Tag Archives: Pandemic

After months of inaction, U.S. Congress approves $892 billion COVID-19 relief package

By Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Monday approved an $892 billion coronavirus aid package, throwing a lifeline to the nation’s pandemic-battered economy after months of inaction, while also keeping the federal government funded.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the package into law.

Following days of furious negotiation, both legislative chambers worked deep into the night to pass the bill – worth about $2.3 trillion including spending for the rest of the fiscal year – with the House of Representatives first approving it and the Senate following suit several hours later in a bipartisan 92-6 vote.

The virus relief bill includes $600 payments to most Americans as well as additional payments to the millions of people thrown out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as a larger round of benefits is due to expire on Saturday.

The stimulus package, the first congressionally approved aid since April, comes as the pandemic is accelerating in the United States, infecting more than 214,000 people every day and slowing the economic recovery. More than 317,000 Americans have died.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said she supported the virus relief bill even though it did not include the direct aid for state and local governments that Democrats had sought.  The bill, she said, “doesn’t go all the way but it takes us down the path.”

Republican Representative Hal Rogers, who also supported the package, said “it reflects a fair compromise.”

At 5,593 pages, the wide-ranging bill that also spends $1.4 trillion on an array of federal programs through the end of the fiscal year in September, is likely to be the final major piece of legislation for the 116th Congress that expires on Jan. 3. Congress included a measure continuing current levels of government spending for seven days, ensuring no interruption to federal operations.

MCCONNELL CLAIMS VICTORY

It has a net cost of roughly $350 billion for coronavirus relief, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, adding that more than $500 billion in funding comes from unspent money Congress had authorized.

Both Democrats and Republicans claimed victory but McConnell argued that the final bill came close to what Democrats rejected months ago as insufficient.

The measure ended up far less than the $3 trillion called for in a bill that passed the Democratic-controlled House in May, which the Republican-controlled Senate ignored.

“Compare the shape of this major agreement with the shape of what I proposed all the way back in late July. Yes, some fine details are different,” McConnell said in a statement after the vote. “There is no doubt this new agreement contains input from our Democratic colleagues. It is bipartisan. But these matters could have been settled long ago.”

A months-long impasse on relief that played in the background of the U.S. presidential election was broken after a group of centrist lawmakers from both parties put forward a proposal that served as a framework for the final bill.

Even so, the bill was so unwieldy that it caused congressional computers to malfunction. It includes a hodgepodge of tax breaks and other proposals that failed to pass on their own, including two new Smithsonian museums and limits on surprise medical billing.

The legislation also renews a small-business lending program by about $284 billion and steers money to schools, airlines, transit systems and vaccine distribution.

PUBLIC COMPANIES EXCLUDED

The small-business loan and grant program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, would exclude publicly traded companies from eligibility.

State and local governments, which are struggling to pay for the distribution of newly approved COVID-19 vaccines, would receive $8.75 billion from Washington, with $300 million of that targeted at vaccinations in minority and high-risk populations.

The deal, worked out in a rare weekend session of Congress, omits the thorniest sticking points, which included Republicans’ desire for a liability shield to protect businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits as well as Democrats’ request for a large outlay of money for cash-strapped state and local governments.

If signed into law, the bill would be the second-largest stimulus package in U.S. history, behind the roughly $2 trillion aid bill passed in March. Experts said that money played a critical role as social-distancing measures shuttered wide swaths of the economy.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone, Matthew Lewis and Peter Cooney)

The new coronavirus variant in Britain: How worrying is it?

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – A new variant of the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is spreading rapidly in Britain and prompting high levels of concern among its European neighbors, some of which have cut transport links.

The strain, referred to by some experts as the B.1.1.7 lineage, is not the first new variant of the pandemic virus to emerge, but is said to be up to 70% more transmissible than the previously dominant strain in the United Kingdom.

ARE THE CONCERNS JUSTIFIED?

