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The global tally of cases of the disease transmitted by the coronavirus COVID-19 rose above 100.9 million on Thursday and the death toll in the United States climbed to 430,000, after another 4,000 lives were lost in 24 hours for a second consecutive day.
The death toll remains high, even as the number of cases and hospitalizations decline, although experts fear that new, more infectious variants of the virus could cause those numbers to reverse.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and now chief medical officer to President Joe Biden, said the good news is that cases are leveling off, which is a lagging indicator that is usually followed by ‘a reduction in hospitalizations, followed by less serious illness and death.
“But superimposed on the good news is the sobering news: we still have a lot of cases and still have a serious problem here, and what’s embarrassing now and we really need to keep an eye out for is the news. variants, “Fauci told MSNBC’s Morning Joe show.
The riskier of the newer variants is the one that originated in South Africa because the response of things like monoclonal antibodies or even the vaccine itself is ‘markedly diminished’ in the test tube, ”he said. .
“Will this now reflect diminished efficiency?” It could very well be, and that’s what triggers what we’re doing now, which is that we want as many people as possible to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, ”he said. declared.
The government’s pandemic response team is already planning and manufacturing modified versions of the vaccine that can be directed specifically against the South African isolate, he said. In the meantime, experts continue to urge Americans to socially distance themselves, wash their hands frequently, and wear a face mask in public.
The United States added at least 155,470 new cases on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, and at least 4,101 patients have died. The United States recorded an average of 163,519 cases per day last week, down 34% from the average of two weeks ago.
The number of COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals stood at 107,444, according to the COVID Tracking Project, up from 108,960 a day earlier. It was the 15th day in a row that the numbers had fallen, the lowest level since December 10.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracking shows as of 6:00 a.m. ET Wednesday, 24.6 million vaccines had been administered and 47.2 million doses distributed. Biden has ordered 200 million additional doses of vaccine, split between Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE PFE,
BNTX,
one and Moderna Inc. MRNA,
a.
In other news:
• A team of experts from the World Health Organization has completed the quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan and can now begin work to determine the origins of the coronavirus, CBS News reported. A team of 13 experts from the WHO and other global health agencies hope to focus on the first cases of the virus to appear in Wuhan, which is widely believed to be the source of the original outbreak. Critics are skeptical that the team will find out a lot given the time that has passed since the peak of infections in Wuhan.
• Government officials in the United States and Europe have called for stricter mask protocols as more infectious strains of the coronavirus circulate, but there are still concerns that demand for respiratory masks in the United States far exceeds supply , reported Jaimy Lee of MarketWatch. N95s are unique in that they can filter almost all – 95% – of large and small particles in the air. This makes them more effective at blocking SARS-CoV-2 aerosols that can travel through the air. The thought in the United States around N95s is that they should be reserved for healthcare and other frontline workers who are most at risk of contracting the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to say that N95s and medical grade masks “should be kept for healthcare workers.”
• Vietnam has suffered the worst coronavirus outbreak in a single day since the start of the pandemic after 84 new cases were detected in the north of the country, Reuters reported. The news is disappointing for the Vietnamese government which has managed to contain the spread. Vietnam has only had 1,600 cases and 35 deaths from COVID-19, far fewer than others thanks to strict quarantines, order closings and an aggressive testing and testing program.
• The German Vaccine Committee has recommended using the AstraZeneca / University of Oxford coronavirus vaccine only in people aged 18 to 64, according to wire services reports. AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
CEO Pascal Soirot had said it was a possibility, which he said was due to the lack of data compared to other vaccine makers. “We have strong data showing a very high production of antibodies against the virus in the elderly, similar to what we see in the young. It is possible that some countries, out of caution, use our vaccine for the younger group. But honestly, it’s okay. There are not enough vaccines for everyone. So if they want to use another vaccine for the elderly and our vaccine for the younger ones, what’s the problem? “He told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
• Bill Gates is already worried about the next pandemic, as Nicole Lyn Pesce of MarketWatch reported. The Microsoft MSFT,
The founder and philanthropist notes in his annual letter with his wife Melinda Gates that if everyone wants the world to return to “normal” after COVID-19 is brought under control, the world cannot afford to become complacent again. pandemics. “Preparing for a pandemic must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war,” writes Gates in his part of the letter released Wednesday. He suggests that stopping the next pandemic will require “spending tens of billions of dollars per year,” and argues that investment is needed to prevent a global outbreak of disease like COVID-19 from costing billions of dollars – and millions of lives.
Latest calculations
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide surpassed 100.9 million on Thursday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 2.176 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The United States leads the world in cases, with 25.6 million, and deaths, with 429,230, or about one-fifth of the global total.
Brazil has the second highest death toll with 220,161 and is third for cases with 8.9 million.
India is second in the world with 10.7 million cases and third in the number of deaths with 153,847.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll with 153,639 and the 13th highest number of cases with 1.8 million.
The UK has 3.7 million cases and 102,085 deaths, the highest in Europe and the fifth in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has recorded 99,698 confirmed cases and 4,813 deaths, according to its official figures.
What does the economy say?
The number of people who claimed jobless benefits in late January fell to the lowest level in three weeks, but layoffs were still high at the start of the new year as the economy battled a winter push from the pandemic of coronavirus, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.
Initial jobless claims traditionally filed by states fell from 67,000 to 847,000 seasonally adjusted in the seven days ended Jan. 23, the government said Thursday.
Economists polled by Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal had predicted that initial jobless claims would hit 875,000 people.
Also read: ‘We haven’t won yet,’ Fed’s Powell said, signaling politics will remain super-easy
The sharp drop is probably due in part to Martin Luther King. Jr. vacation. Some people who lose their jobs wait until the week after the vacation to file a claim.
Another 426,856 claims were made under a federal temporary relief program.
“Deposits fell more than expected last week. Even so, layoffs continue at a high rate, ”said Rubeela Farooqi, Chief Economist of the United States. “Conditions will remain precarious and the recovery will be slow until infections can be brought under control and the economy can reopen more fully.”
Separately, the US economy grew at a lackluster annual rate of 4% in the last three months of 2020, as a record spate of coronavirus cases delayed the recovery, pushing the schedule for a wider rebound to later this year.
The pandemic took a heavy toll on the economy last year. Gross domestic product, the official dashboard of the US economy, fell 3.5% to mark the sharpest contraction since 1946.
GDP is expected to decline in the last three months of 2020 after a record annualized gain of 33% plus in the third quarter linked to the economy reopening this summer after businesses were blocked to fight the pandemic in the spring. Yet the largest increase to date in coronavirus cases at the start of winter has made the slowdown more pronounced.
Finally, after having soared the previous month, the United States’ international trade deficit in goods reversed in December.
The commodity gap narrowed to $ 82.5 billion in the last month of 2020, from $ 85.5 in November, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The deficit was $ 80.4 billion in October.
Wholesale trade figures advanced 0.1% while retail inventories jumped 1% in December.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and the S&P 500 SPX,
were both up about 1.5%.
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