Coronavirus USA: America is at a crossroads in this pandemic as Covid-19’s death approaches 500,000

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“I am concerned about this variant – variant B.1.1.7 (first found in the UK),” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

“If this takes over, the numbers will start to spiral up again. It will not end as the death toll will show, unless we can get vaccinated first.”

Where we live with vaccinations

More than 43.6 million Americans have received at least one dose of their two-dose vaccines, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 18.8 million were completely vaccinated. This represents about 5.7% of the US population – much less than about 70% to 85% of Americans who should be immune to the herd’s immunity.
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Some states are still facing vaccine delays after severe weather hit much of the country last week.

But the United States will likely be caught in the middle of this week, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Obviously, it’s an obstacle, because you’d like to see the steady stream of vaccine getting there to get into people’s arms, but we can play a pretty good pace,” Fauci told NBC on Sunday.

To speed up vaccinations, some experts have suggested delaying secondary vaccine doses to get more first doses in people’s arms.

Both vaccines on the US market – developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – require two doses, the second of which is intended for administration at 21 days and 28 days after the first, respectively.

Fauci told CNN on Sunday that the United States is currently following the vaccination program, which is supported by data from clinical trials.

“Science points directly to continuing what we know … from the clinical trial,” he said.

Good news (for now) on cases and hospitalizations

Nationally, rates of new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are declining.

The number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 decreased for the 40th consecutive day, according to the COVID follow-up project.

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Daily deaths fell 24 percent in the past week from the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

And new daily cases fell 23 percent over the same period, according to Johns Hopkins. (But testing is also down 17%, according to the COVID follow-up project.)

“I am very hopeful about where we are,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “Now we have a few steps ahead.”

These road bumps include several worrying coronavirus variants.

About 1,700 cases of strains first observed in the UK, South Africa and Brazil have been reported in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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But that figure probably doesn’t come close to the actual number of case variants in the US, since the US lagged behind dozens of other countries in genome sequencing to 1,000 Covid-19 cases.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the United States has accelerated sequencing to find options and will continue to do so.

The vast majority of case variants so far involve the highly contagious B.1.1.7 detected for the first time in the UK.

Experts from the Institute for Health Metrics and Assessment at the University of Washington said over the weekend that although strain B.1.1.7 is likely to account for less than 20% of current US infections, that number is likely to increase to 80% by at the end of April .

“Now is not the time to let your guard down”

What happens next depends largely on personal responsibility and how many people get vaccinated, the IHME team said.
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“The management of the epidemic in the next four months depends critically on the intensification of vaccination, the attempt to increase the fraction of adults willing to be vaccinated over three quarters and the strong encouragement of the continued use of masks and avoiding situations where transmission is likely, such as meals. inside, going to bars or indoor meetings with people outside the household, “the team wrote.

The American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the American Nurses Association have also advocated for Americans to help quell the pandemic.

“With new, more contagious variants of the virus circulating in the US, now is not the time to let your guard down and return to the measures we know will work to prevent other diseases and deaths – wearing masks, practicing physical distance and hand washing “, it was said in a joint statement.

Why we could wear masks next winter

Some Americans have discovered an unexpected advantage of wearing masks in the winter – it protects against brutal cold air, not just the coronavirus.

And Americans might wear them next winter, when some health experts say Covid-19 could spill over again.

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Fauci hopes this will not happen, he said, adding that it is “possible” for people to wear masks in 2022.

There may be other ways in which everyday life will be different from the past, said infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder.

“I think we look normal. I think the handshake, for example, will probably go away,” she said.

“I think masks in the cough / cold / flu season in the winter months would make a lot of sense. This has really isolated the countries of Southeast Asia from some of the worst situations, understanding the importance of wearing masks.”

For those who have already been vaccinated, health experts say you should still wear a mask. This is because it takes weeks for vaccines to start fully and vaccines do not guarantee that you will not pass the coronavirus to others.
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“It is estimated that about 70% of Americans need to be vaccinated before they can get herd immunity through vaccination,” said CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen. “This is the point where enough people have immune protection that the virus will no longer spread.”

And slowing down the transmission of coronavirus also prevents the chances of the virus moving further.

“The evidence was quite convincing until March or April last year that wearing a mask would reduce the spread of the disease,” National Health Institute director Dr. Francis Collins told Axios on Sunday.

The politicization of these masks has probably led to many unnecessary deaths, he said.

“A mask is nothing more than a life-saving medical device and yet it has been classified in all sorts of other ways that were not factual, unscientific and, frankly, dangerous,” he added. “And I think you can say that tens of thousands of people died as a result.”

Amanda Watts, Keith Allen, Jessica Firger, Naomi Thomas, Michael Nedelman and Paul Vercammen contributed to this report.

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