Most scientists say yes. The new variant has rapidly become the dominant strain in cases of COVID-19 in parts of southern England, and has been linked to an increase in hospitalization rates, especially in London and in the adjacent county of Kent.

While it was first seen in Britain in September, by the week of Dec. 9 in London, 62% of COVID-19 cases were due to the new variant. That compared to 28% of cases three weeks earlier.

The governments of Australia, Italy and the Netherlands say they detected cases of the new strain. It was identified in the Netherlands in early December.

A few cases of COVID-19 with the new variant have also been reported to the ECDC, Europe’s disease monitoring agency, by Iceland and Denmark. Media reports in Belgium say cases have also been detected there.

“It is right to take it seriously,” said Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London. Shaun Fitzgerald, a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge, said the situation was “extremely concerning.”

WHY?

The main worry is that the variant is significantly more transmissible than the original strain. It has 23 mutations in its genetic code – a relatively high number of changes – and some of these are affecting its ability to spread.

Scientists say it is about 40%-70% more transmissible. The UK government said on Saturday it could increase the reproduction “R” rate by 0.4.

This means it is spreading faster in Britain, making the pandemic there yet harder to control and increasing the risk it will also spread swiftly in other countries.

“The new B.1.1.7 … still appears to have all the human lethality that the original had, but with an increased ability to transmit,” said Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

WILL COVID-19 VACCINES PROTECT AGAINST THIS VARIANT?

Scientists say there’s no evidence that vaccines currently being deployed in the UK – made by Pfizer and BioNtech – or other COVID-19 shots in development will not protect against this variant.

“It’s unlikely that this will have anything more than a minor, if any, effect on the vaccine’s effectiveness,” said Adam Finn, a vaccine specialist and professor of pediatrics at Bristol University.

Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance also said COVID-19 vaccines appeared to be adequate in generating an immune response to the variant of the coronavirus.

“We are not seeing…any gross changes in the spike protein that will reduce vaccine effectiveness so far,” said Julian Tang, professor and clinical virologist at Leicester University.

DOES THE NEW VARIANT AFFECT TESTING?

To some extent, yes.

One of the mutations in the new variant affects one of three genomic targets used by some PCR tests. This means that in those tests, that target area, or “channel”, would come up negative.

“This has affected the ability of some tests to detect the virus,” said Robert Shorten, an expert in microbiology at the Association for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine.

Since PCR tests generally detect more than one gene target, however, a mutation in the spike protein only partly affects the test, reducing that risk of false negative results.

ARE THERE OTHER SIGNIFICANT SARS-CoV-2 VARIANTS ABOUT?

Yes. Strains of the COVID-19-causing virus have emerged in recent months in South Africa, Spain, Denmark and other countries that have also raised concern.

However none, so far, has been found to contain mutations that make it more deadly, or more likely to be able to evade vaccines or treatments.

DID THIS NEW VARIANT ORIGINATE IN BRITAIN?

Vallance said on Saturday he thought the new variant might have started in the UK. Some scientists in Europe have credited British expertise in genomic surveillance for identifying the mutation.

“The UK has one of the most comprehensive genetic surveillance programs in the world – 5% to 10% all virus samples are genetically tested. Few countries do better,” Steven Van Gucht, head of viral diseases at the Belgian Institute of Health, told a news conference on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, editing by Josephine Mason and Mark Heinrich)

Canada’s most populous province makes clear ‘hard lockdown’ needed to fight COVID-19

TORONTO (Reuters) – Health officials in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, on Monday said their ability to control a second wave of COVID-19 was precarious and made clear a “hard lockdown” of four to six weeks was needed.

They made the remarks to reporters just hours before Ontario premier Doug Ford was due to unveil what local media say will be a range of restrictions lasting for a month. These include a shutdown of many non-essential businesses and gyms and limiting bars and restaurants to take out service.

