In comparison, about 36,964 deaths died in the entire month of November, CNN reported.
The grim death toll follows some brutal months for the US, with COVID-19 devastating communities from coast to coast, paralyzing hospital systems, and imposing new widespread restrictions.
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The approval of two COVID-19 vaccines earlier in December offered some hope for a light at the end of the tunnel. But experts continue to warn that while the end is in sight, the pandemic is not over yet and another wave due to the Christmas holidays is on the way.
“We could very well see a post-season – in the sense of Christmas, New Year -,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning, noting vacation trips and private gatherings taking place. despite the advice of health experts.
The country’s top infectious disease expert described the possible increase in the number of cases as a ‘wave on a wave,’ and told CNN’s Dana Bash, ‘If you look at the slope, the rise in the number of cases we experienced when we late fall and soon early winter, it’s really very disturbing. “
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According to the TSA, more than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Saturday, the third busiest day for US air travel since March. On Christmas Day alone, more than 616,000 were screened, and hundreds of thousands more traveled in the days leading up to the holiday.
The number of hospital admissions in COVID-19 in the US is already at a record high. On Saturday, the country recorded the fifth-highest number of hospitalizations – with more than 117,300 COVID-19 patients across the country, according to the COVID tracking project.
A new wave of cases and hospitalizations will inevitably lead to more deaths – on top of an already devastating death toll.
“When you’re dealing with a baseline of 200,000 new cases per day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with more than 120,000 hospitalizations, we’re really at a very critical point,” Fauci said.
“As we move into the next few weeks,” he added, “it could get even worse.”
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Fauci’s comments came Sunday as the US surpassed 19 million cases of coronavirus, another milestone for the pandemic, just over 11 months after the first case was registered in the US in late January.
Nearly 332,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. According to predictions from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an additional 193,000 could lose their lives in the next two months.
“The projections are just nightmarish,” 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 that social detachment and masks. And don’t forget vaccines are just around the corner.”
Vaccine rollout is slow in some places, expert says
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the US and more than 9.5 million doses have been distributed.
Those numbers now include both the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. And while there are delays in data reporting, federal officials had previously said they would vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the year.
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Asked about the seemingly slow rollout of vaccines, Fauci told CNN on Sunday that large, comprehensive vaccine programs with a new vaccine start slow before they gain momentum.
“I’m pretty sure as we get more and more momentum, if we move from December to January and then February to March, I think we’ll catch up with the projection,” he said.
Dr. Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health + Science University, explained that the distribution of vaccines is “just really complicated.”
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“At every step, there is complexity and the potential for delay, whether it be individual state planning, allocation, training, vaccine delivery, storage … there (are) so many factors at this stage,” Choo said.
“We need to be prepared that it will be a slow rollout in many places and that it will not change our behavior or necessarily the trajectory of the pandemic in this country in the short term,” Choo said.
Choo’s words are in line with a number of other experts who have warned the American public not to be wary when vaccinations begin and continue to follow public health measures, including wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds and gatherings wash their hands regularly.
It likely won’t be until the summer before vaccines become widely available and begin to have a meaningful impact on the course of the pandemic, officials have said. Fauci estimates that about 70% to 85% of the population will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order for the country to achieve herd immunity.
Expert: Testing requirements do not help control the spread of the COVID-19 variant
The CDC also announced new testing requirements for travelers arriving from the UK last week, which will take effect Monday.
Passengers must have undergone a negative PCR or antigen test along with documentation of their laboratory results within 72 hours of boarding a flight from the UK to the US. Airlines must confirm the pre-flight test.
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This comes after the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant first discovered in the UK, which health officials say is “expected to be more readily transmissible”. 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 discovered in Ottawa, Canada, a Ontario government press release said Sunday.
According to the release, it concerns a person who recently traveled from the UK. That individual is now within himself.
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The two previous cases reported Saturday were found to have since had contact with a recent UK traveler, the release said.
An expert says the new test requirements for US travelers have not been implemented fast enough to be effective against a reported variant.
“It makes sense that for every place that experiences a regional peak, we take new measures,” Dr. Richina Bicette told CNN. “But if they try to stop the virus from being imported into the United States, these measures will have no effect whatsoever.”
(The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.)
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