New York health provider may have fraudulently obtained COVID-19 vaccine
The vaccine was then given to members of the public not yet eligible.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 80.2 million people worldwide and killed over 1.7 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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LA County surpasses 9,000 deaths
Los Angeles County's Health Department reported that it has surpassed 9,000 coronavirus related deaths Tuesday.
The county recorded more than 1,000 deaths since Dec. 8, which is an average of nearly 73 COVID-19 deaths per day over the past two weeks, the Health Department said.
There are 5,866 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized in Los Angeles, a record high, the Health Department said. About 20% of these patients are in the ICU, the Health Department said.
US COVID hospital patients reach spring peak: HHS
About 24% of inpatients in U.S. hospitals have the coronavirus, matching the peak set in April, according to an internal memo from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that was obtained by ABC News.
About 29% of hospitals across the country have more than 80% of their ICU beds filled, according to the memo.
HHS said 34% of ventilators in use are occupied by COVID-19 patients. The peak in April was 45%, according to the agency.
The memo also reported increasing trends with cases and deaths across the country between Dec. 16 and Dec. 22.
During that seven-day period, 1,656,411 new cases were confirmed, according to HHS. This was a 10.8% increase from the previous seven-day period.
There were 18,537 deaths recorded between Dec. 16 and Dec. 22, which was a 7.5% jump from the same period last week.
-ABC News' Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
AstraZeneca says its vaccine should be effective against new coronavirus variant
British drugmaker AstraZeneca told Reuters that its vaccine should be effective against the new COVID-19 variant linked to cases in the United Kingdom.
AstraZeneca said studies are underway to fully probe the impact of the mutation.
ABC News’ Sohel Uddin contributed to this report.
Supreme Court justices have vaccine access
Vaccines are being made available to all Supreme Court Justices, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg told ABC News.
Arberg did not say whether any justices have received the vaccine, citing health privacy laws.
The oldest justices are Stephen Breyer, 82, and Clarence Thomas, 72.
The National Security Council in recent days moved to extend vaccine access to top government officials to preserve continuity of government.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
803,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week
Another 803,000 workers lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week as the pandemic rages, the U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday.
The latest figure is slightly less than last week’s figure, but still remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
The DOL also said Wednesday that some 20.3 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs as of the week ending Dec. 5. That figure was 1.7 million for the comparable week in 2019.
The latest economic data from the DOL also comes as the COVID-19 relief package, which includes extended unemployment benefits, faces a new hurdle as President Donald Trump has indicated he will not sign the bill yet.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. was 6.7% last month, according to the DOL's most recent employment situation report. In February, prior to the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5%.
-ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.