COVID-19, unstoppable in the United States: The country has exceeded 17 million positive cases and continues to break records for deaths and hospitalizations

The United States officially exceeded 17 million cases of coronavirus. Despite the euphoria at the start of immunization following the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the upcoming approval of the vaccine developed by Moderna, the country is experiencing its most difficult days. And it doesn’t look like the trend will reverse in the near future.

The worst numbers since the health crisis started on Wednesday. According to John Hopkins University censusa record number of 247 thousand new cases were registered in the last 24 hours. The increase is impressive, especially if you take into account that the previous day had been a day with high numbers “Only” at 198,357 infections.

That was also reported the number of patients admitted rises to 113 thousand – Marking of the eleventh consecutive day on which the hospital admission record is broken– while 21,936 people are in intensive care, a figure that is also unprecedented. The death toll was over 3,600, bringing the total to more than 307,500 so far this year, by far the highest worldwide.

With these figures, the United States exceeded 17 million infections on Thursday. Just five days ago they had exceeded 16 million. Given that the pandemic is already nine months old, the acceleration in the new number of confirmed cases is impressive, especially when one takes into account that the CDC (Centers for Disease Control, according to its acronym in English) has confirmed that it actual number of cases – taking into account those that have not been tested – could still be millions.

While there is an increase in infections across the country, California is the most affected state. In that state alone, 52,000 infected were reported Thursday, while a record 63,817 was reported Tuesday.

Undoubtedly, some of the violent resurgence of contamination is linked to the end of the year gatherings and the last Thanksgiving celebration in late November. Fear then falls on the Christmas and New Year holidays, just around the corner.

On Thanksgiving, the CDC has advised you not to travel. According to data from the aviation policeabout 50 million people took flight that week. A similar recommendation is expected for Christmas next week, but it is also known that not many will follow.

Treatments have improved, and therefore the increase in the number of deaths is not as abrupt as the increase in new cases and hospitalizations. Without a doubt, the vaccine will help, but in the long run.

So far, 2.9 million doses of Pfizers vaccine have been distributed in the country. In the next 21 days, so many vaccines will be distributed to guarantee the second dose for those who have already been vaccinated. With the presumed approval of Moderna’s vaccine, many more will get their vaccine, but the country is far from reaching a stage where the vaccine is available to the general population. The CDC has stated that it can be optimistically expected that all medical personnel will have been vaccinated by the end of January.

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