Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease specialist, predicted on Thursday that the daily number of deaths from the coronavirus would continue to rise in the coming weeks, and advised patience with the vaccination program preparing in All country.
Health officials in the United States reported nearly 4,000 virus-related deaths on Wednesday, a record high, and the total for the pandemic exceeded 360,000. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Fauci said that the high number of deaths would likely be a reflection of the increase in travel and meetings over the holidays.
“We believe that things will get worse as we enter January,” he said.
He stressed that it is still possible to “get around this acceleration”, strictly adhering to public health measures, such as social distance and the use of masks.
“Now is not the time to give up,” he warned.
The virus has caused great damage in the United States. In recent days, Wyoming and Arizona have been among the states that recorded high per capita rates of virus deaths, according to a New York Times database. On Thursday, Florida reported more than 19,800 cases, the highest single-day total in the state.
Dr. Fauci advised Americans to be patient with the obstacles and delays that delayed the vaccination effort and caused widespread frustration.
So far, at least 5.9 million people in the United States have received a dose of one of the two Covid-19 vaccines that have been authorized for use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure falls far short of the goal that federal authorities have set to give at least 20 million people their first shots by the end of December.
Dr. Francis S. Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, said on Wednesday that he “was not entirely surprised” that the distribution of the vaccine had started “difficult”.
“We had this remarkable plan that Warp Speed had put in place to have the doses ready for use the next day after FDA approval, but that’s a lot of logistics,” he told The Washington Post, referring to Operation Warp. Speed, the government’s vaccine development program. “So, maybe we shouldn’t be too shocked that it didn’t work like clockwork.”
He also repeated Dr. Fauci’s warning and said that “the next few weeks will be really critical”.
But the launch is starting to accelerate. It was reported that more people received their initial injections in the third week of the vaccination campaign than in the first two weeks together. The CDC count increased by 470,000 between Tuesday and Wednesday. and then for another 612,000 between Wednesday and Thursday.
In a letter on Thursday to Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, the American Hospital Association asked the federal government to do more to coordinate what is being done in different states and municipalities.
“Hospitals are committed to being a central part of the vaccination effort, but hospitals alone cannot do that, especially as we care for an increasing number of seriously ill Covid-19 patients and struggle to keep the work of a team sufficient to have enough personal protective equipment and other resources, ”wrote Richard J. Pollack, the association’s chief executive, in the letter.
Azar urged states on Wednesday not to follow the CDC’s guidelines on who to vaccinate and in what order.
“There is no reason why states need to complete, say, vaccination for all health care providers before opening vaccination to older Americans or other especially vulnerable populations,” Azar told a news conference. He added that “it would be much better to act quickly and end up vaccinating some low priority people than to leave vaccines stopped.”
In the NPR interview, Dr. Fauci said that any program on such a large scale would have to overcome obstacles, and that the timing of the launch, which began around the December holidays, may have contributed to the delays.
“I think it would be fair to just watch what is going to happen in the coming weeks,” he said. “If we don’t achieve the original goal, then we really need to make some changes to what we’re doing.”