This averages about 67,934 new infections per day. Or like a new infection since January 21, 2020 every 1.2 seconds.
“First of all, it’s good news to see the curve bend slightly. We’re still at a very high level of infections,” he said. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said.
“But I’m very worried about whether we will be able to sustain it or not. If we do vaccinations quickly … then we can keep the curve down. Turn up again. And things will get much worse,” he said.
“So it’s a race. Of course I hope we win.”
Fauci: One of the new tribes could be more deadly
A variant strain called B.1.1.7, first identified in the UK, is of particular concern.
According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, it has been detected in at least 22 U.S. states.
In a British report released on Friday, there is a ‘realistic possibility’ that B.1.1.7 has a higher mortality rate than other variants.
“The data is increasing – and some of it I can not share – which clearly supports that B.1.1.7 causes more serious diseases and increased death,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research. Policy at the University of Minnesota.
“We already know that this version has increased the transfer, so that’s a lot of bad news.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this strain could probably be more harmful.
“We must now assume that what is predominant in the UK does have a certain increase in what we call virulence, namely the power of the virus to cause more damage, including death,” Fauci said. Nation “on Sunday.
He noted that research is still evolving.
“The data that came out was after they kept saying it did not look more deadly, so that’s where we got the information,” Fauci said.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, dr. Francis Collins, said on Saturday it is still too early to know if the B.1.1.7 variant is more lethal, saying the data is very preliminary.
“It looks like, if you look at 1,000 people infected with Covid-19, generally about 1%, 10 of them, would die. Maybe with this virus it would be 13 instead of 10,” Collins said. said. MSNBC. “It’s a small difference.”
He added that increased mortality could be a “consequence of the fact that the British health system is really being overwhelmed.”
“It also has an effect on deaths,” Collins added.
In the US, Washington state health officials said they had found the variant to test samples in the state.
“We are now in the second half of the fight against this pandemic,” Washington Health Minister Umair A. Shah said on Saturday.
“It is very important for us to double our efforts to take over this tension as well as any tension, because we want to make sure that transmission does not take place in our state, and the best way to do that is prevention, prevention. , prevention. “
And that the same measures that can help prevent coronavirus infections in the past – wearing masks, taking social distances and washing hands regularly – also fight against different strains.
20.5 million vaccine doses administered in US.
“I would expect the data to be investigated by the Data and Security Monitoring Board within a maximum of two weeks,” Fauci told MSNBC.
If the data is strong enough, it will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for an emergency permit.
“Let’s say they’ll get an EUA in February, by the time they get a significant amount of doses, it’s likely to follow a month or two later,” he said. “Once they are up and running in May, June, July, August, you will see a sharp increase in the additional doses of this single-dose vaccine.”
The FDA says ‘modest delays’ are OK
Meanwhile, the FDA also told CNN on Saturday that, if absolutely necessary, the “modest delays” between the first and second doses of the current Covid-19 vaccines are not expected to reduce protection against the virus.
The agency said it “recognizes that getting as many people vaccinated as possible across the country should limit the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. It should be a priority.”
Previously, the FDA warned that changes to vaccination schedules without appropriate data could endanger public health.
The CDC has also updated its guidelines to state that the second dose of vaccines can be scheduled up to six weeks after initial doses, if necessary, the addition of second doses should be administered as close as possible to the recommended interval – three weeks after the first dose for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and four weeks for the Moderna vaccine.
Hospital leader: ‘We are really in the darkest days’
It all comes while the US is still waging a fierce battle against the virus.
And more than 6,800 people are hospitalized with the virus – 24% of them are in the ICU.
“While we see some positive data in daily new cases and hospitalizations, we are far from the forest,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health.
“It is extremely important that we slow down the spread of COVID-19 to decompress the stress on our healthcare system and save lives.”
In Georgia, one health official described a bleak picture of the virus’ grip.
“We are truly in the darkest days of this pandemic,” said Dr. Deepak Aggarwal said Saturday night at Northeast Georgia Medical Center.
“We now see more than 200 patients a day than we normally see at this time of year.”
“And we are also dealing with the increasing number of deaths,” Aggarwal said.
“Our system normally handles less than ten deaths per month.” But by January 21, we ‘already had 169 deaths’.
CNN’s Naomi Thomas, Michael Nedelman, Lauren Mascarenhas, Elizabeth Cohen and Carma Hassan contributed to this report.