Covid deaths at highest level since April as 100,000 Americans are hospitalized - as it happened

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1.26am GMT

We're closing out live US politics blog for this evening, but you can continue following along with breaking news on our global coronavirus blog.

An updated summary of today's key events:

12.40am GMT

As of today, 100,226 Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.

This is the highest number yet recorded, and nearly twice as many people as were hospitalized at the peak of earlier coronavirus waves in April and July.

Our daily update is published. States reported 1.4 million tests, 196k cases, and 2,733 deaths. There are 100,226 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US -the first time hospitalizations have exceeded 100k. pic.twitter.com/8QSKujBGao