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.
Latest headlines:
Battle over holiday weekend restaurant curfew heats up in Texas
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton waded into a battle between the city of Austin and Gov. Greg Abbott Friday over whether the city's four-day late-night indoor dining shutdown should be allowed.
Austin's ban, which was set to run between 10:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. from Dec. 31 until Jan. 3, was upheld by a judge on Thursday. Hours later, at 7:39 p.m. local time on New Year's Eve, the governor released a statement on Twitter telling restaurants to stay open.
Paxton backed the governor on Friday and called for the Texas Supreme Court to halt enforcement of the ban. "We cannot have local declarations conflicting with Gov. Abbott’s clear order," he said in a statement. "I will continue to fight for Texans, small businesses and for an open economy."
-ABC News' Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
US surpasses 20 million infections on New Year's Day
The United States surpassed 20 million coronavirus cases on New Year's Day, with 20,007,149 infections, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In different terms, 1 out of every 16 Americans has tested positive for COVID-19.
As the nation's third COVID wave continues, California has emerged as a major epicenter of the U.S. outbreak and at least three states have reported cases of the new COVID variant, which originated in the U.K. Health experts believe it to be more transmissible than the old variant, although it is not thought to be more deadly.
According to JHU, 346,408 Americans had died of the virus as of Friday.
Sen. Romney criticizes Trump administration over slow vaccine rollout, offers own plan
Sen. Mitt Romney criticized the Trump administration's vaccine rollout in a statement he released Friday, writing: "when something isn’t working, you need to acknowledge reality and develop a plan—particularly when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake."
Relying on states in lieu of developing a federal vaccination plan is "as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable," Romney wrote, and offered up his own suggestions as examples of the brainstorming he said ought to be happening in Washington.
The government should enlist every medical professional not currently delivering care, such as retired veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen and medical students, to administer vaccines, Romney suggested, noting that they could be paid using the funding Congress has appropriated for states. Additionally, schools could serve as vaccine sites and vaccinations could be scheduled for specific days according to a person's priority category and birthdate.
While public health professionals will easily point out errors in his plan, he said, the nation needs new strategies based on "experience, modeling and trial," especially as the U.S. begins vaccinating more complex populations.
"We are already behind," Romney added. "Urgent action now can help us catch up."
-ABC News' Trish Turner and Chris Howell contributed to this report.
Emergency field hospital being built in North Carolina
Construction on a 30-bed emergency field hospital is slated to start in western North Carolina Friday, as COVID-19 cases in the state continue to rise.
The facility, which is being built next to Caldwell Memorial Hospital, will treat COVID patients who aren't sick enough to need a ventilator and is meant to relieve pressure on five health systems in the region.
As of Thursday, 3,472 people were hospitalized because of the virus, according to the state health department.
'No evidence' coronavirus variant is in US: HHS assistant secretary
Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spoke to "Good Morning America" Monday morning to discuss the new coronavirus variant taking over the U.K.
"We don't have proof that it's here, but we do suspect that it is likely here, given the global interconnectedness," Giroir said. "We have no evidence that it's here. It's certainly not widespread here, but we need to look and make sure it's not here."
He added that while "there is increasing evidence that it really is more transmissible" or contagious, due to the viral load that people with that strain have been shown to have, there is "no evidence that it is more serious."
There is no evidence that people who become infected with the variant are more likely to be hospitalized or die, Giroir said.
"And we still believe -- don't have absolute proof -- but we have very good evidence and a good belief that the vaccines will still be effective," he added.