Covid-19 stats decline, as variants lurk and vaccines lag behind

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So, while the country waits for widespread vaccines, the steps people should take to slow the spread are the same as usual: wear masks, avoid gatherings and wash their hands, experts said.

Covid-19 numbers are down

• New cases recorded daily in the United States are down. Health experts had warned that the November-December holidays, with an increase in travel and gatherings indoors, would cause Covid-19 cases to explode.

And they have skyrocketed, hitting a record pandemic average of more than 249,200 cases per day for a week as of January 10, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The outbreak has subsided: The average had fallen to around 166,380 cases per day over a week from Tuesday – a drop of more than 33% from the peak.

And the country has reported fewer than 200,000 new cases per day for 10 consecutive days – the longest such period since before Thanksgiving.

• Hospitalizations decrease: About 108,950 Covid-19 patients were in US hospitals on Tuesday – a number generally down from a pandemic peak of 132,474 patients recorded on January 6.

The statistic is now roughly where it was just before mid-December, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

• Daily reported deaths are just below a record: The country had an average of 3,349 Covid-19 deaths per day over a week starting Tuesday.

That’s very close to a pandemic peak average of 3,355 reached on January 13 – and well above the averages of around 1,000 in mid-November.

Experts have said that movements in the volume of deaths can be weeks behind the number of cases and hospitalizations, as those who succumb to the disease may first be sick for weeks.

January is already the deadliest month in the pandemic in the United States. But a model run by the University of Washington predicts that those numbers are expected to plunge in the coming months.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model predicts that the daily number of deaths could be less than 1,850 on March 1, 750 on April 1 and 300 on May 1.

This is in part because of seasonality, institute director Dr Christopher Murray said on Monday, which means warmer weather can mean fewer opportunities for spread, with more social opportunities. outside.

But vaccinations, too, “will prevent a lot of deaths,” Murray said.

About these variants

Scientists are monitoring several known coronavirus strains believed to be more transmissible than previous versions. This includes a first find in the UK (B.1.1.7), a first sight in Brazil (P.1) and a sight in South Africa (B.1.351).
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Researchers are also looking for a variant found in California, Fauci said on Monday, although it was not clear if it is more transmissible.
The B.1.1.7 strain could become the predominant US variant in March and has the potential “to increase the trajectory of the US pandemic in the months to come,” the CDC said in a report this month.

Dr Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, is among experts who are concerned that more communicable variants could lead to more outbreaks of cases if they set in.

“We have seen what is happening in other countries that have actually had coronavirus under relatively good control, then these variants have taken over and they have had an explosive spread of the virus, then hospitals overwhelmed,” he said. Wen told CNN on Monday.

‘Get as many people vaccinated as you can’

One obvious way to combat these variants – and reduce the chances of more dangerous mutations – said Fauci, is to get vaccinated.

“The best way to prevent mutants from growing is to suppress the amount of virus circulating in the population. And the best way to do that is to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” Fauci told CNN on Monday. .

Fortunately, Fauci said, the current Covid-19 vaccines are likely to be effective against the newer variants.
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Evidence indicates that the efficacy of vaccine-induced antibodies might be diminished against the mutant first seen in South Africa, but “it is still well in the cushion bracket to be an effective vaccine,” said Fauci.

Moderna and Pfizer say experiments indicate that their vaccines will protect people against the new variants. And while he believes his current two-dose vaccine will be effective, Moderna said he will develop booster potential against this variant, just to be sure.
If the United States were to administer 1 million vaccines per day – the pace required to meet Biden’s original goal of giving 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days in office – it would take until the end of 2021 to fully immunize 75% of the United States. adults, assuming each recipient needs two injections, according to CNN analysis.
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The country may be close to that pace now. Biden said on Monday he hoped to eventually increase the pace to 1.5 million shots per day. The timeframe would also be reduced if some people were to receive single-dose vaccines, such as the candidate from Johnson & Johnson, which is expected to publish results from its Phase 3 trials soon.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has stressed that rich countries must do more to ensure the availability of vaccines worldwide. This is not just for moral reasons, but also because dangerous mutations could emerge in places where people are not vaccinated in sufficient numbers – and end up making those already vaccinated sick.

“An Me First approach leaves the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people at risk. It is also doomed to fail,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

Continue to hide yourself, say experts

Steps people should take to tackle the variants and bring the country closer to normal while waiting for vaccines follow the now-familiar roadmap of pandemic precautions, from wearing masks to crowd avoidance to basic hand washing.

New strains are putting “a lot of pressure on us to try (to) do whatever we can to reduce transmission,” Dr Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, said Tuesday.

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“Vaccines are part of it, but the main thing is trying to come together as a nation and see: can we get people who don’t wear masks to do that? places? “he said

“If we can do these things, we can mitigate the impact of the pandemic this winter.”

Biden signed an executive order last week requiring masks in federal buildings and on federal lands, and asked Americans to wear masks during his first 100 days in office.
France, Germany and Austria, concerned about the more transmissible variants, have made medical-grade masks mandatory in at least some public places.
The CDC currently recommends washable cloth masks or single-use non-medical disposable masks for the general public. Masks should have two or more layers of fabric that fit snugly over the nose and mouth, he says.

These preventive measures alongside the vaccine rollout – even over several months – should provide increasing relief, Dr Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, told CNN late last week. .

“I hope that by the end of spring to the start of summer life will start to feel really different and better,” he said.

Amanda Watts, Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield, Andrea Diaz, Maggie Fox, Naomi Thomas, Sandee LaMotte, Deidre McPhillips and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

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