This week marks two of the most important milestones in this entire COVID epidemic. The first person to receive a vaccine and formal independent review by the U.S. FDA.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, COVID rates have started to come off the highs that we saw through the month of November.

As of Wednesday, about 11 and a half million Americans are known to have been infected with SARS CoV2.

The combined effort of Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their vaccine has a 90% protective efficacy in vaccinated individuals.

There is very little news to report this week, so instead, we will look back at some of the original reports from March.

Year-end holidays are traditionally times when people travel distances to reunite friends and families, or even have simple parties to celebrate the milestones of another year. What we have learned over the past few months is that these types of events are exactly what fuels COVID-19 outbreaks and even spread as people take infections back with them when they go home.

There was a Large study announced this week from Australia addressing the survival of the virus on various surfaces. The virus can be recovered over a longer duration of time than previously thought.

In the US, current levels are at about 75% of the peak seen in mid-July, but they are still steadily rising…not as fast as of late June and early July, but there is no evidence of a new peak.

Most of the news of the last week has surrounded President Trump’s diagnosis and apparent rapid recovery from COVID-19. As of right now, we do not know where the infection occurred.

COVID-19 cases are once again on the increase in much of the world except for China. Fortunately, these rates do not apply to death rates.