NYC Hospitalizations Rise; Pope Makes Vaccine Plea: Virus Update

Hospitalizations in New York City continued to rise and the rate of positive tests showed no sign of slowing. In Boston, a doctor reportedly suffered a severe allergic reaction after taking Moderna’s vaccine.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an order Friday forcing anyone flying from the U.K. to the U.S. to have a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of boarding. Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Japan joined a growing number of countries that have identified their first cases of the coronavirus mutation, although there’s no clear evidence it results in more severe cases of the disease.

Pope Francis used his Christmas Day message to appeal for world leaders to share vaccines.

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Brazil has a total of 7.5 million cases of Covid-19, with 22,967 confirmed in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said. The numbers from Ceara state weren’t included.

The nation’s health regulator canceled its year-end recess and scrapped January holidays for its employees to ensure all vaccine registration requests get processed as quickly as possible, Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported.

A vaccination program should be available for the entire country, Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes tweeted earlier on Friday.

New Jersey reported more than 5,000 new cases, the highest daily increase in five days but lower than early December when daily cases surpassed 6,000.

The statewide transmission rate stayed below 1, meaning each person who tested positive is spreading to less than one other person, a positive sign in containing the spread.

A Boston physician, who has a severe shellfish allergy, said his immune system went into revolt minutes after receiving one of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines, the NYT reported.

The case was the first of its kind reported to be linked to Moderna’s shot. Federal agencies are investigating at least six cases involving people who suffered anaphylaxis after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which contains similar ingredients, according to the report.

California added 39,144 new Covid-19 cases yesterday for a total of 2.04 million infections, while deaths rose by 312 to 23,947, according to the health department’s website. Test positivity rates continued to hover at 12.4%. The number of intensive-care unit beds available for the state’s 40 million residents fell to 1,302.

Meanwhile, a church in San Jose held an indoor Christmas Eve service last night, defying local public health and court orders, NBC Bay Area reported.

Calvary Chapel San Jose has accumulated fines of more than $1 million for violating Covid-19 rules by holding weekly indoor services for hundreds of people, NBC said. The church leaders and their attorneys argued that their faith protects them from the virus and questioned the constitutionality of local health orders.

France reported 20,262 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, the second-highest daily increase during the last five weeks.

Deaths rose by 159 to 62,427, according to the latest statistics published by French health authorities.

As of Dec. 23, there were 2,387 people in New York City hospitals, about twice as many as at the start of the month.

Hospitals admitted 208 people on Dec. 23 for Covid-like illness, with nearly two-thirds testing positive. The city’s rate of positive tests reached a seven-day average of 6.69%, from less than 2% in early November, according to city data.

In the week ended Dec. 24, the city confirmed 23,127 cases and 199 deaths from Covid-19. Its weekly average of the previous four weeks was 22,648 cases and 159 fatalities.

In New York state, more than half of the 1,148 patients in the ICU were intubated as of Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. The statewide positivity rate is 5.49%.

Saudi Arabian state TV published footage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman being injected with a Covid vaccine.

Saudi Arabia, which approved the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine in mid-December, has reported almost 362,000 infections and more than 6,100 deaths.

Italy reported 19,037 new coronavirus cases, an increase from 18,040 the day before. The country on Thursday began what will be the first of two strict lockdown periods as the government tries to curb contact between citizens during the holiday period.

Shops and restaurants had operated with fewer restrictions in the run-up to Christmas week, but Rome has insisted that Italians limit their contacts and movement, and avoid traditional parties and large family gatherings both at Christmas and New Year’s.

The U.K. reported 570 fatalities, taking the nation’s tally from the virus to more than 70,000 — Europe’s worst total after Italy.

There were another 32,725 cases, the sixth consecutive day that daily new infections have exceeded 30,000.

Irish authorities confirmed the new variant of the coronavirus has been found in the country.

“It is particularly important” that travelers arriving from the U.K. quarantine for 14 days, Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan said. Testing for recent arrivals is being arranged, he added. The ministry reported 1,025 new cases on Christmas Day, the most since October, with two deaths.

Queen Elizabeth II used her annual Christmas message to thank medical staff on the front lines of the battle against Covid-19, and said the pandemic has helped bring communities.

“Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has, in many ways, brought us closer,” said the British monarch, who has delivered the broadcast every year except one since assuming the throne in 1952.

“In the United Kingdom and around the world, people have risen magnificently to the challenges of the year, and I am so proud and moved by this quiet, indomitable spirit,” she added.

Pope Francis made a Christmas Day plea for authorities to make Covid-19 vaccines available for everyone, starting with the most vulnerable and needy.

“In this time of darkness and uncertainty regarding the pandemic, various lights of hope appear, such as the discovery of vaccines,” he said in his address. “But for these lights to illuminate and bring hope to all, they need to be available to all. We cannot allow the various forms of nationalism closed in on themselves to prevent us from living as the truly human family that we are.”

Switzerland should implement broader, stricter measures and bolster testing and tracing to hinder the spread of the new strain, according to the Swiss Covid-19 science taskforce. Switzerland has increased efforts to analyze whether the new variant is already more widespread than the two cases the country’s health ministry reported yesterday.

Japan has confirmed its first cases of people infected with a new Covid strain that emerged in the U.K., Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said in a press briefing Friday. The five people infected with the new strain had traveled from the U.K. and the infections were confirmed at two separate airports in Japan; Four of the people were asymptomatic.

Infections and deaths in Africa may be much higher than official figures show, according to researchers from Boston University and the University of Zambia, who tested corpses for the virus in the biggest referral hospital in Lusaka.

The disease was detected in nearly one in five of the 364 bodies tested, according to a study published on medRxiv, an online archive and distribution service for complete but unpublished manuscripts that have yet to be peer reviewed. Of the 70 that tested positive, only six were screened before they died, even though many others had symptoms.

Iran reported 6,021 coronavirus cases and 132 deaths in the past 24 hours, marking the lowest number of new daily fatalities since Sept. 13. The country has recorded a total of 1,189,203 infections and 54,440 deaths since the onset of the outbreak, per official health ministry figures. Iran’s central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati earlier announced that it would purchase 16.8 million vaccine doses from the World Health Organization’s Covax facility.

South Africa rejected allegations that a new variant found in the country has contributed to a second wave of infections in the U.K. and criticized its decision to impose travel restrictions. Several other countries have also halted flights from South Africa.

A new strain that was detected in the U.K. has a mutation occurring at a site common with the South…