December 9 coronavirus news

The US Food and Drug Administration is warning against wearing face masks with metal parts during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exams after a patient experienced facial burns.

The agency issued a safety communication Tuesday alerting patients and health care providers about the potential dangers.

The injury occurred during a scan of the neck.

“The report describes burns to the patient’s face consistent with the shape of the face mask,” the FDA said.

Some face masks, such as surgical or non-surgical masks and respirators, contain metal parts and coatings. Metal parts can include nose pieces, also called nose clips or wires, nanoparticles or antimicrobial coating that might contain silver or copper.

The metals can heat up during an MRI and burn the patient.

“Burns from metal objects worn by a patient during an MRI exam are a known issue and patients should not wear any metal during an MRI,” the agency said, but given the coronavirus pandemic, the FDA is urging patients to wear masks during an MRI.

The FDA is urging health care workers to make sure patients are wearing masks that do not have metal components during MRIs. 

Magnetic resonance imaging uses strong magnets and radio waves to take internal pictures of the body. MRIs help health care providers diagnose an injury or disease and monitor medical treatment, the FDA said.

China is resuming operations on two cruise lines to a group of disputed islands in the South China Sea following nearly a year of suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

South China Sea Dream, a ship run by Nanhai Cruises, will sail to the Paracel Islands from Sanya, Hainan on Wednesday. The trip is not open to foreign travelers.

Chang'le Princess, a Hainan Strait Shipping ship, will also start sailing again to the Paracels. It's resuming operations from Sanya with a chartered event on Thursday that will be formally open to domestic tourists from Dec. 15.

Competing claims in the South China Sea: Beijing has opened the Paracel Islands -- known as the Xisha Islands in China -- to domestic tourists since 2013, as a way to exercise its maritime claims in the disputed area. Both Vietnam and Taiwan also lay claim to the islands and have protested China's activities in the area.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister Kim Yo Jong has accused South Korea's foreign minister of making "reckless remarks" on the emergency anti-epidemic measures in North Korea, adding that she "might have to pay dearly for it."

Kim also accused South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha of speaking "without any consideration of the consequences."

Kim's statement, her first in public for several months, was made on the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday.

What did Kang say? The South Korean foreign minister's comments about the coronavirus situation in North Korea were made on Dec. 5 at a conference in Bahrain hosted by the International Institute For Strategic Studies.

North Korea has said it doesn't have any confirmed Covid-19 cases but many experts are doubtful. The country closed its borders in January and raised its anti-epidemic measures to the highest level again on Dec. 2, according to the KCNA.

In late November, South Korea’s spy agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered executions of at least two people due to Covid-19 and economic pressure, according to a South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country's spy agency.

US President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday laid out his three-point plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic, an approach in dealing with the virus that continues to contrast with President Donald Trump.

The plan, announced as he introduced the team he has designed to get the pandemic under control, would aim to get at least 100 million Americans vaccinated in his initial 100 days in office, his pledge to sign a face mask mandate on his first day in office and efforts to get kids back to school safely.

Biden's plan came the same day that Trump signed a largely symbolic executive order aimed at prioritizing the shipment of the coronavirus vaccine to Americans before other nations.

Last week, in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, the President-elect said he will ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days after he takes office.

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The United States reported 104,600 Covid-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, setting a new record high since the pandemic began, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

According to CTP data, these are the highest hospitalization numbers:

Dr. Anthony Fauci wants people who still believe Covid-19 is a hoax to know it's real and that the US needs everyone to get behind public health measures.

Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and other health experts have said the next few months will be a challenging time, but Americans can help turn the tide by wearing masks, keeping a distance from others and washing their hands frequently.

Fauci has advised six presidents. He said he's never seen anything like this.

"We've got to overcome that and pull together as a nation uniformly with adhering to these public health measures," he said at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council summit on Tuesday.

That people aren't doing this is "really extraordinarily frustrating, because we feel strongly that we will be able to have a significant impact," he said.

The US surpassed 15 million total reported Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, meaning one in 22 Americans has tested positive for the virus. Experts feel the actual number of infections is much higher.

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The US sees its deadliest Covid-19 week since April, with more than 15,600 deaths

The United Kingdom has begun administering the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine outside clinical trials, launching a sprawling public health campaign to vaccinate tens of millions of people in just a matter of months. It marks a significant turning point in the fight against Covid-19, months into a pandemic that has left more than 1.5 million dead.

Margaret "Maggie" Keenan, who turns 91 next week, became the first person in the world to receive an authorized, fully-vetted coronavirus vaccine.

The second patient to receive a shot was an 81-year-old man named William Shakespeare (yes, you read that right).

Keenan and Shakespeare were among a handful of people across Britain — those aged over 80, nursing home staff and health care workers — who were administered doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday morning, a week after the UK leapfrogged the rest of Europe and the United States to become the first Western nation to approve it.

The process, which is complicated by the need to store the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in ultracold conditions, will be closely watched from around the globe. The speed with which UK regulators approved the vaccine raised questions in some quarters. But Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said the process had been "incredibly robust."

Other nations are not far behind the UK. The US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has scheduled a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee on Thursday to discuss Pfizer/BioNTech's emergency authorization application. It will meet again on December 17 to consider the application for Moderna's vaccine candidate.

Meanwhile, vaccination centers across Moscow started to distribute Russia's Sputnik vaccine on Saturday, initially to groups such as teachers, health professionals, and municipal services workers, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered large-scale vaccination to begin across the country.