The U.S. set another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, when more than 4,400 COVID-19 patients died, the most in a single day since the start of the outbreak, and experts said that with cases continuing to accelerate, the worst is still to come.
The U.S. counted at least 4,402 deaths on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, and at least 229,603 new cases. The U.S. has averaged 249,945 cases a day in the past week, up 37% from the average two weeks ago.
Experts are concerned that new variants of the virus that have been detected in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, are contributing to the surge, as they are estimated to be up to 70% more infectious than the original virus. While scientists say much more needs to be learned about the new variants, it may mean that certain activities, like taking a flight, may be riskier now than they were even weeks ago, the New York Times reported.
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“We’ve squandered every opportunity to contain this virus. This current administration left us with only a single arrow, and this time we cannot fail. It has to be our national priority.”
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“This uncertainty in understanding the variant’s exact mechanisms means that we don’t know if our existing tools—masks, distancing, and disinfecting—are as effective as they were compared with an identical scenario with the regular variant,” Zeynep Tufecki, associated professor at the University of North Carolina, wrote in The Atlantic.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, said the key issue now is to speed up the pace of vaccination, which has so far lagged all targets. Hotez warned failure to do so would mean that by mid to late spring, the number of U.S. deaths could reach 640,000 and match those lives lost in the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracker is showing just 9 million Americans have been vaccinated so far, far below the goal of 20 million by end-December. About 27.7 million doses have been distributed. The tracker, which has not updated regularly since it was first launched, has carried the wrong date of Dec. 20 since Tuesday.
See also:Europe struggles to defend itself against new COVID variants
Also:Flying to the U.S.? Bring proof of a negative COVID-19 test, says CDC
”We have no other choice,” Hotez wrote in a Twitter thread. “We’ve squandered every opportunity to contain this virus. This current administration left us with only a single arrow, and this time we cannot fail. It has to be our national priority.”
Trump has failed to create a national plan for the vaccine program and has left it to states to administer, meaning that stressed state health departments, which have already had to deal with testing, contact tracing, public information campaigns and deciding when or whether schools or businesses should be open or closed, are now tasked with handling the biggest public health effort in decades.
Tom Frieden, former head of the CDC, urged Americans not to become inured to the numbers.
In other news:
• U.S. and European pharmaceutical industry organizations on Wednesday urged governments not to extend the delays prescribed by COVID-19 vaccine developers between the first and second shot, as the U.K. has begun to do to deal with current bottlenecks or shortages, MarketWatch’s Pierre Briançon reported. Governments and national health authorities should “stick to the dosing that has been assessed in clinical trials,” said the European Federation of Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers and Associations, the U.S. Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Pharmaceuticals Research and Manufacturers of America, in a joint release. Any change in dosing or schedule “should follow the science and be based on transparent deliberation of available data,” they added.
• Indonesia is taking a different approach to vaccination than other countries, and plans to give priority to working-age adults over older members of society when its vaccine program starts on Wednesday, MarketWatch’s Callum Keown reported. The Southeast Asian country’s food and drug authority BPOM authorized the emergency use of Beijing-based Sinovac’s vaccine on Monday, and 3 million doses have been distributed to health centers across the country. Health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has previously said the country needs to vaccinate 181.5 million people, 67% of the population, to reach herd immunity. The government has said 1.3 million front-line health workers will be given priority and then regional governors — again to boost public confidence — followed by the wider population. Initially targeting 18-59 year-olds is a markedly different strategy to that of the U.S., the U.K. and much of Europe, where the most at risk are at the front of the queue.
• Federal officials have been told that Johnson & Johnson’s
JNJ,
vaccine production has fallen as much as two months behind the original production schedule and won’t catch up until the end of April, the New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the situation. The report quoted the lead manufacturing adviser for Operation Warp Speed that the company might be able to catch up with initial production goals by March. Johnson & Johnson may release results from its COVID-19 vaccine, which is unique in that it only requires a single dose, the report adds.
• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.
REGN,
said the U.S. government has agreed to buy an additional 1.25 million doses of the company’s COVID-19 antibody cocktail, MarketWatch’s Claudia Assis reported. That would bring the U.S. supply of the cocktail, consisting of casirivimab and imdevimab antibodies, to more than 1.5 million doses. Under the new agreement, the government will purchase all finished doses of the cocktail delivered by June 30. Regeneron is already supplying doses to treat approximately 300,000 people, with Trump receiving the treatment when he fell ill with COVID-19 last year.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed officials to launch a mass coronavirus vaccination program by next week, the Guardian reported. Russia was the first country to register a vaccine in the summer, which came before Phase 3 trials had been completed, alarming some experts. Putin told a televised government meeting that the Russian vaccine was “best in the world.”
See:These COVID-19 tax relief measures just got extended
Latest tallies
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide climbed above 91,7 million on Wednesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose above 1.96 million. About 51 million people have recovered from COVID-19.
The U.S. continues to lead the world by cases, at 22.9 million, and deaths, at 380,825, or about a fifth of the global totals. The U.S. has more than double the country with the next biggest case load, India, which has 10.5 million cases and is third in deaths at 151,529.
Brazil has the second highest death toll at 204,690 and is third by cases at 8.2 million.
Mexico has the fourth highest death toll at 135,682 and 13th highest case tally at 1.6 million.
The U.K. has 3.2 million cases and 83,342 deaths, the highest in Europe and fifth highest in the world.
China, where the virus was first discovered late last year, has had 97,163 confirmed cases and 4,795 deaths, according to its official numbers.
What’s the economy saying?
Prices of consumer goods and services — the cost of living — rose in December at the fastest clip since last summer as Americans paid more to fill up their gas tanks, MarketWatch’s Jeffry Bartash reported.
The consumer price index advanced 0.4% last month, the government said Wednesday, marking the largest gain since August.
Economists polled by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, sister publications of MarketWatch, had forecast a 0.4% gain.
Read:The U.S. lost 140,000 jobs in December
Yet the pace of inflation over the past year was still quite low at 1.4%. The yearly rate increased from 1.2% in the prior month.
Before the pandemic began last spring, consumer inflation was running at a much higher 2.3% pace.
” Although rising energy and food costs have pressured headline inflation moderately higher, the underlying trend remains stable,” said senior economist Sal Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets.
The Federal Reserve will release its Beige Book report on the economy at 2 p.m. ET.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
and the S&P 500
SPX,
were both down 0.1%.