The province announced 2,123 new cases on Monday, the seventh consecutive day the number has exceeded 2,000.

“Our ability to control case growth is still precarious,” said Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory team.

“Based on experience in France and Australia, ‘hard lockdowns’ of 4–6 weeks can reduce case numbers in Ontario to less than 1,000 per day,” he said in a presentation to media.

Other jurisdictions, he added, were six weeks to three months ahead of Ontario and most have used some form of hard lockdown, he added.

The Ontario Hospital Association last week said the health care system could hit breaking point unless people started listening to calls to restrict gatherings.

Around 300 people are in intensive care units but this could jump to 1,500 in mid-January, Brown said.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton, writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. House begins debate on $900 billion coronavirus package as funding deadline looms

By Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House of Representatives on Monday began debate on a $900 billion coronavirus aid package meant to stimulate a pandemic-hit economy, which the leaders of both chambers of Congress aimed to pass in a marathon session.

The White House-backed bill includes $600 payments to most Americans as well as additional payments to the millions of people thrown out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as a larger round of benefits is due to expire on Saturday.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote sometime Monday evening.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at the Capitol that passage of the legislation in the Senate will “probably be late but we’re going to finish tonight.”

At 5,593 pages, the wide-ranging bill that also spends $1.4 trillion on an array of federal programs through next September, is likely to be the final major piece of legislation for the 116th Congress that expires on Jan. 3.

It has a net cost of roughly $350 billion for coronavirus relief, McConnell said, adding that more than $500 billion in funding comes from unspent money Congress had authorized.

The package, the first Congress-approved aid since March, comes as the pandemic is accelerating in the United States, infecting more than 214,000 people every day and slowing the economic recovery. More than 317,000 Americans have died.

The bill would be the second-largest stimulus package in U.S. history, behind only the $2.3 trillion aid bill passed this spring. Economists say that money played a critical role at a time when social-distancing measures shuttered wide swaths of the world’s largest economy.

The new bill reprises many of the key pillars of the earlier package, with some modifications. Small-business aid would be expanded to struggling news outlets and TV stations, while theaters and live-music venues would get dedicated support.

Unemployed workers would get an extra $300 per week through March, down from the $600 increase in the earlier bill. An eviction ban, due to expire at the end of the year, will be extended through January.

Lawmakers set aside issues that had frozen negotiations for months, including liability protections sought by Republicans and state and local government aid sought by Democrats. A last-minute dispute over emergency-lending programs administered by Federal Reserve was also resolved.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Robert Birsel)

WHO-led team expected in China in January to probe COVID-19 origins

By Stephanie Nebehay and Nikolaj Skydsgaard

GENEVA/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – An international mission led by the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to go to China in the first week of January to investigate the origins of the virus that sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, a member and diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday.

The United States, which has accused China of having hidden the outbreak’s extent, has called for a “transparent” WHO-led investigation and criticized its terms, which allowed Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research.

China reported the first cases of a pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, central China, to the WHO on Dec. 31 and closed a market where the novel coronavirus is believed to have emerged.

Health ministers called on the WHO in May to identify the source of the virus and how it crossed the species barrier.

Now a team of 12-15 international experts is finally preparing to go to Wuhan to examine evidence, including human and animal samples collected by Chinese researchers, and to build on their initial studies.

Thea Fischer, a Danish member, said that the team would leave “just after New Year’s” for a six-week mission, including two weeks of quarantine on arrival.

“Phase 1 was supposed to be completed by now, according to the terms of reference, and we should have some results. If that’s what we get when we come to China…that would be fantastic. Then we are already in phase 2,” she told Reuters.

Keith Hamilton, an expert at the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) who will take part, told reporters on Tuesday: “I anticipate the mission will take place quite soon.”

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an emailed reply to Reuters inquiry that the international team was working on logistical arrangements to travel to China as soon as possible. “We hope the team will be able to travel in January,” he said.

