BitGou: Thursday Morning Briefing: U.S. Congress certifies Biden win hours after harrowing Capitol Hill assault

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U.S. Congress certifies Biden win hours after harrowing Capitol Hill assault
Hours after hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a harrowing assault on American democracy, a shaken Congress on Thursday formally certified Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
Immediately afterward, the White House released a statement from Trump in which he pledged an “orderly transition” when Biden is sworn into office on Jan. 20, although he repeated his false claim that he won the November election. On Wednesday, the Republican president had seemingly encouraged his followers to swarm the Capitol.

How security failures enabled Trump mob to storm U.S. Capitol
The bloody chaos inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday came after the police force that protects the legislative complex was overrun by a mob of Trump supporters in what law enforcement officials called a catastrophic failure to prepare.

World leaders expressed their shock as supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building where Congress meets in an attempt to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election won by Joe Biden.

Georgia delivers Senate to Democrats with Warnock, Ossoff wins
Democrats on Wednesday completed a sweep of the two U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in runoff elections in the state of Georgia, giving the party control of the chamber and boosting the prospects for President-elect Joe Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda.

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

U.S. tops 21 million cases
More Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Wednesday than at any time since the pandemic began, as total infections crossed the 21 million mark, deaths soared across much of the United States and a historic vaccination effort lagged.

U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations reached a record 130,834 late on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally of public health data, while 3,684 reported fatalities was the second-highest single-day death toll of the pandemic.

That toll meant that on Tuesday someone died from COVID-19 every 24 seconds in the United States. With total deaths surpassing 357,000, one in every 914 U.S. residents has died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to a Reuters analysis.

Chinese city of 11 million stops people leaving
The capital and largest city in northern China's Hebei province barred people from leaving on Thursday as the country reported the biggest rise in daily infections in more than five months.
Hebei accounted for 51 of the 52 local cases reported by the National Health Commission on Thursday.
This compared with 20 cases reported in the province, which surrounds Beijing, a day earlier.
Authorities in Shijiazhuang, home to 11 million people, have launched mass testing drives and banned gatherings.

Japan declared a limited state of emergency in the capital, Tokyo, and three neighboring prefectures on Thursday, hoping that less-stringent curbs than imposed earlier will stamp out infections.
The government said the one-month emergency would run from Friday to Feb. 7 in Tokyo and Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures, covering about 30% of the country's population.
Restrictions would center combating transmission in bars and restaurants, which the government says are main risk areas.
The curbs are narrower in scope than those imposed in April under an emergency that ran to late May.

A field hospital in London will be used if necessary to relieve pressure on other hospitals in the city, the British health minister said on Thursday after leaked official documents suggested London risked running out of beds within two weeks.
Projections leaked to the Health Service Journal showed that even if the number of COVID-19 patients increased at the lowest rate considered likely, London hospitals would be short of nearly 2,000 acute and intensive beds by Jan. 19.

Moderna's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is likely to offer protection of up to a couple of years, its chief executive said on Thursday, even though more data is still needed to make a definitive assessment.
The U.S. biotech company, which stunned the world last year by coming up with a vaccine against the disease caused by the new coronavirus in just a few weeks, received approval for its shot from the European Commission on Wednesday.
Given vaccines development and pharmacovigilance usually requires years, the protection duration of COVID-19 shots is a lingering question for scientists and regulators.

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Joshua Wong, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists who is serving a 13-1/2-month jail sentence for illegal assembly, is suspected of violating the city’s national security law, according to a notice on his Facebook account.
Wong, 24, gave a police statement on Thursday, the post said, without elaborating.

Washington may sanction those involved in the arrest of over 50 people in Hong Kong and will send the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to visit Taiwan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, drawing anger and the threat of retaliation from Beijing.

China said on Thursday that the United States will pay a “heavy price” for its wrongdoing, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it may sanction those involved in Hong Kong arrests and that the U.S.’ U.N. ambassador would visit Taiwan.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he would expand military capabilities to better defend the country, state media reported on Thursday, during a rare party congress as the country faces international sanctions and pressure.

Investors are looking ahead to the next U.S. administration after Democrats won control of Congress on Wednesday, a political shift that could strengthen the hand of President-elect Joe Biden in pushing through policies such as more fiscal spending and higher taxes.

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