Confirmed US virus cases top 20M
Grim milestone hit as variant is found in Florida man
BALTIMORE — The U.S. continued to surpass other countries i n COVID -19 cases, reaching 20 million Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The grim milestone came as health officials say they’ve found evidence in a Florida man of the latest U.S. case of the new and apparently more contagious coronavirus strain first seen in England.
The number of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases is nearly twice as many as the No. 2 country, India, which has 10 million cases, and almost one-quarter of the nearly 84 million cases globally.
COVID-19 deaths in the United States total more than 347,000.
India and Brazil trail behind the U.S. in coronavirus cases at over 10.2 million and 7.6 million, respectively.
Florida health authorities reported late Thursday finding evidence of the latest U.S. case of the new and apparently more contagious coronavirus strain first seen in England, saying it was detected in a man with no recent travel history.
The case, disclosed in a Florida Health Department statement tweeted on its HealthyFla site, comes after reports in recent days of multiple individual cases of the United Kingdom strain of COVID-19 discovered in Colorado and California.
Florida’s health statement said the new virus variant was detected in a man in his
20s in Martin County. It said its experts were working with the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on investigating the case.
The health department did not give further details, such as releasing the man’s medical condition or how the strain was detected.
On Wednesday, California became the second state to confirm a case of the new strain. The announcement came 24 hours after word of the first reported U.S. variant infection, which emerged in a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak.
Scientists in the U. K. believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. The cases have triggered questions
about how the version circulating in England arrived in the U.S. and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the United States.
The increase in cases and alarm about the variant virus come as the race to vaccinate millions of Americans has come off to a slower and messier start.
As state and local governments struggle with the l ogistics of vaccinating residents for COVID-19, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, blasted the federal government’s vaccine rollout plan Friday.
Romney rang in the New Year with the broadside against President Donald Trump, which he posted Friday morning on his Senate webpage.
“That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,” Romney wrote. “I know that when something isn’t working, you need to acknowledge reality and develop a plan — particularly when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake.”
The rollout — dubbed Operation Warp Speed — has been plagued by delays and logistical problems ever since the federal government began distributing vaccine doses last month.
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to vaccinate 1 million New Yorkers by the end of January, but said doing so would be contingent on assistance from the feds, as well as vaccine manufacturers and the state government.
Other parts of the country face their own challenges. Many of the vaccine doses delivered to Florida still have not been used. And in California, low staffing levels threaten to slow the vaccine’s rollout there.
Romney offered several policy proscriptions t o speed vaccine distribution Friday. One would be to “enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care.”
“This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,” he wrote. “Congress has al ready appropriated funding for states so that these professionals can be fully compensated.”
Romney said vaccinations should be scheduled by one’s birthday and vaccine priority status and that the feds should create a framework for establishing vaccination sites in schools.
“The current program is woefully behind despite the fact that it encompasses the two easiest populations to vaccinate: frontline workers and long-term care residents,” he added.
President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration this week for the pace of distributing COVID19 vaccines and vowed to ramp up the current speed of vaccinations. However, Biden acknowledged that it “will still take months to have the majority of Americans vaccinated.”
Meanwhile, an Oregon health care worker has been hospitalized after having a severe allergic reaction to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
The Oregon Health Authority says the employee at W allow a Memorial Hospital experienced anaphylaxis after receiving a first dose of the vaccine this week.
The health authority said vaccines for COVID-19 can cause mild to moderate side effects in some people. This can include pain and swelling on the arm and sometimes fever, chills, tiredness and headache. In rare cases, some people have experienced severe allergic reactions.
Health officials will continue to track adverse reactions.