A Western diplomat said that the team was expected to leave in early January, ahead of WHO’s executive board opening on Jan. 18, adding: “There is strong pressure on China and on WHO.”

‘NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK’

Hamilton said a similar but not identical virus was identified in a horseshoe bat, indicating that it was transmitted first to an animal, or intermediate host, before infecting humans.

“When we are doing animal surveillance, it’s difficult, it’s rather like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said.

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO’s top expert in animal diseases, said last month the mission would like to interview market workers about how they were infected with the virus.

“There is nothing to indicate that it would be man-made,” he added.

Chinese state media have suggested the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, citing its presence on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe last year.

Some Western countries have voiced concern at the delay in sending international experts.

One senior Western diplomat complained of a lack of transparency while experts were not on the ground talking to clinicians and researchers or inspecting lab samples.

But another Western diplomat said that the mission was on a “good footing” and that the WHO had to accept China’s terms to secure access.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Nikolaj Skydsgaard in Copenhagen; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Low-income U.S. households are spending savings quicker than high earners: study

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) – U.S. households across the board built up savings during the pandemic, but low-income households are burning through their cash more quickly than higher-income families and could be out of savings soon if more aid is not delivered, according to a study released on Wednesday.

By the end of October, the median low-income family spent 64% of the extra cash they accumulated this year compared with last year, leaving them with about $236 in extra cash, according to a report released Wednesday by the JPMorgan Chase Institute. In contrast, higher-income households lost just 38% of the cash cushion built up this year, and had a median $810 in savings, the study found.

“If these trends continue, we would expect low-income families to deplete their account balance gains sooner than their high-earning counterparts,” researchers noted in the report.

The JPMorgan Chase study showed that cash balances appeared steady on average after rising earlier this year, in line with a separate report released by the Federal Reserve last week showing that balances in cash, checking accounts and savings deposits rose over the three months ending in September to a record $13.4 trillion.

But a look at cash balances for the median household – which is not affected as much by households with abnormally high, or unusually low, account balances – showed a more volatile experience.

The median cash balance for checking account holders studied by JPMorgan Chase rose in the spring when the government distributed cash payments to most households – and balances have been declining since.

Those households could experience another substantial drop in income and spending at the end of the year when unemployment benefits are set to expire for millions of workers participating in pandemic programs created by the CARES Act, the researchers said.

Consumers have previously cut spending on non-durable goods by 12% after losing unemployment benefits, and those receiving jobless benefits reduced spending by 14% over the summer after a $600 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits expired at the end of July, the study noted.

Lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement on another round of aid. Some COVID-19 relief measures could be attached to a critical spending measure that must be passed by Friday to avoid a federal government shutdown.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Fleeing New Yorkers resulted in an estimated $34 billion in lost income -study

By Jonnelle Marte

(Reuters) -Millions of people have moved out of New York City during the pandemic, but at the same time, millions of others with lower incomes have taken their place, according to a study released on Tuesday.

All told, a net 70,000 people left the metropolitan region this year, resulting in roughly $34 billion in lost income, according to estimates from Unacast, a location analytics company.

About 3.57 million people left New York City this year between Jan. 1 and Dec. 7, according to Unacast, which analyzed anonymized cell phone location data. Some 3.5 million people earning lower average incomes moved into the city during that same period, the report showed.

“The exodus isn’t as big as people have been talking about,” said Thomas Walle, chief executive and co-founder of Unacast. “Maybe the greater impact is how the population is changing and how the demographics are changing.”

In Tribeca, a wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000, Walle said. The typical person moving into the neighborhood earned an average $82,000, he said.

The dual hit to population and income across the city can have lasting consequences for New York City as it recovers from the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, Walle said. “The big question is, ‘How does real estate and retail in particular adapt to that?'” he said.

In the longer run, the changing demographics could lead to more affordable brands taking the place of higher-end stores, the researchers noted. At the same time, real estate developers may need to offer more lower-priced housing options, Walle said.

