U.S. virus numbers drop, but race against new strains heats up
Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks but are still running at alarmingly high levels, and the effort to snuff out COVID-19 is becoming an ever more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus.
The government’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the improvement in numbers around the country appears to reflect a “natural peaking and then plateauing” after a holiday surge, rather than the arrival of the vaccine in mid-December.
Deaths are running at an average of just under 3,100 a day, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago. New cases are averaging about 170,000 a day after peaking at almost 250,000 on Jan. 11. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen to about 110,000 from a high of 132,000 on Jan. 7.
States that have been hot spots in recent weeks such as California and
Arizona have shown similar improvements during the same period.
On Monday, California lifted regional stay-at-home orders in favor of county-by-county restrictions and ended a 10 p.m. curfew. The shift will allow restaurants and churches to resume outdoor operations and hair and nail salons to reopen in many places, though local officials could maintain stricter rules.
Elsewhere, Minnesota school districts have begun bringing elementary students back for in-person learning. Chicago’s school system, the nation’s third-largest district, had hoped to bring teachers back Monday to prepare for students to return next month, but the teachers union has refused.
“I don’t think the dynamics of what we’re seeing now with the plateauing is significantly influenced yet — it will be soon — but yet by the vaccine. I just think it’s the natural course of plateauing,” Fauci told NBC’s “Today.”
Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington, said that a predicted holiday surge was reduced by people traveling less than expected, and an increase in mask wearing in response to spikes in infections has since helped bring the numbers down.
He said the seasonal turn toward warmer weather, coupled with the vaccines, could help maintain the positive trend. But he warned that there is a risk in prematurely celebrating progress and relaxing social distancing and mask wearing.
“We’ve done that, unfortunately, last summer,” he added.
Nationwide, about 18 million people, or less than 6% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of vaccine, including about 3 million who have gotten the second shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only slightly more than half of the 41 million doses distributed to the states by the federal government have been injected into arms, by the CDC’s count.
The virus has killed over 419,000 Americans and infected more than 25 million, with a widely cited University of Washington model projecting the death toll will reach about 569,000 by May 1.
And health experts have warned that the more contagious and possibly more deadly variant sweeping through Britain will probably become the dominant source of infection in the U.S. by March. It has been reported in over 20 states so far.