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In the United States, cases and hospitalizations from the coronavirus-transmitted disease COVID-19 continued their recent steady decline on Monday, as the country appears to overtake a July surge caused by the highly transmissible delta variant.
There are currently around 20,000 fewer COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the United States than in early September, according to a New York Times tracker, and new cases are on average 106,941 per day, Down 28% from two weeks ago.
But the number of deaths per day remains close to 2,000 and the total number of deaths exceeded 700,000 on Friday evening. Experts lament that at least 200,000 of these deaths were preventable because they occurred after the vaccines became widely available, but many people living in the United States refused to get them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracking shows that 185.5 million people living in America are fully vaccinated, or about 56% of the population, a number that has remained relatively stable for weeks.
Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, made his final appeal over the weekend for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated.
“I hope people understand that this is all in their best interests, for their safety, that of their families and their social responsibility,” Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union”, as reported. reported the Associated Press.
Fauci said he was concerned that people who are resistant to authorized and even fully approved COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds might mistake that stated motive for a philosophical objection.
The COVID-19 vaccine is no different in concept from receiving other vaccines such as the measles vaccine, which has been practiced throughout society for many years, he said, adding that a Public health examination revealed “very, very few, literally less than a handful” of established religions that actually oppose vaccinations.
See: Mormon church president thanks members for getting vaccinated
Religious exemptions have been on the rise since Biden announced new COVID-19 vaccine mandates last month covering more than 100 million Americans.
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At least three other airlines have joined United Airlines UAL,
by requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, as the Biden administration ramps up pressure on major U.S. carriers to demand the vaccines, the AP reported separately.
American Airlines AAL,
Alaska Airlines ALK,
and JetBlue JBLU,
will require all employees to be vaccinated, as they provide special flights, freight transportation and other services for the government. The companies say this makes them government contractors and therefore covered by a Biden order ordering contractors to require employees to be vaccinated.
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American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told employees on Friday evening that the airline is still working out the details, but “it’s clear that team members who choose to remain unvaccinated will not be able to work at American Airlines “.
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The head of BioNTech BNTX,
the German partner of Pfizer PFE,
in the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, told the Financial Times that a different vaccine may be needed by next year if the virus continues to mutate to the point of becoming resistant to vaccines and the immune system.
Uğur Şahin, CEO of BioNTech, expects the coming year to focus on booster shots for the vaccinated and a continued effort to vaccinate the unvaccinated, he said.
“We have no reason to assume that the next generation virus will be easier for the immune system to manage than the current generation,” Ahin said in an interview.
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Elsewhere, the New Zealand government admitted on Monday what most other countries had done a long time ago: that it can no longer completely get rid of the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a cautious plan to ease lockdown restrictions in Auckland, despite an outbreak that continues to simmer.
Global tourism increased in July, thanks to the rollout of vaccination and the reduction of travel restrictions, but the number of travelers is still far from pre-pandemic levels, the tourism body of the United States said on Monday. UN, as reported by AFP. Some 54 million tourists crossed international borders in July, the highest figure since April 2020, in the early months of the coronavirus crisis, the World Tourism Organization said in a statement. This was up 58% from last July.
There were more new COVID-19 antivirals after Merck’s MRK,
announced on Friday that his experimental oral treatment for COVID-19 has helped prevent people from being discharged from the hospital and dying. RedHill Biopharma RDHL,
said new data from a Phase 2/3 clinical study evaluating its investigational oral antiviral opaganib in critically ill and hospitalized COVID-19 patients found it reduced mortality by 62% when evaluating 251 of the 475 patients included in the study.
See also: ‘This is a game-changer’: Merck’s antiviral pill halves risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, data shows
An FDA advisory committee will discuss submissions made by Moderna MRNA,
and Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
seeking authorization for their COVID-19 vaccine recalls at a meeting scheduled for October 14 and 15.
Don’t miss: “It’s not a magic pill”: what Merck’s antiviral pill could mean for vaccine reluctance
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The global tally of coronavirus-borne illnesses topped 235 million on Monday, while the death toll topped 4.8 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States continues to dominate the world with a total of nearly 43.7 million cases and 701,234 deaths.
India is second by cases after the United States with 33.8 million and has suffered 448,997 deaths. Brazil has the second highest death toll with 597,948 and 21.5 million cases.
In Europe, Russia has the highest number of reported deaths with 207,056, followed by the United Kingdom with 137,338.
China, where the virus was first discovered in late 2019, has recorded 108,560 confirmed cases and 4,809 deaths, according to its official figures, which are widely considered massively underreported.
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