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Daily coronavirus deaths and cases in the United States have fallen dramatically over the past two weeks, but continue to reach alarming levels, and the effort to extinguish COVID-19 is becoming an increasingly urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus.
Senior government infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci said improving numbers in the country appeared to reflect a “natural peak and then a plateau” after a holiday wave, rather than the vaccine’s arrival in the country. mid-December.
Deaths are on average just under 3,100 a day, compared to more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago. New cases are on average around 170,000 a day after peaking at nearly 250,000 on January 11. The number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 fell to around 110,000 from a peak of 132,000 on January 7.
States that have been hot spots in recent weeks, such as California and Arizona, have shown similar improvements over the same period.
California lifted regional stay-at-home orders in favor of county-by-county restrictions on Monday and ended the 10 p.m. curfew. The change will allow restaurants and churches to resume outdoor activities and hair and nail salons to reopen in many places, although local authorities may maintain stricter rules.
Elsewhere, school districts in Minnesota have started bringing in elementary school students for in-person learning. The school system in Chicago, the nation’s third largest district, had hoped to bring teachers back on Monday to prepare for the return of students next month, but the teachers’ union refused.
“I don’t think the dynamics of what we’re seeing now with the cap is still significantly influenced – it will be soon – but still by the vaccine. I just think that’s the natural course of the cap, ”Fauci told“ Today ”on NBC.
Ali Mokdad, professor of health sciences at the University of Washington, said the expected increase in vacations was reduced by people traveling less than expected, and an increase in the wearing of masks in response to spikes in infections has since helped bring the numbers down. But he warned there was a risk in prematurely celebrating progress and loosening social distancing and mask wearing.
Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said too few people had been vaccinated so far for it to have had a significant impact on viral trends. She said she couldn’t predict how long it would take for the effects of the vaccines to be reflected in the numbers.
Rivers said she feared the more contagious variants of the virus could lead to a deadly resurgence later this year.
“I think we were on the right track to having a good – or a better, at least – a spring and a summer, and I’m afraid the variants will throw a curve ball at us,” she said.
Nationwide, about 18 million people, or less than 6% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of the vaccine, including about 3 million who received the second vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only just over half of the 41 million doses distributed to states by the federal government were injected into guns, according to the CDC’s tally.
The virus has killed more than 419,000 Americans and infected more than 25 million, with a widely cited University of Washington model predicting the death toll to reach around 569,000 by May 1.
And health experts have warned that the most contagious and possibly the deadliest variant sweeping Britain will likely become the main source of infection in the United States by March. So far, it has been reported in more than 20 states. Another mutant version is circulating in South Africa.
The more the virus spreads, the more likely it is to mutate. The fear is that this will eventually make vaccines ineffective.
To guard against the new variants, President Joe Biden on Monday added South Africa to the list of more than two dozen countries whose residents are subject to coronavirus-related limits on entry into the United States.
Most non-US citizens who have traveled to Brazil, Ireland, Britain and other European countries will be barred from entering the United States under rules reimposed by Biden after President Donald Trump decided to relax them.
Fauci said scientists were already preparing to adjust COVID-19 vaccines to fight the mutated versions.
He said there was “a very slight and modest decrease” in the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against these variants, but “there is enough cushion with the vaccines that we have that we still consider them as effective ”against both.
Moderna, the maker of one of two vaccines used in the United States, said Monday it was starting to test a possible booster dose against the South African variant. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said the move was due to “great caution” after preliminary lab tests suggested his injection produced a weaker immune response to this variant.
The vaccine’s rollout in the United States has been marred by disarray and confusion, with states complaining in recent days of shortages and inadequate deliveries that have forced them to cancel mass vaccination campaigns and tens of thousands of appointments. -you.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said shortages are preventing the city from opening more large-scale vaccination sites.
“Here, New York City is ready to vaccinate at the rate of half a million New Yorkers per week, but we don’t have the vaccine to go with it,” de Blasio said. “Many other places across the country are ready to do a lot more.”
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Associated Press editors in the United States contributed to this report.
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