British health workers roll up their sleeves

First UK health workers getting vaccinated with Pfizer vaccine, FDA action could come within next week, and health experts say the USA will have months more of disease and death.

In November, there was a new COVID-19 case for every 76 Americans, according to non-profit numbers site USAFacts. COVID deaths jumped 36% over October. And the end of November saw nearly double the number of people hospitalized than 30 days earlier. All signs point to December being worse - even with the vaccine rolling out.

• By the time you are reading this, health workers in the United Kingdom will be getting the first doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

• NIH Director Francis Collins told NPR’s Morning Edition that Americans should expect masks and other precautions well into 2021, even with vaccines getting into people’s arms later this month. He said Covid-19 will be very much a part of our daily lives until “80 to 90 percent” of Americans have immunity, which he said could occur by midsummer if enough people accept the vaccine when it is available.

• Moving up from the third most common cause of death in October, COVID-19 was the No. 1 cause of death in the past week.

• Washington state authorities are tracing more COVID cases and deaths to a 300-person wedding attended by some employees of nursing homes.

• Neither Pfizer nor Moderna CEOs will be attending President Trump’s “vaccine summit,” according to STATNews. The president is hosting the vaccine summit Tuesday, in advance of Thursday’s FDA advisory committee meeting to consider the safety and efficacy data on the first of two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Other companies involved in vaccine distribution and administration are expected.

• Florida state police served a search warrant and seized a computer from the home of a fired state health statistician who revealed the state’s attempts to conceal the COVID-19 outbreaks in the state.

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