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The United States could see 20 million cases of Covid-19 by Christmas if the coronavirus continues to infect people at the current rate, an NBC News analysis of the latest figures revealed Tuesday.
The number of new cases for the three-week period ending Monday nearly doubled to 1.9 million from the previous 21-day tally of 1.07 million, the data showed.
By November 30, if this trend continues, the United States could have 13.6 million cases and by December 21 that number at the current rate could climb to 19.9 million.
Pandemic fatigue and growing anger at wearing masks and practicing social distancing, coupled with the colder weather pushing people indoors where the virus spreads more easily, have created a “perfect storm” for them. new infections, epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said Tuesday.
Osterholm, who is also on President-elect Joe Biden’s Covid-19 task force, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he was not surprised that the numbers are reaching nearly 150,000 right now. “And what I’ve been saying for months is – brace yourself, we’re going to hit 200,000 or more cases a day. And we have to prepare in our hospitals for this very problem.
While a Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 has been touted as “extraordinary” by Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s foremost infectious disease expert, it will not be deployed until the end of December.
By then, Osterholm warned, the United States should prepare for the “darkest weeks of this pandemic for us.”
In other coronavirus news:
- Biden’s attempts to launch a new pandemic action plan are thwarted by President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election. As a result, Biden’s transition team has been barred from meeting with officials leading Operation Warp Speed and other Trump administration coronavirus efforts.
- Fauci told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that once the Federal Food and Drug Administration approves the Pfizer vaccine, he would be ready to take it. “If they look at this data and say that this data is solid, let’s go ahead and approve it, I promise you, Andrea, that I will take the vaccine and I will recommend my family to do so,” he said. declared.
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who like Trump has been accused of downplaying the dangers of the pandemic, hired an Uber driver / sports blogger from Ohio who spread disinformation about Covid-19 as a data analyst, reported the Miami Herald. Kyle Lamb, who critics called “nuts,” said he would be working on “coronavirus research and other projects.”
- Dr Luciana Borio, one of the doctors appointed to Biden’s new Covid-19 task force, served on Trump’s National Security Council as a member of his pandemic response team until Trump dissolves it in 2018.
- Longtime Palestinian politician and peace negotiator Saeb Erekat has died weeks after being admitted to Jerusalem hospital for Covid-19. He was 65 and had served for decades as the Palestinians’ chief negotiator in talks with Israel.
- The University of Albany closed all in-person classes on Tuesday due to a recent spike in coronavirus cases on campus. But even before Tuesday’s hiatus from live lectures, more than 83% of education was delivered online at the 3,500 student campus, a school spokesperson said.
- Pittsburgh Steelers star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and three other players are isolated for five days because they were in contact with a teammate who tested positive on Monday, ESPN reported. All will be tested throughout the week to see if they can still play on Sunday.
- Covid-19 not only kills mink in Denmark, it kills them on fur farms in Wisconsin and Utah as well.
On Monday, the United States set another daily record for new coronavirus cases with 133,819, the data showed. It was the first time the number of Covid-19 cases has exceeded the 130,000 threshold and the sixth day in a row that the United States has recorded more than 100,000 cases per day.
Wisconsin on Tuesday reported 7,073 new cases and 66 deaths overnight, two new dismal records for the state. Ohio also set a new daily record Monday with 6,508 new cases. The same was true for Michigan, with 6,473 new cases on Tuesday.
And there has been a surge in new Covid-19 infections in nursing homes after a seven-week drop, particularly in the Midwest where the number of deaths is also rising, the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living. Tuesday.
Currently, according to figures from NBC News, the United States leads the world with 10.2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and more than 240,000 deaths.
While 789 deaths were reported on Monday, the number of Covid-19-related deaths does not appear to be accelerating at the same rate, data shows.
While at the start of the pandemic, the elderly and infirm were the most likely to catch Covid-19, the average age of the person infected with the virus has grown younger, experts said. In addition, more aggressive tests can detect infections earlier and treatments have improved.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine – a research group that the Trump administration once relied on – released a “best case” scenario in September, which predicted that there would be between 257,286 and 327,775 COVID-19 deaths in the United States as of January 1.
At the time, the potential Covid-19 vaccine announced on Monday by pharmaceutical company Pfizer was considered far from having arrived.
“I’m obviously very happy to see that we now have evidence that this vaccine approach can work,” Osterholm said.
But Osterholm warned there were still a number of unanswered questions, such as “how long this vaccine will work”.
Joe murphy contributed.
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