Coronavirus updates: 1st vaccines now on the way to all 50 US states
Two main trucks left the Pfizer facility on Sunday morning, the company said.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 71.5 million people and killed over 1.6 million worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Latest headlines:
California sees 30,000 new cases in 1 day
California recorded 30,851 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the state's case total to over 1.42 million.
The Golden State's seven-day positivity rate stands at 10%.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered regions to follow a stay-at-home order if their intensive care unit capacity falls below 15%.
The San Joaquin Valley and Southern California regions have already met this criteria and are under stay-at-home orders until at least Dec. 28.
The Greater Sacramento region now meets the criteria and a stay-at-home order will go into effect there the night of Dec. 10.
Northern California and the Bay Area are the two remaining regions with ICU capacities above 15%.
2.9 million doses to go out immediately upon FDA authorization
Once the FDA approves the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, 2.9 million doses will go out immediately in the U.S., said Gen. Gus Perna, commander of the Army Materiel Command. The second batch of 2.9 million will be close behind, within 21 days, Perna said.
Twenty million Americans are expected to be vaccinated by the end of 2020, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.
"We remain confident that across our portfolio of multiple vaccines, we will have enough doses for any American who wants a vaccine by the end of the second quarter of 2021," Azar said.
After two allergic reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTechvaccine were reported in the United Kingdom, Moncef Slaoui, Trump’s chief scientific adviser on vaccines, told reporters, "The expectation would be that subjects with known severe reaction, allergic reaction, should not take the vaccine, until we understand exactly what happened here."
ABC News' Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
US marks deadliest week since beginning of pandemic
The last week marks the deadliest week for the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic, with 15,578 deaths -- roughly equivalent to 92 deaths reported every hour.
The U.S. is now averaging more than 200,000 new cases each day -- three times higher than the country's summer peak in July, and more than six times higher than the country's spring peak in April.
There has not been a single day with less than 100,000 daily cases for the last five straight weeks, according to an ABC News analysis of data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.
In the last week alone, the U.S. has reported 1.4 million new COVID-19 cases, more than any other week on record, and equivalent to 1 in every 231 Americans testing positive.
With numerous days now over the 200,000 mark, the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases has increased by 87% in the last month.
ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
Pennsylvania governor tests positive
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday and is isolating at home.
"I have no symptoms and am feeling well," Wolf said in a statement. “I am continuing to serve the commonwealth and performing all of my duties remotely."
Wolf's wife has been tested and is awaiting results.
US averaging nearly 2,200 COVID-19 deaths per day for 1st time
For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is reporting an average of nearly 2,200 deaths from the disease per day, according to an ABC News analysis of data collected and published by The COVID Tracking Project.
The national seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths per day day is currently 2,171. That figure has increased by 139% in the past month.
Last week, there were nearly 15,000 fatalities from the disease recorded nationwide, including five days where the daily death toll surpassed the 2,000 mark. That's roughly equivalent to 88 COVID-19 deaths reported each hour.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported over 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day for more than a month straight, including three consecutive days where the daily count topped 200,000.
Just in the last month, the national seven-day average of daily new cases has doubled, now averaging 191,736 -- the highest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic.
There were 1,018,657 cases recorded nationwide in the first five days of December. To put that in perspective, it took nearly 100 days from the first recorded COVID-19 case in the U.S. for the country to surpass 1 million confirmed cases.
Hospitalizations continue to surge to unprecedented levels, with over 101,000 patients currently hopitalized with COVID-19 across the country -- a new national record.
In the past two months, current hospitalizations have more than tripled, increasing by 223%.
ABC News' Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Kim Soorin and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.