'A Friend To All': Sandy Hook First Responder Dies Of Coronavirus

ACROSS AMERICA — Connecticut State Police Trooper Patrick Dragon was one of the first officers to respond to the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. With 26 deaths, the massacre ripped at America's heart, as most of the victims were between 5 and 7 years old.

A little more than eight years later, Dragon himself has become a fatal victim of another American tragedy. He died Jan. 2 after testing positive for the coronavirus, the Connecticut State Police said in a statement on Facebook.

Dragon, who was 50, according to a WCVB report, retired from Connecticut State Police in 2018, and more recently served as a dispatcher for local departments such as the one in Foster, Rhode Island. Foster Police Chief David Breit said on Facebook that Dragon fought a "valiant battle" against the virus.

He "was a great person, kind, caring and a friend to all who met him," Breit said. "There are not enough words, to describe the kind of person that Patrick was."

Dragon is among the more than 360,700 Americans and more than 6,000 from Connecticut to have died from the virus, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

The Latest

One of the first Americans to get a dose of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech has died, but Pfizer has said the death was unrelated to the vaccine.

Gregory Michael, a 56-year-old from New Jersey, died earlier this week in Florida. He took the first dose of the vaccine on Dec. 18, according to reports.

In a social media post, Michael's wife said the "very healthy" 56-year-old found a "strong set of petechiae" on his feet and hands three days after getting his first dose of the vaccine.

"He was a pro-vaccine advocate … that is why he got it himself," she said, alleging that the vaccine was connected to his death.

Pfizer acknowledged Michael's death, and will continue an investigation into it.

"It is a highly unusual clinical case of severe thrombocytopenia, a condition that decreases the body's ability to clot blood and stop internal bleeding," the New York-based drugmaker said in a statement. "We are actively investigating this case, but we don't believe at this time that there is any direct connection to the vaccine."

Some others who have received vaccine doses have reported negative side effects. Twenty-one people who received doses of the Pfizer vaccine have had severe, and even life-threatening, allergic reactions, according to a New York Times report.

Still, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, told the Times that is a "rare outcome."

The B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant that originated in the United Kingdom was found in another state on Thursday, with the first case reported in Pennsylvania.

The person who tested positive with the new strain, which is believed to be more contagious, had known international exposure, officials in the Keystone State said. Previous variant cases reported in states such as California, New York and Florida have involved people with no recent travel history, suggesting community transmission has already begun.

Health experts have warned that there is no robust system to identify mutations like the U.K. variant.

Researchers only perform genome sequencing, a method that definitively spots the variant, on fewer than 3,000 of the 1.4 million people who test positive for the virus a week, according to a report from The New York Times.

Health experts predict that the variant will spread. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins told The Washington Post on Wednesday, "I would be surprised if that doesn't grow pretty rapidly."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has also predicted the variant's spread in the coming weeks, has released details on what is known about it. There's nothing to suggest the variant increases the severity of the illness, the CDC has said.

American coronavirus deaths hit another daily record on Wednesday, with more than 3,900 reported.

The rising case and death totals come as states continue to work on speeding up their vaccination rollout plans.

As of Wednesday, more than three weeks into the U.S. vaccination campaign, 5.3 million people had gotten their first shot out of the 17 million doses distributed so far, according to the CDC. While that is believed to an undercount because of a lag in reporting, health officials it is still well behind where they wanted it to be, The Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, in Florida, a nursing home in a high-end area of West Palm Beach has come into the spotlight after a report from The Washington Post surfaced accusing top officials of offering the vaccine to wealthy donors. The vaccines sent to MorseLife Health System were only for residents and staff.

“He asked me if I wanted to have a vaccine,” Ryna Greenbaum, 89, told The Post, recalling a phone message from the nursing home's CEO. “I’m one of the people who has given him some money.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said the country could soon provide vaccine doses to 1 million people a day, the AP reported Tuesday.

"Anytime you start a big program, there's always glitches," Fauci said. "I think the glitches have been worked out."

So far, federal officials have failed to outline a plan for distributing vaccines to U.S. states.

Newest Numbers

At least 3,169 deaths and 209,393 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Thursday as of 4:15 p.m. ET, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week, new daily cases increased by 17.6 percent, new daily deaths rose by 16.8 percent and new coronavirus-related hospitalizations increased by 5.7 percent.

Currently, more than 132,476 people are hospitalized with a coronavirus-related illness in the United States, more than ever before, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Thursday, 48 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. Only Vermont, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are currently below that rate. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

As of Thursday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 21.4 million cases and more than 364,000 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

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