By ROSA SANCHEZ, EMILY SHAPIRO and IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 77.8 million people worldwide and killed over 1.7 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Dec 23, 7:13 amPfizer, BioNTech to supply US with 100M more vaccine dosesThe U.S. government has ordered 100 million additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Business Wire announced Wednesday morning. This brings the total doses of the vaccine for the country to 200 million.”With these 100 million additional doses, the United States will be able to protect more individuals and hopefully end this devastating pandemic more quickly,” said Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer. “We look forward to continuing our work with the U.S. government and healthcare providers around the country.”All 200 million doses are expected to be delivered by July 31, 2021, allowing for 100 million people in the U.S. to be vaccinated.”Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”Dec 23, 6:46 amUS sees second deadliest day with over 3,000 deathsTuesday became the second deadliest day on record since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., with 3,401 new deaths, according to new data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The deadliest day was last week, Dec. 16, when 3,656 new deaths from the virus were reported. The U.S.’ seven-day average of daily deaths is now 2,654, according to The COVID Tracking Project. December is set to surpass April as the deadliest month since the start of the pandemic.Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
