monday.

According to the spokesperson, an aircraft carrying Iceland’s first shipment of the vaccine landed at Keflavík International Airport Monday morning. It arrived from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

The shipment included 10,000 doses of the vaccine, which are expected to be rolled out from Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday, Pfizer told CNN that it had had to reschedule a limited number of deliveries of the vaccine due to "minor logistical issues," with some countries in Europe now expected to receive their deliveries on Tuesday, rather than Monday. 

Two new variants of coronavirus first detected in the UK and in South Africa have been identified in Finland, the Finnish Institute for Health said in a statement Monday. 

According to the statement, two people in Finland have tested positive for the variant of Covid-19 first detected in the UK, while a third patient has tested positive for the variant detected in South Africa. All patients had recently returned to Finland after traveling abroad. 

The Institute for Health says the infected patients are currently in good condition and are being treated in isolation. People who may have been exposed to the three patients have since been quarantined and asked to take a coronavirus test. 

On Dec. 23, Finland announced it would recommend all UK travelers arriving in the country on or after Dec. 7 to undergo testing, regardless of whether they are symptomatic. 

The detection of the new variants in Finland comes just days after neighboring Sweden’s Public Health Agency announced it had identified a case of the new Covid-19 variant from the UK in the region of Sörmland, on the outskirts of Stockholm.

The share of intensive care unit patients with Covid-19 in the US has been steadily increasing each week since the end of September, according to a CNN analysis of data published Monday by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

About 16% of ICU patients had Covid-19 at the end of September, 22% at the end of October and 35% at the end of November. 

Last week, nearly 40% of patients in ICUs across the country had Covid-19, the data shows.

The United States reported Sunday the fourth highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP). 

This was the twenty-sixth consecutive day that the US has remained above 100,000 current hospitalizations.

More on the data: The Health Department dataset aggregates hospital utilization data each Friday through Thursday and reports weekly averages for each facility.

The data is preliminary and excludes hospitals for which data was suppressed due to small counts.

France’s health minister says he cannot rule out the possibility of a third national lockdown.

"We never rule out measures that might be necessary to protect populations," Olivier Véran told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday. 

"This does not mean that we have decided, but that we are observing the situation hour by hour," he added. 

While the French government had previously announced its aim to reduce the daily increase in new coronavirus cases to 5,000, this goal has yet to be achieved. 8,822 new coronavirus cases were recorded Sunday. 

"The target of 5,000 [daily cases] is moving away," Véran said.

"We will be attentive to what we will observe in the next few days," he added. 

President Donald Trump reversed course on Sunday, signing into law a massive $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government funding bill that he had objected to at the last minute.

That signature does two important things for the US economy: It averts a government shutdown that was set to begin on Tuesday, and extends billions of dollars in coronavirus aid to struggling Americans.

However, because Trump did not sign the bill on Saturday, those in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs will likely not receive a payment for the final week of the year. Their payments could also be delayed several weeks while state agencies reprogram their computers.

Additionally, the $300 federal enhancement may only last 10 weeks instead of 11 weeks for most folks. That's because states can't provide benefits for weeks that start before programs are authorized, but the legislation calls for the extra payments to end on March 14.

Some background: The Covid-19 relief legislation was passed by Congress last Monday and was flown to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday to await Trump's signature. But after sitting on the sidelines during the negotiations, Trump emerged with an eleventh-hour complaint that a separate provision in the deal, which the President's own White House helped broker, would only provide up to $600 in direct payments.

Trump wanted to send out $2,000 checks. 

Trump signaled in a statement Sunday night that he signed the coronavirus relief bill only after securing a commitment for the Senate to consider legislation to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, did not reference that commitment in his own statement Sunday night praising the President for signing the relief bill.