There were 172,935 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Tuesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
It’s the 22nd straight day that the country has reported over 100,000 newly diagnosed infections. Tuesday’s count is down from a peak of 196,004 new cases on Nov. 20.
An additional 2,146 fatalities from COVID-19 were also registered nationwide on Tuesday, the country’s highest single-day death toll from the disease since May 6 but just under the all-time high of 2,609 new deaths on April 15.
A total of 12,597,330 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 259,962 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4.
– Rite Aid says it will offer vaccine at no cost
American drugstore chain Rite Aid said it will offer COVID-19 vaccines at no cost.
In an email to customers on Tuesday, Rite Aid chief pharmacy officer Jocelyn Konrad said that through their partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an official COVID-19 vaccination program provider, “we are staged and ready to make this lifesaving vaccine available in all of the communities we serve when it becomes available to Rite Aid.”
“This means you will be able to receive the vaccine from your neighborhood Rite Aid pharmacist, whom you know and trust,” Konrad said. “Better yet, the COVID-19 vaccines will be available at no cost.”
Rite Aid customers will be able to schedule an appointment to receive the vaccine once one is approved and becomes available in the United States, according to Konrad.
