US Coronavirus: Just over a year since first reported Covid-19 case, US is approaching 25 million infections

“We are now in the second half of the fight against this pandemic,” Washington Secretary of Health Umair A. Shah said at a press conference. “It is very important for us to really double our efforts to prevent this strain as well as any strain from gaining the upper hand because we want to make sure that transmission does not occur in our condition and the best way to do that is prevention. , prevention, prevention. “

‘Still very bad news’

A UK report released on Friday says there is a “realistic possibility” that the new variant has a higher death rate than the other variants.

“Data is piling up – and some of it I can’t share – that clearly supports B.1.1.7 causing more severe disease and increased mortality,” infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm said. . “We already know that this variant has increased drivetrain, so that’s very bad news.”

But National Institutes of Health director Dr Francis Collins said on Saturday it was still too early to say whether the variant was more deadly, telling MSNBC, “this is very preliminary data.”

“It looks like if you look at 1000 people who have been infected with Covid-19, usually around 1%, 10 of them would die from it. Maybe with this virus it would be 13 instead of 10,” he said. Collins said. “It’s a little difference.”

He added that the figures could perhaps also be a “consequence of the fact that the British health system is really overwhelmed”.

“It also has an effect on mortality,” Collins added.

Over 20 million doses of vaccine administered in the United States

“I anticipate that within presumably no more than two weeks, the data will be reviewed by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board,” Fauci told MSNBC. And if the data is strong enough, the next step would be to submit it to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization, he said.

“Let’s say they get… an EUA in February, by the time they get a significant amount of doses, it will probably be a month or two after that,” he said. “Once they get in in May, June, July and August, you will see a big increase in additional doses of this single dose vaccine.

Meanwhile, the FDA also told CNN on Saturday that if absolutely necessary, “modest delays” between the first and second doses of current Covid-19 vaccines should not diminish protection against the virus.

The agency said it “recognizes that vaccinating as many people as possible across the country will help reduce the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 and should be a priority.”

Previously, the FDA warned that changes to vaccination schedules without proper data could put public health at risk.

The CDC has also updated its guidelines to say that second doses of vaccines can be scheduled for up to six weeks after the initial doses, if necessary, the addition of second doses should be given as close to the interval as possible. recommended – three weeks after the first dose for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and four weeks for the Moderna vaccine.

Hospital manager: “ We are really in the darkest days ”

All of this comes as the United States continues to wage a brutal battle against the virus.

And more than 6,800 people are still hospitalized with the virus – 24% of whom are in intensive care.

In Georgia, a health official described a grim picture of the hold of the virus.

“We are truly in the darkest days of this pandemic,” Dr. Deepak Aggarwal, of Northeast Georgia Medical Center, told CNN on Saturday night. “We are seeing over 200 patients a day now, which is what we normally see at this time of year.”

“And also, we are dealing with the increasing number of deaths. Our system normally processes less than 10 deaths per month and we have already had 169 deaths as of January 21.”