National

(WASHINGTON) — As people travel to visit loved ones for the holiday season, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is warning that unruly passengers on flights will not be tolerated and may face prosecution.

“Passengers who assault, intimidate or threaten violence against flight crews and flight attendants do more than harm those employees; they prevent the performance of critical duties that help ensure safe air travel,” the Attorney General wrote in a memo to U.S. Attorneys on Wednesday. “Similarly, when passengers commit violent acts against other passengers in the close confines of a commercial aircraft, the conduct endangers everyone aboard.”

He urged all 52 U.S. attorney’s offices to prioritize the prosecution of federal crimes that “endanger the safety of passengers, flight crews, and flight attendants.”

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened 2.3 million people, according to an agency spokesperson.

“The figure represents 88% versus pre-pandemic volume screened in 2019 for that same day of the week,” the administration said.

Airline crews have reported incidents in which visibly drunk passengers verbally abused them, shoved them, threw trash at them, kicked seats, defiled restrooms and, in some cases, even punched them in the face.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson confirmed to ABC News earlier this month that the administration has referred 37 of the “most egregious” cases to the FBI out of the 227 unruly passenger cases they’ve initiated enforcement action on.

Representatives from the Justice Department and FAA began meeting in August, according to a joint statement, “to develop an efficient method for referring the most serious unruly-passenger cases for potential criminal prosecution.”

The FAA said it has received more than 5,000 reports from airlines of unruly passengers since the start of the year.

In his memo on Wednesday, Garland urged U.S. attorney’s offices to talk to state and local law enforcement. He directed them to “reaffirm” the DOJ’s willingness to help.

“The Department of Justice is committed to using resources to do it’s part to prevent violence, intimidation, threats of violence, and other criminal behavior that endangers the safety of passengers, flight crews, flight attendants, on commercial aircraft,” Garland wrote.

ABC News Mina Kaji and Amanda Maile contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 775,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 59.1% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the new is developing. All times Eastern:

Nov 26, 9:24 am
Belgium confirms 1st European case of new variant

Belgium’s health department has confirmed its first case of the new B.1.1.529 variant.

The patient, a woman, had traveled to Belgium from Egypt via Istanbul. She developed symptoms 11 days after her return and was not vaccinated. Her family members have tested negative for COVID and the woman is not in a life-threatening condition, officials said.

Hong Kong has two confirmed cases and Israel has one other confirmed case of the B.1.1.529 variant. Several cases have been reported in South Africa and Botswana.

The World Health Organization is meeting Friday to discuss the new variant.

Nov 26, 4:04 am
EU to propose travel ban on southern Africa over new variant

The European Union’s executive branch said Friday that it wants to suspend air travel to the bloc from southern Africa due to concerns over a newly identified variant of the novel coronavirus.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the announcement via Twitter, saying a proposal “to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the Southern Africa region” will be made “in close coordination” with EU member states.

The variant, called B.1.1.529, was first detected in South Africa earlier this week and has quickly spread. At least 22 cases have been confirmed in the country so far, according to South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. South African scientist Tulio de Oliveira told reporters Thursday that the new variant carries “a very high number of mutations,” but it’s unclear whether it will limit the effectiveness of vaccines.

Several cases of B.1.1.529 have since been confirmed in neighboring Botswana as well as in Hong Kong and Israel. The cases detected in Hong Kong and Israel were linked to travelers who had arrived from southern Africa.

The World Health Organization will meet on Friday to assess B.1.1.529 and determine whether it should be designated a variant “of interest” or “of concern.”

Nov 25, 8:01 pm
UK issues travel restrictions due to concerns over new variant

The United Kingdom announced Thursday new travel restrictions for six countries over concerns about a new variant of the novel coronavirus that emerged in South Africa.

The variant, known as B.1.1.529, has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from southern Africa. It has not yet been detected in the U.K., officials said.

“The early indications we have of this variant is that it may be more transmissible than the delta variant, and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it,” U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said during a briefing Thursday.

