Pennsylvania and New Jersey now only follow Michigan as the center of COVID-19 activity, as the country sees a wave of activity amid a huge pressure to vaccinate all citizens aged 16 and older by May 31st.
If this is achieved, the Americans will enjoy a somewhat normal fourth of July on May 31, officials say.
In Pennsylvania, business is on the rise. The state has averaged more than 5,000 cases a day over the past week Philadelphia investigator reports. Neighboring New Jersey reported an increase in the case in March, but the number of cases in the state has declined since then. Last week, New Jersey averaged more than 3,200.
Delaware also adds more business per capita and follows Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 7-day average cases. The state has an average of 405 new cases per day, which is 115% higher than in March.
According to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker, the United States reported 67,933 new COVID-19 cases and 477 deaths yesterday. In total, the country confirmed 31,772,125 cases, including 568,196 deaths.
Warnings against travel to 80% of countries
This week, about 80% of the world’s countries will receive the highest travel warning from the US State Department – ‘Level 4: Do not travel’ – due to the high levels of COVID-19, the Washington Post report.
Currently, only 16% of countries have a Level 4 rating, but international travel is slowly returning. The State Department proposes that all Americans avoid unnecessary travel, but United Airlines has announced that it will add new flights to Greece, Iceland and Croatia from July.
Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that his country would begin lifting international travel restrictions in May.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that vaccinated Americans can travel domestically, it also warns that international travel increases the risk of spreading new COVID-19 variants.
Evaluation of medicines to treat COVID yourself
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will fund a Phase 3 trial called ACTIV-6 that will test several existing prescription and over-the-counter medications for people to self-administer to treat COVID-19 symptoms. , the NIH said in a statement. press release yesterday.
Although several treatments for moderate to severe COVID-19 have been approved, there is currently no home treatment for mild cases of the virus.
‘While we do a good job of treating patients with serious illnesses who are admitted to hospital, we do not currently have an approved medication that can be self-administered to relieve the symptoms of people suffering from a mild illness at home. , and to reduce the chance of hospitalization, “said NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD.
“ACTIV-6 will evaluate whether certain drugs promised in small trials may exceed the severity of a larger trial.”
20% of the elderly remain unfit
Anyone in the United States older than 16 is now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine as of yesterday, but 20% of adults 65 and older are still unvaccinated.
Some health experts are concerned that older Americans are not struggling to get a vaccine New York Times reports.
In other virus news, the CDC said in a telephonic briefing yesterday that the risk of COVID-19 transmitting to the surface, and that regular cleaning and disinfection of surfaces will have minimal impact on viral transmission and will contribute to the “hygiene theater” , CNN. reports.
The CDC still maintains that COVID-19 is spread primarily through droplet transmission, although several experts have long argued that the virus is in the air.