In less than a year, Covid-19 killed nearly 400,000 Americans.
And in the next month, an additional 100,000 lives could be lost from the disease, the new director of the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention said.
“We expect half a million deaths in this country by mid-February,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Sunday against CBS ‘Face the Nation’.
“That doesn’t appeal to the tens of thousands of people living with an uncharacterized syndrome after they recover,” said Walensky, who was chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital before President-elect Joe Biden chose her to lead the CDC.
Some people who have had Covid-19 have had symptoms months after a positive test.
“And we still haven’t seen the consequences of what happened from the vacation trips, from vacation meetings, in terms of high hospital admissions and subsequent deaths,” Walensky said.
“I think we have a few more dark weeks ahead.”
100 million doses in 100 days: Walensky said on Sunday that the Biden administration will address “bottlenecks” in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and achieve its goal of delivering 100 million doses in 100 days.
“I think there are bottlenecks in several places throughout the system,” Walensky told “Face the Nation.”
“Different states have different challenges – how much is being rolled out to each state, whether those states have sufficient staff, or whether those states are getting vaccines at pharmacies,” she said. “Our job is to make sure that, with the full support of the federal government, we address all those bottlenecks wherever we are so that we can get vaccine into people’s arms.”
President-elect Joe Biden says his goal is to distribute 100 million doses of vaccine in his first 100 days in office.
“We have looked carefully and we are confident that we have enough vaccines for the 100 million doses in the next 100 days,” Walensky said. “It’s going to be quite a lift, but we have what it takes to do that.”
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