The worldwide count of confirmed cases of the coronavirus-transmitted disease COVID-19 rose to above 81 million on Monday, while the US case was 19 million higher, and experts warned that the next few weeks will be difficult after millions of Americans during the Christmas holidays traveled. .
“We’re really at a very critical point,” he said. ‘If you put more pressure on the system through a post-seasonal upsurge due to the travel and the possible gathering of people, you know, the good, hot purpose of being together for the holidays, it’s very difficult for people not to do so. ”
The latest data from the Transportation Security Administration showed that 1.13 million passengers were selected at U.S. airports on Saturday, the most on any day since mid-March. During the past ten days, five more than 1 million passengers traveled through U.S. airports.
Fauci said he supported the decision to require negative COVID-19 tests before people from the UK could enter the US, which comes after a new type of virus was detected there.
The variant is something that ‘should follow very closely’ and ‘we are looking at it very intensely now’, he said.
‘Does it make anyone sicker? Is it more serious in the sense of virulence? And the answer is that it does not look like that. ”
British officials believe the vaccines are strong enough to handle the new variant, but Fauci said: “We are going to do the studies ourselves.”
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The U.S. counted at least 152,102 new cases on Sunday, and at least 1230 people were killed, according to a New York Times tracker. In the past week, the US averaged 184,951 cases per day, which is 12% lower than two weeks earlier.
There are currently 118,720 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, according to the COVID Tracking Project, below the record of 119,463 set on December 23, but still alarmingly high.
Fauci said the U.S. is in a critical phase of the pandemic, with the worst likely yet to come. He predicted that the general population would be widely immunized by the end of March or early April – outside the frontline workers, the elderly and certain other sections of the public who are first in line.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. is still leading cases at 19.2 million and deaths of 333,394, or about a fifth of the global count for each.
There was relief for many when President Donald Trump signed a $ 900 billion emergency relief package late Sunday after refusing to do so for days. The package provides much-needed cash to businesses and individuals and shuts down the federal government, as the Associated Press reports.
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The massive legislation includes $ 1.4 billion to fund government agencies through September and includes other priorities at the end of the session, such as an increase in benefits for food stamps. The move led to a massive rally that sent leading indices, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
and S&P 500 SPX,
to retrieve records.
In other news:
• Novavax Inc. NVAX,
begins a late-stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate with plans to enroll up to 30,000 volunteers at approximately 115 locations in the U.S. and Mexico. The trial is supported by partners from Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s program aimed at rapidly developing vaccines and therapies, including the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Authority for Research and Development, or Barda, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. Barda is providing up to $ 1.6 billion to fund the trial under an agreement from the Department of Defense. The trial will be randomized, placebo-monitored and the effectiveness of the treatment, called NVX-CoV2373, evaluated in patients 18 years and older.
See also: AstraZeneca believes vaccination against coronavirus will be effective against new strain
• Russian officials acknowledged on Monday that their death toll was more than three times higher than previously reported, driving it to the country with the third highest number of deaths, AFP reported. The statistics agency Rosstat said that the number of deaths due to all causes increased by 229,700 in the period from January to November by more than 81%, or about 186,000 Russians, who presumably died from COVID. Russia has had more than 3 million infections since the beginning of the pandemic, the fourth highest in the world.
• The European Union on Sunday launched its vaccination program by dosing doctors, nurses and the elderly with the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE,
and the German partner BioNTech’s BNTX,
reported the AP. The first porches were coordinated across the trade block in a show of solidarity. The vaccine began arriving at EU hospitals in super-cold containers from a factory in Belgium on Friday. Each country received only a fraction of the required doses – less than 10,000 in the first groups for some countries – with the larger rollout expected in January when more vaccines become available. All who get shots on Sunday must return for a second dose within three weeks. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that with additional vaccines in development this year, the EU would have more shots than needed and that it could share its surplus with the western Balkans and Africa. “Europe is well positioned,” she insisted.
• China has detained a 37-year-old civilian journalist, who reported on the spread of the virus in Wuhan at the end of 2019, for four years. Her lawyer said the sentence was imposed for “picking up quarrels and causing problems.” Zhang Zhan is the first person known to have been tried, and was among a handful of people whose reports of overcrowded hospitals and empty streets painted a grim picture of the pandemic than official reports did.
• The Guardian reports that Indonesia will ban foreign travelers for two weeks from 1 January. The news was announced by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, citing concerns over the transfer. The new rule applies to all foreign visitors, with the exception of senior government officials.
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There are now 81 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins data, and at least 1.77 million people have died. Nearly 46 million people have recovered.
Brazil has the second highest death rate at 191,139 and is third through cases with 7.5 million.
India is second in cases worldwide with 10.2 million, and third in deaths at 147.901.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll at 122,426 and the 13th highest case is 1.4 million.
Italy has 72,370 deaths, the highest in Europe, and 2 million cases. The UK has 2.3 million cases, the most in Europe, and 71,217 deaths, the second highest in Europe and the sixth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, had 95,693 confirmed cases and 4,773 deaths, according to its official figures.