LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The governor of Arkansas said the state received more doses of coronavirus vaccines on Monday as the number of virus-related deaths continued to increase.
Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the state reported 58 deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, though about one-third of those were delayed reports. The state saw 1,457 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, and more than 1,000 people remained hospitalized with the virus.
Hutchinson said Arkansas also began receiving shipments of the newly approved coronavirus vaccine from the drugmaker Moderna, with 5,900 doses expected Monday and additional shipments planned for Tuesday and Wednesday. The state also received 18,575 doses of Pfizer's vaccine.
Over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases in Arkansas has increased by nearly 9%, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. One in every 189 people in Arkansas tested positive for the virus in the past week.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
A new COVID-19 relief bill shaping up in Congress includes individual payments reaching $600 for most Americans and an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits. Votes on the bill in the House and Senate are expected Monday. Among those getting help are hard-hit businesses, schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction. Also, President-elect Joe Biden will receive his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe.
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HERE'S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The governor of Kentucky announced Monday that several long-term care facilities in the state have started vaccinating their residents.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said vaccines for those groups should be finished by early March. Deaths in the state's assisted living and nursing homes account for two-thirds of the state's coronavirus death toll.
Kentucky received it's first shipments of the new COVID-19 vaccine last week. About 7,000 Kentucky residents, the vast majority of them health care workers in hospitals, have been vaccinated since.
Through the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program, Walgreens pharmacy will provide the COVID-19 vaccinations in roughly 800 long-term care facilities across Kentucky.
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OKLAHOMA CITY — The head of Oklahoma's largest teachers union praised the governor on Monday for moving school personnel to phase two of the vaccine distribution plan, but she warned that forcing schools to return to in-person learning next month could jeopardize the safety of public school workers.
Oklahoma Education Association President Alicia Priest also released details of an informal survey of more than half its members that show 63% believe schools are not safe for in-person instruction.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has said his goal is to return all public schools to in-person classes after the Christmas break.
Priest, a Spanish teacher from Yukon, described Stitt's plan is an "arbitrary date" and suggested it could pit parents and educators against one another.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia set another weekly record for positive coronavirus cases and deaths as it awaits an influx of vaccines from Moderna.
Health officials said the state recorded at least 6,638 confirmed cases of the virus in the seven-day period ending Sunday. That passed the mark of 6,439 positive cases set two weeks ago. The state also reported 160 deaths last week.
Officials said on Monday that the state's vaccination drive reached a third of all long-term care centers in the state last week. They expect to have administered doses to all 214 centers by the end of the month, ahead of schedule and ahead many other states.
Republican Gov. Jim Justice has said about 85% to 95% of long-term care center residents are taking the vaccine, but about 40% of staff are declining it.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Kuwait is suspending all commercial international flights and closing its land and sea borders starting Monday evening until Jan. 1 over fears about the highly infectious new coronavirus strain.
The government said that cargo flights and trade routes will remain open.
Health authorities ordered those who arrived from the European Union or the United Kingdom in the past week to immediately take a PCR coronavirus test.
The national airline of the United Arab Emirates also announced it will require all passengers flying from the United Kingdom starting Thursday to show a negative PCR coronavirus test within 72 hours before taking off over fears of the fast-spreading new strain of the virus.
The Kuwaiti Health Ministry said COVID-19 cases increased by 230 to 148,209 on Monday, while the death toll rose by one to 922.
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AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Capitol will reopen to the public in January after being closed for much of the year because of the pandemic, a decision that comes as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging to the highest levels since summer.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement on Monday that the capitol will reopen Jan. 4, about a week before the Texas Legislature reconvenes for the first time since 2019.
Texas had more than 9,800 hospitalized coronavirus patients as of Sunday, the most since a deadly summer outbreak. The state is approaching the Christmas holiday with fewer than 800 intensive care unit beds and last Thursday smashed a single-day record for new cases with with more than 16,000, which state officials partly attributed to holiday gatherings.
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BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana is expecting to receive shipments of a second coronavirus vaccine.
The office of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards said Louisiana is expecting to receive 79,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine and more than 28,000 Pfizer vaccine doses that will arrive this week.
Meanwhile, a new audit released Monday by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera's office says the slow pace of laboratories' reporting of coronavirus test results is hindering the health department's ability to understand the scale of the outbreak, do adequate contact tracing and determine the rate of positive versus negative test results.
Health Secretary Courtney Phillips says the department's data analysis accounts for many of the issues raised by the auditor's office.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece has raised to ten days the quarantine period for travelers flying in from the U.K., a day after increasing it from three days to seven, but has not suspended flights.
