“We’re still going to have our hardest and darkest days,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN on Thursday.
Army Corps of Engineers design and construction experts are being deployed to fix oxygen delivery systems at several older hospitals in the Los Angeles area, according to the California Office of Emergency Management.
Teams will start as soon as Saturday at six hospitals with congestion, identified as infrastructure problems that prevent their Covid-19 patients from delivering a high oxygen supply.
“The state of California is constantly supporting our hospitals and protecting the lives of Californians affected by COVID-19. By working to upgrade oxygen delivery systems at these older hospitals, we can improve the ability to provide life-sustaining medical care. to those who need it, ‘said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governors’ Office for Emergency Services.
In Atlanta, a conference center will once again become an overflow field hospital from Friday – service he rendered twice earlier during the pandemic – Georgia Government Office Brian Kemp said.
The rail project’s data show that the number of Covid-19 patients in Georgia hospitals more than doubled in a given day. The conference center’s beds will ‘help ensure our hospitals have the capacity they need for Covid and non-Covid patients,’ Kemp said.
December was the deadliest month of the pandemic for more than 77,500 of the country’s 346,000 Covid-19 deaths.
And experts have warned that daily numbers could worsen nationwide in the coming weeks, with swells due to gatherings and travel during the holidays.
Despite repeated calls from local and state leaders to celebrate people only with their households, millions of Americans chose to spend time away from home.
No evidence in the UK is common in the US, says genomics
Testing so far does not indicate that an easier-to-transmit variant of the coronavirus is common in the US, genomics company Helix told CNN.
Only four out of 31 samples are positive for the pattern of mutations first identified in the UK, Helix officials said.
The mutation pattern, known as B.1.1.7 or VUI-202012/01, was first seen in England and has been found in at least 30 countries, as well as in samples taken from people in California, Colorado and Florida.
“We cannot say with confidence when the B.1.1.7 tribe originated in the USA,” said dr. James Lu, co-founder and president of Helix, said. “But it is not common, which indicates that it has not been circulating for a long time.”
That said, the US is not looking really hard, Lu added. ‘At the moment the USA does less sequencing than many other countries – a recent report from (genomics database) GISAID estimates that the USA has 0.3% of the positive case sequence compared to the UK, which is about 7% , ” Lu said.
Fauci: US will not follow UK decision to delay second dose of vaccine
As the US concludes its third week of vaccinations, dr. Anthony Fauci made an important statement on Friday on how it will proceed.
The US will give two doses of the current coronavirus vaccine a few weeks apart, and will not follow the British decision to possibly delay the second dose, Fauci told CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
“I will not vote for it,” Fauci said when asked about the new UK dosing plan. “We’re going to keep doing what we do.”
So far, the coronavirus vaccines approved in the US require two doses, which are taken three to four weeks apart.
The UK has adopted the strategy of giving as many people as possible the first dose as soon as possible. Even the first shot, British medical officials argued, would provide some protection.
Asked by the NBC show “Today” on Thursday whether the US should accept the UK’s plan, Fauci replied: “It is being considered.”
But he told CNN on Friday that this remark was misinterpreted.
Pfizer and Moderna, the manufacturers of the two vaccines that gave US permission for emergencies, studied the efficacy of two doses a few weeks apart, not a few months, said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted.
“The fact is that we want to stick to what science tells us, and the data we have for both (vaccines) indicates that you are giving a head start, followed by a boost in 21 days with Pfizer and 28 days with “And right now, that’s the way we go about it, and that’s the decision that’s being made,” he said on Friday.
“We make decisions based on data. We have no data to give a single dose and wait longer than the normal period” to give the second dose, he added.
When Fauci told NBC that the British example was “under consideration”, he meant that some people – not US health authorities – were talking about it, he told CNN on Friday.
“It was a misinterpretation. I think some – not all – but people misinterpreted when I said it was being considered. [as] as we are going to change. We are not, ‘he said.
People vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine on December 14 should take their second shots soon.
Experts believe the vaccines will take months to make a big difference
Experts believe that it will take months before vaccines are wide enough to reverse the course of the pandemic.
“If we then inoculate diligently in April, May, June, July, we will gradually and conspicuously gain some degree of protection that approaches the immunity of the flock.”
As the vaccinations pick up, by early fall, Fauci said, “we will have enough good herd immunity to really have a strong semblance of normalcy.”
CNN’s Andrea Diaz, Cheri Mossburg, Haley Brink, Elizabeth Cohen, Sarah Moon, Jennifer Henderson, Nick Valencia, Lindsay Benson and Kristina Sgueglia contributed to this report.