December 29 coronavirus news

The European Union has bought an additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — bringing its total to 300 million, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted Tuesday.

"More vaccines will follow," von der Leyen added.

The EU officially kicked off its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on Sunday, days after approving the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Dec. 21.

The vaccine rollout comes as European governments race to contain the spread of a new Covid-19 variant that was first detected in the UK.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is continuing its rolling review of other promising vaccine candidates, including those from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and Johnson & Johnson.

See the tweet:

More than 67,000 people have been vaccinated in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, adding that the “results, again, have been great.”

New York City administered 12,515 vaccines on Dec. 23, making it the highest single-day total of vaccinations in the city, he said Tuesday.

Urgent care staff treating Covid-19 patients, staff administering the Covid-19 vaccine, health care workers, nursing home residents and staff, as well as EMS, will be vaccinated this week, according to the mayor.

US stocks opened higher on Tuesday, putting the three major benchmarks on track for a second day of record highs.

The market was boosted Monday by President Trump’s signing of the new stimulus deal the night before, even as many economists say the bill is coming too late.

Here's how Wall Street opened:

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

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto Tuesday that the US is in a coronavirus surge that has "just gotten...out of control in many respects."

He said the recent holiday travel period could make January even worse than December.

Asked how much worse things could get, Fauci said that different models say different things, but “I think we just have to assume that it’s going to get worse.” 

He said that he hopes things don’t get to the level of continually seeing over 200,000 new infections a day, because hospitalizations and deaths will then follow.

“It’s highly predictable that once you increase in those number of cases, in a staggered way, every couple of weeks, you get increases in the hospitalizations,” he said.

WATCH:

The number of new coronavirus cases in Israel surged to their highest level since October, even as the country awoke to day three of its latest lockdown and a vaccination campaign entered its second week. 

According to the health ministry, 5,449 new coronavirus cases were reported on Monday. The previous day, the country entered its third nationwide lockdown, with restrictions on movement, activities and the operation of nonessential businesses. At least 3,256 people have died from coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to push ahead with vaccinations, with an additional 115,000 people receiving their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. At least 495,000 people have been vaccinated.

“In nine vaccination days we have vaccinated more than all those infected since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, referring to the total of 409,147 Israelis who have come down with Covid.

Health workers, at-risk groups and people over 60 have been first in line to receive the vaccine in Israel. On Monday, a 75-year-old man died shortly after receiving his first dose. In a statement, the health ministry said he suffered from active heart disease and that he’d previously had a number of heart attacks: “Initial examination does not show a link between the unfortunate event and the vaccine.”  

Asked on Tuesday what President-elect Joe Biden needs to do to turn the coronavirus pandemic around, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that if everybody follows Biden's plan to wear masks for the first 100 days that he is in office, and if people “put aside the nonsense” of masks being political, the curve will come down and the US will get better control of coronavirus.

“I think what he is actually doing, showing leadership from the top and talking about the importance of essentially pleading with Americans, 'let's do this, let’s take 100 days' — it’s going to be more than 100 days — but what he’s saying is that let’s take at least 100 days and everybody — every single person — put aside this nonsense of making masks be a political statement or not," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Fauci added: “We know it works, we know social distancing works, we know avoiding congregate setting works. For goodness sakes, let’s all do it, and you will see that that curve will come down and we will get better control. There is no doubt about it, that if we do that, so let’s just do it.”

About Biden's plan: In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, the President-elect said he will ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days after he takes office. 

Biden pledged to sign a mask mandate on his first day in office. While the President can't unilaterally require every American to wear a mask, under the law Biden said he could require masks in places like federal buildings and on planes, trains and buses for interstate travel.

WATCH:

Further coronavirus restrictions are needed in England to prevent a "catastrophe" at the start of 2021, a member of the UK government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) said Tuesday.

"A 50% increase in transmissibility means that the previous levels of restrictions that worked before won't work now, and so Tier 4 restrictions are likely to be necessary or even higher than that," Hayward added.

His comments come as figures from NHS England released on Monday showed 20,426 Covid-19 hospitalizations in England – more than the almost 19,000 at the peak of the first wave in April. The number of new cases continues to rise, with the UK recording its highest daily figure so far on Monday. 

The government is set to carry out its review of the current coronavirus tiers on Wednesday. 

"I think we're really looking at a situation where we're moving into near lockdown, but we've got to learn the lessons from the first lockdown," Hayward warned.

He added that the increase of coronavirus cases is "largely driven by the new variant."

"We've had, you know, control measures that were previously controlling the old variant that are not enough for this variant. And so if we want to control the new variant we're going to need much tighter restrictions."

Asked about the impact of schools reopening on the spread of the virus, Hayward said, "I think we're going to have to get schools back. Maybe a little bit later, but we're going to have to have increased strict restrictions in other areas of society to pay for that."

"We need to be more or less in a similar sort of message of stay at home unless you really, really have to, so there's that combined with incentivisation of testing, incentivisation of isolation – those sorts of things that will carry us through the next few months while we get as many people as possible vaccinated."

American Airlines is informing most of its employees now returning from furlough because of the stimulus bill that they do not yet need to actually report for duty, CNN has learned. They will, however, be paid with federal funds.  

The stimulus aid package means American and other airlines are putting furloughed employees including pilots and flight attendants back on its payroll. But even though the number of people flying picked up over the holiday period, the airline is still operating a significantly smaller flight schedule – and does not need the influx of thousands more employees in its facilities, cockpits and cabins.    

The airline told pilots in an internal email obtained by CNN that only 60 of the 1,247 pilots it furloughed will soon return to flying – and those 60 are expected to resume flight duties in March.  

The airline did not comment directly on those numbers. Spokesperson Matt Miller told CNN the airline plans “to bring team members back to work as we get through the administrative processes (training, etc.) and based on operational need.”   

But Miller acknowledged that American has “recalled everyone for purposes of reinstating their pay and benefits.” The first paychecks for previously-furloughed employees went out on Christmas Eve, the airline said.   

Previously-furloughed employees who are not needed in the workplace will be paid with federal funds through March 31 under the stimulus act. 

About 500 doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine had to be discarded on Saturday at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, due to a storage error, according to a spokesperson for the facility.

"We learned that about 50 vials of Moderna vaccine were inadvertently removed from a pharmacy refrigerator overnight," according to a statement from the medical center. "Our internal review determined that as a result of unintended human error, the vials were not replaced in the refrigerator after temporarily being removed to access other items."

The medical center said it was able to vaccinate some members of its staff within the approved 12-hour post-refrigeration window, but most of the vaccine had to be discarded.

According to the statement, the medical center has vaccinated about 17,000 staff members over the last 12 days.