Covid-19 statistics decline as variants hide and vaccines linger

Covid-19 statistics decline as variants hide and vaccines linger

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So while the country is waiting for widespread vaccines, the steps people need to take to slow the spread are the same as always: wear masks, avoid compounds and wash hands, experts said.

Covid-19 numbers are declining

• New daily recorded cases in the US decrease. Health experts have warned that the holidays from November to December, with an increase in travel and indoor gatherings, would heighten the cases of Covid-19.

And that caused them to rise and reach, according to Johns Hopkins University data, from January 10, a pandemic record average of more than 249,200 cases per day during a week.

The boom slowed: the average was from Tuesday to about 166,380 cases per day during a week – a drop of more than 33% from the peak.

And for ten consecutive days, the country has reported fewer than 200,000 new cases a day – the longest period since Thanksgiving.

• Hospitalizations fall: About 108,950 Covid-19 patients were in U.S. hospitals Tuesday – a number that has typically dropped since a pandemic peak of 132,474 patients was recorded on January 6th.

According to the COVID tracking project, it is now just before mid-December where it was.

• Deaths reported per day are just below a record: The country had an average of 3,349 deaths per day per Covid-19 per day.

This is very close to a pandemic peak average of 3,355 reached on January 13 – and well ahead of the averages of about 1,000 just mid-November.

Experts said movements in the number of deaths could lag weeks behind on the number of cases and hospitalization, because those succumbing to the disease could only be sick for weeks.

January is already the United States’ deadliest month of the pandemic. But a model run by the University of Washington predicts that these numbers will plunge over the next few months.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model predicts that by March 1, the daily death toll could be below 1,850, by April 1, and 750 by May 1, less than 300.

Christopher Murray, institute director, said Monday it is in part because of the seasonality, which means that warmer weather could mean fewer distribution opportunities, with more social opportunities outdoors.

But vaccinations “will prevent many deaths,” Murray said.

About the variants

Scientists are looking at several known coronavirus strains that are more transmissible than previous versions. These include one first identified in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7), one first seen in Brazil (P.1) and one first seen in South Africa (B.1.351) .
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Researchers are also looking at a variant that occurs in California, Fauci said Monday, although it is unclear whether it is more transmissible.
Tribe B.1.1.7 could become the dominant variant of the United States in March and could escalate the U.S. pandemic in the coming months, the CDC said in a report this month.

Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician and former health commissioner in Baltimore, is among experts concerned that more transmissible variants could lead to more increases if they take office.

“We saw what was happening in other countries that actually had coronavirus under relatively good control. Then these variants took over and they spread the virus explosively and then overwhelmed hospitals,” Wen told CNN on Monday.

‘Get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible’

One obvious way to combat these variants – and to reduce the chance of more dangerous mutations occurring – Fauci said, is to be vaccinated.

“The best way to prevent the evolution of mutants is to suppress the amount of virus circulating in the population. And the best way to do that is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Fauci told Monday. CNN said. .

Fortunately, Fauci said, the current Covid-19 vaccines are likely to be effective against the new variants.
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Evidence suggests that the efficacy of antibody to vaccine may be induced against the mutant first seen in South Africa, but that it is still within the cushioning field to be an effective vaccine, ‘Fauci said.

Moderna and Pfizer both say that experiments indicate that their vaccines will protect people against the new variants. And while he believes the current two-dose vaccine will be effective, Moderna said he will develop a potential stimulus shot against this variant, just to be safe.
If the US were to deliver 1 million shots a day – the pace needed to achieve Biden’s initial goal of giving 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office – it would take until the end of 2021 for 75% of the US to to vaccinate fully. adults, assuming each receiver needs two shots, according to a CNN analysis.
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The country may now be close to that pass. Biden said Monday he hopes to eventually increase the pace to 1.5 million shots per day. The time frame will also shrink as some people get single-dose vaccines, such as the Johnson & Johnson candidate, which is expected to report the results of its Phase 3 trials soon.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has stressed that rich countries need to do more to ensure that vaccines are available worldwide. This is not only for moral reasons, but also because dangerous mutations can arise in places where people are not adequately vaccinated – and ultimately make people who have already been vaccinated sick.

“My first approach is endangering the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. It is also self-defeating,” WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

Keep masking, experts say

The steps people need to take to fight variants and get the country closer to normal while waiting for vaccines follow the now-famous roadmap of pandemic precautions, from wearing masks to avoiding crowds to basic hand washing.

New tribes are putting ‘a lot of pressure on us to try our best to reduce the transmission’, said Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, said Tuesday.

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“Vaccines are part of it, but the biggest part of it is to come together as a nation and see: can we people who do not wear masks do that? Can we bring people to social distance and avoid pressure indoors? Places? he said

“If we can do those things, we can dampen the impact of the pandemic this winter.”

Biden last week signed an executive order requiring masks in federal buildings and on federal lands, asking Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office.
France, Germany and Austria, which are concerned about more transmissible variants, have made medical face masks mandatory in at least some public places.
The CDC currently recommends the general public to use disposable cloth masks or non-medical disposable masks. Masks should contain two or more layers of material that fit snugly over the nose and mouth.

These preventive measures together with the deployment of the vaccine – even over a few months – should bring increasing relief, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told CNN late last week.

“I’m hopeful that life will start to feel really different and better by late spring to early summer,” he said.

CNN’s Amanda Watts, Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield, Andrea Diaz, Maggie Fox, Naomi Thomas, Sandee LaMotte, Deidre McPhillips and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

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