Just one week after the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine were administered in the United States, a new batch of vaccines fanned out across the country on Monday, an urgently needed expansion of a vaccination effort that is expected to reach vulnerable populations and rural areas where hospitals are strained as soon as this week.
The vaccine, from Moderna, comes as the virus continues to spread virtually unabated. Parts of California are down to their last I.C.U. beds and some hospitals in other states are at or over capacity — and the numbers are as alarming as they have ever been: At least 317,800 people have died in the United States, more than any other country in the world. On Monday, confirmed cases in the country reached 18 million, just five days after surpassing 17 million.
And with Christmas and New Year’s on the near horizon, health officials fear that more travel will push those numbers even higher. More than a million travelers a day passed through American airport security checkpoints on each of the last three days, a spike in holiday travel that comes despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Roughly six million doses of the newly authorized Moderna vaccine are being shipped to more than 3,700 locations around the country this week, adding to the nearly three million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that were dispatched mostly to health care workers starting last week.
The Moderna vaccine, which can be stored in a normal freezer and comes in a smaller number of units than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, offers particular hope for rural hospitals, which often do not have the ultracold equipment or staffing numbers to handle the Pfizer-BioNTech shipments. That vaccine requires an exceptionally low storage temperature of negative 70 Celsius and comes in units of 975 doses.
Many of the first vaccine shots went to health care workers. Joining them Monday were residents and staff members of hard-hit nursing homes, set to begin inoculating their residents through Walgreens or CVS this week, part of a deal struck with the federal government. These facilities have felt the brunt of the pandemic: At least a third of the nation’s deaths have been reported in nursing homes and long-term-care facilities, and many residents have been isolated from loved ones for much of the year.
OhioHealth, a hospital system in Columbus, Ohio, received 10,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine in ice-packed cardboard boxes on Monday. The hospital had already received nearly 2,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, an infectious disease specialist, rolled up his sleeve to get a dose of that vaccine on Monday morning. Not long afterward, he got the news that the Moderna shipment had arrived.
“We are all really exhausted both physically and mentally,” said Dr. Gastaldo, who said he asked to keep an empty vial of his vaccine as a keepsake. “Having everyone rally around being vaccinated offers a glimmer of hope.”
More than 70 rural hospitals in Texas are expected to receive the Moderna vaccine and start offering doses as soon as Tuesday.
“The burden is worse than it’s been in nine months,” said John Henderson, the chief executive of the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals. “Their staff is completely worn out,” he said. “The vaccine is the only optimistic news we’ve had in a few months.”
The Oregon State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Salem, also received its first shipment of the Moderna vaccine, and will begin vaccinating staff and patients next Monday, said Rebeka Gipson-King, hospital relations director.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 11 patients and 65 staff members have tested positive for the virus at the state hospital. The hospital houses 579 patients on two campuses, and the pandemic has made many feel more isolated, said Ms. Gipson-King.
“This is a really big deal for us,” she added. “Just like everybody, the people who we serve at the state hospital, their lives have been disrupted.”
Growing alarm over an outbreak of a more contagious virus variant in Britain prompted mounting concern and travel chaos on Monday as more than 30 nations banned travelers from the country, suspending flights and cutting off trade routes in scenes reminiscent of the frenzied early days of the pandemic.
Monday should have been a day of breakthroughs. In the United States, federal lawmakers reached a deal on a $900 billion stimulus package and the rollout of a second vaccine, made by Moderna, was set to begin. Across the Atlantic, the European Union approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, paving the way for millions of doses to be transferred to all 27 European Union member states.
Instead, announcements by government officials sent financial markets reeling. Stocks in Europe were sharply lower, along with energy prices and the British pound. On Wall Street, the decline was tempered slightly by news of the stimulus deal.
Britain was all but cut off from the rest of Europe on Monday, offering a chilling preview of what a rupture might look like, just 10 days before a deadline to negotiate a post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union.
The disruptions stoked fears of panic buying in British supermarkets, as Britons, already rattled by a surge in infections and a hastily imposed lockdown in much of England, worried about running out of fresh food in the days before Christmas.