Starting midday on Friday, all flights from six southern African countries — South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana — will be temporarily suspended, and travelers entering the U.K. from those countries after 4 a.m. on Sunday must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.

Currently, B.1.1.529 is not designated by the World Health Organization as a variant “of concern” or “of interest.” So far, 22 cases have been confirmed in South Africa, according to the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

The WHO’s technical working group is scheduled to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet, based on its naming system for variants of concern and variants of interest.

The virus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.

Nov 25, 10:18 am
Arizona hospital enters ‘crisis care’ operating mode

The Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, is “operating in crisis care” due to the latest surge of COVID-19 cases in the state, local ABC affiliate KNXV reported.

The hospital only had 13 beds available and was “really struggling,” according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The state reported its 84,813th COVID-19 hospitalization on Tuesday, according to health department data. Arizona reported more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BRUNSWICK, Ga.) — Prosecutors for the three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery said they believe the cellphone video showing Arbery’s final moments and his death was the evidence that clinched the guilty verdict.

“Not a lot of homicides are on video,” Larissa Ollivierre, a Cobb County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, told 20/20. “I think for this case in particular, that was really important because I just don’t know that we would’ve gotten the verdict that we did had it not been for that video.”

On Wednesday, Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery in February 2020, was convicted by a Glynn County jury on all nine charges, including malice murder and four counts of felony murder.

His father, Gregory McMichael, was found not guilty of malice murder but was convicted on all other charges, including four counts of felony murder.

The McMichaels’ neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, who recorded the incident on a cellphone, was found guilty on six charges, including three of the felony murder counts.

All three men face up to life in prison. A sentencing date has yet to be announced.

Bryan shot the cellphone video from the driver’s seat of his pickup truck as he followed Arbery, who can be seen running alongside a residential street in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside of Brunswick, Georgia. The video then shows Arbery tussling with Travis McMichael over the shotgun he was holding, as his father, Gregory McMichael stood in the bed of his pickup truck, also holding a gun. A gunshot is heard, and the video shows Arbery struggling with Travis McMichael for the shotgun. There is a second shot, and Arbery can be seen punching Travis McMichael, who then fires a shot at point-blank range, killing Arbery.

In addition to the video, Cobb County senior assistant district attorney Linda Dunikoski said the statements the defendants made after Arbery was killed was another key piece of evidence for their case. Travis McMichael claimed that he and his father suspected Arbery had just burglarized a home under construction in their neighborhood.

Defense attorneys had argued that Arbery was shot in self-defense when he resisted a citizen’s arrest. Prosecutors, meanwhile, alleged the defendants pursued and murdered Arbery because of incorrect “assumptions and driveway decisions” they made that the Black man running through their neighborhood had committed a burglary.

“Those statements were very, very important because those statements showed that they had absolutely no knowledge of any crime that he had committed,” Dunikoski said.

Initially after the incident, police questioned and then released the McMichaels, as well as Bryan. It wasn’t until the video was leaked online months later, sparking a widespread public outcry, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case that the three men were eventually arrested and charged with murder.

Dunikoski and Cobb County assistant district attorney Paul Camarillo said they were concerned at first about the racial makeup of the jury in this case, which was almost entirely white except for one Black person.

“But I think deep down, we knew as a team, it wasn’t going to matter,” Camarillo said. “I had faith that … we were going to get a conviction, no matter what the makeup of the jury was.”

When the guilty verdicts were announced, Dunikoski said it was a “very, very emotional” moment for Arbery’s family, especially his mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, who refused to give up her crusade for getting justice for her son.

“We could tell that the waves of relief were resonating through their bodies,” she said. “Wanda Cooper-Jones took one look at us and you could tell just everything fell away from her. She was crying and sobbing … but I think it was some relief that she’d finally gotten the justice that she was so desperately hoping for.”

