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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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
Another record-breaking day for LA County
Los Angeles County reported a new high for COVID-19 cases on Friday, topping the record set the day before.
There were 13,815 new cases reported on Friday, surpassing Thursday's record by nearly 1,000.
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer attributed the surge to Thanksgiving gatherings.
"The impact of these Thanksgiving surges of cases, on top of already rising cases, is creating extraordinary stress," she said at a briefing. "Should this be followed by another surge related to the winter holiday, the numbers of hospitalizations and patients in the ICU could become catastrophic."
There are 3,624 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19. In two weeks, that could be over 7,300 people, Ferrer warned, if the average number of cases and hospitalizations continue to climb.
-ABC News' Bonnie Mclean and Cammeron Parrish contributed to this report
HHS buys another 100 million doses of Moderna vaccine
The Department of Health and Human Services said it’s buying another 100 million doses of Moderna's vaccine candidate, which is scheduled for review by the FDA advisory committee next Thursday.
The federal government will now own a total 200 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs contributed to this report.
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.