Los Angeles County reported an additional 7,854 Covid-19 cases Thursday, breaking the record for the highest number of new cases there since the start of the pandemic for the second time in a week. This brings the total number of cases in the county to 421,881.

Health officials also reported 2,572 people hospitalized with coronavirus in L.A. County, surpassing yesterday’s all-time high of 2,439. If the rate of hospitalizations continues on its current trajectory, the county’s health care system could soon be overwhelmed, officials warned.

County health officials reported 44 new deaths Thursday, raising the number of people who have died due to Covid-19 to

The first doses in Utah will go to front-line workers such as doctors and nurses in emergency departments, urgent care facilities and COVID-19 units, as well as housekeeping workers, said Dr. Jeanmarie Mayer, chief of infection prevention at the University of Utah Health hospital.

“It’s just so incredibly important to make sure that we keep our health care systems intact and able to care for the most vulnerable in our populations,” Mayer told reporters.

Public health experts have warned that if people do not follow masking and social distancing guidance, COVID-19

A former Democratic congressman has proposed releasing federal aid to people who agree to receive a coronavirus vaccine in hopes of helping the U.S. economy recover faster and keep millions of Americans safe from infection. 

John Delaney, an American entrepreneur and former Maryland congressman, made the proposal during an interview with CNBC. The plan would involve giving people a $1,500 in stimulus check in exchange for getting immunized. 

White House infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci had previously said that at least 75% of the American population should be vaccinated before “some semblance of normal life” returns. Achieving that level of vaccination could protect millions of Americans, including people who cannot take

The idea is part of a broader effort to encourage people to get vaccinated.

If there are “I Voted” stickers, why not “Vaccinated for COVID-19” buttons?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to offer health care providers a template they can use to print buttons or stickers that would advertise a person’s vaccination status. The idea is that the button would be handed out to patients after they receive their vaccination shots.

The effort is part of a “toolkit” that the CDC plans to provide healthcare systems to “educate and promote vaccination,” a CDC spokesperson told ABC News.

“These toolkits should be available soon,” said spokesperson Kristen Nordlund.

(Reuters) – Challenges in Pfizer Inc’s supply chain for the raw materials used in its COVID-19 vaccine played a role in its decision to slash its 2020 production target, a Pfizer spokeswoman told Reuters.

Pfizer has said in recent weeks that it anticipates producing 50 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year. That is down from an earlier target of 100 million doses. Pfizer’s vaccine relies on a two dose regimen, meaning 50 million doses is enough to inoculate 25 million people.

A company spokeswoman said the “scale-up of the raw material supply chain took longer than expected.” She also cited later-than-expected results from Pfizer’s clinical trial as a reason for the

A meme shared on social media suggests that the proposed payments to general practitioners for delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine is evidence immunisation schemes are “all about the money”. This is misleading: general practices operate as small businesses and the funding is available to ensure they can afford to offer the vaccination service to their patients.

The image was posted on Nov. 26 and includes a screenshot of a British Medical Journal (BMJ) article with the headline: “Covid-19: GPs to get £12.58 per dose to deliver vaccine from December”. Above this image are the words: “YOUR DOCTOR GETS £12.58 A SHOT! IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!” (here). The meme was shared hundreds of times and sparked comments such as: “Your doctors are in on the agenda”.

The BMJ article screenshotted in the meme was a real article published on Nov. 10 (here). The story reported on

“According to the study, ‘in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.’ Wait, what? Really? That’s what it says. And, it should come as no surprise that the study was deleted within days.”

There are, however, major issues with this so-called study.

For one, calling it a “Johns Hopkins study” is inaccurate. The now-broken URL didn’t

More than 2,800 Covid-19 deaths were reported Wednesday in the United States — the most the country has ever reported in a single day — as health care officials say their staff and facilities are struggling to support burgeoning numbers of patients.

© Go Nakamura/Getty Images
HOUSTON, TX – NOVEMBER 25: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) (EDITORS NOTE: Image depicts death.) Medical staff members stand by a body bag that contains a deceased COVID-19 patient’s body in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 25, 2020 in Houston, Texas. According to reports, Texas has reached over 1,210,000 cases, including over 21,300 deaths. (Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

The number of Covid-19 patients in US hospitals Wednesday — 100,226, according to the COVID Tracking Project — also is the highest reported on a given day during the pandemic.

One-day death totals can draw from delayed

Antibody responses to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, remained strong for almost 4 months following vaccination, data from a phase I trial indicated.

Serum neutralizing antibodies were detected in 34 healthy adult volunteers at day 119 following the first dose, and 90 days following the second dose, reported Alicia Widge, MD, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues.

Moreover, both binding and neutralizing geometric mean titers exceeded those in 41 healthy controls who were recovering from COVID-19, the authors wrote in a Correspondence piece in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Although correlates of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans are not yet established, these results show […] mRNA-1273 has the potential to provide durable humoral immunity,” the researchers wrote.

Importantly, they also found no new adverse events considered to be related to the vaccine after day 57.

Moderna recently made

Nurse Carly Thomas was among the first health care workers assigned to her western Pennsylvania hospital’s COVID-19 unit in March.

© Gene J. Puskar/AP
A sign over route 28 north of downtown Pittsburgh alerts out of state motorists to Pennsylvania Covid-19 travel restrictions on Nov. 24, 2020.

“That day, those nurses prayed,” Thomas, who has worked at Excela Westmoreland Hospital for nine years, told ABC News Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE. “Then they just instantly started to plan what we were going to do and how we were going to take care of these patients.”

MORE: 4 months after Dr. Fauci’s prediction, US hits 100,000 new COVID cases in a single day

Today, the 15-bed COVID-19 unit Thomas works in is full, and nurses are faced with an emotionally taxing responsibility: video-calling dying patients’ families so they can say goodbye.

“I’ve held the patient’s hand while they die,” Thomas said. “I’ve FaceTimed