The global count of confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus disease rose above 81 million on Monday, while the case count in the U.S. reached 19 million, and experts warned that the next few weeks will be difficult after millions of Americans traveled during the Christmas holiday.
“We are really at a very critical point,” he said. “If you put more pressure on the system for what may be a post-seasonal increase because of travel and the likely gathering of people for, you know, the good and warm purposes of being together on vacation, it’s very difficult for people not to do that. ”
The most recent data from the Transportation Security Administration showed that 1.13 million passengers were screened at U.S. airports on Saturday, the maximum in a single day since mid-March. In the past 10 days, five saw more than 1 million passengers passing through US airports.
Fauci said he supports the decision to require negative testing of COVID-19 before allowing people in the UK to enter the U.S., which happens after a new strain of the virus has been detected there.
The variant is something “to be followed very carefully” and “we are looking at it very intensely now,” he said.
“Does it make someone sicker? Is it a more serious virus in the sense of virulence? And the answer is: it doesn’t seem like that. “
UK officials say it appears that the vaccines being launched will be strong enough to handle the new variant, but, said Fauci, “we will do the studies ourselves”.
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The United States accounted for at least 152,102 new cases on Sunday and at least 1,230 people died, according to a New York Times tracker. Last week, the US recorded an average of 184,951 cases per day, down 12% from two weeks earlier.
There are currently 118,720 patients with COVID-19 in US hospitals, according to the COVID Screening Project, below the record of 119,463 set on December 23, but still worryingly high.
Fauci said the United States is in a critical phase of the pandemic, with the worst likely to lie ahead. He predicted that the general population would be largely immunized in late March or early April – in addition to frontline workers, the elderly and some other segments of the public who are first in line.
The United States continues to lead the world in cases, with 19.2 million, and deaths with 333,394, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, or about a fifth of the global count for each.
There was relief for many when President Donald Trump signed a $ 900 billion pandemic aid package on Sunday night after spending days refusing to do so. The package will offer the much-needed money to businesses and individuals and prevent a federal government shutdown, as the Associated Press reported.
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The huge piece of legislation includes $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and contains other end-of-session priorities, such as increased food stamp benefits. The move triggered a sharp rise in stocks that sent the main indices, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
to record highs.
In other news:
• Novavax Inc. NVAX,
is starting a final stage test of its candidate vaccine COVID-19 with plans to enroll up to 30,000 volunteers at about 115 locations in the US and Mexico. The test is being supported by partners from “Operation Warp Speed,” the federal government’s program to rapidly develop vaccines and therapies, including the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority, or Barda, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Barda is providing up to $ 1.6 billion to finance the trial under a Department of Defense agreement. The trial will be randomized, placebo-controlled and will evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment, called NVX-CoV2373, in patients aged 18 years or older.
See too: AstraZeneca believes that its coronavirus vaccine will be effective against the new strain
• Russian officials admitted on Monday that his death toll was more than three times higher than previously reported, taking him to the country with the third highest death toll, AFP reported. The statistics agency Rosstat said the number of deaths from all causes increased by 229,700 in the period from January to November, with more than 81%, or about 186,000 Russians, who are believed to have died from COVID. Russia has had more than 3 million infections since the start of the pandemic, the fourth largest in the world.
• The European Union started its vaccination program on Sunday, administering to doctors, nurses and the elderly the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and the German partner BioNTech SE BNTX,
the AP reported. The first jabs were coordinated across the commercial bloc in a show of solidarity. The vaccine started arriving in super-cold containers at EU hospitals on Friday from a factory in Belgium. Each country was receiving only a fraction of the required doses – less than 10,000 in the first batches for some countries – with the largest release expected in January, when more vaccines are available. All those who take injections on Sunday must return for a second dose in three weeks. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that with additional vaccines in development, the EU will have more vaccines than necessary this year and will be able to share its surplus with the Western Balkans and Africa. “Europe is well positioned,” she insisted.
• China arrested a 37-year-old citizen journalist for four years who reported the spread of the virus in Wuhan in late 2019, Reuters reported. His lawyer said the sentence was imposed for “provoking fights and causing problems”. Zhang Zhan is the first person to have been tried and was among a handful of people whose accounts of crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a darker picture of the pandemic than official reports.
• Indonesia is banning all foreign travelers for two weeks, beginning January 1, the Guardian reported. The news was announced by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, citing concerns about the broadcast. The new rule will apply to all foreign visitors, with the exception of senior government officials.
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Latest counts
There are now 81 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins data, and at least 1.77 million people have died. Almost 46 million people have recovered.
Brazil has the second highest number of deaths with 191,139 and is the third in cases with 7.5 million.
India is the second world in cases with 10.2 million, and the third in deaths with 147,901.
Mexico has the fourth highest number of deaths with 122,426 and the 13th highest number of cases with 1.4 million.
Italy has 72,370 deaths, the largest in Europe, and 2 million cases. The UK has 2.3 million cases, the majority in Europe, and 71,217 deaths, the second highest number in Europe and the sixth largest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered last year, had 95,693 confirmed cases and 4,773 deaths, according to its official figures.