And some local leaders warn that the worst is yet to come. “We will still have our darkest and most difficult days,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN.
In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp said that a convention center will begin accepting patients later this week and will have an additional 60 beds to “help ensure that our hospitals continue to have the necessary capacity for Covid and non-Covid patients.”
Arizona health officials say the number of new cases remains high and there is an increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
And experts warned that numbers across the country could rise even more in the coming weeks – an increase stemming from the meetings and travel that took place during the holiday.
Despite repeated calls from local and state leaders for people to celebrate with only their family members, millions of Americans have chosen to spend time away from home. On Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration reported its fourth busiest day of the pandemic, tracking more than a million people for the fifth consecutive day.
How are vaccine distributions going
Vaccines are underway across the country, but experts say it will take months for vaccines to spread enough to change the course of the pandemic.
The initial supply, said the governor’s office, will be “extremely limited and people should contact a designated pharmacy to make an appointment before being vaccinated.”
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that he hopes the city will be able to administer one million doses by the end of January.
“Like any good New Year’s resolution, a million doses by the end of January is an ambitious goal to say the least,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to vaccinate as many New Yorkers as possible, but to really speed up the pace, we need our federal and state partners on board – and fast. It will be difficult, but I believe we can do this.”
As the distribution expands to the general public, the mayor said the vaccine will be available first to the most affected neighborhoods.
To date, more than 12.4 million doses of vaccines have been distributed across the country and more than 2.7 million have been administered. Deployment was slower than many officials expected, but if the United States is able to “catch up” in 2021, widespread vaccination may be possible starting in April, said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Let’s say that in April it will be what I call a” hunting season “, meaning that anyone who wants to be vaccinated can get vaccinated,” said Fauci. “If, then, we vaccinate people diligently in April, May, June, July, then we will gradually and noticeably achieve a degree of protection close to collective immunity.”
When early autumn comes, Fauci said, “we will have herd immunity good enough that we can really return to a strong appearance of normalcy.”
Florida has evidence of UK variant case
In the meantime, more states are beginning to report cases of the Covid-19 variant that was first detected in the UK.
“The Department is working with the CDC on this investigation. We encourage everyone to continue practicing Covid-19 mitigation, ”wrote the state health department on Twitter.
California health officials also said earlier this week that the variant was detected in a 30-year-old San Diego man who is not hospitalized and has had few social interactions during his potentially contagious period.
But experts say they expect that there are likely to be many more cases across the country that simply go undetected.
“An unknown travel history means that this person has taken over the community,” said Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of the Covid-19 advisory board for the Biden-Harris transition, previously to CNN.
“If this mutation, this mutant virus, which is more contagious, has not yet spread and started to spread, it means that it will be even more important to follow the approaches that we know will work,” he said.
CNN’s Sarah Moon, Jennifer Henderson and Kristina Sgueglia contributed to this report.