December 14 coronavirus news

The bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing a package with a $908 billion price tag held a news conference Monday afternoon to formally release their legislative text.

The group decided to split the plan into two bills with one of the bills dealing with the thorny issues of state and local aid and liability protections, while the other bill deals with provisions expected to win more widespread bipartisan support.

Congressional leaders have not yet signed off on any deal – a point that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia gave a nod to when he said, “Now it’s up to the leadership and make this happen on a timely basis.” But Manchin struck an optimistic tone, saying at the end of the news conference as he pointed to the bill text sitting on a podium, “help is on the way.”

It’s also not yet clear whether Democrats will broadly embrace the bill dealing with state and local aid and liability protections. Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine addressed that point, saying, “the other piece involving state and local aid and liability, we couldn’t come to a uniform consensus although there is still work going on in that area.” 

GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine praised the bipartisan effort, saying, “I think we’ve had a Christmas miracle occur in Washington."

Echoing Manchin’s point on next steps, she said, “My hope is that our hard work will spur our leadership on both sides of the aisle in the Senate and in the House and in the administration to take our products and use them as the basis for a Covid relief package that is urgently needed.”

GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska referred to the stack of legislative text as “hope.”

“I think it’s important that you’re hearing and seeing that there is a unity in purpose here,” she said.

GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio shared that he has lost multiple friends to coronavirus.

"I just lost my third friend to Covid," Portman said. "He died in a hospital after a painful process of being in the ICU and going through with his family the grief and the pain."

Four hospitals in California received a total of 33,150 Covid-19 vaccine doses today, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced, just minutes after some of the first health care workers in the state were vaccinated at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center.

Strikingly, the number of doses received in the state were equal to the number of new infections recorded today. 

Today’s shipments were sent to hospitals in Los Angeles, San Diego and Northern California. On Tuesday, 24 additional sites are expected to receive vaccine shipments, and five more sites will receive the doses on Wednesday, Newsom elaborated.

“We are very close within the next week or so anticipating that to be replicated in other parts of this state,” Newsom said. “We are in the midst of the worst moment of this pandemic so today is hopeful and reason to be optimistic, but let's be mindful of where we really are, in terms of this pandemic and forgive me for saying that.”  

Both Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed awe at the moment the scientific milestone brings.

“The hope of this moment to witness the vaccines that we just saw, brought a tear to my eye, because it shows human ingenuity. It shows the stubbornness, that human beings have, we want to survive. We want to thrive. And we will make it through this,” Garcetti gushed.

Newsom plans to be vaccinated, but said he will wait until it is available to him, “I will not be cutting in line” in front of critical workers, he said. 

Garcetti also intends to get vaccinated when appropriate, and assured residents of the safety of the vaccine. “I just also wanted to spell out for any communities, because at the federal level, and with a double check at the state, these vaccines have not been infected by power. You can trust them. You should trust them. I trust them.”

US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Monday that he wants to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as he can.

Azar added that he would be "delighted" for any public official to get vaccinated on TV. Tapper said that President-elect Joe Biden announced he would do so when his time comes to get vaccinated.

"If President-elect Biden comes to you, would you inoculate him, would you vaccinate him? Or perhaps have somebody do so?" Tapper asked Azar.

"Of course we would," Azar said. "Any of those types of efforts that signal to the American people the importance of getting vaccinated and that we as leaders are willing to put our money where our mouth is — of course we'd be very supportive of that and make sure that would happen."

Watch the moment:

People across the United States should learn from their local public health authorities and providers when they may be eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine — especially older adults and people with underlying medical conditions, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Monday.

"So we could be seeing in the end of February, into March, more general vaccination programs," he said.

Azar added that his "personal hope" is that the individuals who are elderly and particularly vulnerable will be in some of those next groups in February, "but they're going to learn that from their governor and local health authorities."

Watch:

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called the rising death from Covid-19 in the United States a "terrible tragedy."

"Any death from Covid is a terrible tragedy," he told CNN's Jake Tapper as Covid-19 deaths surpassed 300,000 in the US.

"Any death in this context and not just directly from Covid," said Azar, who lost his father earlier this year.

"I wasn't able to see him for the month and a half before. I've gotten to experience the pain that individuals who can't be with their relatives who are in a nursing home, be with the relatives who are dying in intensive care units, what they experience. The pain and the anguish in our health care system and our country is real, and that is why I wake up every day with a fervid commitment to deliver vaccines like we're doing ... Because we want these deaths to stop, we want to turn around these hospitalizations, we want cases to go down, " Azar explained.

Azar also pushed back against claims that the rush to approve the vaccine was politically motivated.

Watch the moment:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday said eight more hospitals across the state are expected to receive the Pfizer tomorrow to begin vaccinating its health care workers.

Speaking during a news briefing this afternoon, DeWine said those hospitals "were selected based on geography, population, and access to ultra-cold storage capacity."

The hospitals are:

"Next week we hope Moderna is approved, that we will see vaccines going to many, many hospitals throughout the state of Ohio," DeWine said.

Vaccination began for health care workers at OSU Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in Cincinnati earlier today.

DeWine said the state will begin vaccinations in nursing homes starting Friday. 

Between five and 10 nursing homes will begin vaccination on Friday, DeWine added. The governor did not specify which nursing homes or care facilities will be among the first to participate in this launch. 

Health officials in Wisconsin said that they expect 49,725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to be delivered this week. 

In a news conference Monday afternoon, Deputy Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Health, Julie Willems Van Dijk said that at least two hubs have received shipments of nearly 10,000 doses earlier on Monday. The state has partnered with eight hubs throughout the state that have the storage capabilities necessary for the vaccine, including the freezer capacity. 

According to a news release from Gov. Tony Evers' office, the state expects increased doses in shipments scheduled in the coming weeks. 

Earlier today, the University of Wisconsin health system said they received the first doses of the vaccine. In a tweet, they said that they will start vaccinating employees this afternoon. 

The state of Alaska received its first shipment of Covid-19 vaccine Sunday night, according to an announcement from the Department of Health and Social Services. The vaccine supply created by Pfizer and BioNTech was flown to the state by UPS. Alaska is the first state outside the contiguous United States to confirm receiving a shipment.

The DHSS says it will take until Wednesday before vaccines arrive in some locations that have ordered them. “Following receipt of the first shipments, some health care workers could begin receiving vaccinations either later that day or soon thereafter at hospitals and health care facilities,” the department said in its press release Monday.

In addition to the health care facilities that have directly ordered a vaccine supply, the state is working with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to get doses to Alaska’s substantial number of remote indigenous communities.

There have been at least 300,267 reported deaths from Covid-19 in the United States since the pandemic began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

There have been at least 16,388,504 total coronavirus cases in the US, Johns Hopkins data shows.

Johns Hopkins recorded the first death from Covid-19 on Feb. 29 in Washington state. Two earlier deaths in California were posthumously confirmed to be from Covid-19 later in the spring.