In comparison, about 36,964 deaths occurred throughout November, CNN reported.
The warm death toll comes after several brutal months for the U.S., with COVID-19 sweeping communities from coast to coast, paralyzing hospital systems and causing new widespread restrictions.
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Authorization of two COVID-19 vaccines in early December offered some hope of light at the end of the tunnel. But experts continue to warn that while the end is in sight, the pandemic is not over and another wave of the Christmas holidays could be underway.
“We’re very likely to see a post-season increase (in the sense of Christmas, New Year),” Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union,” which noted that they were made private meetings and holiday trips. despite the advice of health experts.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert described the potential increase in cases as “uphill uphill,” telling CNN’s Dana Bash: “If you look at the slope, the tilt of the cases we’ve experienced as we we’ve been coming in late fall and early winter, it’s really pretty worrying. “
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More than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, according to the TSA, which marks the third-busiest day of air travel in the United States since March. On Christmas Day alone more than 616,000 were projected and hundreds of thousands more traveled the days before the holidays.
The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations across the United States is already at record levels. On Saturday, the country recorded its fifth highest number of hospitalizations, with more than 117,300 COVID-19 patients nationwide, according to the COVID Follow-up Project.
Another wave of cases and hospitalizations would inevitably mean more deaths, in addition to an already devastating death toll.
“When it comes to a baseline of 200,000 new cases a day and about 2,000 deaths a day, with more than 120,000 hospitalizations, we’re really at a very critical point,” Fauci said.
“As we get into the next few weeks,” he added, “it may get worse.”
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Fauci’s comments on Sunday came as the United States surpassed 19 million cases of coronavirus, another milestone for the pandemic, which came just over 11 months after the first case was reported in the U.S. in end of January.
About 332,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Another 193,000 could lose their lives over the next two months, according to forecasts from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Measurement and Assessment.
“The projections are just nightmares,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine. “People can still save the lives of their loved ones by practicing this social distancing and masks. And remember, vaccines are just around the corner.”
Vaccine exploitation is slow in some places, according to the expert
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States, and more than 9.5 million doses have been distributed.
These numbers now include the Pfizer / BioNTech and Modern COVID-19 vaccines. And while there are lags in data reporting, federal officials had already said they would vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the year.
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Asked about the seemingly slow deployment of vaccines, Fauci told CNN Sunday that large, complete vaccine programs with a new vaccine begin slowly before the momentum increases.
“I’m pretty sure that as we gain more momentum, as we move from December to January and then from February to March, I think we’ll keep up with the projection,” he said.
Dr. Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health + Science University, explained that vaccine distribution “is just a very complicated thing.”
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“At every step, there is complexity and there is a possibility of delay, whether it is individual state planning, allocation, training, vaccine supply, storage … there are (are) so many factors at this stage,” Choo said.
“We need to be prepared for the fact that it will be a slow deployment in many places and that it will not change our behaviors or necessarily the trajectory of the pandemic in this country in the short term,” Choo said.
Choo’s words echo other experts who have warned the American public not to lower their guard when vaccinations begin and to continue to follow public health measures, including the use of masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds. and meetings and washing hands regularly.
It is likely that it will not be until the summer that vaccines will be widely available and begin to have a significant impact on the course of the pandemic, officials said. Fauci estimates that between 70% and 85% of the population needs to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for the country to achieve herd immunity.
Expert: Test requirements will not help control the spread of the COVID-19 variant
The CDC also announced last week new testing requirements for travelers arriving from the UK, which will take effect on Monday.
Passengers must have performed a negative PCR or antigen test within 72 hours after embarking on a UK flight to the United States, along with documentation of their lab results. Airlines will need to confirm the test before the flight.
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This comes after the appearance of a new variant COVID-19 first detected in the UK, which according to health officials “has been predicted to be transmissible more quickly”. Since the discovery of the variant, more than 40 countries have restricted travel from the UK and in some cases travel from other countries that have documented cases with the variant.
The third case of the variant first identified in the UK has been detected in Ottawa (Canada), an Ontario government press release said Sunday.
The case is a person who recently traveled from the UK, according to the statement. This individual is now in isolation.
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The two previous cases reported on Saturday have been in contact with a recent traveler from the UK, according to the statement.
One expert claims that the new testing requirements for travelers to the United States have not been implemented quickly enough to be effective against a reported variant.
“It makes sense for any place to experience a regional increase in cases where we are implementing new measures,” emergency medicine doctor Dr. Richina Bicette told CNN. “But if they try to make sure the virus doesn’t get imported into the United States, those measures will have no effect on that.”
(The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner company. All rights reserved.)
The video presented is from a previous report