California reported its second-highest number of daily coronavirus deaths Wednesday with 459 lives lost, bringing the death toll to 2,504 in the last week as more than a quarter-million new weekly cases portended a continued overwhelming crush on hospitals and intensive care units strained to the breaking point. “The numbers are extraordinary,″ said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association. “We’re not going to dodge this math. We need the state’s help.” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration should immediately remove bureaucratic red tape that is hobbling medical workers for hours at a time and begin coordinating patient care at a statewide level, upending its usual decision-making process, she said.

Lockdown measures were being imposed in a northern Chinese province where coronavirus cases more than doubled in the region near Beijing that’s due to host some events in next year’s Winter Olympics. Rail, air and highway connections to the Hebei capital of Shijiazhuang, a city of at least 10 million people, have been suspended and prevention and control measured tightened over urban communities and villages in the area. Classes have been suspended and school dormitories isolated. The National Health Commission on Thursday announced 51 new cases had been confirmed in Hebei province, bringing the total to 90 since Sunday. Most have been in Shijiazhuang, although cases have also been recorded in the city of Xingtai.

The European Union’s executive commission gave the green light Wednesday to Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine, providing the 27-nation bloc with a second vaccine to use in the desperate battle to tame the virus rampaging across the continent. The European Commission granted conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine. The decision came against a backdrop of high infection rates in many EU countries and strong criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations across the region of some 450 million people. “We are providing more COVID-19 vaccines for Europeans. With the Moderna vaccine, the second one now authorized in the EU, we will have a further 160 million doses. And more vaccines will come,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

A senior Swedish official resigned Wednesday after a vacation to Spain’s Canary Islands for Christmas and New Year’s, saying “the important thing is how we as a society handle the pandemic and all focus is on the incredibly important task.” The departure of Dan Eliasson, who had headed the government agency responsible for civil protection, public safety, emergency management and civil defense since March 2018, comes as the Scandinavian country has seen a recent spike in virus cases. And last year, the agency known as MSB, sent out text messages to millions in Sweden urging them not to travel. But the 59-year-old Eliasson was photographed several times in December in the Canary Islands.

Israel’s vaccination campaign, lauded as the fastest and most efficient in the world, is slowly grinding to a halt this week as vaccine supplies run out. Maccabi, Israel’s second-largest Kupah, announced on Tuesday that it will not be setting any new appointments for vaccinations until Israel receives more vaccines, and later in the day, Clalit also announced that they cannot administer more vaccinations until their supply is replenished. So far, 1,500,000 Israelis have received their first vaccine doses against the coronavirus. It was announced on Wednesday that Moderna will deliver 300,000 vaccine doses to Israel by early next week with the first half of the shipment expected on Thursday, but that amount won’t be enough to make up the current shortage.

The Dutch government came under heavy criticism from lawmakers Tuesday over a COVID-19 vaccination plan that has the first shots set to be administered on Wednesday, making the Netherlands the last European Union nation to begin vaccinations. Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded that his government had focused in its preparations on the easy-to-handle AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not yet been cleared for use in the EU, and not the vaccine produced by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, which is the only shot so far given the green light by the EU’s medicines agency. “This is outrageous,” Geert Wilders, leader of the largest Dutch opposition party, said during a debate that was arranged during Parliament’s winter recess.

The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday that he is “disappointed” Chinese officials haven’t finalized the permissions to allow a team of experts into China to examine the origins of COVID-19. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a rare critique of Beijing, said members of the international scientific team began departing from their home countries over the last 24 hours as part of an arrangement between WHO and the Chinese government. “Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” Tedros said during a news conference in Geneva.

A Wisconsin pharmacist told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he felt the shots weren’t safe, a prosecutor said Monday. Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. “He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing. He added that Brandenburg was upset because he was in the midst of divorcing his wife, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.

Coronavirus czar Prof. Nachman Ash told Ynet on Tuesday morning that any delay in implementing a strict lockdown will result in a loss of lives. For now, he recommended that parents living in high infection areas should keep their children home. “A child who brings the disease home infects others,” he said. “We have seen quite a few such cases in recent days.” Yamina leader Naftali Bennett also recommended that parents keep their children home from school, saying that he kept his children at home on Tuesday for the first time. Former Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov already kept his children home on Sunday. “Many friends have been asking me what to do about school,” Bar Siman-Tov wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

Veteran talk show host Larry King, suffering from COVID-19, has been moved out of the intensive care unit at a Los Angeles hospital and is breathing on his own, a spokesman said on Monday. King was moved to the ICU on New Year’s Eve and was receiving oxygen but is now breathing on his own, said David Theall, a spokesman for Ora Media, a production company formed by King. The 87-year-old broadcasting legend shared a video phone call with his three sons, Theall said. King, who spent many years as an overnight radio DJ, is best known as host of the “Larry King Live” interview show that ran in prime time on CNN from 1985 to 2010. (AP)