Ahmaud Arbery’s mother said she is feeling especially thankful this Thanksgiving, after the three men were found guilty of her son’s murder.

“Today is Thanksgiving and I’m really, really thankful. My family and I are really, really thankful for the verdict we got yesterday,” Wanda Cooper-Jones told Good Morning America.

Arbery’s father Marcus Arbery told ABC News Wednesday that he had been skeptical that the case would result in any guilty verdicts.

Following the verdicts, attorneys for the McMichaels said they will appeal — a process that can start once sentencing is done.

“This is a very difficult day for Travis McMichael and Greg McMichael,” Travis McMichael’s defense attorney Jason Sheffield told reporters. “These are two men who honestly believe that what they were doing was the right thing to do. However, the Glynn County jury has spoken, they have found them guilty and they will be sentenced.”

Bryan’s attorney, Kevin Gough, told reporters he was “very disappointed” in the verdict.

“But we have to respect that verdict. That’s the American way,” he said, adding that he plans to file a motion for a new trial on behalf of Bryan next week.

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin, William Hutchinson and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.

Watch the full story on the Ahmaud Arbery case and trial on “20/20” Friday at 9 p.m. ET

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(CHICAGO) — Delisa Tucker was just steps away from her son’s memorial in Chicago early Wednesday morning when she was fatally shot.

She had lost 14-year-old Kevin Tinker to gun violence the Sunday before, and friends said she was tending to his memorial when she was gunned down.

“While she was lighting candles for her son, her life was taken,” wrote Michelle Tharpe, a family friend, on the GoFundMe page set up to help pay the family’s funeral expenses. “This world is so cold.”

Police responded to a ShotSpotter alert at around 12:15 a.m. and found Tucker, 31, lying on a sidewalk in the 200 block of West 110th Place. She was transported to Roseland Hospital and pronounced dead, according to officials.

They reported finding no one on the block who saw the shooting, and no one’s been taken into custody for that attack or the one on her son.

On Sunday, her son was shot several times at the exact same location and pronounced dead on the scene, according to police.

“He was a quiet boy,” Tharpe wrote in the GoFundMe page. “Rest well Lil Kevin.”

CPD said investigations for both shooting are ongoing. Chicago police declined to comment on whether the shootings are connected, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Tucker leaves behind five other children, according to Tharpe.

Shootings have spiked in Chicago this year, according to CPD crime data. As of Nov. 8, there had been 3,105 incidents in 2021, an increase of 10% over 2020 and a 66% increase compared with 2019.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 775,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 59.1% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the new is developing. All times Eastern:

Nov 26, 4:04 am
EU to propose travel ban on southern Africa over new variant

The European Union’s executive branch said Friday that it wants to suspend air travel to the bloc from southern Africa due to concerns over a newly identified variant of the novel coronavirus.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the announcement via Twitter, saying a proposal “to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the Southern Africa region” will be made “in close coordination” with EU member states.

The variant, called B.1.1.529, was first detected in South Africa earlier this week and has quickly spread. At least 22 cases have been confirmed in the country so far, according to South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. South African scientist Tulio de Oliveira told reporters Thursday that the new variant carries “a very high number of mutations,” but it’s unclear whether it will limit the effectiveness of vaccines.

Several cases of B.1.1.529 have since been confirmed in neighboring Botswana as well as in Hong Kong and Israel. The cases detected in Hong Kong and Israel were linked to travelers who had arrived from southern Africa.

The World Health Organization will meet on Friday to assess B.1.1.529 and determine whether it should be designated a variant “of interest” or “of concern.”

Nov 25, 8:01 pm
UK issues travel restrictions due to concerns over new variant

The United Kingdom announced Thursday new travel restrictions for six countries over concerns about a new variant of the novel coronavirus that emerged in South Africa.

The variant, known as B.1.1.529, has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from southern Africa. It has not yet been detected in the U.K., officials said.

“The early indications we have of this variant is that it may be more transmissible than the delta variant, and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it,” U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said during a briefing Thursday.

