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CNN
By Aya Elamroussi and Holly Yan, CNN
The overall picture for Covid-19 in the United States looks a bit brighter as new infections and hospitalizations decline.
“This is the good news. And I hope it will continue on this downward trajectory, ”said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“But we just have to be careful not to declare victory prematurely in a lot of ways. We still have around 68 million people eligible for vaccination who have not yet been, ”Fauci said on Sunday.
“If you look at the history of increases and decreases in cases over a period of time, they can rebound.”
In 45 states, rates of new cases of Covid-19 declined or remained relatively stable last week compared to the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University on Saturday.
Five states – Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania – recorded at least 10% more new cases last week compared to the previous week.
In Michigan, an emergency room doctor said his hospital was still overwhelmed with patients.
“I had just worked a few shifts in a row where I had six or seven people sitting in the emergency department, waiting for beds in other hospitals that didn’t exist,” Dr Rob Davidson said on Saturday.
He said some ambulances “were within six or seven hours of being able to get them to these places.”
About 52% of Michigan residents have been fully immunized – lower than the national average of 56.4%, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday.
“Always too high”
The new Covid-19 cases are “in the right direction – we have less than 100,000 cases a day,” Fauci said on Sunday.
But the United States has about 95,000 new infections reported daily, which is “still way too high,” he said.
“I would love to see it well below 10,000 and even much lower than that,” Fauci said. “But when you’re at 95,000, it’s still a situation where you have a high degree of dynamic circulation of the virus.”
And while daily Covid-19 deaths have declined in recent weeks, an average of more than 1,600 Americans die from Covid-19 each day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University last week.
Death is not the only terrible outcome with Covid-19
It’s important for people to understand “not dying from Covid is a good thing, but it’s not the only measure we should be using,” Davidson said.
He said that at his hospital, some Covid-19 patients had been on ventilators for more than a month, and some had undergone invasive procedures to stay alive.
Even if they recover physically, some Covid-19 survivors end up suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, due to time spent in intensive care, Davidson said.
A study published in February found that 30% of Covid-19 survivors suffered from PTSD, which is a psychological illness that typically occurs after a person has had a life-threatening experience.
Negative effects have been found in people infected during their third trimester of pregnancy, as well as in their babies.
Between March and September last year, symptomatic pregnant women in an Israeli hospital had higher rates of gestational diabetes, lower white blood cell counts and more bleeding during childbirth. Their babies also experienced more breathing problems, a research team reported in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine.
The study has limitations because it only looked at women from one hospital, so its findings may not be true for all pregnant people.
Then there’s the Long Covid – when symptoms can last for months after infection.
A large study published last month showed that more than a third of Covid-19 patients showed symptoms three to six months after becoming infected. Some have had multiple and lasting complications.
Breathing problems, abdominal symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, fatigue, pain, anxiety and depression were among the most frequently reported problems.
The accompanying data showed that up to 46% of children and young adults aged 10 to 22 experienced at least one symptom within six months of their recovery.
‘Hit the reset button,’ says senior health official and evangelical Christian
A recent study by the Pew Research Center showed that white evangelical Protestants were among the adults least likely to be vaccinated.
The director of the National Institutes of Health – who identifies as an evangelical Christian – said it was time for that to change.
“Christians, of all people, are supposed to be especially worried about their neighbors,” Dr. Francis Collins told CNN on Saturday.
He said those who are not vaccinated are more likely to be infected and pass the coronavirus to others.
But for some reason, many evangelical Christians “have had a hard time, in many cases, rolling up their sleeves,” Collins said.
“A lot of it is this misinformation that is so widely spread on the internet and which I think has caused a lot of people to be confused or fearful of what vaccinations might do to them,” Collins said.
“And it’s really heartbreaking when we see, again, over a thousand people losing their lives from this disease (daily), almost all of them unvaccinated, and so it shouldn’t have happened,” he said. he declared.
“If you are a Christian, or if you are someone who has not yet been vaccinated, hit the reset button on any information you have that makes you doubt, hesitate, or fear, and review the evidence. “
Vaccines for children under 5 may not arrive until next year
For children under 5, Covid-19 vaccines may not be authorized until early next year, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
The FDA will likely request more data and possibly studies involving more children because this is a new vaccine and a new virus, Gottlieb told CBS’s Face the Nation.
“And that could push it until 2022. Previously, we had talked about trying to make that data available before the end of this year, which could have resulted in an authorization maybe by the end of the year. , at least in children aged 2 to 4 years. I think it’s more likely that this will slip into at least the first quarter of next year, but not too far into next year, ”said Gottlieb, who is also on the Pfizer board of directors. .
The FDA has called a meeting of its independent vaccine advisers, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), on October 26 to discuss pediatric vaccines. Pfizer has submitted data and a formal authorization request for its one-third-dose vaccine for children aged 5 to 11. But Gottlieb said he expects VRBPAC to also discuss what might be needed for the clearance of younger children.
Having more information to consider can increase public confidence in vaccines, Gottlieb said. He is already confident and plans to vaccinate his own young daughters.
“There are a lot of parents like me who, as soon as the vaccines are available for their children, will go out and have their children vaccinated, who see the benefits of vaccination,” he said. “There are a lot of parents who still have a lot of questions about immunization. I think for them they should have a conversation with their pediatrician to try to get familiar with the idea of vaccinating children.
Gottlieb said he believes it will be years before the CDC recommends incorporating Covid-19 vaccines into the regular children’s immunization schedule, which would open the door for school districts mandating them.
“I think it’s very far. The CDC is certainly going to view children between the ages of 12 and 17 differently than those between the ages of 5 and 11, ”he said.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Maggie Fox, Ben Tinker, Lauren Mascarenhas, Jacqueline Howard and Keith Allen contributed to this report.
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