The current upheaval over the virus mutation grew after Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said that it had been shown to be 70 percent more contagious than other variants. The 70 percent estimate of greater transmissibility is based only on modeling and has not been confirmed by lab experiments, said Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a scientific adviser to the British government. British officials said there was no reason to believe that the new variant caused more serious illness.
But the statistic raised alarm around the world. France imposed a 48-hour suspension of freight transit across the English Channel, leaving thousands of truck drivers stranded in their vehicles on Monday as the roads leading to England’s ports were turned into parking lots.
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands were among the nations that announced restrictions on travel. Air passengers from the United Kingdom arriving in Germany were detained at airports on Sunday night. Poland said it would suspend flights between the two countries starting Monday. Spain announced that only Spaniards and residents of Spain will be allowed to fly to Spain from Britain, and implemented tighter border checks with Gibraltar, the British territory located at the southern tip of Spain. Greece has extended to ten days the quarantine period for travelers flying in from the U.K., a day after raising it to seven days, but has not suspended flights.
Hong Kong on Monday also closed its borders to travelers from Britain, saying all passenger flights from the country would be barred starting at midnight. The ban will be extended for the first time to Hong Kong residents. Canada, India, Iran, and Russia also issued new restrictions.
Israel is essentially closing its skies to most foreign nationals from Wednesday afternoon. Saudi Arabia went even further in trying to halt the variant from gaining traction, announcing a one week ban on all international travel, according to the Saudi Press Agency. Kuwait on Monday evening suspended all commercial international flights and closed its land and sea borders until Jan. 1.
European Union leaders planned to meet on Monday to devise a “common doctrine” for dealing with the variant’s threat.
In South America, Argentina and Colombia canceled flights to and from the U.K. and imposed a quarantine for travelers. Peru suspended all flights originating in Europe for a period of two weeks and suspended flights from the UK, including those with a layover in the UK, indefinitely. El Salvador enacted restrictions on entry for people who had been to the U.K. or South Africa within the last 30 days.
Starting on Tuesday, Chile banned non-resident foreign nationals who have been in the United Kingdom during the last 14 days from entering the country and suspended flights to and from the U.K. during the same time.
In the United States, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN that he would advise against suspending flights from the U.K., but that officials should watch the variant closely.
“Follow it carefully, but don’t overreact to it,” he said.
The new variant, first detected several months ago, spread through southeastern England and has also been identified in small numbers in Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia, according to World Health Organization officials.
Concerned with the Covid-19 variant spreading in Britain, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced on Monday that British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines have agreed to require a negative coronavirus test result from passengers boarding flights from Britain to New York.
Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State ordered on Monday that travelers from Britain and South Africa undergo a 14-day quarantine. He said more countries may be added to the travel proclamation.
Mr. Inslee said he was hopeful that the rules would help limit the spread of the mutation and said acting quickly was needed to make the effort successful. Mr. Inslee said the virus mutation was a cautionary reminder that the nation is perhaps months away from the worst of the pandemic being over. “It is a vivid reminder of the uncertainties and unpredictability of this pandemic,” Mr. Inslee said.
“I would not be doing my job as governor of New York if I sat here and let the federal incompetence create another emergency and disaster that cost the lives of New Yorkers,” Mr. Cuomo said, alluding to the thousands of travelers who arrived from Europe earlier this year and unknowingly spread the virus in the state when the federal government’s focus was mostly on China.
States have little power to limit air travel, which is mostly regulated by the federal government, leaving Mr. Cuomo with few options but to pursue voluntary agreements with the airlines.
Mr. Cuomo later said on CNN that Virgin Atlantic had agreed to a similar requirement. The pre-boarding testing requirement for British Airways and Delta flights goes into effect Tuesday, he said, and the test result must be from within 72 hours before boarding.
“I am only a governor, but I will do anything I can and whatever I can to protect the people of the State of New York,” said Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat. “That is my job and I know and I believe my intuition is correct that this is another disaster waiting to happen.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City also urged further restrictions. “In my view, it’s time for a travel ban from Europe,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference on Monday. “Or at minimum a requirement that anyone getting on a plane has proof that they have a negative test if they’re coming out of Europe.”
When Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain announced that a new variant of the coronavirus might be 70 percent more contagious, the panicked reaction around the world was as swift as it was familiar.
