Officials said most new infections occur in younger adults, and probably due to rapidly spreading variants.
White House officials increased the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations for a fourth week in a row Monday, White House officials said Monday as the number of deaths declined.
Rochelle Walensky, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said there were an average of 64,000 new cases of coronavirus daily, an increase of seven percent over the previous week. She said deaths have dropped by an average of 800 a day.
Walensky said the increasing number of cases occurs mainly among younger adults as states, businesses and schools have gradually reopened. And it is presumably at least partly caused by highly contagious variants.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said most new infections occur among younger adults and are caused by the spread of varieties that are highly transmissible. [File: Susan Walsh/Pool via Reuters]
“As the trends and data have indicated, cases are increasing nationwide and we see that they occur mainly in younger adults,” Walensky said during a task force news conference.
“We know that these increases are due in part to more transferable variants that we monitor closely,” she said.
Officials said the country, despite the increase in cases and hospitalizations, made steady gains in its efforts to vaccinate Americans. According to the CDC, more than 165 million doses have been administered so far.
Andy Slavitt, White House COVID-19 adviser, said the U.S. currently administers an average of 3.1 million doses a day. And that almost one in three adults received at least one shot. He said 55 percent of the elderly, 65 years and older, were fully vaccinated and 75 percent received at least one dose.
“We are in the right direction,” Slavitt said during the newsletter. “But we are not there yet,” he warned.
“The war against COVID-19 is far from over, far from won,” Slavitt said. “The worst thing we can do now is make progress with a victory.”
The United States has so far administered more than 165 million vaccine doses [Lucy Nicholson/Reuters]
Many states have made steady progress with their vaccination efforts and several have extended their admission requirements to anyone over the age of 16 in recent weeks. Other countries are still vaccinating frontline workers and those with underlying health problems.
The US has so far given emergency permits to three vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. The US may also approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which will further increase the country’s supply. The US is expected to have a surplus of vaccines by the second half of 2021.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who took office in January, has called for all states to offer vaccinations by May for all who want them. He also set a date on July 4, American Independence Day, when Americans would be able to return to a semblance of normalcy.
More than 555,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus – more than any other country in the world – according to a version by Johns Hopkins University.