As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 791,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Just 60.1% 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 news is developing. All times Eastern:

Dec 08, 8:50 am
New study suggests Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may only partially protect against omicron variant

Results from an initial laboratory study show that the omicron variant can partially dodge protection from two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

The companies announced the findings in a joint press release Wednesday. The study, which was not peer-reviewed, found that omicron likely reduces efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but does not render it ineffective and that a third dose offers even greater protection against the new variant.

“Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against severe disease caused by the omicron strain, it’s clear from these preliminary data that protection is improved with a third dose of our vaccine,” Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement Wednesday. “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

The study was conducted in a laboratory by exposing a vaccinated individual’s blood to omicron to see whether the vaccine would neutralise the variant. Some of the participants included in the study had received two doses of the vaccine, while others had gotten a third booster dose.

For those with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, researchers found there was a 25-fold less antibody neutralization ability of omicron compared to the original virus variant. But within a month after getting a booster shot, researchers found that antibodies were restored to a high level, even against omicron. Giving a third dose of the vaccine appeared to boost antibody levels 25-fold — roughly equivalent to a level seen after two doses against the original virus variant.

“Our preliminary, first dataset indicate that a third dose could still offer a sufficient level of protection from disease of any severity caused by the Omicron variant,” BioNTech co-founder and CEO Ugur Sahin said in a statement Wednesday. “Broad vaccination and booster campaigns around the world could help us to better protect people everywhere and to get through the winter season. We continue to work on an adapted vaccine which, we believe, will help to induce a high level of protection against Omicron-induced COVID-19 disease as well as a prolonged protection compared to the current vaccine.”

The study measured antibody levels, which are only one part of a person’s overall protection. The exact percentage of vaccine efficacy against the omicron variant remains unclear.

-Sony Salzman

Dec 07, 1:50 pm
Fauci: Omicron ‘almost certainly’ not more severe than delta

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday told news agency Agence France-Presse that the omicron variant is “almost certainly” not more severe than delta.

He stressed, however, that it is important to not overinterpret early data, as the patients being followed skew younger and are less likely to become hospitalized. Severe illness can take weeks to develop.

“There is some suggestion that it might even be less severe, because when you look at some of the cohorts that are being followed in South Africa, the ratio between the number of infections and the number of hospitalizations seems to be less than with delta,” Fauci said.

He also reiterated that it would take at least several more weeks to understand key questions surrounding omicron’s severity.

Results from labs testing current vaccines against omicron should come in the “next few days to a week,” Fauci said.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 07, 11:05 pm
US daily death average surges

The daily death average in the U.S. has increased to more than 1,150 — up by 57% in the last week, according to federal data.

The U.S. is about 10,000 deaths away from reaching yet another grim milestone of 800,000 Americans lost to COVID-19.

The U.S. is now averaging approximately 103,000 new cases per day, which is a 19% increase in the last week and a 62% jump since late-October, according to federal data.

Minnesota currently holds the country’s highest case rate followed by Vermont and Wisconsin. Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Louisiana have the nation’s lowest infection rate.

-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos

Dec 07, 10:27 am
Near pre-pandemic travel volumes expected to continue through December holidays

The TSA screened nearly 21 million travelers during the 10-day Thanksgiving holiday period. Despite new concerns over omicron, the agency expects to see the near pre-pandemic travel volumes continue through the December holidays.

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(NEW YORK) — At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 — and there’s still three weeks to go in the year.

Of the dozen cities that have already surpassed the grim milestones for killings, five topped records that were set or tied just last year.

“It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said after his city surpassed its annual homicide record of 500, which stood since 1990.

Philadelphia, a city of roughly 1.5 million people, has had more homicides this year (521 as of Dec. 6) than the nation’s two largest cities, New York (443 as of Dec. 5) and Los Angeles (352 as of Nov. 27). That’s an increase of 13% from 2020, a year that nearly broke the 1990 record.

Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, leads the nation with 739 homicides as of the end of November, up 3% from 2020, according to Chicago Police Department crime data. Chicago’s deadliest year remains 1970 when there were 974 homicides.

Philadelphia’s homicide record was broken in the same week that Columbus, Indianapolis and Louisville eclipsed records for slayings.

Experts say there are a number of reasons possibly connected to the jump in homicides, including strained law enforcement staffing, a pronounced decline in arrests and continuing hardships from the pandemic, but that there is no clear answer across the board.

Five cities surpass records set in 2020

Other major cities that have surpassed yearly homicide records are St. Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Rochester, New York; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which broke its record back in August.

“The community has to get fed up,” Capt. Frank Umbrino, of the Rochester Police Department, said at a news conference after the city of just over 200,000 people broke its 30-year-old record on Nov. 11. “We’re extremely frustrated. It has to stop. I mean, it’s worse than a war zone around here lately.”

Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Toledo and Baton Rouge broke records set in 2020, while St. Paul surpassed a record set in 1992.

Among the major cities on the brink of setting new homicide records are Milwaukee, which has 178 homicides, 12 short of a record set in 2020; and Minneapolis, which has 91 homicides, six shy of a record set in 1995.

According to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report released in September, the nation saw a 30% increase in murder in 2020, the largest single-year jump since the bureau began recording crime statistics 60 years ago.

‘Nobody’s getting arrested’

Robert Boyce, retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department and an ABC News contributor, said that while there is no single reason for the jump in slayings, one national crime statistic stands out to him.