Starting midday on Friday, all flights from six southern African countries — South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana — will be temporarily suspended, and travelers entering the U.K. from those countries after 4 a.m. on Sunday must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.

Currently, B.1.1.529 is not designated by the World Health Organization as a variant “of concern” or “of interest.” So far, 22 cases have been confirmed in South Africa, according to the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

The WHO’s technical working group is scheduled to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet, based on its naming system for variants of concern and variants of interest.

The virus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.

Nov 25, 10:18 am
Arizona hospital enters ‘crisis care’ operating mode

The Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, is “operating in crisis care” due to the latest surge of COVID-19 cases in the state, local ABC affiliate KNXV reported.

The hospital only had 13 beds available and was “really struggling,” according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The state reported its 84,813th COVID-19 hospitalization on Tuesday, according to health department data. Arizona reported more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

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(FLORIDA) — The death of a 14-year-old Florida boy whose body was found last week has been ruled a homicide by local police.

Ryan Rogers of Palm Beach Gardens was found dead Nov. 16 around 9 a.m. local time near an Interstate 95 overpass by a passerby who spotted the boy’s bike lying in the grass.

“We now know that Ryan Rogers’ death was not an accident, but a deliberate act,” the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.

ABC West Palm Beach affiliate WPBF reported that an autopsy on Saturday revealed Rogers’ death was not from a bicycle accident.

Statement regarding the investigation into Ryan Rogers’ death. Please call 561-799-4445 with any tips. pic.twitter.com/I9KGjfgudo

— Palm Beach Gardens Police (@PBGPD) November 24, 2021

Palm Beach Gardens PD, Fire Rescue Foundation and Crime Stoppers are seeking evidence and witnesses, and offering a reward of $8,000 for any information on the case.

Police are urging potential witnesses, or anyone who has a dashcam in their car and was traveling near the Central Boulevard and Interstate 95 area from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Nov. 15, to contact them.

“No amount of information is too small,” police added.

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(NEW YORK) — Two New York City Police officers were shot but are expected to make a full recovery after a “gun battle” broke out in the Bronx on Wednesday evening.

Police say the perpetrator, who was not immediately identified, was also shot and had undergone surgery but is expected to survive.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said during a news conference Wednesday from St. Barnabas Hospital that the entire incident was captured on body camera footage. The two officers were responding to a call from a community member who was concerned about a man with a gun in the neighborhood.

“They’re walking up there, discussing tactically how they will approach, and they immediately encounter this individual who’s sitting on the front stoop of the building,” Shea said of the officers. “Within seconds, they are in a gun battle.”

A female police officer was struck twice in the right arm and a male police officer was shot in the right armpit area, according to Shea. The suspect, who Shea said had a record of previous arrests, was struck three times.

The firearm was reported stolen in Georgia last year, according to Shea. The body cam footage was not immediately released, but Shea said it indicates that the first shot was fired by the suspect and hit the female officer in the arm.
“What strikes you as you watch that video is the speed in which it happens,” Shea said. “And the no regard for human life.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the public can expect to learn more about the two officers in the days ahead. But he is thankful they are alive.

“I want to give thanks that these two, Thank God, are OK, and it looks like they’ll make a full recovery,” de Blasio told reporters.

“We also got to recognize there are too many guns out there, so another example of a gun from out of state comes into our city hurts a New Yorker,” the mayor added. “This is something we’ve got to deal with in a whole different way.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 775,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 59.1% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Latest headlines:
-Germany’s COVID-19 death toll tops 100,000 as cases surge
-Only 1 in 4 health workers in Africa are fully vaccinated: WHO
-Daily case average up 46% since October
-Deaths, hospitalizations predicted to increase in weeks to come

Here’s how the new is developing. All times Eastern.

Nov 25, 10:18 am
Arizona hospital enters ‘crisis care’ operating mode

The Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, is “operating in crisis care” due to the latest surge of COVID-19 cases in the state, local ABC affiliate KNXV-TV reported.

