More COVID-19 shutdowns ahead of Thanksgiving

New York City pulled the plug on in-person classes in public schools on Wednesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s seven-day positivity rate had passed the 3 percent threshold set this summer. That means more than 1 million public school students are now fully learning online.

What about the rest of the country? Governors across the country rolled out new restrictions and asked residents to revise their Thanksgiving plans as the United States broke record after record in COVID-19 case counts. As of Monday, 73,000 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus, and the United States recorded an average of 1,145 deaths per day. But Pfizer revised up its predicted vaccine effectiveness to 95 percent and said it’s ready to apply for emergency use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. New data indicates it’s effective for older individuals, too.

Dig deeper: Read Charissa Koh’s report in Compassion about how charities have fared during the pandemic.