'tipping point'
More than 4.2 million new COVID-19 infections and 36,000 COVID-19 related deaths were reported across the United States in November, according to a Reuters tally. Hospitalizations are at a pandemic high and deaths the most in six months. Nearly 93,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, up 11% from last week and double the number reported a month ago, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county public health reports.
Americans who have endured eight months of restrictions, lockdown and business closures in the face of the pandemic are pinning their hopes on vaccines developed by drug companies Pfizer Inc and Moderna that are awaiting U.S. government approval for emergency use.
US Health Secretary Alex Azar said Pfizer's medication could be authorized and shipped within days of a Dec. 10 meeting of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration. Moderna's vaccine could follow a week later, Azar said, after the company announced on Monday it would apply for emergency authorization both in the U.S. and Europe.
"So we could be seeing both of these vaccines out and getting into people's arms before Christmas," Azar said on CBS' "This Morning." Health officials in many states say that even after the vaccines are approved the rollout to Americans nationwide could be slowed by shortages of personal protective equipment and other factors. The non-partisan Government
Accountability Office reported on Monday that some diagnostic test kits and accompanying reagents, as well as PPE are hard to come by "due to a supply chain with limited domestic production and high global demand."
In Los Angeles, health officials on Friday banned all public and private gatherings for at least three weeks and urged residents to stay home as much as possible.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday ordered all elective surgeries to cease in one county and told hospitals statewide to plan on increasing their capacity by 50% if necessary or set up and staff field hospitals.
"Hospital capacity is the top concern," Cuomo said.