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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.
Leading government infectious disease expert 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 arrival of vaccines to the 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 COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the United States has fallen to around 110,000, from 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 choose to impose 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 NBC“ Today ”.
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.
Fauci also warned that the United States should not let its guard down as more contagious variants take hold.
“We don’t want to get complacent and think, ‘Oh, things are going in the right direction, we can step back a bit,’ he said.
The virus has killed more than 419,000 Americans and infected more than 25 million. And health experts have warned that the most contagious and possibly the deadliest variant crossing Britain will likely become the main source of infection in the United States by March. To date, 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 defeat the vaccines.
To guard against the new variants, President Joe Biden is adding South Africa to a list of more than two dozen countries whose residents are subject to coronavirus-related limits on entry into the United States.
Most non-U.S. 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 treat the mutated versions that have erupted in Britain and South Africa.
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.
UK authorities have said that there is evidence that the variant circulating there may be more lethal than the original. Fauci called the South African variant even “more worrying,” noting that test-tube studies suggest monoclonal antibodies don’t work as well as treatment against it.
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 “an abundance of caution” after preliminary lab tests suggested his injection produced a weaker immune response to this variant.
The deployment of the vaccine 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 city officials set a goal of administering 300,000 shots last week, but were only able to deliver 200,000 due to ‘a lack of supply. If supplies were adequate, he said, the city could open large-scale vaccination centers in sports arenas, which would allow it to increase to 500,000 shots per week.
“Here you have New York City 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. We need our federal government to lead the way.
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Associated Press editors in the United States contributed to this report.
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