The measure will apply from Tuesday through Jan. 7. Travelers from the U.K. must also undergo mandatory rapid tests upon entering Greece.
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UNITED NATIONS — The World Health Organization's technical lead for COVID-19 said on Monday that scientists in the United Kingdom are still trying to understand the transmissibility and lethality of the new virus strain, and the antibody response it provokes.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said studies on antibody response are underway and they expect results "in coming days and weeks."
Emergencies Chief Dr. Mike Ryan said, "There's zero evidence that there's any increase in severity associated with this disease."
He said that whether the new variant responds the same as older variants to current vaccines "is currently being checked in a number of labs."
WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the strategy for addressing new variants of COVID-19 was same as for prior variants.
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TORONTO — Ontario is announcing a province-wide lockdown because of a second wave of COVID-19 in Canada's most populous province.
The lockdown will be put in place for southern Ontario from Dec. 26 until Jan.23, but will lift for northern Ontario on Jan. 9.
Ontario has had seven straight days of more than 2,000 cases a day. Modeling shows that could more than double in January. Health officials earlier say a four to six week hard lockdown could significantly stop the spread of COVID-19.
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LOS ANGELES — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is back in a precautionary coronavirus quarantine for the second time in two months as surging COVID-19 cases swamp the state's hospitals and strain medical staffing.
The governor's office says Newsom will quarantine for 10 days after one of his staffers tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday afternoon.
Newsom was tested and his result came back negative, as did the tests of other staffers who were in contact.
Last month, members of the governor's family were exposed to someone who tested positive. Newsom, his wife and four children tested negative at that time.
As of Sunday, more than 16,840 people were hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 infections — more than double the previous peak reached in July — and a state model that uses current data to forecast future trends shows the number could reach 75,000 by mid-January.
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MADRID — Spain's health ministry reported slightly more than 22,000 officially recorded new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend and 334 deaths amid a continuing rise in daily infection numbers.
The ministry said Monday that Spain's pandemic tally has now reached 1.82 million cases and 49,260 fatalities.
While infection numbers declined substantially in late November in Spain, there has seen a steady increase in December. Officials say this is most likely due to the increase in social gatherings and people mixing in the street and in stores in the run-up to Christmas.
The ministry said the infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants was at 224 Monday compared to 214 on Friday. This is still way down from a high of 529 cases on Nov. 9.
The average occupancy rate of ICU beds by COVID-19 patients remained at 20%.
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BERLIN — German officials say they expect the country to soon receive more than 2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine that got the green light from regulators on Monday.
Authorities in Berlin state said they have been informed by Health Minister Jens Spahn that the first shipment of 151,125 doses will be delivered to Germany on Dec. 26.
Three further batches of almost 1.9 million doses combined will arrive on Dec. 28, Dec. 30, and in the first week of January.
Germany, a country of 83 million inhabitants, hopes to begin vaccinating nursing home residents on Dec. 27, followed by others at high risk of serious infection or working in fields where they might expose vulnerable people.
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LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson says British and French officials are working "to unblock the flow of trade as fast as possible" after France barred U.K. trucks over concerns about a new variant of the coronavirus.
Dozens of countries have barred flights from the U.K. because of the new variant, which scientists believe is more easily transmitted. Southern England, where the new strain is most widespread, has been placed under strict lockdown measures.
France announced Sunday it was closing its borders to trucks from Britain for at least 48 hours from Sunday night. That left hundreds of vehicles stranded outside the Channel Tunnel port of Dover.
Johnson said he had spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron, and Macron "stressed he was keen to sort it out in the next few hours if we can."
He stressed that the ban did not apply to freight moving in unaccompanied containers, and "the vast majority of food, medicines and other supplies are coming and going as normal."
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STOCKHOLM — Sweden says it is banning all incoming travel from Britain and Denmark effective midnight Monday to curb any risk of the new COVID-19 virus variant from entering the country.
Swedish Interior Minister said at press conference on Monday that in the case of Britain "the ban means that all people traveling from the UK will be rejected if they try to travel into Sweden." Swedish citizens would be exempt and wouldn't be affected.
It wasn't immediately clear how long the entry ban would be valid.
The Swedish government also said it also had imposed a 48-hour ban for all incoming flights from Britain, starting Monday afternoon and lasting until 1500GMT Wednesday. Cargo flights and ambulance flights are excluded.
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NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has asked airlines flying into his state from the United Kingdom to make all passengers take a coronavirus test before they get on the plane.
The Democrat said at least one airline, British Airways, has agreed to comply. He's awaiting an answer from others, including Delta and Virgin Atlantic.
Cuomo has been calling on the U.S. government to temporarily halt flights from the U.K. because of the emergence of a new strain of the virus circulating in that country.
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