December has been the country’s most lethal month since the Covid-19 pandemic began – with more than 63,000 Americans killed with the virus in the past 26 days.
© Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images
Funeral home transporter Reggie Elliott prepares a body next to empty cardboard coffins at the Maryland Cremation Services in Millersville, Maryland, on December 23, 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. – More than one million Americans received the first dose of their Covid-19 vaccines, a milestone in the largest immunization campaign in the history of the United States, even when authorities admitted that the pace of implementation was lagging. When it comes to vaccination priority, long-term care residents and healthcare professionals are at the forefront. Maryland crematorium owner Dorota Marshall expects her employees to collect and regularly enter hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and homes to receive the vaccine in the next round. Marshall says: “We visited homes where people recently died from Covid or where family members are positive, so I absolutely think we are frontline workers.” (Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images)
In comparison, the entire month of November saw about 36,964 deaths.
The death toll comes in the wake of several brutal months, with Covid-19 devastating communities from coast to coast, paralyzing hospital systems and creating new widespread restrictions.
The authorization of two Covid-19 vaccines in early December offered some hope for a light at the end of the tunnel. But experts continue to warn that while the end is near, the pandemic is not over yet and another increase due to the Christmas holiday may be on the way.
“We may very well see a post-seasonal increase – towards Christmas, New Year -,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci at CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, pointing to vacation trips and private gatherings taking place despite the board of health experts.
The country’s leading infectious disease specialist described the potential increase in cases as a “sudden increase”, telling CNN’s Dana Bash: “If you look at the slope, the slope of the cases we experience as we enter late fall and soon at the beginning of winter, it’s really quite worrying. ”
More than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, according to the TSA, marking the third busiest day for air travel in the United States since March. More than 616,000 were aired on Christmas Day alone and hundreds of thousands traveled in the days leading up to the holiday.
Covid-19’s hospitalization figures in the US are already at record levels. On Sunday, the country recorded the fourth highest number of hospitalizations, with more than 118,720 Covid-19 patients nationwide, according to the Covid tracking project.
This is the 26th consecutive day that the US has maintained over 100,000 current hospitalizations.
All five major days of hospitalization took place last week.
Another outbreak of cases and hospitalizations will inevitably mean more deaths – in addition to an already devastating number of deaths.
“When you are dealing with a baseline of 200,000 new cases per day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with hospitalizations above 120,000, we are really at a very critical point,” said Fauci.
“As we get into the next few weeks,” he added, “it could really get worse.”
Fauci’s comments on Sunday came when the United States surpassed 19.1 million cases of coronavirus, another milestone for the pandemic, occurring just over 11 months after the first case was registered in the US in late January.
As of 8 pm ET on Sunday, Johns Hopkins University reported 125,041 new cases and 1,160 reported deaths.
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More than 333,000 people died of Covid-19 in the United States. Another 193,000 could lose their lives in the next two months, according to forecasts from the University of Washington Institute of Health Metrics and Assessment.
“Projections are a nightmare,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine. “People can still save the lives of their loved ones by practicing this social detachment and masks. And remember, vaccines are coming.”
The vaccine is slow to launch in some places, says the expert
Nearly 2 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than 9.5 million doses have been distributed.
These numbers now include the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines. And although there are delays in reporting data, federal officials have already said they would vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the year.
Asked about the apparent slow distribution of vaccines, Fauci told CNN on Sunday that large, comprehensive vaccine programs with a new vaccine start slowly before gaining momentum.
“I am quite confident that as we gain more and more momentum, as we transition from December to January and after February to March, I believe that we will achieve the projection,” he said.
Dr. Esther Choo, professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, explained that the distribution of the vaccine is “just a very complicated thing”.
“At each stage, there is complexity and the possibility of delay, whether in individual state planning, allocation, training, vaccine delivery, storage … there are many factors at this stage,” said Choo.
“We need to be prepared for the fact that it will be a slow implementation in many places and will not change our behavior or necessarily the path of the pandemic in this country in the short term,” said Choo.
Several experts have warned Americans not to let their guard down when vaccinations begin and continue to wear masks, social distance, avoiding crowds and meetings and washing their hands regularly.
It will probably not be until the summer that vaccines will be widely available and begin to have a significant impact on the course of the pandemic, officials said. Fauci estimates that about 70% to 85% of the population needs to be vaccinated against Covid-19 for the country to obtain herd immunity.
Expert: The test requirements will not help to control the spread of the Covid-19 variant
The CDC also announced last week new test requirements for travelers arriving from the UK, which will take effect on Monday.
Passengers must have a PCR or negative antigen test within 72 hours of boarding a flight from the UK to the USA, along with documentation of their laboratory results. Airlines will be required to confirm the test before the flight.
This is after the emergence of a new variant of Covid-19 first detected in the UK, which health officials say “has potentially been transmissible more quickly”. Since the discovery of the variant, more than 40 countries have restricted travel from the UK and, in some cases, travel from other countries that documented cases with the variant.
The third case of the variant first identified in the UK was detected in Ottawa, Canada, an Ontario government press release said on Sunday.
The case is of a person who recently traveled from the United Kingdom, according to the statement. That individual is now in self-isolation.
The two previous cases reported on Saturday have since come in contact with a recent UK traveler, the statement said.
One expert says that the new test requirements for travelers in the United States have not been implemented quickly enough to be effective against a reported variant.
“It makes sense that for any place that is experiencing a regional peak in cases, we will implement new measures,” emergency doctor Dr. Richina Bicette told CNN. “But if they are trying to ensure that the virus is not imported into the United States, these measures will have no effect on that.”
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