Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. have dropped sharply in recent weeks, but are still at alarming levels, and the effort to extinguish COVID-19 is becoming an increasingly urgent race between the vaccine and the mutant virus.
The government’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the improvement in numbers across the country appears to reflect a “natural peak and then stagnation” after a holiday peak, rather than the arrival of vaccines in mid-December.
Deaths averaged just under 3,100 a day, compared with more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago. The average number of new cases is about 170,000 per day, after reaching a peak of almost 250,000 on January 11. The number of COVID-19 patients at the hospital in the U.S. dropped to about 110,000 from a maximum of 132,000 on January 7.
States that have been hot spots in recent weeks, like California and Arizona, have shown similar improvements over the same period.
On Monday, California suspended regional home stay orders in favor of county-by-county restrictions and ended the curfew at 10 pm. The move will allow restaurants and churches to resume outdoor operations 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 begun to bring elementary school students back for personal learning. The school system in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest district, hoped to bring teachers back on Monday to prepare for students to return next month, but the teachers’ union declined.
“I don’t think that the dynamics of what we are seeing now with the plateau is significantly influenced – it will be soon – but still by the vaccine. I just think it’s the plateau’s natural course, ”Fauci told NBC’s“ Today ”.
Across the country, about 18 million people, or less than 6% of the U.S. population, received at least one dose of the vaccine, including about 3 million who received the second injection, according to the Centers for Control and Prevention of Diseases. Only slightly more than half of the 41 million doses distributed to the states by the federal government were injected into arms, according to the CDC count.
Fauci also warned that the United States should not let its guard down as more contagious variants take hold.
“We don’t want to be complacent and think, ‘Oh, things are going in the right direction, we can back off a bit,'” he said.
The virus killed more than 419,000 Americans and infected more than 25 million. And health experts have warned that the most contagious and possibly deadliest variant that is sweeping Britain is likely to become the dominant source of infection in the United States in March. It has been reported in more than 20 states so far. Another mutant version is circulating in South Africa.
The more the virus spreads, the more opportunities it has to mutate. The fear is that it will eventually defeat 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 when entering the United States.
Most non-American citizens who have been to Brazil, Ireland, Britain and other European countries will be banned from entering the United States by the rules being reimposed by Biden after President Donald Trump took action to relax them.
Fauci said that scientists are already preparing to adjust the COVID-19 vaccines to deal with the mutant versions that have emerged in Britain and South Africa.
He said there is “a very slight and modest decrease” in the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines against these variants, but “there is sufficient protection with the vaccines that we have that we still consider them effective” against both.
British officials said there was evidence that the variant circulating there could be more deadly than the original. Fauci called the South African variant “even more nefarious”, noting that test-tube studies suggest that monoclonal antibodies do not work as well as a treatment against it.
Moderna, maker of one of the two vaccines used in the United States, announced on Monday that it is starting to test a possible booster dose against the South African variant. Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Bancel, said the move came from “over-caution,” after preliminary laboratory tests suggested the injection produced a weaker immune response to this variant.
The vaccine’s launch in the United States was marked by disorder and confusion, with states complaining in recent days about scarcity and inadequate births that forced them to cancel mass vaccination events and tens of thousands of consultations.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said city officials set a goal to administer 300,000 shots last week, but were able to deliver only 200,000 for lack of supplies. If supplies were adequate, he said, the city could open large-scale vaccination centers in sports arenas that would allow it to increase to 500,000 doses a week.
“Here you have New York City ready to vaccinate at the rate of half a million New Yorkers a week, but we don’t have the vaccine to keep up with,” said de Blasio. “Many other places in the country are ready to do much more. We need our federal government to lead the way. “
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Associated Press writers in the United States contributed to this report.