The worldwide count of confirmed cases of COVID-19-transmitted coronavirus disease rose to 81 million on Monday, while the U.S. case count exceeded 19 million and experts warned that the coming weeks will be difficult after millions of Americans traveling during Christmas. party.
“We’re really at a very critical point,” he said. “If you put more pressure on the system for what could be a post-season increase due to travel and the likely congregation of people, you know, the good warm intentions of being together for the holidays, it’s very difficult for the people for not doing it. ”
The latest Transportation Safety Administration data showed that 1.13 million passengers were screened Saturday at U.S. airports, most in one day since mid-March. In the last ten days, five have seen more than a million passengers pass through U.S. airports.
Fauci said he supports the decision to require negative testing for COVID-19 before allowing people from the UK to enter the United States, which comes after a new strain of the virus is detected.
The variant is something “to be followed very carefully” and “now we look at it very intensely,” he said.
“Does it make anyone sicker? Is it a more serious virus in the sense of virulence? And the answer is that it doesn’t seem to be like that. “
UK officials say it looks like the vaccines that will be deployed will be strong enough to deal with the new variant, but, according to Fauci, “we will do the studies ourselves.”
Read now: How many people need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to get herd immunity? “The faster we do it, the faster we come back to life.”
The United States counted at least 152,102 new cases on Sunday and at least 1,230 people died, according to a New York Times tracker. Last week, the U.S. averaged 184,951 cases a day, down 12% from the previous two weeks.
There are currently 118,720 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, according to the COVID Follow-up Project, below the record of 119,463 set on December 23, but still worryingly high.
Fauci said the United States is in a critical phase of the pandemic, with the worst probably still ahead. He predicted that the general population would be widely immunized in late March or early April, beyond front-line workers, the elderly, and certain other segments of the public who are first in line.
The United States continues to lead the world by cases, with 19.1 million, and deaths with 333,140, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, or about one-fifth of the world count of each.
There was relief for many when President Donald Trump signed a $ 900 billion pandemic relief package on Sunday afternoon, after spending days refusing to do so. The package will provide much-needed cash to businesses and individuals and prevent a federal government shutdown, the Associated Press reported.
The massive legislation includes $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies through September and contains other priorities at the end of the session, such as an increase in the benefits of the food stamp. The move caused a massive stock market rebound that sent major indices, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average
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and the S&P 500
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to record maxima.
In other news:
• Novavax Inc.
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begins a final-phase trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate with plans to enroll up to 30,000 volunteers at about 115 locations in the U.S. and Mexico. The trial is supported by partners of Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s program that aims to rapidly develop vaccines and therapies, including the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. , which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Authority for Advanced Research and Development, or Barda, which is part of the office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response . Barda is providing up to $ 1.6 billion to fund the trial under a Department of Defense agreement. The trial will be randomized, placebo-controlled, and will evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment, called NVX-CoV2373, in patients from 18 years of age.
See also: AstraZeneca believes its coronavirus vaccine will be effective against the new strain
• The European Union began its vaccination program on Sunday by dosing doctors, nurses and the elderly with the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc.
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and German partner BioNTech SE
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reported the AP. The first blows were coordinated throughout the commercial bloc in a show of solidarity. The vaccine had started arriving in cold containers at EU hospitals on Friday from a factory in Belgium. Each country received only a fraction of the required doses (less than 10,000 in the first batches for some countries), with the largest deployment expected in January when more vaccines are available. Anyone receiving shots on Sunday should take a second dose again in three weeks. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said that with additional vaccines under development, the EU will have more features than needed this year and could share its surplus with the Western Balkans and Africa. “Europe is well positioned,” he insisted.
• China has jailed for four years a 37-year-old citizen journalist who reported the spread of the virus in Wuhan in late 2019, Reuters reported. His lawyer said the sentence was imposed to “catch disputes and cause problems”. Zhang Zhan is the first person of this type known to be tried and was among a handful of people whose accounts had of cramped hospitals and empty streets painted a more painful picture of the pandemic than official accounts.
• Indonesia bans all foreign travelers for two weeks, starting January 1, The Guardian reported. The news was announced by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, and cited concerns about the transmission. The new rule will apply to all foreign visitors, except senior government officials.
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There are now 80.9 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins, and at least 1.77 million people have died. Nearly 46 million people have recovered.
Brazil has the second highest number of deaths, with 191,139, and is the third by cases, with 7.5 million.
India is the second in the world in cases with 10.2 million and the third in deaths with 147,901.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll (122,426) and the 13th highest number of cases (1.4 million).
Italy has 71,925 fatalities, the highest in Europe, and 2 million cases. The UK has 2.3 million cases, the largest number in Europe and 70,860 deaths, the second highest in Europe and the sixth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 95,693 confirmed cases and 4,773 deaths, according to its official figures.