A separate report released earlier this year by StreetEasy found that vacancies rose and rents dropped between February and July in high-end neighborhoods, including the financial district downtown. But rents continued to rise in more affordable neighborhoods.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Vaccinations under way, U.S. turns to educating skeptics, economic aid

(Reuters) – The United States extended its rollout of the first authorized COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, inoculating healthcare workers with an eye toward convincing skeptical Americans to get their shots and contain a pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people.

The first Americans outside clinical trials started receiving the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE on Monday, three days after it won U.S. emergency-use authorization.

By day’s end, vaccine shipments had made it to nearly all of the 145 U.S. distribution sites pre-selected to receive the initial batch of doses, with a number of major hospital systems launching immunizations immediately.

The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses three weeks apart, as does the Moderna vaccine that could also receive emergency-use authorization this week.

In one of many made-for-TV injections, New York City intensive care nurse Sandra Lindsay received the first shot in the arm, saying “healing is coming” and that, “I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.”

But just as large numbers of Americans have called the pandemic a hoax and rejected public health guidelines to wear face masks and avoid crowds, only 61% of respondents in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were open to getting vaccinated.

“The communication of public health is the No. 1 issue,” Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency room physician in Michigan and director of the Committee to Protect Medicare, told MSNBC television on Tuesday.

“We’re really hopeful in this next phase that we can all come together with one voice to convince people this is important,” Davidson said.

COVID-19 has killed 301,085 people in the United States and infected 16.5 million, overwhelming the healthcare system with a record 110,163 patients hospitalized as of Monday, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

The pandemic has also inflicted economic pain as states and localities imposed stay-at-home orders and closed businesses, putting millions out of work.

The U.S. Congress on Monday inched toward passing the first COVID-19 relief bill since April, possibly extending aid to the unemployed, small businesses, and vaccine distribution. The COVID-19 aid could be attached to a critical spending measure that must be passed by Friday to avoid a federal government shutdown.

The process of shipping the first 2.9 million doses of vaccine began on Sunday, 11 months after the United States documented its first case of COVID-19.

Moncef Slaoui, top adviser to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, has said the plan is to have about 40 million vaccine doses from Pfizer and Moderna – enough for 20 million people – distributed by year’s end.

It will take months before vaccines become widely available to the public at large.

“This is the most difficult vaccine rollout in history,” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told Fox News on Monday.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Immune system can cause broad damage in COVID-19; dogs can detect coronavirus in people

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Immune system can self-attack broadly in COVID-19

Antibodies are supposed to attack invading germs, but severely ill COVID-19 patients have so-called autoantibodies that mistakenly attack not just their own tissues and organs but even virus-fighting proteins produced by the immune system, new research shows. Scientists studied 194 COVID-19 patients, including 55 with severe disease, plus a control group of 30 people without the virus. In the sickest patients, they found a high frequency of autoantibodies created by the immune system causing injury to the central nervous system, blood vessels, and connective tissues like cartilage, ligaments and tendons. They also found a high prevalence of autoantibodies that interfere with substances involved in the functioning of the immune system itself, including cytokines and other “immunomodulatory” proteins. “The surprising extent of autoantibody reactivities” in these patients indicates that these mistakenly targeted antibodies are “an intrinsic aspect” of COVID-19. The report was posted on medRxiv on Saturday ahead of peer review.

Dogs can sniff out COVID-19

Trained dogs can identify people with COVID-19, even those with no symptoms, according to researchers. In the preliminary study published on Thursday in PLoS One, dogs who sniffed swab samples of armpit sweat could tell which samples came from COVID-19 patients and which were from people who tested negative for the new coronavirus. That study was conducted in March. More recently, the researchers have validated the findings in additional trials, said study leader Dominique Grandjean of Alfort Veterinary School in France. Dogs can identify infected individuals with 85% to 100% accuracy and rule out infection with 92% to 99% accuracy, Grandjean said. “It takes one tenth of a second for a trained dog to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” he said. Training requires 3 to 8 weeks depending on whether the dog is already trained for odor detection. COVID-19-detecting dogs have already been deployed in airports in the United Arab Emirates, Grandjean said. On Wednesday, the UAE and the International K9 Working Group Against COVID-19 will host a virtual workshop on the use of these trained dogs, with 25 countries expected to participate, according to the organizers.

