“It hurts me … hurts when I see things like begging people to do things you know work – wearing the mask, the physical separation – and the denial,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
It was ‘actually painful for me’ to see hospitals overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients, he said, and ‘in the same regions there were people who denied that it was going on, saying’ Oh, that is fake news, it’s a joke. ‘I mean, how could you say that if people in your own state, your own city, your own country, died? ‘
“Here we are today, looking at 500,000 Americans who have died so far,” Fauci said.
“It simply came to our notice then. You can not deny it. ‘
The race to vaccinate
The U.S. could have a total of 240 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of March, according to prepared remarks from vaccine manufacturers that will be given to a subcommittee of the House on Tuesday.
Pfizer and Moderna – the two companies with Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the US for emergency use – have promised to make a total of 220 million doses available for dispatch by March.
That would be enough to vaccinate 110 million Americans, because both vaccines require two doses.
Johnson & Johnson, which has not yet received an emergency authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine, has undertaken to make 20 million doses available within the same timeframe. Its vaccine requires only one dose.
Pfizer said it expects to increase the number of doses available for dispatch from about 4 million to 5 million doses per week in early February to more than 13 million doses per week by mid-March.
“We are on the verge of making 120 million doses available for dispatch by the end of March and another 80 million doses by the end of May. And we expect all 300 million contract doses to be made available by the end of July. 150 million Americans, ‘the company said in its prepared remarks.
Moderna, the other company with an authorized Covid-19 vaccine, said it was on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of March and plans to increase the monthly delivery by April to more than 40 million doses per month. to double.
“Based on this increase in production, we recently agreed to increase our delivery timeline: we now aim to deliver a second hundred million doses by the end of May and a third hundred million doses by the end of July,” said Moderna. said in his prepared remarks.
Two more Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers who have not yet received emergency approval have also outlined plans.
What the US should do now
Emergency physician, dr. Leana Wen, said the milestone is a reminder of ‘all the lives we could have saved’. And now she says she’s worried about what might come.
“My biggest fear right now is complacency,” Wen said.
“The best way to be normal again is to double up at the moment, not throw off our masks, not eat indoors, not do other things we know the outbreaks can risk,” he said. dr. Craig Spencer said. Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center.
“The majority of people in this country, despite previous infections and despite two months of vaccination, the majority of people still have no protection against Covid and can become infected,” he told CNN. “It’s not over yet and we need to double down.”
This means wearing masks, taking social distances, avoiding stressful places, washing hands regularly and practicing the safety measures that have worked so far to limit the spread of infections.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, director, dr. Rochelle Walensky, said that while the numbers may be heading in the right direction, “cases, hospital admissions and deaths remain at very high levels.”
New business has been steadily declining for five weeks, Walensky said Monday. But the US continues to add tens of thousands of new infections daily. In February alone, more than two million new Covid-19 cases were seen.
And every day, Covid-19 loses hundreds of lives. More than 1,300 deaths were reported Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data – and more than 52,000 were reported this month.
“While the pandemic is heading in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to be done,” Walensky said.
Study: Smell and taste of Covid-19 may not return for months
And for many people who have survived an attack with the disease, symptoms persist.
In fact, Canadian researchers reported Monday that the sense of smell and taste do not return until five months after being infected with coronavirus.
A team from the University of Quebec examined more than 800 health workers who tested positive for the virus. They ranked their sense of smell and taste on a scale of zero to 10, and some were asked to perform a home test to further evaluate these senses.
During the initial infection, more than 70% of those who took part in the survey lost their sense of smell and 65% lost their sense of taste, researchers said in the preliminary results.
Five months later, when they used a home test, 17% of the participants said that they still had an odor loss and that 9% of the people had persistent taste loss.
“Our results show that a weakened sense of smell and taste may persist in a number of people with Covid-19,” said Dr. Johannes Frasnelli of the University of Quebec, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
“It highlights the importance of following up on infected people, and needs to be further investigated to discover the extent of neurological problems associated with Covid-19.”
CDC announces emergency meeting of vaccine advisers
Meanwhile, as the US tries to get more shots in the arms, another vaccine may soon get the green light for the US market.
On Friday, an FDA advisory group will discuss the company’s application and data. Based on the adviser’s guidance, the FDA may choose to give the vaccine the green light. CDC advisers will then discuss their own recommendations regarding the deployment of the vaccine, which should then be formally accepted by the CDC.
The CDC announced an emergency meeting of its vaccine advisers from February 28 to March 1.
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson will testify on Tuesday that by the end of March, they can deliver enough doses to vaccinate more than 20 million Americans, contributing to the existing stock in the country.
About 19.4 million received both doses, the data show. That’s less than 6% of the U.S. population.
CNN’s Jacqueline Howard, Naomi Thomas, Amanda Watts, Christopher Rios, Jen Christensen and Michael Nedelman contributed to this report.