The hospital only had 13 beds available and was “really struggling,” according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The state reported its 84,813th COVID-19 hospitalization on Tuesday, according to health department data. Arizona reported more than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Nov 25, 8:40 am
Germany’s COVID-19 death toll tops 100,000 as cases surge

Germany has become the latest country to surpass 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to official figures released Thursday.

The Western European country recorded 351 fatalities from the disease in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 100,119, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s public health agency.

In Europe, Germany is the fifth country to reach that grim milestone, after Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

Germany, the largest economy in Europe, is among several countries on the continent that are grappling with a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Last week, the German government imposed tougher restrictions to curb the new wave of infections, as hospital beds quickly fill up.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned citizens that their survival could hinge on their vaccination status.

“Some would say this is cynical but probably by the end of this winter, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, recovered or dead,” Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “That’s the reality.”

Nov 25, 8:22 am
Only 1 in 4 health workers in Africa are fully vaccinated: WHO

Just 27% of health workers in Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a preliminary analysis by the World Health Organization.

The WHO said an analysis of data reported from 25 African nations found that, since March, only 1.3 million health workers are fully vaccinated. Just six of those countries have fully vaccinated 90% of their health workers, while nine countries have less than 40%. Meanwhile, a recent WHO global study of 22 mostly high-income nations found that over 80% of their health workers are fully vaccinated.

“The majority of Africa’s health workers are still missing out on vaccines and remain dangerously exposed to severe COVID-19 infection,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement Thursday. “Unless our doctors, nurses and other frontline workers get full protection we risk a blowback in the efforts to curb this disease. We must ensure our health facilities are safe working environments.”

Nov 24, 7:11 pm
New Hampshire to establish ‘surge centers’

Amid a record-setting COVID-19 surge, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed an executive order allowing hospitals to establish temporary acute care centers, or internal “surge centers,” in an effort to increase bed capacity.

“We are seeing record levels of cases; we’re seeing record levels of hospitalizations. This winter surge that we predicted is unfortunately now rearing its ugly head. We are definitely in the throes of it,” Sununu said during a press conference on Tuesday.

The state is also working to identify whether the National Guard can play a role in supporting hospitals.

“I think the next few weeks are going to be very telling. I think it’s going to be a fairly bumpy road. We just want everyone to be vaccinated. Be safe because the system right now is at an emergency point,” Sununu added.

The governor made clear that this executive order is not a state of emergency.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Ahmaud Arbery’s mother said she is feeling especially thankful this Thanksgiving, after three men were found guilty of his murder.

“Today is Thanksgiving and I’m really, really thankful. My family and I are really, really thankful for the verdict we got yesterday,” Wanda Cooper-Jones told ABC News’ Whit Johnson in an interview Thursday on Good Morning America.

“We finally got justice for Ahmaud,” she added.

It’s been nearly two years since the 25-year-old Black man was gunned down while jogging in a mostly white southern Georgia neighborhood.

“We know that Ahmaud was targeted because he was a Black runner in a community that thought that his presence there was inappropriate,” Cooper-Jones’ attorney, Lee Merritt, said during the interview on GMA.

Merritt noted how prosecutors made a decision not to center their case on race but rather on the “criminal nature.”

“What I appreciated about the prosecution’s strategy was that they said Ahmaud Arbery was a citizen in the United States running on a free road, and that alone entitled him to life.” he said. “Not by virtue of any, you know, protected class that he belongs to. But we all enjoy these rights as citizens of the United States of America.”

On Wednesday, Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery in February 2020, was convicted by a Glynn County jury on all nine charges, including malice murder and four counts of felony murder.

His father, Gregory McMichael, was found not guilty of malice murder but was convicted on all other charges, including four counts of felony murder.

Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, who recorded the incident on a cellphone, was found guilty on six charges, including three of the felony murder counts.

All three men face up to life in prison.

