By David Hall
The number of people hospitalized in the US due to Covid-19 has dropped to its lowest level since mid-December, while new reported cases have continued to decline.
More than 110,000 people in the United States were hospitalized by Sunday due to the disease, the lowest total since December 15, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The number of patients requiring treatment in intensive care units, however, remained high at more than 21,000.
The United States reported more than 130,000 new cases on Sunday, the eighth consecutive day that the daily total fell below 200,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The data can be updated later. Overall, the US has reported more than 25.1 million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began.
The death toll in the country rose by more than 1,700 on Sunday, bringing the total to more than 419,000, according to Johns Hopkins.
Although the situation in the United States has improved somewhat compared to the beginning of the year, there is growing concern about the spread of new variants of the virus.
Anthony Fauci, who is serving as President Biden’s chief medical advisor for the Covid-19 pandemic, reiterated on Sunday warnings that the new coronavirus variant first identified in Britain could be more deadly.
“We need to assume now that what has been circulating predominantly in the UK has a certain degree of increase in what we call virulence, that is, the virus’s power to cause more damage, including death,” he said in the program “Face the Nation. “
On Monday, Biden plans to ban most non-US citizens from traveling to the country if they were recently in South Africa, where a new variant of the coronavirus is causing a second wave of infections. He will also restore the ban on nearly all travel from Europe, the UK and Brazil to the U.S., reversing an attempt by former President Donald Trump to lift these restrictions in his final days in office.