The global case count for COVID-19 coronavirus-borne disease rose above 100.9 million on Thursday and the death toll in the U.S. reached 430,000, after another 4,000 lives were lost in a 24-hour period by a second consecutive day.
The death toll remains high, even as the number of cases and hospitalizations declines, although experts are concerned that new, more infectious variants of the virus may cause these numbers to reverse.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and now medical director of President Joe Biden, said the good news is that cases are stabilizing, which is an indicator of delay that is often followed by a reduction. of hospitalizations and then less serious illness and death.
“But superimposed on the good news is the worrying news that we still have a lot of cases and we still have a serious problem here, and what is problematic now and what we really need to keep an eye on are the new variants,” Fauci told Morning Joe. from MSNBC.
The most risky of the new variants is the one that originated in South Africa, because the response of things like monoclonal antibodies or even the vaccine itself is “markedly decreased” in the test tube, “he said.
“Now, will this be a reflection of diminished effectiveness? This could very well be, and this is what is triggering what we are doing now, which is that we want the largest number of people to be vaccinated as soon as possible, ”he said.
The government pandemic response team is already planning and making modified versions of the vaccine that can be targeted specifically against the South African isolate, he said. In the meantime, experts continue to urge Americans to distance themselves socially, wash their hands frequently and wear a face mask in public.
The United States added at least 155,470 new cases on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker, and at least 4,101 patients died. The US recorded an average of 163,519 cases a day last week, a 34% drop from the two-week average.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals in the United States stood at 107,444, according to the COVID Screening Project, compared to 108,960 a day earlier. It was the 15th consecutive day of declining numbers, the lowest level since December 10.
The vaccine tracker at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that as of 6:00 am ET on Wednesday, 24.6 million vaccines have been administered and 47.2 million doses have been distributed. Biden ordered an additional 200 million doses of the vaccine, split between Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE PFE,
BNTX,
um and Moderna Inc. MRNA,
1.
In other news:
• A team of experts from the World Health Organization has closed its quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan and can now begin its work to determine the origins of the coronavirus, CBS News reported. A team of 13 experts from WHO and other global health agencies hopes to focus on the first cases of the virus to emerge in Wuhan, which is widely considered to be the source of the original outbreak. Critics are skeptical that the team will find out much, considering how much time has passed since the peak of infections in Wuhan.
• Government officials in the U.S. and Europe have called for stricter mask protocols as more infectious strains of coronavirus circulate, but there is still concern that demand for respiratory masks in the U.S. far outweighs the supply, reported Jaimy Lee of MarketWatch. The N95s are unique in that they can filter almost all – 95% – of the large and small particles in the air. This makes them more efficient blockers of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols that can travel through the air. The thinking in the US around the N95s is that they should be reserved for healthcare professionals and other frontline professionals who are most at risk of contracting the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still claim that N95s and medical-grade masks “should be kept for health personnel”.
• Vietnam has suffered its worst coronavirus outbreak in a single day since the start of the pandemic, after 84 new cases were detected in the north of the country, Reuters reported. The news is disappointing for the Vietnamese government, which has had great success in containing the spread. Vietnam had just 1,600 cases and 35 deaths from COVID-19, far less than others, thanks to strict quarantines, order closings and an aggressive testing and tracking program.
• The vaccines committee in Germany recommended the use of the AstraZeneca / University of Oxford coronavirus vaccine only for people between 18 and 64 years of age, according to reports from the news service. AstraZeneca AZN,
AZN,
CEO Pascal Soirot said it was a possibility, due to the lack of data compared to other vaccine manufacturers. “We have solid data that show a very strong production of antibodies against the virus in the elderly, similar to what we see in younger people. It is possible that some countries, as a precaution, use our vaccine for the younger group. But honestly, everything is fine. There are not enough vaccines for everyone. So, if they want to use another vaccine for the elderly and our vaccine for the younger ones, what is the problem, ”he told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
• Bill Gates is already concerned about the next pandemic, as reported by Nicole Lyn Pesce of MarketWatch. Microsoft MSFT,
The founder and philanthropist notes in his annual letter to his wife Melinda Gates that while everyone wants the world to return to “normal” after COVID-19 is under control, the world cannot afford to be complacent again. with pandemics. “Preparing for a pandemic must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war,” writes Gates in his part of the letter released on Wednesday. He suggests that stopping the next pandemic will require “spending tens of billions of dollars a year” and argues that the investment is necessary to prevent a global disease outbreak like COVID-19 from costing trillions of dollars – and millions of lives.
Latest counts
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide rose to more than 100.9 million on Thursday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 2.176 million. About 56 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The US leads the world in cases, with 25.6 million, and deaths, with 429,230, or about a fifth of the global total.
Brazil has the second highest number of deaths with 220,161 and is the third in cases with 8.9 million.
India is the second world in cases with 10.7 million and the third in deaths with 153,847.
Mexico has the fourth highest number of deaths with 153,639 and the 13th highest number of cases with 1.8 million.
The UK has 3.7 million cases and 102,085 deaths, the highest number in Europe and the fifth largest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered last year, had 99,698 confirmed cases and 4,813 deaths, according to its official figures.
What is the economy saying?
The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits in late January fell to the lowest level in three weeks, but layoffs were still high at the beginning of the new year, while the economy struggled with the increase in the coronavirus pandemic in winter , reported Jeffry Bartash of MarketWatch.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits traditionally registered in the states fell by 67,000 to 847,000 seasonally adjusted in the seven days ending January 23, the government said on Thursday.
Economists interviewed by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal predicted a total of 875,000 claims for unemployment benefits.
Read too: “We haven’t won yet,” said the Fed’s Powell, signaling that the policy should remain ultra-easy.
The sharp decline probably resulted in part from Martin Luther King. Junior holiday. Some people who lose their jobs wait until the week after the holiday to file the lawsuit.
Another 426,856 requests were filed through a temporary federal aid program.
“Records fell more than expected last week. Even so, layoffs are occurring at a high pace, ”said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist. “Conditions will remain weak and recovery will be slow until infections can be contained and the economy can reopen more completely.”
Separately, the US economy grew at a mediocre pace of 4% per year in the last three months of 2020, as a record wave of coronavirus cases has stunted the recovery, pushing the timetable for a broader recovery by the end of this year. .
The pandemic was a crushing blow to the economy last year. Gross domestic product, the official score for the United States economy, shrank 3.5% to mark the biggest contraction since 1946.
GDP was expected to decline in the last three months of 2020, after a record 33% annualized gain in the third quarter linked to the summer reopening of the economy, after companies closed to combat the pandemic in the spring. However, the biggest increase so far in coronavirus cases in early winter has made the slowdown more pronounced.
Finally, after a spike in the previous month, the US international trade deficit in goods reversed its course in December.
The goods gap narrowed to $ 82.5 billion in the last month of 2020 from $ 85.5 billion in November, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. The deficit was $ 80.4 billion in October.
Advanced wholesale trade numbers increased 0.1%, while retail inventories increased 1% in December.
The DJIA of the Dow Jones Industrial Average,
and the S&P 500 SPX,
rose by about 1.5%.