COVID-19 not linked with Guillain-Barré syndrome

COVID-19 is not associated with the potentially paralyzing disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a large UK study shows. In GBS, the immune system mistakenly attacks nerves in the feet, hands and limbs. Smaller studies have suggested a link between COVID-19 and GBS. But when researchers compared the number of GBS cases recorded in the UK’s National Health Service database in 2016 to 2019 to the number recorded in the first half of 2020, they found the annual incidence was 40% to 50% lower during the pandemic. “No causal link of COVID-19 to GBS can be made,” Stephen Keddie of University College London said in a statement. His team reported on Monday in the journal Brain that they also looked for – but could not find – any genetic or protein structure in the new coronavirus that might trigger an immune response causing GBS, which is good news for vaccine development. “Most COVID-19 vaccinations are based on the (coronavirus’) spike protein, which drives a complex immune response creating antibodies to fight infection,” Keddie said. Since researchers found nothing in the virus that is known to drive GBS, “concerns that COVID vaccination might cause GBS in any significant numbers are therefore almost certainly unfounded,” he said.

Antibiotic azithromycin fails to help in severe COVID-19

The antibiotic azithromycin failed to help seriously ill adults infected with the new coronavirus, according to results from a clinical trial. Based on the result, the only COVID-19 patients who should get the antibiotic are those who also have bacterial infections, the study leaders said. The trial, conducted at 176 hospitals across the UK, involved more than 9,000 patients and tested multiple drugs to see if any would be more effective than standard hospital care in treating COVID-19. According to preliminary data published on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, patients who were randomly assigned to receive azithromycin did no better than patients who got standard care in terms of deaths, duration of hospitalization, or need for mechanical ventilation. “More than 75% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are prescribed antibiotics,” the researchers point out. “Although we detected no harm to individual patients treated with azithromycin, there is a risk of harm at a societal level from widespread use of antimicrobial agents,” researchers said. The widespread use of antibiotics in COVID-19 patients “in general must be questioned,” they concluded.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. crosses 300,000 COVID-19 deaths as vaccine rollout begins

By Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States crossed 300,000 on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as the hardest hit nation rolled out its first vaccine inoculations on Monday.

The staggering death toll comes as the nation begins a historic inoculation campaign using a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE. Moderna Inc’s vaccine could get approval as soon as this week.

The vaccine comes as COVID-19 cases explode across the nation and hospital intensive care units run out of beds. Daily coronavirus cases and deaths have set records multiple times since Thanksgiving holidays with daily fatalities topping 3,000 for the second time last week on Friday, the same day the vaccine got approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

It took 27 days to go from 250,000 total U.S. COVID-19 deaths to 300,000 – the fastest 50,000-death jump since the pandemic began. Some models project that deaths could reach 500,000 before vaccines become widely available in the spring and summer.

In recent weeks, South Dakota and North Dakota have led the nation in deaths per capita. Overall, New Jersey and New York, early epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, lead the nation in per capita deaths.

The United States recently crossed 16 million confirmed cases – the most in the world.

According to Reuters analysis, the United States is reporting 91 deaths per 100,000 people, seventh worst in the world on a per capita basis and 2.5 times the rate in Canada.

The nation’s hospitals are flooding with COVID-19 patients, threatening to overwhelm healthcare systems and providers. There are over 108,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the highest since the first coronavirus case was detected in the country in January.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Bill Berkrot)