Pence, congressional leaders get COVID shots

WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence and the leaders of the House and Senate received their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Friday as they tried to reassure the American public that the shot is safe. Pence, in a live-television event, celebrated the milestone as “a medical miracle”î that could eventually put an end to a raging pandemic that has killed more than 310,000 people nationwide.

Conspicuously absent: President Donald Trump, who has remained largely out of sight five days into the largest vaccination campaign in the nation’s history.

“I didn’t feel a thing. Well done,î” Pence told the technicians from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday morning as he became the highest-ranking U.S. official to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, the first authorized in the U.S.

Later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, tweeted photos of themselves receiving the vaccine from the Capitol physician, who urged all members of Congress to join them.

The public displays come as top U.S. health officials are trying to persuade regular Americans who may be skeptical of the vaccinations to get them to pave the way for the end of the pandemic.

A recent survey from The Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only about half of Americans want to get the vaccine as soon as possible. Another quarter of the public isn’t sure, while the remaining quarter say they aren’t interested.

In other coronavirus news:

Winter travel raises fears

Tens of millions of people are expected to travel to family gatherings or winter vacations over Christmas, despite pleas by public health experts who fear the result could be another surge in COVID-19 cases.

In the U.S., AAA predicts that about 85 million people will travel between Dec. 23 and Jan. 3, most by car. That would be a drop of nearly one-third from a year ago, but still a massive movement of people in a pandemic.

Experts worry that Christmas and New Year’s will turn into super-spreader events because many people are letting down their guard — either out of pandemic fatigue or the hopeful news that vaccines are starting to be distributed.

The seven-day rolling average of newly reported infections in the U.S. has risen from about 176,000 a day just before Thanksgiving to more than 215,000 a day. It’s too early to calculate how much of that increase is due to travel and gatherings over Thanksgiving, but experts believe they are a factor.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.î”

Military brass to get shots

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has authorized nearly 50 top civilian and military leaders to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks to prove to the shots are safe and effective.

Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist laid out specific vaccine allowances for the heads of the military services and combatant commands around the world.

California situation desperate

LOS ANGELES — Doctors in California say increasingly desperate hospitals are being crushed by soaring coronavirus infections.

One Los Angeles emergency room doctor is predicting that rationing of care is imminent.

Hospitals are on the brink of filling up and many emergency rooms already have been using outdoor tents to make more space. Hospitals in both Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have no more ICU beds available.

The state’s death toll, meanwhile, topped 22,000 Friday. California reported more than 41,000 new infections and 300 more deaths, bring the toll for the pandemic to 22,160.

WHO accesses 2 billion doses

GENEVA — The head of the World Health Organization says its program to help get COVID-19 vaccines to all countries in need, whether rich or poor, has gained access to nearly 2 billion doses of several vaccine candidates.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the agreements mean that some 190 countries and economies participating in the COVAX program will have access to vaccines “during the first half of next year.î”

Obamacare enrollment rising

WASHINGTON — Sign-ups for Obamacareî health insurance plans are trending more than 6 percent higher amid surging coronavirus cases and deepening economic misery.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said more than 8.2 million people had signed up through the close of open enrollment Dec. 15 in the 36 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website.

An apples-to-apples comparison with last year’s sign-ups translates to a 6.6 percent gain, the agency said. Unlike last year, two populous states that had used the federal website are now running their own. Numbers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania were not counted in Friday’s tally from HealthCare.gov states. They’ll be reported in coming weeks, along with those from other remaining states.

Death Row inmates infected

CHICAGO — A second federal inmate scheduled to be put to death next month in a series of executions by the Trump administration has tested positive for COVID-19.

The diagnosis of Cory Johnson, who was convicted of killing seven people related to his drug trafficking in Virginia, comes a day after attorneys for Dustin John Higgs confirmed he tested positive at a U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Ind., where both men are on death row.

Johnson, Higgs and a a third inmate, Lisa Montgomery, are scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at a death chamber at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Sweden tightens restrictions

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Sweden is tightening coronavirus restrictions by requiring many people to work from home and reducing the number who can gather in restaurants, shops and gyms starting next week, but the government decided against ordering the country’s first full lockdown to control a recent spike in virus cases, the prime minister said Friday.

Sweden has stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response to the pandemic. The Scandinavian country has not gone into lockdowns or closed businesses, relying instead on citizens’ sense of civic duty.

However, the country has seen a rapid increase in confirmed cases that is straining the health care system.

Demand low for antibodies

U.S. health officials are seeing an astonishing lack of demand for COVID-19 medicines that may help keep infected people out of the hospital, drugs they rushed out to states over the past few weeks as deaths set new records.

Red tape, staff shortages, testing delays and skepticism are keeping many patients and doctors from these drugs, which supply antibodies to help the immune system fight the coronavirus. Only 5 percent to 20 percent of doses the federal government allocated have been used.

Ironically, government advisers met this week to plan for the opposite problem: potential future shortages of the drug as COVID-19 cases continue to rise. Many hospitals have set up lottery systems to ration what is expected to be a limited supply, even after taking into account the unused medicines still on hand.

Only 337,000 treatment courses are available and there are 200,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, “so the supply certainly cannot meet the demand,î” said Dr. Victor Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine.