Australian Firm’s Home Test Cleared; U.S. Cases Up: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) — South Korea reported a record jump in Covid-19 cases over a 24-hour period as the Asian nation seeks to contain a third wave of infections. Hong Kong is considering extending social-distancing restrictions on dining beyond Christmas and is planning more relief spending for affected businesses, local media reported.

Cases are surging all over the U.S. New York City’s mayor told residents to prepare for a shutdown of all but essential businesses soon after Christmas. California is stockpiling body bags, recruiting medical workers and considering whether to request a U.S. Navy hospital ship.

Moderna Inc.’s vaccine was deemed safe by U.S. regulators, clearing the way for a second shot to quickly gain emergency authorization. A virus test made by Australian firm Ellume that can be taken at home without a prescription won U.S. approval.

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The U.S. is discussing helping Pfizer secure raw materials required to produce tens of millions additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for domestic market between April and the end-June, New York Times reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.

The Trump administration negotiating a deal to use its power to free up supplies of raw materials. The move follows Pfizer’s indication that it can make more doses if the government orders suppliers to prioritize its purchase requests.

South Korea reported a record 1,078 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, up from 880 a day earlier, according to data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s website.

Total deaths rose by 12 to 616.

The U.K. will spend as much as 11.7 billion pounds ($15.7 billion) on purchasing, manufacturing and roll-out of coronavirus vaccines, according to estimates from the public spending watchdog.

There may also be extra costs in future because the contracts each contain some form of “indemnity protection” for the pharmaceutical firms in case of legal action arising from any adverse effects from the vaccines, it said.

Hong Kong is leaning toward extending current social-distancing measures, such as cutting off dining in at restaurants from 6 p.m. local time and closing of gyms and beauty salons until Jan. 1, Hong Kong Economic Times reports, citing unidentified people.

The government is planning to introduce HK$5b-HK$6b in relief measures for businesses hit hard by coronavirus-related social distancing measures, Sing Tao reported, citing unidentified people. The Legislative Council is expected to vote on the package next Monday

New confirmed Covid-19 cases jumped by 14,569 on Tuesday in Texas, the biggest increase in more than a week and inching close to the record of more than 15,200 reached late last month.

Intensive-care beds are becoming more scarce in certain parts of the state, with just one left in the 16-county region around Abilene, according to state health department data. The two key regions between Houston and Dallas, including the town of Waco, each have just two available.

Hospitalizations in the three-county area in southern Texas that is now the state’s worst coronavirus hot spot were virtually unchanged Tuesday, at nearly 30% of capacity.

U.S. states and territories will get $140 million to prepare for Covid-19 vaccination campaigns and $87 million for tracking and testing, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said.

The first Covid-19 shots are rolling out but the latest funding for distribution has been stalled with Congress unable to agree on a new stimulus package since the summer. State health officials have sought more than $8 billion to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of Covid-19 shots in the months ahead.

U.S. hospitalizations for the coronavirus increased by more than 1,200 patients a day in the six days through Tuesday, data from the Department of Health and Human Services show.

There were 112,483 Covid-19 patients in U.S. hospitals as of Dec. 15, a 7.1% increase since Dec. 9. California and New York accounted for almost three-quarters of the increase.

New Mexico recorded 102% occupancy in its intensive-care units, while Covid-19 cases accounted for more than a quarter of hospital in-patients in Arizona, Nevada and Rhode Island. The number of cases in California hospitals increased 70% to 13,920 from Dec. 1-15.

As cases surge in California, Governor Gavin Newsom is looking overseas to hire temporarily medical personnel. He said the state may ask the U.S. Navy to send back the hospital ship Mercy and has sent 5,000 more body bags to hard-hit counties.

Newsom warned in a press conference on Tuesday, a day after vaccinations arrived in the state, that the current wave of infections is still rising, and California could run out of intensive-care beds within weeks. Infections have soared since Thanksgiving, with an average of 163 Californians now dying of Covid-19 per day.

The state asked the U.S. Department of Defense to send 200 temporary medical personnel and may request another visit from the USNS Mercy, which docked off Los Angeles during the first wave of infections last spring. The ship’s highly trained personnel, Newsom said, were more important than its beds. He said the state has also stationed 60 refrigerated storage units at hospitals and morgues.

New York recorded 128 deaths from Covid-19, the most since mid-May, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. The state also had 5,982 patients hospitalized with the virus, approaching the 6,000 mark it last hit on May 15.

The first Covid-19 test that can be performed entirely from home was cleared by U.S. regulators on Tuesday, and it can be acquired without a prescription.

While availability initially will be limited, the new test and others in development could make virus screenings as accessible as over-the-counter pregnancy tests in the U.S. for the first time. The advance follows months of criticism that the Food and Drug Administration has been too slow to give its approval to this type of virus screening.

Manufactured by East Brisbane, Australia-based Ellume, the self-administered, single-use nasal-swab test is small enough to fit in the palm of a person’s hand. The test detects proteins on the virus’s surface in 15 minutes and delivers results to a smartphone app.

Airlines would get $17 billion in U.S. government aid to recall furloughed workers and help cover payrolls through March under a bipartisan pandemic relief package unveiled in Congress on Monday that won immediate backing from an industry group.

Airlines “enthusiastically support” the proposal, the trade group Airlines for America said in a press release. Carriers will attempt to bring back workers who have been laid off if it passes, “but that becomes increasingly challenging with each passing day,” the group said.

France’s rolling seven-day average of new cases fell below 12,000 on Tuesday, marking a second day of pause after rising for most of last week. Hospitalizations fell for the first time in four days, health authorities reported. The seven-day average of deaths linked to the virus fell to the lowest since early November.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Canadian government has reached an agreement with Moderna to receive up to 168,000 early doses of the company’s coronavirus vaccine.

Moderna is prepared to ship the vaccines within 48 hours of the shot’s approval by public health authorities, Trudeau said Tuesday in Ottawa.

New Yorkers can expect a shutdown of all but essential businesses soon after Christmas, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

If the city’s businesses close “right after Christmas, with good luck and hard work we could be out of that in a matter of weeks,” the mayor said.

Although New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will make the final decisions, closures will be similar to what the city experienced last spring, with the exception that schools will remain open, de Blasio said.

It will take weeks to reduce the number of people hospitalized — at 2.89 per 100,000 in the population as of Dec. 13 — to the city’s established safety level of 2 per 100,000. The percentage of people testing positive for the virus stood at 5.51%, also above the city’s threshold, which is 5%. People admitted to hospitals on Dec. 13 for Covid-19 symptoms stood at 160 — below the threshold of 200.

European airlines were guaranteed longer regulatory relief from the impact of the coronavirus, after the European Commission won the final go-ahead to suspend airport slot-use obligations until late March.

European Union governments and the bloc’s Parliament cleared the commission’s decision to waive until March 27, 2021, a requirement that carriers use at least 80% of their takeoff and landing positions or risk losing them the following year. The EU earlier this year suspended the obligation for eight months until Oct. 24.

British authorities are to hold talks on Christmas coronavirus rules after a surge in infections fueled demands from medical experts to stop households mixing over the holiday. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove will discuss the issue with his counterparts…