Governments already struggling to control outbreaks of other virus strains sought to seal themselves off from the new danger. By Monday evening, more than 40 nations around the world had announced a ban on travel to and from the United Kingdom, according to the BBC.
The rush to try and beat the pathogen by closing borders was reminiscent of the reaction after the coronavirus first emerged broadly in the spring and global transit ground to a standstill.
But most of those travel bans, the world soon learned, had come too late, put in place after the virus had already seeded itself in communities far and wide.
While it is too soon to know whether governments have acted quickly enough this time, and many questions remain about how transmissible the newly discovered variant really is, it is clear that it has been spreading for some time.
The first case detected was in Kent, in southeast England, on Sept. 20. By November, around a quarter of cases in London — an international hub of commerce — involved the new variant. Just a few weeks later, the strain was estimated to be responsible for nearly two-thirds of cases.
That means that by the time Prime Minister Johnson addressed the nation on Saturday night to announce severe new lockdown measures for millions of people in and around London, the variant had been spreading for months.
It is impossible to know the impact the new round of border closures will have on the ability of the strain to take even greater hold — in part because it is simply not known how widely it is already circulating.
The United Kingdom has some of the most sophisticated genomic surveillance efforts in the world, which allowed scientists there to discover the strain when it might have gone unnoticed elsewhere. Even as the world was closing itself off from Britain, the scientific community in the country was continuing to study the mutation.
While there was no evidence to suggest that the variant causes more serious illness, officials said, the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group upgraded its assessment of the danger it poses.
A separate panel of British scientists, however, expressed only “moderate confidence” that the newly identified variant was more transmissible.
And in any case, scientists, noting that viruses commonly shift shape over time, have urged the public not to overreact to the new variant.
transcript
transcript
‘Nothing to Worry About,’ Biden Says After Coronavirus Vaccination
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. received the first course of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on live television at a hospital in Delaware on Monday.
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“You’ve been awful busy, haven’t you?” “We have been.” [talking] Reporter: “Mr. Biden, do you expect that teachers will have early access to the vaccine?” “Well look, what I want to say is we owe these folks an awful lot. The scientists and the people who put this together, front-line workers, the people who were the ones who actually did the clinical work. It’s just amazing. It’s worth saying that this is great hope — I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. received the coronavirus vaccine on live television on Monday at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., sending a message to Americans across the country that the vaccine is safe to take.
“Left’s good,” he told the nurse practitioner who administered the vaccine, rolling up the sleeve of his black long-sleeve turtleneck and exposing his left arm. “You just go ahead anytime you’re ready.”
He credited the Trump administration for its work on Operation Warp Speed, which helped to deliver a quick vaccine.
“The administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground,” he said. “I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when it’s available to take the vaccine.”
Mr. Biden, however, warned Americans that vigilance in the coming months was still necessary.
“It’s going to take time,” he said, encouraging people to continue to wear masks and socially distance. “If you don’t have to travel, don’t travel,” he said. “It’s really important.”
He thanked health care workers, calling them heroes, and ended with an awkward elbow bump with Tabe Mase, the nurse practitioner who administered to him the first course of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, received the vaccine privately, earlier in the day on Monday, according to a spokesman, and joined him at the hospital.
Since March, Mr. Biden’s team has been taking public health guidelines about social distancing and masks seriously, as President Trump and his aides have willfully disregarded them. But even Mr. Biden’s more careful circle has been infiltrated by the virus. Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana and one of Mr. Biden’s closest advisers, tested positive for the coronavirus last week, the transition team announced.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is expected to receive her vaccine after Christmas, a spokeswoman said, following advice from doctors who recommended Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris stagger their first shots rather than receive them together.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert who will also be Mr. Biden’s chief medical adviser, will be vaccinated at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at what the National Institutes of Health is billing as a “kick off” event showcasing Moderna’s vaccine, which received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday.
Dr. Fauci’s vaccination has been long-awaited by public figures and health experts. Former President Barack Obama recently said that if Dr. Fauci endorses a coronavirus vaccine, that will be a signal to him that it is safe.
Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, all received the first dose of the vaccine on Friday.
Mr. Trump, however, has neither participated in nor supported the public health campaign to reassure vaccine skeptics worried about its dangers.
