Vaccinations grow in a “glimmer of hope”

The United States has stepped up COVID-19 vaccinations in recent days, after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of vaccines distributed to about 4 million, government officials said on Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, also told ABC’s “This Week” that President-elect Joe Biden’s promise to deliver 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days function is achievable.

And he rejected President Donald Trump’s false statement on Twitter that the deaths and cases of coronavirus in the United States were much exaggerated.

“All you have to do … is go into the trenches, go to the hospitals, go to the intensive care units and see what happens. These are real numbers, real people and real deaths, “Fauci told NBC’s” Meet the Press. “

The death toll in the United States has exceeded 350,000, most of any country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while more than 20 million people nationwide have been infected. States have reported a record number of cases in recent days, and funeral homes in Southern California are flooded with corpses.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pandemic is getting worse in his hometown as the virus spreads rapidly to households and people are stepping down with the news of a vaccine. “This is a virus that is ruining our weakness, exhausting us,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Experts believe that the actual number of deaths and infections in the US is much higher and that many cases have been overlooked, in part due to insufficient testing.

Fauci said he saw “little glimpses of hope” after 1.5 million doses in the last 72 hours, or an average of about 500,000 a day, a significant increase in vaccinations. He said the total reaches about 4 million.

He acknowledged that the United States had not reached its goal of having 20 million doses shipped and distributed by the end of December.

“It simply came to our notice then. It is understandable “, said Fauci. “We are not where we want to be, there is no doubt about that.”

But he expressed optimism that the momentum will increase by mid-January and that the US will eventually vaccinate 1 million people a day. “Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the first 100 days is a realistic goal,” Fauci said.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser on Operation Warp Speed, the government’s effort to develop and distribute vaccines, told CBS that 17.5 million doses had been shipped. About 13 million of them were distributed to clinics, hospitals and other places where they will be administered, according to Fauci.

The 20 million dose target was not partially met because local health departments and medical institutions had to stay focused on testing to cope with an increase in cases, said US Surgeon General Jerome Adams. And the holiday season meant that health workers were on vacation, he said.

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m Pollyannish here. There is what we have delivered and we hope that these will translate into vaccinations. It didn’t happen the way we wanted it to, “Adams told CNN’s” State of the Union. ”

On Sunday morning, Trump falsely wrote on Twitter that the outbreak was “much exaggerated” because of the “ridiculous” methodology of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He also complained that Fauci was credited by the press for doing “an incredible job” when Fauci “works for me and the Trump administration and is not given any credit for my work.”

Fauci and others warn that additional growth is likely due to holiday gatherings and cold weather that keep people indoors.

“It could and probably will get worse in the next few weeks or at least maintain this very terrible high level of infections and deaths that we see,” Fauci said.

Arizona reported a one-day record of more than 17,200 new cases on Sunday, overshadowing the previous record of about 12,000 set in early December. Health officials said the jump appears to reflect infections at Christmas gatherings, but was also likely inflated by a reporting gap on New Year’s weekend.

North Carolina and Texas reported a record number of people in hospital with COVID-19 – nearly 3,600 and more than 12,500, respectively.

Abroad, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said more difficult blockade restrictions in England are likely, as a variant of the coronavirus has caused infection rates to the highest levels ever recorded. More than 50,000 new infections have been reported daily in the past six days.

Scientists have said that the variant is up to 70% more contagious. While Fauci said the US needs to do its own study, he noted that British researchers believe that the mutant version is no more deadly or more likely to make people sick and that vaccines are effective against it.

But Scott Gottlieb, a former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner who is on the board of vaccine maker Pfizer, told Face the Nation that the option “really creates more urgency in trying to remove this vaccine faster and attract more vaccinated people. “

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Associated Press writers around the world contributed to this report.