US reports 3,100 coronavirus deaths in one day – 20% more than previous record

The most recent toll is an increase of about 20% from the previous record of 2,603 ​​set on April 15. During the pandemic, 273,799 people in the United States have died from the virus and more than 13.9 million have been infected, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The record comes as the United States suffers from escalating cases and hospitalizations that reflect the devastation of spring, but health experts warn it will get even worse in winter.

The push caused the records set one day to be broken the next. The peak in coronavirus deaths came on the same day the number of people hospitalized topped 100,000, according to the Covid monitoring project. The number of hospitalizations has steadily increased over the past month, setting records almost every day since November 10, and experts fear health systems will soon feel the pressure.

And the senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said on Wednesday things shouldn’t be better for hospitals anytime soon.

“The reality is that December and January and February are going to be tough times. I actually believe it will be the most difficult time in the history of public health in this country, largely because of the stress that is going to be. put on our health care system, ”said Dr. Robert Redfield.

Los Angeles tells residents to ‘cancel everything’

States in the United States are rushing to catch up with the growing number of coronavirus hospitalizations.

If the coronavirus continues to spread at its current and unprecedented rate, Los Angeles will be running out of hospital beds by Christmas, Mayor Eric Garcetti warned at a press conference Wednesday, calling on residents to ” curl up “and” undo everything “to help stop it. the spread of the virus.

“The state of public health in our city is as dire as it was in March in the early days of this pandemic,” he said, adding that the number of daily coronavirus infections in Los Angeles has tripled since early November and hospitalizations are at a new peak.

In the southwestern Kansas area, Governor Laura Kelly said Wednesday that there were no beds available at ICUs.

“Although the number of cases has declined slightly, the pressure on our hospitals and health workers has not abated,” she said.

Hospitalizations related to the coronavirus in Nevada have been increasing daily since November, with a few exceptions, and peaked on Wednesday with 1,652 people hospitalized, the state dashboard shows.

100 million could be vaccinated by February

There may still be a way to go before the general public has access to a coronavirus vaccine, but developments are advancing rapidly.

By February, 100 million Americans could be vaccinated against the coronavirus, Moncef Slaoui, chief advisor of Operation Warp Speed, said on Wednesday.

“All the investments we have made to increase and start stockpiling vaccine manufacturing allow us to remain confident that we will be able to distribute 20 million vaccines, enough to immunize 20 million people in the United States in December,” Slaoui said in a press briefing.

The United States has said that if Pfizer and Moderna get emergency use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December, they could distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the month. Each vaccine requires two doses, so it is enough to fully immunize 20 million people.

Slaoui said he expected 60 million more vaccines by the end of January.

An FDA panel is expected to meet on whether to approve the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine candidates on December 10 and 17, respectively.

Assuming the vaccines are licensed, the first shipments could take place on December 15 and 22, respectively, according to a document from the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed.

A CDC panel on Tuesday recommended that healthcare and long-term care workers be vaccinated first.

Dr Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory group, said Wednesday that the technology could help increase vaccine production enough to cover the world’s population.

“You may really, I think, in a few years be able to make enough vaccines to immunize 7 billion people,” he said. “There is no reason to think this couldn’t happen.”

Childhood vaccine trials scheduled for 2021

Although vaccines are on the way, they have only been studied in adults and children over 12 years old.

Trials for young children could begin early next year, Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on Wednesday. We “absolutely have to get there,” Collins told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“We will want, shortly after the first of the year, to find out about this work for young children as well, because we know they can be infected and they can transmit this,” he said.

“So this is another type of test that will have to be done in a … vaccine trial to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective in this group,” he said.

“We think it will be, but we want to be sure,” Collins said.

Children now account for almost 12% of all Covid-19 cases in the country.