Covid live updates: Mnuchin promises $600 checks next week as Congress readies to pass $900 billion relief bill

Congress aims to pass a coronavirus relief package and government spending bill in the coming hours.

Lawmakers were once again rushing, as they had not released legislation with about 12 hours to go until the federal government shuts down. The more than $2 trillion package includes a $900 billion coronavirus rescue plan and $1.4 trillion to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2021.

Republicans and Democrats finally reached a deal on an emergency assistance plan after months of failure to send more help during a health and economic crisis. The legislation contains a $300 weekly unemployment supplement through mid-March, $600 direct payments for most adults and children, nearly $300 billion in Paycheck Protection Program small business loans and $8 billion for Covid-19 vaccine distribution, among a bevy of other measures.

Once lawmakers finalize the bill, the House will move to pass it first.

—Jacob Pramuk

A House panel investigating the Trump administration’s response to the Covid pandemic said it has subpoenaed U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield.

Rep. James Clyburn, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, issued the subpoenas Monday, ordering the two officials to produce by Dec. 30 documents that Clyburn said show political interference that hindered the nation’s response to the pandemic.

“The subpoenas were necessary because the Select Subcommittee’s investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known,” Clyburn said in a statement.

The subcommittee also released new emails that show political appointees at HHS attempting to interfere with the publication of the CDC’s prestigious Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, or MMWRs. 

—Will Feuer

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that stimulus checks included in Congress’ new, $900 billion stimulus bill will hit American bank accounts as soon as next week.

“The good news is this is a very, very fast way of getting money into the economy. Let me emphasize: People are going to see this money at the beginning of next week,” Mnuchin told CNBC.

The newest coronavirus relief bill includes popular items from the original CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion relief package U.S. lawmakers approved in March. U.S. lawmakers are expected to pass the latest bill on Monday.

Individuals, including children, will receive $600 in direct payments. A family of four could end up with $2,400. If passed, the legislation would also include a $300 federal weekly unemployment supplement.

—Thomas Franck

The European Medicines Agency authorized Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for conditional use, less than two weeks after the vaccine was approved for use in the U.K. and the U.S., CNBC’s Natasha Turak and Katrina Bishop report.

Europe is on track to start vaccinations within a week, and authorities in several EU countries including France, Italy, Austria and Germany have said they aim to begin inoculations on Dec. 27, regulators said.

The vaccine needs to be endorsed by the European Commission before it can be distributed, and a decision is expected shortly.

The EMA said in a statement that it had recommended granting conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine in people aged 16 years and over.

“EMA’s scientific opinion paves the way for the first marketing authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine in the EU by the European Commission, with all the safeguards, controls and obligations this entails,” the agency said.

—Terri Cullen

A Covid relief deal reached by Congress on Sunday would extend unemployment benefits for 11 weeks and pay an extra $300 a week to all recipients of jobless aid.

The additional unemployment benefits offered by the package will last until mid-March.

The $900 billion compromise legislation, the full text of which hasn’t yet been released, comes ahead of a benefits cliff this weekend. Millions of workers will lose jobless benefits through two expiring CARES Act programs unless Congress passes the measure.

Self-employed workers with mixed income would also get an extra $100 a week in aid to counteract low benefit levels.

—Greg Iacurci

The Covid-19 relief bill expected to be passed on Monday includes between $8 billion and $9 billion for vaccine distribution, according to summaries released by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Those figures — Republicans say $8 billion; Democrats say “nearly” $9 billion — are both higher than the $6 billion allocated in previous proposals, and may meet the $8.4 billion demand made by outside groups representing local health officials.

Funding for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is a critical element of the country’s effort to inoculate the public against the deadly disease, which has already claimed more than 300,000 lives in the U.S.

The vaccination campaign began in earnest this month after federal regulators approved drugs made by Pfizer and Moderna. As many as 20 million people may be vaccinated by the first week of January, health officials have said.

The stimulus bill also contains $20 million to procure vaccines, which will be provided to the public at no cost, and about $20 billion in funding to states for testing and other Covid-19 mitigation programs.

—Tucker Higgins

The existing Covid-19 vaccines will likely provide immunity against the new variant of coronavirus spreading in the United Kingdom, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb.

The virus mutation seems to be more contagious than prior strains, Gottlieb told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” But the former FDA chief cautioned, “It doesn’t seem to have mutated the surface proteins of the virus in a way that they would slip past our vaccines or prior immunity. In fact, we don’t think that that’s the case.”

Gottlieb, also a board member of Pfizer, which makes a Covid-19 vaccine, said the mere fact the coronavirus has evolved during the pandemic is not a surprise.

“Some viruses, like flu, evolve their surface proteins very quickly, and that’s why we need a different flu vaccine every season,” he said. “Some viruses can’t really change their surface proteins, like measles. This [coronavirus] seems to fall someplace in between. It’s not going to change its surface proteins very rapidly, that spike protein, but it will change it over time.”

— Kevin Stankiewicz

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina. Gottlieb also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean’s “Healthy Sail Panel.”

U.S. stocks opened lower as worries over a new Covid strain in the U.K. offset optimism from a coronavirus stimulus deal in the U.S., reports CNBC’s Yun Li.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 320 points at the open. The S&P 500 shed 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.9%.

—Melodie Warner 

President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, are scheduled to receive their first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in public on Monday afternoon.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will receive their first doses of the vaccine a week after the Bidens do. The timeline is consistent with national security protocols designed to avoid a scenario in which both the president-elect and the vice president-elect experience side effects at the same time.

On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence became the highest-ranking U.S. officials to receive the vaccine so far.

—Christina Wilkie

With travel restrictions in place around the world, Zoom is gearing up for what could end up being its busiest day ever: Christmas Day.

A spokesperson for Zoom indicated that the company was confident its servers will be able to cope with the demand, reports CNBC’s Sam Shead.

“We operate our own global (co-located) data centers around the globe, providing significant control and flexibility when it comes to routing both audio and video traffic,” they told CNBC. “In addition, we work with public cloud providers to help with increased demand.”

Zoom said on Dec. 16 that it would remove its 40-minute limit over the holidays for those that don’t pay for the service, helping it to compete with other video conferencing platforms like Skype, Google Meets, FaceTime, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The free Zoom period includes Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and the last day of Hanukkah.

—Melodie Warner 

The first doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine are being shipped around the U.S. after the FDA approved it for emergency use late Friday. CNBC’s Frank Holland reports how FedEx is playing a key role in its distribution and how this rollout differs from that of Pfizer’s vaccine.

—Melodie Warner 

Existing vaccines for Covid-19 will be effective in fighting off infection from new strains of the coronavirus, multiple experts told CNBC on Monday.

Vin Gupta, an affiliate assistant professor from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said the vaccine frontrunners from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca would be able to ward off the new strain since it is genetically “very similar” to prior strains.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that although the new strain has “more mutations than any variant we’ve seen before,” the variety of neutralizing antibodies induced by the main vaccine frontrunners means it is unlikely that the new strain will be resistant to inoculation.

Andrew Freedman, a researcher in infectious diseases at Cardiff University, also told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” that because “the vaccine provides immunity to different regions of the spike protein, not just the one where the mutations are,” it is likely to work against the new strain.

—Elliot Smith

Covid updates: Trump signs funding to avoid shutdown, Congress vote on stimulus deal expected Monday