“Nobody’s getting arrested anymore,” Boyce said. “People are getting picked up for gun possession and they’re just let out over and over again.”

The FBI crime data shows that the number of arrests nationwide plummeted 24% in 2020, from the more than 10 million arrests made in 2019. The number of 2020 arrests — 7.63 million — is the lowest 25 years, according to the data. FBI crime data is not yet available for 2021.

Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor in the Department of Law & Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said the decrease in arrests could be attributed to the large number of police officers who retired or resigned in 2020 and 2021.

A workforce survey released in June by the Police Executive Research Forum found the retirement rate in police departments nationwide jumped 45% over 2020 and 2021. And another 18% of officers resigned, the survey found, a development with nationwide social justice protests and calls to defund law enforcement agencies following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

On average, the survey found that law enforcement agencies are currently filling only 93% of the authorized number of positions available and Herrmann said many departments have been hampered in hiring because of an inability to get large classes into police academies due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think, unfortunately, police departments are just losing a lot of their best and experienced officers and then because of the economic crisis, because of COVID, are having difficulties in hiring or just delays in hirings,” Herrmann said.

Herrmann said he suspects that a confluence of other factors has also contributed to the spike in lethal violence over the last two years. He said the COVID-19 pandemic not only prompted a shutdown of courts and reduction in jail population to slow the spread of the virus but also derailed after-school programs and violence disruption programs.

Confluence of factors

“I wish there was one good solid reason that I could give you for the increases, but the reality is there is none,” Herrmann, a former crime analyst supervisor for the New York City Police Department, told ABC News.

Herrmann said he was surprised to see the number of homicides going up in major cities across the United States after an overall 30% jump last year. He said the COVID-19 pandemic not only prompted a shutdown of courts and reduction in jail population to slow the spread of the virus, but it also derailed after-school programs and violence disruption indirectly led to the homicide spike in 2020.

“I knew 2020 was going to be a bad year because of the (COVID-19) pandemic but I really thought that a lot of these numbers would come down in 2021 just because a lot of society reopened and reopened pretty quickly,” Herrmann said. “We don’t have the unemployment problem, we don’t have a lot of the economic stresses, housing and food insecurities aren’t as much of an issue. A lot of those things were leading to the mental health stressors that were plaguing the country.”

As part of a recent ABC News series “Rethinking Gun Violence,” Dr. Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said 2020 was the “perfect storm” of conditions where “everything bad happened at the same time — you had the COVID outbreak, huge economic disruption, people were scared.”

Webster added, “It’s particularly challenging to know with certainty which of these things independently is associated with the increased violence. Rather it was the ‘cascade’ of events all unfolding in a similar time frame.”

Chief LeRonne Armstrong of the Oakland, California, Police Department told ABC News recently that the lack of resources to fight crime is one of the reasons he suspects is why his city is seeing the highest number of homicides in decades. Oakland police have investigated at least 127 homicides in 2021, up from 102 in all of 2020. The Bay Area city’s all-time high for homicides is 175 set in 1992.

Armstrong said his department’s 676 officers is the smallest staff his agency has had in years, nearly 70 fewer officers than in 2020.

“To have 70, nearly 70 less officers a year later,” Armstrong said, “is definitely going to have an impact on our ability to address public safety.”

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(LOS ANGELES) — A shooting outside a Los Angeles elementary school left a 13-year-old boy dead and two people critically wounded, including a 9-year-old girl who was hit by a stray bullet while on a playground, authorities said.

The violent episode marked the latest in an escalating number of shootings in Los Angeles, which has seen a 12% increase in homicides and a nearly 14% jump in shooting incidents this year as compared to 2020, according to Los Angeles Police Department crime statistics.

Gunfire erupted shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday outside the Wilmington Park Elementary School when at least two gunmen walked up to an occupied vehicle stopped near the school and opened fire, according to police.

The boy who was killed and a 20-year-old woman were inside the apparently targeted Dodge Durango, police said. The wounded woman drove several blocks from the shooting scene and called 911, police said.

The gravely wounded child was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Los Angeles Fire Department officials told ABC station KABC in Los Angeles. The female driver was in critical condition at a hospital Monday night, officials said.

The 9-year-old girl, a fourth grader, was on the playground at Wilmington Park Elementary School as part of an after-school program when she was struck by a stray bullet and critically injured, school officials said.

“She was in the schoolyard just playing, just doing what a 9-year-old is supposed to do,” LAPD Capt. Adrian Gonzalez told reporters at the scene.

Police officials said officers initially suspected two separate shootings occurred but after speaking to witnesses determined the shootings were connected.

No arrests have been made and a motive was under investigation, police said.

The shooting left parents of students at the school shocked and frightened for their own children.

“It’s sad and scary,” Maria Garcia, whose daughter attends the school, told KABC. “I’m always paranoid. I’m always scared. I’m always checking on her, always calling her, always making sure she’s OK and safe.”

Los Angeles has had at least 352 homicides through the end of November, up from 314 at this time last year, according to police department crime statistics. The city has also recorded 1,328 shooting victims, up from 1,168 at this time last year, the statistics show.

“This is such a tragedy. Gun violence has destroyed too many lives in this country and tonight it has terrorized another community,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the Wilmington area, wrote on Twitter Monday night. “I am praying for the family of this little boy and for the recovery of the little girl and young woman.”

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