A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 94.2 million people worldwide and killed over 2 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Here's how the news developed this week. All times Eastern.
Jan 12, 2021, 12:48 PM EST
Disneyland, Mets' Citi Field to become vaccination sites
Citi Field, home to the New York Mets, will become a 24/7 mega-vaccination site to open the week of Jan. 25.
The Queens baseball stadium will vaccinate 5,000 to 7,000 people daily.
“We even welcome Yankees fans," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joked.
Citi Field is pictured at dusk before a baseball game between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 9, 2020, in New York.
Kathy Willens/AP
Citi Field is the latest sports facility to convert to a mass vaccination site, joining Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
Disneyland is set to become the first mass vaccination site in Orange County, California, later this week.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Mark Crudele contributed to this report.
Jan 12, 2021, 12:07 PM EST
Canada-US border closure extended to Feb. 21
The closure of the Canada-U.S. border has been extended to Feb. 21.
The border has been closed to all nonessential traffic since March. The closure agreement is reviewed by U.S. and Canadian government authorities each month.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
Jan 12, 2021, 9:45 AM EST
US will not hold back second vaccine doses, HHS secretary says
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the federal government will no longer hold back COVID-19 vaccine doses and is now recommending states inoculate anyone 65 and older as well as those under the age of 65 who have two or more conditions or illnesses.
Teacher Lisa Egan is vaccinated with the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at a clinic organized by New York City's Department of Health, Jan. 11, 2021. "I feel so great, so lucky," she said. "I've been teaching remotely. I'm hoping now I can go back to the classroom."
Mark Lennihan/AP
"This is just a staging and moving to the next phase on the vaccine program. We've had so much success with quality and predictable manufacturing and almost flawless distribution of the vaccine, but we have seen now that the administration in the states has been too narrowly focused," Azar told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Tuesday on Good Morning America.
"So, what are we doing? Three things. First, We have already made available every dose of vaccine," he said. "So we had been holding back second doses as a safety stock. We now believe that our manufacturing is predictable enough that we can ensure second doses are available for people from ongoing production. So everything is now available to our states and our health care providers."
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar appears on "Good Morning America," Jan. 12, 2020.
ABC News
"Second, we are calling on our governors to now vaccinate people age 65 and over and under age 65 with a comorbidity, because we have got to expand the group," he continued. "We've already distributed more vaccine than we have health care workers and people in nursing homes."
"Third, we've got to get more channels of administration," he added. "We've got to get it to pharmacies, get it to community health centers, and we are here and we will deploy teams to support states doing mass vaccination efforts if they wish to do so. It has been overly hospitalized so far in too many states."
As of 9 a.m. ET on Monday, more than 25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been distributed nationwide but fewer than 9 million people have received their first dose, according to data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jan 12, 2021, 6:46 AM EST
European Medicines Agency receives Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine application
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Tuesday that it has received an application for conditional marketing authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by England's University of Oxford and British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Conditional marketing authorization is the process used to speed up the approval of treatments and vaccines amid public health emergencies. The EMA said the assessment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine "will proceed under an accelerated timeline," and that an opinion on whether to issue an authorization could be announced by Jan. 29.
"If EMA concludes that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks in protecting against COVID‑19, it will recommend granting a conditional marketing authorisation," the agency said in a statement Tuesday. "The European Commission will then fast-track its decision-making process with a view to granting a conditional marketing authorisation valid in all EU and EEA Member States within days."
