COVID-19 updates: Austria orders nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated residents
The lockdown for unvaccinated residents began at midnight on Monday.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 763,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.8% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
States sue over vaccine mandate for health care workers
Ten states are suing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over the Biden administration's vaccine mandate targeting health care workers.
About 17 million health care workers who are employed at places that get funding through CMS are required to get vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022. They do not have the option to test.
"The mandate is a blatant attempt to federalize public health issues involving vaccination that belong within the States’ police power," stated the suit, which was filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is running for Senate.
The attorneys general of Nebraska, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota and New Hampshire have joined the lawsuit, which is one of many filed against different parts of the Biden administration's vaccine requirements but the first to target the health care worker mandate.
Twenty-six states are suing over the mandate that applies to businesses, while another handful are suing over the federal worker mandate. Last week, a federal court temporarily blocked the business vaccine rule.
-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett
Cases on the rise in 20 states
The U.S. daily case average has jumped by 15% since the end of October, according to federal data.
Twenty states have seen daily cases jump by at least 10% in the last two weeks: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Cases are still falling in most of the South, which was the first region to get hit hard by the delta surge over the summer. In Florida, where high transmission was reported in every county over the summer, now only 1 out of the 67 counties is reporting high transmission, according to federal data.
-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos
White House confident pace of shots for kids will increase in coming days
White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday that the pace of vaccines for kids is expected "to continue to accelerate across the coming days and weeks."
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky made the case that children get vaccinated against far less deadly vaccines.
"In the years prior to the recommendation for Hepatitis A, meningococcus and varicella vaccination, the average annual reported deaths from these infections were three, eight and 16 respectively," she said. "All of those numbers are far lower than 66 -- the number of deaths we have seen from COVID-19 in children 5-to-11 over the past year."
-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett
Over 900,000 kids 5-11 will have 1st shot by end of day, White House estimates
The White House estimates that by the end of Wednesday over 900,000 children ages 5 to 11 will have received their first vaccine shot.
That’s 3% of the 28 million newly eligible kids in this category.
Another 700,000 kids in that age range have appointments booked at pharmacies to get their first jab, according to the White House.
-ABC News' Justin Gomez
Aaron Rodgers: 'To anybody who felt misled … I take full responsibility'
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers says he takes full responsibility for anyone who felt misled by his comments about his vaccination status.
“I do realize I am a role model," Rodgers said on "The Pat McAfee Show" Tuesday. "I made some comments that people might have felt were misleading. And to anybody who felt misled by those comments, I take full responsibility for those comments."
Rodgers, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week and is not vaccinated, said Friday that he wasn't hiding his vaccination status, even though he told reporters in August, "I've been immunized."
Rodgers also said Friday that he's allergic to an ingredient in mRNA vaccines.
He added, "I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body."
Rodgers said Tuesday that he's heard from the team and coaching staff and that he hopes to join meetings via Zoom ahead of Sunday's game. Rodgers added that there is a "small possibility" he doesn't play on Sunday.
Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News in September that severe allergies to the vaccines are extremely uncommon and are experienced by less than one in 1 million people, according to health data.
The CDC said: "If you have had a severe allergic reaction or an immediate allergic reaction -- even if it was not severe -- to any ingredient in an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, you should not get either of the currently available mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. ... If you aren’t able to get one type of COVID-19 vaccine because you are allergic to an ingredient in that vaccine, ask your doctor if you should get a different type of COVID-19 vaccine."
Dr. Jeff Linder, chief of general internal medicine and geriatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News in September that research so far shows that severe allergic reactions are likely triggered by polyethylene glycol, or PEG, a component of the vaccines.
"An allergy to that is pretty rare," Linder added. "It would have to be documented, as a moderate or severe allergy, before I would consider giving a medical exemption."