Las Vegas Review-Journal

■ Although the national COVID-19 vaccinatio­n drive started slowly, it has begun to gain steam.

Inoculatio­n numbers pick up; Trump says virus toll inflated

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The U.S. ramped up COVID-19 vaccinatio­ns in the past few days after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of shots dispensed to about 4 million, government health officials said Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, also said on ABC’S “This Week” that President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office is achievable.

And he rejected President Donald Trump’s false claim on Twitter that the number of coronaviru­s deaths and cases in the U.S. have been greatly exaggerate­d.

“All you need to do … is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths,” Fauci said on NBC’S “Meet the Press.”

The U.S. death toll has climbed past 350,000, the 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 record numbers of cases over the past few days, and funeral homes in Southern California are being inundated with bodies.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pandemic is getting worse in his city as the virus spreads rapidly within households and people let their guard down.

Experts believe that the real numbers of U.S. deaths and infections are much higher and that many cases were overlooked, in part because of insufficie­nt testing.

Fauci said he has seen “some little glimmer of hope” after 1.5 million doses were administer­ed in the previous 72 hours, or an average of about 500,000 per day, a marked increase in vaccinatio­ns. He said that brings the total to about 4 million.

He acknowledg­ed that the U.S. had fallen short of its goal of having 20 million doses shipped and distribute­d by the end of December.

But he expressed optimism that the momentum will pick up by mid-january and that ultimately the U.S. will be vaccinatin­g 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, the chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine developmen­t and distributi­on effort, told CBS that 17.5 million doses have been shipped. About 13 million of those have been distribute­d to clinics, hospitals and other places where they will be administer­ed, according to Fauci.

The 20 million-dose goal hasn’t been reached because local health department­s and medical facilities had to stay focused on testing to handle a surge in cases, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said. And the holiday season meant health workers were taking time off, he said.

“I don’t want anyone to think

I’m being Pollyannis­h here. There’s what we delivered, and we hope that those will be translated into vaccinatio­ns. That has not occurred to the way that we would like,” Adams said on CNN’S “State of the Union.”

 ??  ?? Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci

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