Coronavirus updates: 1st vaccines now on the way to all 50 US states
Two main trucks left the Pfizer facility on Sunday morning, the company said.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 71.5 million people and killed over 1.6 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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Mexico approves emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
Mexico approved emergency use of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine on Friday.
The announcement came shortly before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that it had authorized Pfizer's vaccine. Mexico has recorded over 1.2 million cases and 113,000 deaths -- fourth-most globally behind the U.S., Brazil and India.
The United Kingdom, Bahrain and Canada have also authorized the vaccine.
FDA authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.
President Donald Trump announced the news on Twitter.
The move comes a day after the FDA's advisory committee recommended that the U.S. government authorize the nation's first COVID-19 vaccine for people over the age of 16.
The first vaccine will be administered in less than 24 hours, Trump said Friday night.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told "Good Morning America" Friday morning that up to 20 million Americans will be vaccinated this month.
US sees record-breaking cases, current hospitalizations
The U.S. broke records in new COVID-19 cases and current hospitalizations on Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
There were 232,105 new cases, and 108,044 people are currently hospitalized with the virus, the project reported.
The seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases, deaths and current hospitalizations also reached new highs on Friday, it found.
Nevada, South Dakota and Arizona now lead the nation in current hospitalized patients per million people, according to the tracker.
New cases, deaths continue to increase week-over-week, HHS memo shows
After a slowdown in reporting and testing over the Thanksgiving holiday, week-over-week COVID-19 numbers continue to show dramatic increases in new cases and deaths, according to an internal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services memo obtained by ABC News Friday night.
From Dec. 5 to 11, there was an 18.1% increase in new cases and a 26.9% increase in new deaths compared with the previous week, the memo said.
Across the country, 31% of hospitals have more than 80% of their intensive care unit beds filled, and 31% of ventilators in use are occupied by COVID-19 patients, HHS said. Additionally, 21% of inpatients have COVID-19, nearing the all-time peak of 24%.
Cases are sharply rising in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Utah, the memo noted. Maryland, South Dakota and Wyoming have also seen a surge in COVID-19 fatality rates.
-ABC News' Josh Margolin
US reports over 192,000 new cases
There were 192,299 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Monday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
It's the 35th straight day that the U.S. has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Monday's tally is less than the country's all-time high of 227,885 new cases confirmed on Dec. 4, according to Johns Hopkins data.
An additional 1,404 deaths from the disease were also registered nationwide on Monday, down from a peak of 2,879 fatalities on Dec. 3, according to Johns Hopkins data.
COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over Thanksgiving followed by a potentially very large backlog from the holiday.
A total of 14,954,331 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 283,746 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up over the summer.
The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4 and reaching 200,000 for the first time on Nov. 27.