The 12-member jury, comprised of 11 white people and one Black person, announced the verdict after more than 11 hours of deliberations, spanning two days. Cooper-Jones, sitting in the courtroom, wept in relief.

“There’s just really no words to really explain all the emotions that I was going through at that time,” she said.

Although relieved, Cooper-Jones said she wasn’t that surprised by the verdict.

“I sat there every day, I heard the state present their evidence. I was very, very confident that they did a very good job of presenting their evidence,” she explained, “and I knew that if the jurors took that evidence, went back and deliberated over the evidence that was presented, that we would get justice for Ahmaud — and we did.”

When asked whether she had a message for the three defendants, Cooper-Jones replied: “I would simply tell them that their bad decisions have impacted two families — my family and again their family.”

“Not only did the McMichaels lose a son, they lost a grandfather and they will be impacted by his grandchild,” she said. “I lost a son, but they lost three generations there.”

ABC News’ Kelly McCarthy contributed to this report.

 

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 775,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 59.1% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Latest headlines:
-Germany’s COVID-19 death toll tops 100,000 as cases surge
-Only 1 in 4 health workers in Africa are fully vaccinated: WHO
-Daily case average up 46% since October
-Deaths, hospitalizations predicted to increase in weeks to come

Here’s how the new is developing. All times Eastern.

Nov 25, 8:40 am
Germany’s COVID-19 death toll tops 100,000 as cases surge

Germany has become the latest country to surpass 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to official figures released Thursday.

The Western European country recorded 351 fatalities from the disease in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 100,119, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s public health agency.

In Europe, Germany is the fifth country to reach that grim milestone, after Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy and France.

Germany, the largest economy in Europe, is among several countries on the continent that are grappling with a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Last week, the German government imposed tougher restrictions to curb the new wave of infections, as hospital beds quickly fill up.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned citizens that their survival could hinge on their vaccination status.

“Some would say this is cynical but probably by the end of this winter, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, recovered or dead,” Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “That’s the reality.”

Nov 25, 8:22 am
Only 1 in 4 health workers in Africa are fully vaccinated: WHO

Just 27% of health workers in Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a preliminary analysis by the World Health Organization.

The WHO said an analysis of data reported from 25 African nations found that, since March, only 1.3 million health workers are fully vaccinated. Just six of those countries have fully vaccinated 90% of their health workers, while nine countries have less than 40%. Meanwhile, a recent WHO global study of 22 mostly high-income nations found that over 80% of their health workers are fully vaccinated.

“The majority of Africa’s health workers are still missing out on vaccines and remain dangerously exposed to severe COVID-19 infection,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said in a statement Thursday. “Unless our doctors, nurses and other frontline workers get full protection we risk a blowback in the efforts to curb this disease. We must ensure our health facilities are safe working environments.”

Nov 24, 7:11 pm
New Hampshire to establish ‘surge centers’

Amid a record-setting COVID-19 surge, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed an executive order allowing hospitals to establish temporary acute care centers, or internal “surge centers,” in an effort to increase bed capacity.

“We are seeing record levels of cases; we’re seeing record levels of hospitalizations. This winter surge that we predicted is unfortunately now rearing its ugly head. We are definitely in the throes of it,” Sununu said during a press conference on Tuesday.

The state is also working to identify whether the National Guard can play a role in supporting hospitals.

“I think the next few weeks are going to be very telling. I think it’s going to be a fairly bumpy road. We just want everyone to be vaccinated. Be safe because the system right now is at an emergency point,” Sununu added.

The governor made clear that this executive order is not a state of emergency.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Nov 24, 12:13 pm
Daily case average up 46% since October

Hospital admissions in the U.S. are up by 15% over the last two weeks, according to federal data.

These states and Washington, D.C, have seen at least a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.

The U.S. daily case average has jumped by more than 46% since late October, according to federal data.

The Northeast and Midwest are seeing the greatest increase in cases and hospitalizations.

In Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, case averages are up 30%.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

 

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