On Friday, he did nothing to promote Mr. Pence taking the vaccine, an event held at the White House that officials asked all of the television networks to carry live on TV for maximum exposure. Instead, Mr. Trump was tweeting out anti-mask claims minutes after Mr. Pence received his vaccine.
Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have defended his decision to put off his own vaccination, arguing that he still has the protective effects of the monoclonal antibody cocktail that was used to treat him for the virus in October.
But doctors have said it would set a good example to Americans who have recovered from Covid-19 that they still should receive the vaccine.
“We know that infection doesn’t induce a very strong immune response and it wanes over time,” Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser of Operation Warp Speed, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “So I think, as a clear precaution, it is appropriate to be vaccinated because it’s safe. I think people should be vaccinated, indeed.”
Armed protesters trying to force their way into Oregon’s State Capitol building on Monday were met by officers in riot gear, as lawmakers gathered for a one-day special session amid growing tension over coronavirus restrictions in the state.
The Oregon State Police declared the protest, which included dozens of people, an unlawful assembly, and officers fired pepper balls to drive the crowds away from the Capitol in Salem. Police arrested at least two people, including one person authorities said had used bear spray against officers. Later, some in the crowd smashed windows at an entrance to the Capitol.
Many in the crowd, which included people from far-right groups, carried weapons, wore body armor or held flags supporting President Trump.
Gov. Kate Brown had called a one-day special session of the Legislature to address issues related to the pandemic, including relief for landlords and tenants and funding for vaccine distribution, as well as efforts to address the state’s devastating wildfire season.
Protesters objected to restrictions imposed by Ms. Brown to limit the spread of the coronavirus, shouting about their impact on jobs and schools. “Arrest Kate Brown,” the crowd chanted at officers. One person carried a sign saying, “Politicians are the virus, revolution is the cure.”
Riot officers with batons, some wearing gas masks, later moved in large numbers to shove protesters out of an entranceway to the Capitol building. Many in the crowd yelled that they had long supported law enforcement officers, including at “Back the blue” rallies, but would no longer back them.
Oregon’s coronavirus infection numbers are at the highest point of the pandemic. Under the governor’s orders, many counties face mandatory restrictions, such as prohibitions on indoor dining at restaurants.
The European Union granted authorization on Monday for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, paving the way for millions of doses to be transferred by Pfizer to the bloc’s 27 member states. Immunization is expected to begin in most countries over the next few days and gather speed in early January, the authorities have said.
The decision comes weeks after Britain granted emergency approval to the vaccine and began its rollout, quickly followed by the United States. The swifter authorization by the British and U.S. authorities created pressure for the European Union to expedite its own process, and the regulator changed its date for the decision, moving it to Monday from Dec. 29. The delay had been criticized, especially in Germany, where BioNTech is based and where the vaccine was developed.
The E.U.’s drug authority, the European Medicines Agency, is expected to give its decision on the Moderna vaccine authorization request on Jan. 6.
Pfizer declined to provide logistical details for its plans to transport the vaccines across the 27 E.U. countries, but said it was ready to begin distribution as soon as it got the green light from the bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission. The shots that will be distributed in Europe are manufactured in Pfizer factories in Puurs, Belgium, and in Mainz, Germany.
Lawmakers on Monday raced to finalize the text for a long-sought agreement on a $900 billion pandemic relief package before an evening vote on the legislation.
An agreement in principle was reached late Sunday afternoon, hours before a midnight deadline to avoid a government shutdown. With additional time needed to transform their agreement into legislative text, both chambers had to approve a one-day stopgap spending bill, giving them an additional 24 hours to finalize the deal.
Lawmakers will have just a few hours to review the $2.3 trillion in relief legislation and a catchall omnibus to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year. But the process of compiling the behemoth package was already running into issues, according to aides familiar with the process, with a corrupt computer file in the education portion of the package delaying attempts to merge and upload the pieces of legislation.
But after months of gridlock and debate, both chambers are expected to approve the spending measures on Monday and send them to the president for his approval.
While the deal needs President Trump’s signature, it bears, in part, the imprint of the man who is about to succeed him. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. was not directly involved in the talks but Democratic aides said they have been in close contact with Mr. Biden’s team — and while the former Delaware senator suggested the package was not nearly enough to address the crisis, he promoted the pact as the sort of bipartisan deal that could become routine on his watch.
