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ATLANTA (CNN) – As millions of people in the United States return home after the Thanksgiving vacation, daily COVID-19 hospitalizations are approaching 100,000 – the highest they have ever been.
Now, health experts are asking those who have met with people outside their homes to get tested.
“If your family has traveled, you have to assume that you have been exposed and that you have been infected,” White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr Deborah Birx told CBS on Sunday.
She also recommended that people over the age of 65 get tested immediately if they develop symptoms.
“If you’re over 65 or have comorbidities and got together on Thanksgiving – if you develop symptoms, you need to be tested immediately,” Birx said.
More people passed through airport security on Sunday than on any other day since the coronavirus pandemic cratered for air travel, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA examined 1.17 million people on Sunday, as many Americans returned home from their Thanksgiving trip, he said. That means more than 9.4 million people were thrown into the Thanksgiving travel window, which began on the Friday before the holidays.
November was an unprecedented coronavirus outbreak month, with 27 consecutive days of new cases exceeding 100,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
If your family has traveled, you should assume that you have been exposed and that you have been infected.
–Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator
And as hospitalizations hit a new record high of 93,238 on Sunday, it was the third time the metric has exceeded 90,000 this month, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
“There is no way that hospitals can be fully prepared for what we are currently facing,” said Dr Megan Ranney, emergency physician.
“It’s like a natural disaster occurring in all 50 states at the same time. There are no adequate beds. There are no adequate staff. And due to lack of national preparedness, there are no still lack adequate supplies. “
Statistics released in the days following the holidays could show a relative drop in COVID-19 cases, followed by an increase due to a delay in reports from government agencies over the long weekend.
And given the coronavirus’ long incubation period and the time it takes for an infected person to test positive, Thanksgiving-related cases are not expected to appear in public data until the first full week of December at the earliest. .
US Surgeon General Dr Jerome Adams told “Fox News Sunday” he expects the new infections and hospitalizations to worsen in the coming weeks.
“Make sure to wash your hands and make sure again that if you’ve been to a gathering of more than 10 people without a mask in the past few days, get tested within the next three to five days,” says -he .
As the United States struggles to manage cases until a vaccine can be distributed, states fare differently.
If Arizona officials do not address the increase in cases in the next two to three weeks, the state will face a humanitarian crisis resulting in hundreds of preventable deaths, the Zuckerman College of Public Health said on Friday. the University of Arizona in a report.
“While targeted measures may have slowed transmission enough weeks ago, I believe shelter-in-place orders offer the most certain chance of making the necessary improvements,” the report’s lead author said on Saturday. , Dr. Joe Gerald, also Assistant Professor.
In New York City, once the epicenter of the virus has spread to the United States, the state will send students up to grade five to public schools for in-person learning in early December, said Mayor Bill of Blasio.
It’s like a natural disaster happening in all 50 states at the same time. There are no adequate beds. There is no adequate staff. And due to the lack of national preparation, supplies are still not sufficient.
–Emergency doctor Dr Megan Ranney
Students will be tested weekly and parents will be required to sign a consent form for each student who will take classes in person, de Blasio said.
Even so, New York is experiencing a positivity rate of 4.27%, the highest rate since May, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday.
Spread rates are worse in the Midwest than in other parts of the country, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner on CBS ‘Face the Nation, said Sunday.
“If you see what’s going on in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, where governors took more aggressive action early on, where mask usage is more consistent, where they contracted less of infection during this season – I think you’re going to see infection rates stay lower than we’re seeing in other parts of the country like the Midwest, ”Gottlieb said.
Ohio state’s total topped 400,000 cases on Saturday, with more than 100,000 added in less than two weeks, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine candidates have shown promising efficacy rates in tests. Moderna intends to apply to the FDA for clearance for its COVID-19 vaccine on Monday.
He will ask the agency to review an expanded data set showing the vaccine is 94.1% effective in preventing COVID-19 and 100% effective in preventing severe cases of the disease.
“It’s striking,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee. “This is amazing data.”
Pfizer and BioNTech applied for emergency use clearance from the FDA on November 20 for their coronavirus vaccine candidate, the first to seek regulatory clearance in the United States
The expected 40 million doses of vaccine will be ready by the end of the year, but that’s not enough for everyone who needs them to get one, Adams told Fox.
Advisors from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called an emergency meeting on Tuesday to vote on who they recommend to be the first to get a coronavirus vaccine once it is cleared.
“The vaccine advisory committee that advises the CDC will make recommendations on who should get the vaccine first, the so-called group 1A – who should get it immediately, when it’s available,” Gottlieb told CBS.
Gottlieb said he expects healthcare workers, long-term care residents and staff to be the first group of people eligible for the vaccine.
“It’s pretty much decided – they’re going to vote this week,” he said. “I would be very surprised if they deviate from that.”
The first vaccine release will likely coincide with when cases related to the Thanksgiving gatherings start to appear.
Although the CDC recommended that Americans not travel on Thanksgiving, more than 6 million people went through security at US airports before the holidays.
“When you look at the people who are hospitalized today, they were infected two weeks ago, maybe more,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine at George Washington University. “And then it usually takes another week for people to succumb to the disease.”
The-CNN-Wire ™ and © 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
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