The number of deaths due to COVID-19 according to a version of Johns Hopkins University worldwide 3 million worldwide. More than 566,000 of the deaths were in the United States, which is currently seeing an increase in coronavirus cases, despite attempts to get people vaccinated.
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About 40% of Americans have received at least one dose of COVID vaccine, and nearly a quarter of it has been completely vaccinated.
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But as Tom Hanson reported for ‘CBS This Morning: Saturday’, new variants of the virus have fueled the latest increase in cases.
“The good news is that the introduction of vaccines is moving at a rapid pace,” said Dr. David Ho of Columbia University. “The bad news is that the variants are popping up everywhere.”
Ho has his eye on another variant, identified in his Columbia University lab in New York City.
“This is worrying because it is spreading at a rate that is in line with the UK variant and we know that the UK variant is more transmissible and deadly,” he said.
In the United States, more deaths have been reported than in any other country. Globally, the number of deaths since the outbreak in Wuhan, China, more than a year ago is more than the population of Chicago and equivalent to Dallas and Philadelphia, combined. This is roughly equal to Kyiv, the Ukrainian population and the metropolitan Lisbon, reports Associated Press.
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The success of fighting the virus varies greatly depending on the country, and places like India and Brazil are experiencing a worse crisis.
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Aerial photo of graves of COVID-19 victims at Nossa Senhora Aparecida Cemetery in Manaus, Amazon, Brazil, April 15, 2021. / Credit: MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP via Getty Images
In the US, the hunt is on variants caused by mutations in the coronavirus, from coast to coast.
“We are clearly in the danger zone,” said Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
Vaccinators prepare themselves for shots to combat the variants – at least those that are known.
“Clinical trials are already underway for a boost of the original wow-type virus vaccine as well as a boost with a specific variant,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The Biden government is behind the pressure and announced on Friday that $ 1.7 billion will be spent on finding variants.
At the same time,Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which has only been available since March, remains pending as a handful of cases of blood clots are investigated to see if the vaccine has caused the complications.
An advisory committee for CDC will meet next week to report on continued use.
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