“I am optimistic that we can meet this moment, together,” he said in a statement released late Sunday. “My message to everyone out there struggling right now: Help is on the way.”
The magnitude of the challenge facing Mr. Biden was revealed in those two sentences.
He is eager to rush billions more in aid to localities and those hit hardest by the pandemic — aligning him with party progressives — but he also needs to gain leverage over Senate Republicans in future negotiations by convincing some Trump supporters he is willing to work with them.
The $900 billion agreement is set to provide $600 stimulus payments to millions of American adults earning up to $75,000. It would revive lapsed supplemental federal unemployment benefits at $300 a week for 11 weeks — setting both at half the amount provided by the first pandemic relief package in March.
The final proposal will also include $69 billion for the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine and more than $22 billion for states to conduct testing, tracing and coronavirus mitigation programs.
The agreement is also expected to:
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Continue and expand benefits for gig workers and freelancers, and extend federal payments for people whose regular benefits have expired.
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Provide more than $284 billion for businesses and revive the Paycheck Protection Program, a popular federal loan program for small businesses that lapsed over the summer.
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Expand eligibility under that program for nonprofit organizations, local newspapers and radio and TV broadcasters and allocate $15 billion for performance venues, independent movie theaters and other cultural institutions devastated by the restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus.
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Provide $82 billion for colleges and schools, $13 billion in increased nutrition assistance, $7 billion for broadband access and $25 billion in rental assistance.
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Extend an eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of the year.
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Ban surprise medical bills that come when patients unexpectedly receive care from an out-of-network health provider. Instead of sending those charges to patients, hospitals and doctors will now need to work with health insurers to settle the bills.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, announced that sweeping restrictions will come into effect this Saturday on Boxing Day, a holiday that is traditionally one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
Premier Doug Ford said that most stores, aside from pharmacies and those selling food, will be closed except for delivery and curbside pickup and that restaurants will be limited to takeout or delivery service. Indoor gatherings will be limited to groups made up of household members with the exception of weddings and religious services involving no more than 10 people. Otherwise, indoor activities will be banned.
The majority of students will shift to online learning after their holiday break and residents are being urged to avoid all but essential travel.
Mr. Ford announced the new restrictions after administrators of several hospital systems said that they were running out of capacity to treat Covid-19 cases. Hospitalizations and infections have been steadily increasing in most of Ontario with the exception of Ottawa, the national capital, and the vast but sparsely populated northern portion of the province. Some of the restrictions are already in effect in several communities, including Toronto, the largest city.
“If we fail to take actions now, the consequences will be catastrophic,” Mr. Ford said. “We need to do everything in our power to protect our hospitals and our most vulnerable.”
The province has reported that hospital admissions related to Covid-19 have gone up 69.3 percent and that there has been an 83.1 percent rise in the number of coronavirus patients needing intensive care.
Aside from the limits on schooling, the new restrictions will last until at least Jan. 23 in the southern part of the province, which is home to the overwhelming majority of its residents. In the north, they will expire on Jan. 9.
House Democrats investigating political interference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday issued subpoenas for Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, demanding they turn over documents showing how Trump administration appointees attempted to delay and alter guidance documents on the coronavirus.
Rep. James E. Clyburn, the chairman of a special select committee investigating the Trump administration’s pandemic response, described in a scathing 20-page letter how two top H.H.S. appointees loyal to President Trump attempted to edit or block at least 13 editions of the C.D.C.’s closely guarded Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, which contained research on the spread of the coronavirus written by career agency scientists.
The appointees, Michael Caputo, the top public affairs official at the Department of Health and Human Services, and a scientific adviser he hired, Dr. Paul Alexander, targeted C.D.C. scientists they believed were intentionally publishing research unflattering to Mr. Trump and the White House, Mr. Clyburn wrote.
In one instance, Mr. Caputo and Dr. Alexander attempted to halt the publication of a report on how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that became a right-wing cause after Mr. Trump praised, without evidence, its potential as a treatment against Covid-19.
Department officials even drafted a “rebuttal” to the report, saying it “presents factual information with an agenda” and could “prevent the news from giving the proper coverage of a true ‘miracle cure.’” The rebuttal called the authors of the M.M.W.R. “a disgrace to public service.”
