The new variant of the coronavirus was first detected in the United States and Latin America on Tuesday when the president-elect, Joe Biden, promised to significantly increase the vaccination campaign.
The new tribe, which first emerged in the UK, drove Britain to a new daily record of infections and led to South Africa introducing a series of new measures amid fears the world that holidaymakers exacerbate the increase in infections.
The EU Health Agency has warned that the strain poses a significant risk of more hospitalizations and deaths – not because the infections are worse, but because they spread more easily.
In the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado, the first case was recorded in the United States – which suffered the highest death toll from the year-old pandemic that claimed more than 1.78 million lives worldwide. Nearly 338,000 people died in the U.S. from Covid-19.
Governor Jared Polis said a man in his twenties near Denver was infected with the variant known as B.1.1.7 and isolated.
Biden, after an information session of experts, warned that the dire situation in Covid may only ease until ‘far in March’.
“The next few weeks and months are going to be very difficult – a very difficult period for our country, perhaps the most difficult during this whole pandemic,” he said.
Hospitalizations are peaking at more than 121,000 in the U.S. as of Monday.
In Los Angeles, ambulances waited all day to drop off Covid patients, with more than 95 percent of the hospitals forced to divert new cases, and one allegedly treated patients in his gift shop and chapel. Southern California extended a three-week-old exclusion indefinitely Tuesday.
Biden calls mass vaccination the “biggest operational challenge we’ve ever had as a nation” – and promises that the US will do better after replacing defeated President Donald Trump on January 20th.
“The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is far behind,” Biden said, promising: “I’m going to move heaven and earth to get us in the right direction.”
The Trump administration predicted that 20 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of December.
With days left, about 2.1 million received the first shot of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden renewed his promise to administer 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office and confirmed that he would invoke a Korean wartime law to force the private industry to increase production.
“We are planning a government-wide effort and we are going to work to set up vaccination sites and send mobile units to hard-to-reach communities,” Biden said.
While health workers are urgently waiting, politicians are among the first to be vaccinated, with the aim of setting an example. Vice President Kamala Harris takes her first dose Tuesday in front of cameras in Washington.
As conspiracy theories spread across the internet, a new poll by Ipsos Global Advisor showed that only four out of ten people in France want to be vaccinated, a figure that is only slightly higher in Russia and South Africa.
The British government came under pressure to tighten the restrictions when it announced a record 24,000 new 24-hour infections.
Samantha Batt-Rawden, a critical care physician, said medical staff were at a “breaking point.”
“We are incredibly thin on the ground. NHS (National Health Service) staff have not yet been prioritized for the vaccine and are going sick in crowds with the new strain,” she tweeted.
In South Africa, which has recorded more than 300 cases of the new variant and is the first African nation to have one million cases, the government has banned the sale of alcohol and made masks public.
“We have lowered our guard and unfortunately we are now paying the price,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Chile on Tuesday became the first country in Latin America to track down the new tribe, in a woman who returned from Madrid after also visiting Britain and Dubai.
In response, from December 31, health authorities announced a ten-day quarantine for all arrivals.
The new strain has also been detected in the United Arab Emirates and India, which has the second largest case load in the world.
The worrying trends are increasing worldwide, with South Korea being praised for its early success, recording its highest daily death toll to date.
And Moscow reported a 27 percent increase in deaths in the capital from October to November – a day after Russia conceded that its death toll in Covid-19 was more than three times higher than previously reported.
burs-sct / st / jh