Published December 20, 2020 •
Updated on December 20, 2020 at 8:17 pm
PAUL SANCYA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee recommended Sunday that the next groups to receive the COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks should be people ages 75 and older and front-line essential workers.
The United States added a record of nearly a quarter-million coronavirus cases in the past day. Along with 249,709 new cases, there were an additional 2,814 reported deaths nationwide in the past 24 hours. That pushed the confirmed U.S. death toll past 313,000, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
California led the case surge with 48,221 more infections. Almost 17,000 people are hospitalized in California and health officials are scrambling to find enough beds for patients. Texas, Florida, New York and Tennessee all registered more than 10,400 new cases.