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NY Reports New COVID Record; UK Pushes To Vaccinate 200K Per Day: Live Updates

By Tyler Durden

Summary:

  • First mutant strain cases found in Texas, Penn.
  • France confirms 19 cases of variant
  • UK pushes to vaccinate 200K/day
  • NY reports record COVID cases
  • SinoVac vaccine 78% effective in Brazilian trial
  • US reports record COVID deaths
  • US tops 21MM
  • China locks down city
  • Japan imposes state of emergency
  • WHO urges more European countries to lock down population
  • India reports 20.4K new cases
  • South Korea reports 870
  • Kansas Rep. tests positive
  • Southeast Asia outbreak worsens
  • London weeks away from running out of ICU beds

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Update (1324ET): New York Gov Andrew Cuomo has just revealed that the Empire State reported the most new COVID-19 cases in a single day over the past 24 hours. While hospitalizations also climbed to new highs, the state reported nearly 200 deaths.

Cuomo has been desperately trying to ramp up the state’s vaccination rate, firstly by threatening to fine hospitals for using doses on the wrong patients, then by threatening to fine hospitals for leaving doses on the shelf for more than 7 days.

Elsewhere in the US, both Texas and Pennsylvania have confirmed the first cases of the more-infectious “mutated” strain first isolated in the UK.

Fatalities in Arizona saw a new single-day high, while Illinois became the fifth state to top 1MM confirmed infections. North Carolina reported new records for new cases and total hospitalizations.

As UK PM Boris Johnson insists the UK will soon be vaccinating 200K people per day, France said it now has found 19 confirmed cases of the more transmissible strain noted above, along with 3 cases of another hyper-infectious mutation first isolated in South Africa. The Health Ministry said in a statement Thursday that Health authorities are investigating two probable clusters of infection with the UK variant in the western region of Brittany and the Paris region

* * *

Update (1025ET): The latest trial data out of a Brazil-based trial for SinoVac’s coronavirus vaccine has found that the company’s vaccine is 78% effective, moving the shot closer to being approved by regulators by the end of the month. Brazil and Indonesia are both running closely watched trials of the vaccine, which both countries hope to start doling out by the end of the month.

The results, released Thursday, closely watched by developing countries, come after Turkish researchers said in December that the vaccine showed 91.25% efficacy based on interim data. SinoVac’s Brazilian partner Butantan presented the efficacy data to federal health regulator Anvisa in a Thursday morning meeting seeking approval for emergency use of the vaccine, according to Reuters.

China has five vaccines in late stage trials (several of which have already been used extensively as part of an “emergency vaccination” program in China). Their makers include: Sinovac, Sinopharm, CanSino Biologics and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who, in late-stage trials, underscoring its efforts to develop a homegrown vaccine to challenge Western rivals. Although China has been slower than several other countries in approving the vaccines, it has inoculated more than 2MM people since July under an emergency use program, using three different shots from Sinovac and Sinopharm that are still undergoing late-stage trials.

* * *

China’s worst outbreak since June has prompted the CCP to further tighten restrictions in Hebei, with the entirety of the city of Shijiazhuang (the provincial capital, only a 3.5 hour car ride from Beijing) now on lockdown as authorities carry out another mass coronavirus testing campaign. All vehicles, and people, are barred from leaving and entering the city.

Health-care workers have confirmed nearly 200 new cases in the city over the past few days, prompting the lockdown, which is interrupting local officials’ ability to enforce a the veneer of normalcy in Chinese life.

Health authorities in Tokyo confirmed 2.4K+ new cases yesterday as PM Yoshihide Suga finally declared a COVID state of emergency, asking bars and restaurants in Tokyo and three other Tokyo-adjacent prefectures to close early, and residents to stay home at night while workers telecommute. The state of emergency is expected to last for a month.

As a new COVID outbreak flares in China, Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne spoke out Thursday to ask Beijing to cooperate with an independent WHO investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Beijing has refused to allow investigators into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and generally stymied the organization’s search.

As the number of confirmed cases worldwide nears 88MM, the tally in the US has topped 21MM. The US reported a record number of new deaths in a single day, with more than 3.7K.

Hospitalizations are worsening across the country…

…but particularly in the South.

As Germany extends its lockdown measures and other European nations plot their own lockdown expansions, the WHO has officially urged the Continent’s leaders to do more. More than 308,000 people in England received a vaccination from the country’s health service in the week ended Jan. 3, which was more than the prior week, another sign that the UK and Germany are leading the push to vaccinate their populations in Europe. France continues to lag, as authorities contend with considerable levels of vaccine skepticism. ,

Here are some other COVID-linked stories from overnight and Thursday morning:

  • India reports 20,346 cases in the last 24 hours, up from 18,088 the previous day and breaking a five-day streak of fewer than 20,000 cases, bringing the country’s total COVID-19 infections to nearly 10.4 million. Deaths climbed by 222 to 150,336 (Source: Nikkei).
  • South Korea reports 870 new cases, up from 838 a day ago. Total infections have reached 66,686 with 1,046 deaths (Source: Nikkei).
  • Rep. Jake LaTurner, a newly elected Republican Congressman from Kansas, has released a statement saying he got the result after he was in the Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesday (Source: NY Post).
  • Ireland is now treating 1,022 Covid-10 hospitalized patients, authorities said, the highest figure since the pandemic began. Some 88 patients are in intensive care. About 94% of intensive care beds were occupied on Wednesday night, though hospitals still have so-called surge capacity in reserve (Source: Bloomberg).
  • Rates of infection are rising in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia recording 3,027 positive cases, setting a record for a second straight day. Indonesia also saw its biggest daily rise in cases (Source: Bloomberg).

Finally, in the latest round of warnings about overflowing hospitals, authorities in the UK claimed Thursday that London hospitals could run out of ICU beds for patients within two weeks as the number of COVID-19 cases soars, news service HSJ reported, citing a presentation by NHS England.

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