Coronavirus updates: US reports nearly 300,000 new cases in all-time high
A staggering 299,087 new cases were confirmed over the past 24 hours.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 84.6 million people worldwide and killed over 1.8 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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Surgeon general says wife admitted to hospital over cancer treatment complications and he can't visit
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted Thursday morning that his wife had been admitted to a hospital because of complications with her cancer treatment. He said he wasn’t allowed to visit her because of COVID-19-related restrictions.
Adams’ wife, Lacey Adams, was first diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in 2018.
“I’m hoping she doesn’t have to spend New Year’s in a hallway because the beds are full,” Adams tweeted.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Tom Dunlavey contributed to this report.
US death toll is 114 times the total lives lost on Sept. 11
At least 342,734 lives have been lost to COVID-19 in the U.S., representing approximately 18.9% of the total global death toll of 1.8 million people.
One in every 965 Americans has now died from the virus, according to ABC News’ of data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.
The U.S. death toll is 114 times the total lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and just over half the total number of deaths that were recorded in U.S. during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
At least 19.7 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 in the 345 days since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first U.S. case on Jan. 21.
That means about 1 in every 16 Americans has contracted the virus.
ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
112-year-old woman, Massachusetts’ oldest resident, gets vaccine
The oldest resident of Massachusetts, 112-year-old Hazel Plummer, received her first dose of the vaccine on Wednesday.
Plummer was among the 49 residents and 50 employees at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, a nursing home in Littleton, Massachusetts, to do so.
The Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley suffered from the coronavirus outbreak in the spring but “was free of COVID-19 by the end of May,” the facility said.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
Wuhan rings in the new year
In Wuhan, China, where COVID-19 was first identified in December 2019, small crowds gathered to take in a fireworks display and ring in 2021.
Wuhan was the first epicenter of the pandemic, but the central Chinese metropolis of 11 million emerged out of lockdown in mid-April and has not had a reported case since May.
In New York City, no New Year’s revelers will be gathering in Times Square to watch the ball drop this year.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said this is "the most moving New Year's Eve," but urged New Yorkers to "watch on TV. Don't go down there."
California hospital explains how it will allocate medical resources in case of shortage
Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California, released a patient information sheet documenting how they will use their medical resources should they see a shortage due to an overwhelming number of new patients following the holidays.
"We are not currently in this situation, but could be based on ongoing increase in hospitalized COVID-19 patients," they told ABC News, adding that on Sunday they had their highest number of patients (189) in a single day.
In the letter, the hospital explained that due to rising cases of COVID-19 in the community, they may experience limited resources. These include life support machines (like a ventilator or breathing machine), intensive care unit (ICU) beds and healthy medical staff to care for patients.
If there is a shortage of resources, a team of medical professionals will review the cases of all patients who are critically ill to determine how these resources should be shared throughout the hospital.
"If a patient becomes extremely sick and very unlikely to survive his/her illness (even with life-saving treatment) – limited medical resources may go to treat other patients who are more likely to survive," the letter reads.
"Our community is facing a public health emergency that has severely constricted the medical resources available to patients in the Los Angeles County and greater Southern California region. Hospitals such as ours are working hard to meet the dramatic rise in needed care during this COVID-19 surge. We expect to face additional challenges moving forward after the holiday season," the hospital said in a statement.
ABC News' Abigail Shalawylo contributed to this report.