Daily numbers in U.S. dropping, but race against strains heats up.
Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. have 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 a more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, 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-bycounty 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, 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 a predicted holiday surge was reduced by people traveling less than expected and that an increase in mask wearing in response to spikes in infections has since helped bring the numbers down. But he warned that there is a risk in prematurely celebrating progress and relaxing social distancing and mask wearing.
Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said too few people have been vaccinated so far for that to have had a significant effect on virus trends. She said she can’t predict how long it will take for the vaccines’ effects to be reflected in the numbers.
Rivers said she is concerned that the more contagious variants of the virus could lead to a deadly resurgence this year.
Nationwide, about 18 million people, or less than 6 percent 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.
Health experts have warned that the more contagious and possibly more deadly variant of the virus 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. Another mutant version is circulating in South Africa.
The more the virus spreads, the more opportunities it has to mutate. The fear is that it will ultimately render the vaccines ineffective.