Coronavirus USA: Hospitalizations are the lowest in the last 2 months. But the US is still “tough” in the coming weeks, says the expert

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More than 97,000 patients remain hospitalized with the virus – at a great distance from the top of the country of more than 132,400 on January 6. The last time this number fell below 100,000 was December 1st.

“Right now it’s the worst possible world. It’s winter. It’s getting colder, people are together more, there’s still a critical number of people in the United States who don’t wear masks, who don’t distance themselves socially.” Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, told CNN on Saturday. “I think the next six weeks or two months will be tough. I think we could have another 100,000, 150,000 deaths.”

According to projections from the Institute for Metrics and Health Assessment at the University of Washington, more than 120,000 Americans could lose their lives to the virus in the next two months.
A rapid spread of the variant could push this projection even higher. Therefore, experts called for doubling safety measures such as masks and social distance and called for accelerated vaccinations across the country.
On Saturday, Maryland became the second state to report a case of a Covid-19 variant first identified in South Africa. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also say that other cases – first identified in the UK – have been detected in at least 30 states. Experts said both strains appear to be more transmissible.

29.5 million doses administered

But there are good reasons for hope.

Two vaccines have already been given the green light for the US market and could be on the way.
To date, more than 29.5 million doses of the vaccine have been administered nationally, according to CDC data. About 5.2 million Americans received both doses of the vaccine.

Faced with allocation and distribution problems for several weeks, the numbers are lower than where experts once hoped the US would be. But health and state officials hope vaccinations will increase in the coming months.

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In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office said Saturday morning that the state had administered 91 percent of the first doses of vaccine it received from the federal government and demanded more supplies.

“New York’s vast distribution network is capable of managing more than 100,000 vaccinations a day, but to do that, we need more doses from the federal government,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The governor previously announced that the state will receive 16% more doses in the next three weeks. In his statement on Saturday, Cuomo said that while growth is a “welcome increase, the reality is that we simply need more supply.”

In Washington state, health officials announced that more than 10,000 people had been vaccinated at the state’s mass vaccination sites with the help of the state National Guard and other partners.

“The goal of mass vaccination sites is to increase access to the vaccine throughout the state, to ensure that our plans are fair, and to protect those most at risk,” a statement from the Department of Health said. Washington State Health.

Transit authorities shall implement the CDC guidelines

Meanwhile, a CDC order requiring people to wear masks while using any form of public transportation in the United States will take effect Monday night.

The agency said public transport operators must make every effort to implement the mandate, including boarding only those wearing masks and disembarking passengers who refuse to comply.

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Transit authorities in several major US cities and states – including New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta – have told CNN they are already in compliance.

In Washington, DC, the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority told CNN that “coverage was needed on the Metro in May.”

“We welcome any policy that continues to promote compliance with Metro and in all public spaces to combat the spread of the virus, and we welcome the ability of the TSA and other federal authorities to implement this mandate where appropriate,” a spokesman said.

In California, a Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesman said the Bay Area public transportation system has a mandate that covers the face of April.

And in Atlanta, a spokesman said the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority began requesting masks in July.

Trying to understand more about the virus

And more than a year after the world first learned about the virus, a team of World Health Organization investigators examining the origins of the pandemic will head to a wholesale seafood market in Wuhan, China on Sunday. the market believed to be where the first Covid-19 infections were detected.

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The team of experts was released on Thursday from a two-week quarantine, a member told CNN.

The investigation comes about a year after the Chinese city was closed due to the pandemic and there is skepticism about how much the team of scientists will be able to discover.
A previous report by a WHO team in China, published in February 2020, found that “key knowledge gaps remain” about the virus, although it endorsed previous findings that the virus appears to have originated in animals, probably the first outbreak at the Wuhan Seafood Market.

CNN’s Alta Spells, Sandi Sidhu, Lauren Mascarenhas, Laura Ly, Amanda Watts and Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.

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