According to data from Johns Hopkins University, December is the deadliest month for the coronavirus since the pandemic began.
The US has recorded more than 63,000 deaths so far this month. April was previously the deadliest month of the pandemic, with more than 55,000 dead. According to the COVID tracking project, deaths exceeded that number just three weeks after December, when temperatures dropped, people gathered for the holidays, and cases skyrocketed.
According to the most recent data from Johns Hopkins, the US has seen more than 19 million cases of coronavirus and more than 330,000 deaths as a result of COVID-19.
Elected president Joe Biden
Joe BidenBrother of Biden adviser Ricchetti hired as lobbyist at Amazon Sunday shows preview: COVID-19 relief awaits Trump’s signature; government continues vaccination. Global COVID-19 Cases Surpass 80 Million MORE warned last week that the pandemic will get worse before it gets better, even with the advent of vaccines, and warned Americans to be vigilant.
“I’m going to tell you the truth. And here’s the simple truth: our darkest days fighting COVID are ahead of us, not behind us,” Biden said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“As frustrating as it is to hear, it will take patience, persistence and determination to defeat this virus. There will be no time to waste in taking the steps we need to reverse this crisis,” he added to it.
Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciSunday Shows Preview: COVID-19 Relief Awaits Trump’s Signature; government continues vaccination First responders serenade Fauci with ‘happy birthday’ AIDS activists recruit Barbra Streisand for surprise party Fauci op Zoom MORE, the country’s foremost infectious disease expert, agreed with that assessment on Sunday, warning the US that the worst pandemic could see in the coming weeks.
“Since we’ve gone from late fall to early winter, the numbers are really quite alarming,” Fauci said.
“With more than 120,000 hospital admissions, we are really at a critical stage,” he added.
Two vaccines – made by Pfizer and Moderna – have been approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with just over 1 million people vaccinated so far. More than 9 million doses of the vaccines have been reportedly shipped.
The federal government had planned to vaccinate about 20 million people by the end of the year, but that goal now seems out of reach.
In late November, as news of the coronavirus vaccine approval hit the horizon, former NATO commander James Stavridis wrote in an op-ed for Fortune magazine that changes should be made to the government’s plan for vaccine distribution.
Stavridis objected to the fact that only one company, McKesson, was tasked with distributing the COVID-19 vaccines. He said the government needs more companies to protect itself from the possibility of failure in its distribution plan.
But even with promising developments such as the vaccine, new challenges continue to arise. A new, more contagious form of the coronavirus has been detected in the UK and South Africa, causing many countries to restrict or ban travel to and from those countries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a requirement for UK air travelers to take a negative coronavirus test when traveling to the US
On Sunday, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the new strain is likely already in the US. Gottlieb also said vaccine distribution would likely be hindered by hard-to-reach communities. He suspected more people had been vaccinated than reported due to a delay in data collection.
“But the idea that we’ll have 20 million vaccines and vaccinations by the end of the year is probably unrealistic at this point,” said Gottlieb.
However, Gottlieb predicted that once the vaccine became available through pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS, it would make a significant contribution to the distribution of the vaccine.
The order in which people receive the vaccine is left to the state governments. Many state governments are still grappling with how to determine the order. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine
Mike DeWineSunday Shows Preview: COVID-19 Relief Awaits Trump’s Signature; Government Continues Vaccination DeWine Says Ohio Teachers School Staff Will Be Next Group To Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Progressive Rally Around Turner’s House Bid MORE (R) recently announced that teachers and school staff would be next in line to get the vaccine.