The subpoenas escalated a bitter dispute between H.H.S., which is the C.D.C.’s parent agency, and Mr. Clyburn, who has accused the agency of blocking testimony from a group of top C.D.C. officials, including Dr. Redfield.
Earlier this month, the editor in chief of the reports told the committee that she was ordered to destroy an email showing that H.H.S. political appointees attempted to interfere with their publication. Mr. Clyburn wrote that the attempted interference occurred even as a top H.H.S. official, Bill Hall, warned Mr. Caputo and Dr. Alexander that the M.M.W.R. reports needed to remain independent.
The H.H.S. public affairs office is “not a science or medical program office and, as matter of longstanding policy, we do not engage in clearing scientific articles,” Mr. Hall wrote. Dr. Alexander then began contacting C.D.C. officials directly in an effort to continue meddling in at least 11 other reports, Mr. Clyburn wrote.
More than a million travelers a day passed through airport security checkpoints on each of the last three days in the United States.
With Christmas on Friday, the numbers show that, despite warnings from the C.D.C., people are on the move. On Friday, 1,066,747 people traveled through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, according to the agency. On Saturday, the figure was 1,073,563 and on Sunday, it was 1,064,619.
The last time passenger figures topped one million was around the Thanksgiving holiday: On Nov. 25, a Wednesday, 1,070,967 people passed through checkpoints, and on Nov. 29, a Sunday, there were 1,176,091 passengers. The numbers were less than half of what they had been for the same days in 2019, when more than two million people passed through airport security checkpoints.
The spikes in holiday travel this year come despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has urged people not to travel as Covid-19 cases continue to rise. The agency issued an advisory this month that “postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others.” It added, “you and your travel companions (including children) may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread Covid-19 to family, friends, and community after travel.”
The C.D.C. encourages anyone who decides to travel to get a flu shot, keep a distance of six feet at checkpoints, wear a mask throughout the trip, bring extra hand sanitizer and wash hands regularly.
United Airlines said on Friday that it was working with health officials to contact passengers who may have been exposed to the coronavirus by a man who died on a recent flight. Four flight attendants who responded to the emergency onboard the flight, United 591, went into quarantine for 14 days after the plane reached Los Angeles, the flight attendants’ union said.
BERLIN — Before taking off from London’s Heathrow Airport on Sunday evening, the cabin crew of the last Eurowings flight to Stuttgart, Germany warned its passengers that because of the new coronavirus mutation they risked spending the night at the airport.
“They are partitioning off a part of the airport — all I can say is cots,” the announcement said, according to a recording cited by German media.
Air passengers from the United Kingdom were detained at German airports on Sunday night after the country had decided to stop incoming flights in a bid to prevent the spread of a new mutation of the coronavirus.
While the German health minister confirmed an official stop to flights from the U.K. and South Africa starting at midnight, hundreds of travelers who touched down between the time the decision was communicated, in the late afternoon, and the official rule was in place had to wait for coronavirus test results before being allowed to leave airports.
Depending on scrambling local health authorities, the procedure varied from place to place.
In Hanover, where a flight from London landed at 6:45 p.m., all 63 passengers had to take a PCR test when stepping off the flight. One passenger refused to take the test and flew back to Britain. The others had to wait until the next morning, when the results were available. One positive case was found, according to health authorities.
“We tried to make the wait as comfortable as possible,” said Kristin Peschel, a spokeswoman for the airport.
Despite the food, bottled water and field beds provided by the airport, passengers demanded to speak with lawyers and even filmed a dramatic video which was broadcast by the country’s main tabloid, the Bild Zeitung. “We are held against our will,” one passenger identified as Manuela T. said in the clip.
At the country’s busiest airport in Frankfurt, roughly 100 passengers were still waiting for test results by midday, according to a spokesman. About 200 travelers had been detained overnight waiting for their test results. A Lufthansa flight from South Africa that had left before the rules were in effect arrived in Frankfurt on Monday morning. In accordance with local health rules, German passengers were allowed to go home to quarantine, while non-Germans were kept at the airport until negative test results were available.
At the new Berlin airport, German passengers were also allowed to go home to follow normal quarantine rules. After several hours, non-German passengers with residence in Germany were allowed to go home to quarantine. Foreign passengers without residence had to spend the night at the terminal to get in line for a coronavirus test when the center there opened at 7 a.m.
