NYC Outbreak Worsens; California Warns of Lockdown: Virus Update

8 min readDec 5, 2020

New York City’s average number of coronavirus cases and its infection rate hit the highest levels since May, while statewide daily infections closed in on 10,000. New Jersey reported record cases. California will impose a new shelter-at-home order if hospitals start running short of intensive-care capacity. Delaware, reporting record cases, issued a stay-at-home advisory.

Pfizer expects to ship half the Covid-19 vaccines it originally planned for 2020 due to supply-chain problems, Dow Jones reported. Moderna Inc.’s vaccine appears to offer protection against the coronavirus that will last a minimum of three months and potentially much longer, researchers found.

The latest wave of Covid-19 has inundated the Sun Belt, adding pressure on tourism-dependent cities brutalized by infections and deaths in July and August. Facebook said it will start removing false claims about immunizations that have been debunked by public health experts.

Key Developments:

Global Tracker: Cases reach 64.9 million; deaths top 1.5 million
Covid fighters run out of weapons with virus spreading in homes
Covid’s Sun-Belt return targets Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas
Operation Warp Speed and U.K. vaccine drive leave Europe behind
N.Y. developers hire influencers to sell homes during Covid
Vaccine Tracker: Covid-19 inoculations are about to begin

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click CVID

Delaware Issues Stay-at-Home Advisory (5:01 p.m. NY)

Delaware issued a stay-at-home advisory, halting in-person learning at schools, prohibiting winter sports competitions and requiring people to wear masks indoors if mixing with another household. The order runs from Dec. 14 through Jan. 11.

“A vaccine is on the way but, make no mistake, we are facing the most difficult few months of this crisis,” said Governor John Carney, a Democrat. “I know we’re all tired of Covid-19 — but it’s not tired of us. We’re pleading with Delawareans to do the right thing.”

The state already requires masks in public settings — and the new order does not change the rules for people at work or commuting.

Colorado Projects Thousands More Deaths (4:43 p.m. NY)

Covid-19 could kill between 2,000 and 4,400 people in Colorado this month, based on official state modeling data released Thursday. “The numbers could go up by much as several thousand deaths,” said Jon Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, during an online news conference.

As of Dec. 2, Colorado tallied 3,193 deaths among Covid-19 cases since the pandemic started. It is estimated 1-in-40 of the state’s population of 5.7 million are currently infected, Samet said. Last week it was 1-in-41 with Colorado Governor Jared Polis testing positive over the weekend.

“We have a population that is fatigued with doing what it needs to do,” Samet said. “I don’t like to be a grim prognosticator here. But if the curve keeps rising” it’s estimated “we’ll see more hospitalizations, more, cases more deaths.”

Ohio’s Travel Advisory Now Includes Ohio (4:25 p.m. NY)

Ohio’s positive-test rate climbed above 15% for the first week since April, Governor Mike DeWine said. He released a map showing states where Ohioans are advised against traveling — which now includes Ohio.

The state reported near-record hospitalizations amid warnings from medical officials that the system is already overwhelmed, before an expected post-Thanksgiving increase. DeWine reported 8,921 new cases, the fifth highest on record, and 82 more deaths.

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Coronavirus hospitalizations in New York topped 4,000 for the first time since late May, as new cases in the state closed in on 10,000 a day, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday.

Of the more than 203,000 tests conducted statewide on Wednesday, 9,855, or 4.84%, were positive, including hot spot areas, Cuomo said at a briefing in Albany. There were 4,063 hospitalizations, up 139 from the day prior, and 61 virus-related deaths.

The state is focusing on increasing the number of hospital beds available as fears of overwhelming the hospital system increase. There currently are about 53,000 hospital beds statewide, 35,000 of which are occupied, Cuomo said.

The state can increase to up to 75,000 beds using its “surge and flex” program, he said, adding that about 19,000 coronavirus patients were hospitalized at the peak of the pandemic in March and April.

Pfizer Cut Vaccine Rollout Target on Supply-Chain Obstacles, DJ Reports (3:54 p.m. NY)

Pfizer expects to ship half the Covid-19 vaccines it originally planned for 2020 due to supply-chain problems, Dow Jones reported, citing a company spokeswoman.

The company still expects to roll out more than a billion doses in 2021.

“Scaling up the raw material supply chain took longer than expected and it’s important to highlight that the outcome of the clinical trial was somewhat later than the initial projection,” a company spokeswoman said.

California to Lock Down If ICUs Fall Short of Capacity (3:49 p.m. NY)

California, the first state to tell residents to stay home to fight the coronavirus pandemic, may be about to do it again.

Governor Gavin Newsom warned Thursday that the state would impose a new shelter-at-home order if hospitals start running short of intensive-care capacity, a dire possibility that could happen in some areas as soon a this week.

“The bottom line is if we don’t act now, our hospital system will be overwhelmed,” he said.

The order would be imposed in specific regions — such as the San Francisco Bay Area or Southern California — rather than statewide. It would take effect once a region’s hospitals had only 15% of their intensive care unit beds available, a threshold none has crossed so far. If imposed, the order would last three weeks.

Iowa Reports Record Deaths Amid Spread to Long-Term Care (3:12 p.m. NY)

Iowa reported a record 70 fatalities, even as average deaths and daily cases have dipped in recent days. The state also reported outbreaks, defined as three or more cases, at 170 long-term care facilities, accounting for 1,097 of the state’s total 2,519 deaths. Two weeks ago, outbreaks were reported at 114 facilities.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa reimposed several curbs aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic in one of the nation’s biggest municipalities, which is battling a second wave of infections.

A 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew will be reinstated in Nelson Mandela Bay in the south of the country, Ramaphosa said in a televised address on Thursday. Alcohol sales be restricted and the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public spaces will be forbidden.

The number of new coronavirus cases in South Africa jumped to 4,400 on Wednesday, the highest since mid-August, Ramaphosa said. Of the 800,872 people diagnosed with the disease in the country so far, 92% have recovered, while 21,803 have died.

New Jersey reported 4,913 new cases of Covid-19, the most since the state’s first case was disclosed on March 4. The high number partly reflects vastly expanded testing: Like many states early in the pandemic, New Jersey tested only those with virus symptoms. Now the state routinely processes 30,000-plus specimens per day, and last month ran more than 75,000 tests over 24 hours.

The positivity rate, 13.68% on Nov. 28, is the highest since May as was the number of patients currently hospitalized, at 3,292. In addition, 64 deaths were reported.New York City plans to partner with private companies to create an institute devoted to predicting and responding to future pandemics, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.His announcement came as new reported cases reached a weekly average of 1,962 and the citywide infection rate hit 5.19% — the highest levels since May for both.

The city’s latest data showed 174 hospitalized with Covid-19 symptoms as of Tuesday, a number the mayor described as “a serious increase.” During the summer and fall, admissions totaled fewer than 50 a day. Despite the rising numbers, the mayor said the city’s private and public hospitals remain well within their capacity to handle such increases.

Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine appears to offer potent protection against coronavirus that will last a minimum of three months and potentially much longer, according to a letter from the researchers who conducted the trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The number of antibodies produced to fight the infection dropped slowly over time, though they remained elevated and started to plateau three months after volunteers received the second injection.

The level of neutralizing antibodies produced by 34 healthy adult patients in the first trial of the vaccine was higher than a comparison group of 41 patients who had been recovering from the infection for just over a month, the researchers said. While specific details the immune response needed to confer lasting immunity to the virus are still unclear, the initial findings suggest the vaccine has the potential to provide durable immunity, they said.