The United States set a pair of alarming coronavirus records Wednesday, surpassing 200,000 new infections and topping 100,000 covid-19 patients hospitalized — the first time the country has reached either metric in a single day.
And Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the worst might still be ahead. He predicted that the U.S. covid-19 death toll could reach 450,000 by February, and he warned that this winter could be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
The top Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday embraced a $908 billion coronavirus relief framework — a massive concession meant to prod President Trump and Senate Republicans into accepting a compromise as cases spike and the economic recovery shows signs of faltering ahead of the holiday.
And potentially building even more momentum behind the plan, at least one new Republican senator offered measured support for the idea.
The top Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday embraced a $908 billion coronavirus relief framework — a massive concession meant to prod President Trump and Senate Republicans into accepting a compromise as cases spike and the economic recovery shows signs of faltering ahead of the holiday.
And potentially building even more momentum behind the plan, at least one new Republican senator offered measured support for the idea.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that “we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”
BERLIN — Britain’s decision to grant emergency authorization to the Pfizer vaccine for the coronavirus was met with a skeptical reaction in much of Europe on Wednesday.
Some foreign officials complained about a sense of British patriotism and accomplishment over a product by two non-British companies. European Union lawmakers cautioned against a “hasty” rollout.
Despite concerns that the U.K. emergency authorization could put pressure on regulators in the United States and Europe to speed up their own approval processes, there were no immediate signs of that on Wednesday.
The European Union’s drug regulator offered cautious criticism of the British move, saying its own process was the “most appropriate regulatory mechanism for use in the current pandemic emergency.”
A Maryland official acknowledged publicly Wednesday, for the first time, that none of the 500,000 coronavirus tests the state purchased from South Korea in April were used to diagnose whether people had the virus.
More than 496,000 of the tests were handed back to the manufacturer as part of a deal for replacement tests, acting health secretary Dennis Schrader told the Board of Public Works. About 3,500 were used as lab workers tried to validate them.
His statement contradicted assertions by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) last month after The Washington Post reported that none of the original tests had been used. Asked by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about that specific Post finding, Hogan said: “They worked great. They were using them all over the country. We were using them.”