Despite the preflight warning, passengers arriving in Stuttgart might have had it the easiest. Local authorities had organized a coronavirus quick-test line. Within two hours all 150 passengers arriving were able to test and leave the airport, according to an airport spokesman.
JERUSALEM — Israel said on Monday it would close its skies to foreign nationals on Wednesday and would require Israelis arriving from abroad to quarantine in government-run hotels, as part of an effort to keep a new mutation of the coronavirus out of the country. Local airlines were laying on extra flights to whisk Israelis back from vacations abroad before the new quarantine restrictions come into force.
Alarm over an outbreak of a more contagious variant of the coronavirus in Britain spread throughout Europe on Monday, prompting more than 30 countries to ban travelers from the country and suspend flights.
“We have, at the moment, a new pandemic that is spreading, with a virus which we do not yet know about,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, adding, “This mutation could also be coronavirus 2.” The decision to enforce new travel restrictions was difficult, Mr. Netanyahu said, “but we have no choice.”
With one main international airport in operation and a few land crossings that can easily be sealed, Israel is well placed to self-isolate as a country, though its first attempt in the early stages of the pandemic did not last very long.
People arriving from Britain were already being bused directly from the airport to government-run hotels where they will have to quarantine for up to 14 days. Beginning Wednesday, Israelis arriving from any country will also have to quarantine in the repurposed hotels.
While many countries have closed their borders to Israelis because of high infection rates, tens of thousands have traveled to Dubai this month and others are vacationing in the Seychelles. With many now wanting to beat the Wednesday deadline, local airlines said they were scrambling dozens of planes to bring them home.
A 63-year-old coronavirus patient has been arrested in Hong Kong after his escape from a hospital isolation ward set off a frantic manhunt across the city.
Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory that is currently battling a fourth wave of infections, has strict quarantine and isolation requirements for people who contract the virus and their close contacts. Those who test positive, whether they are symptomatic or not, are sent to a hospital for treatment and monitoring until they test negative, while their close contacts are sent to quarantine camps for up to two weeks. Unbidden departures from quarantine and isolation facilities are illegal and can result in a two-month prison sentence and $645 fine.
The patient, Li Wan-keung, slipped away on Friday while doctors and nurses were occupied with other patients, the health authorities said. He evaded detection for 54 hours, even after the police released his name and photograph on their social media accounts.
Mr. Li was arrested on Sunday night and taken back to the hospital. A police representative said on Monday that the force received a tip about Mr. Li’s whereabouts and dispatched officers to arrest him.
Hong Kong courts have, as of Dec. 1, imprisoned or fined 76 people found guilty of violating quarantine orders. Government officials say that the prison sentences are intended to clearly signal their position of zero tolerance.
Hong Kong, a city of about 7.5 million people, has reported a total of 8,237 coronavirus cases and 130 deaths since the outbreak began.
Citing poor pay, lack of medical insurance and inadequate protective equipment, doctors across Kenya went on strike on Monday, setting off a public health crisis as coronavirus cases continued to rise nationwide.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, which represents all Kenyan doctors, began the 21-day strike after eight months of negotiations with the government failed. A similar strike in November was suspended to continue deliberations.
For several months, medical practitioners have been asking the government to provide them with comprehensive medical insurance coverage, pay their salaries, enlist 2,000 doctors on “permanent and pensionable terms” and provide a dedicated facility to treat those who contract the coronavirus. But they accused the government of pressuring them to return to work or be fired rather than listening to their demands.
The latest strike comes just months after doctors in several counties, including the capital, Nairobi, put down their tools just as a local television investigation exposed the theft from government coffers of hundreds of millions of dollars of funds allocated to fight the pandemic.
Kenya has so far recorded 94,500 coronavirus infections and 1,639 deaths. The East African nation has seen a rise in cases since easing restrictions in October, raising fears that the country was experiencing a second wave.
More than a dozen Kenyan doctors have died of Covid-19. Among them was Dr. Stephen Mogusu, a 28-year-old who at the time of his death in early December had no insurance and had not received a paycheck for five months.
“Too steep a price for patriotism,” the doctors’ union tweeted at the time.