The entire U.S. is on high alert over coronavirus, with the White House coronavirus task force warning in its latest report that ‘the COVID risk to all Americans is at an historic high.’
‘We are in as very dangerous place,’ the task force said in the report, sent to states Tuesday, and obtained by NBC News.
The report is sent every week to U.S. states and regularly paints a much darker picture of the coronvavirus crisis in the U.S. than is presented by the public faces of President Trump’s task force. It warned that the post-Thanksgiving surge of infections and hospitalizations threatens to ‘compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall.
It comes after Dr Scott Atlas, President Trump’s divisive appointee to the task force resigned on Monday – the same night that the president hosted the first of his 20 planned lavish Christmas parties, where Trump teased a 2024 election run in front of a crowd of mostly maskless guests.
On Tuesday, U.S. recorded its highest single-day death toll since April 30 with 2,597 fatalities, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
For the fourth day in a row, the number of Americans hospitalized for COVID-19 hit a record-high on Tuesday, with 98,691 people getting inpatient treatment, data from the Covid Tracking Project show.
‘I have no doubt that we’re going to see a climbing death toll…and that’s a horrific and tragic place to be,’ Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told the AP.
‘It’s going to be a very dark couple of weeks.’
Climbing deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. underscore the urgent need to get a coronavirus vaccine approved – but Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisors aren’t scheduled to decide whether to give emergency authorization to Pfizer’s jab until next week, despite the shot getting the green light from officials in the U.K.
The White House coronavirus task force’s latest report warns that ‘the COVID threat to all Americans is at an historic high’ as it reveals that 19 US states saw more than 500 new cases for every 100,000 residents last week
The U.S. recorded 2,597 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday – the highest single-day death toll since April 30, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University
More than 180,00 new infections were reported on Tuesday, but multiple states told the Covid Tracking Project that they were reporting data from multiple days, which was delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday
More than 180,000 new infections were recorded across the country on Tuesday, with states including Kentucky, California, Delaware, Tennessee, Texas and Arizona hitting single-day highs for new cases, while Florida became the third state in the nation to hit one million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
Nursing homes in the U.S. saw more new coronavirus infections last week than they have since the spring surge, according to an American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living report released Tuesday. There were 16,257 new infections the week of November 15 alone, and more than 2,000 nursing home residents died that week.
Single-day death toll records were also set in Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin on Tuesday and hospitalizations reached record highs in Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, among others.
State officials are citing delays in reporting due to the Thanksgiving holiday as bloating the official tallies, but Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) documents obtained yesterday by CNN showed that the federal government considers almost the entire U.S. a coronavirus ‘hotspot.’
The number of Americans hospitalized for coronavirus hit an all-time high of nearly 99,000 on Tuesday, setting a record for the fourth day straight
New nursing home infections hit a record high since the spring surge the week of November 15, with more than 16,000 new cases reported in seven days
The Covid Tracking Project clarified: ‘A handful of states reported data for more than one day today, a result of data disruptions caused by the Thanksgiving holiday.
‘On the other hand, CO, NJ, TX, WA, and WY only published partial updates today.’
Nearly 37,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in November, the most in any month since the dark early days of the pandemic, engulfing families in grief, filling newspaper obituary pages and testing the capacity of morgues, funeral homes and hospitals.
Amid the resurgence, states have begun reopening field hospitals to handle an influx of patients that is pushing health care systems – and their workers – to the breaking point. Hospitals are bringing in mobile morgues. And funerals are being livestreamed or performed as drive-by affairs.
Health officials fear the crisis will be even worse in coming weeks, after many Americans ignored pleas to stay home over Thanksgiving and avoid people who don’t live with them.
November’s toll was far lower than the 60,699 recorded in April but perilously close to the next-highest total of almost 42,000 in May, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Deaths had dropped to just over 20,000 in June after states closed many businesses and ordered people to stay at home.
More than 838,000 new infections have been recorded since Thanksgiving, which former medical adviser to the White House, Dr Jonathan Reiner, told CNN could be ‘the mother of all superspreader events’ as an estimated 50 millions Americans took to the skies, roads and rails to travel for the holiday, despite warnings against gathering from the CDC and Dr Anthony Fauci.
Dr Fauci warned on Monday that the US could see ‘surge upon surge’ leading into the coming Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years. He noted in a Tuesday interview with WNBC that the virus will likely continue to spread rapidly for months to come, until between 75 and 85 percent of Americans get a coronavirus vaccine.
Kentucky reported record-high cases, hospitalizations and deaths on Tuesday
Although Florida has gotten a handle on coronavirus since it became the nation’s top hotspot in the summer, the state became the third in the nation to hit one million total infections since the pandemic began, following California and Texas
He estimated that, with that level of uptake, normalcy might return in the late summer or fall, and that the willingness of New Yorkers to get vaccinated would be particularly important.
‘Since New York has many tourists, it probably is going to be the entire country,’ he told the outlet.
But a vaccine is still at least a week away – and likely more.
Pfizer applied for emergency use authorization of its vaccine on November 20, but the FDA won’t meet to discuss whether or not to approve the request until December 10.
In a bout of mixed messaging, Operation Warp Speed head Dr Moncef Slaoui said Tuesday that the vaccine would be in Americans’ arms starting within 24 to 48 hours of emergency approval. Yet Warp Speed documents obtained by CNN said that the shots were expected to be delivered on December 15, with a four-day window for ‘review.’
Coronavirus cases are on the rise again in New York, with nearly 9,00 new infections reported yesterday and 69 deaths on Tuesday. Dr Fauci said that vaccinations among New Yorkers will affect case rates across the nation because the state sees so many travelers
California recorded more infections on Tuesday than it has since the pandemic began, despite being largely locked down
It’s unclear which the real delivery date will be, or what more FDA regulators would be reviewing after the public discussion of the shot on the tenth.
Meanwhile, the Uk has already approve the same shot, based on the same data, as of Wednesday. The country also lifted its national lockdown on Wednesday, and Brits will start getting vaccines next week.
It has left many Americans wondering why they must wait at least a week for FDA approval for US firm Pfizer’s coronavirus jab. Data on Moderna’s jab will be reviewed on December 17.
A vaccine advisory panel to the CDC met Tuesday and recommended that shots go first to health care workers and long-term care facility residents first in ‘phase 1a’ of distribution. Those recommendations will become policy after a vaccine is authorized, and with the approval of CDC director Dr Robert Redfield.
Operation Warp Speed officials have promised that the first rollout of vaccines will go simultaneously to all 50 states. Although the CDC will issue a policy on who gets vaccinated first, it will ultimately be up to states to decide who gets the vaccines first.
After considering more complicated criteria for how many doses of coronavirus a state will receive, the federal government has now decided it will dole out the shots based purely on adult population. It has already told states how many doses they are set to receive.
That means that California will receive more shots than any other state in the nation. Currently, a record 9,049 people are hospitalized for coronavirus there and yesterday the state reported 12,221 new infections. It broke its record for new cases on Monday.
Texas will receive the second highest number of vaccine doses – and it could use them. Texas reported a record 15,182 new coronavirus cases yesterday. It was the first state in the nation to hit one million total infections and also has a record 9,047 people hospitalized for COVID-19, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
California will receive the greatest number of coronavirus vaccine doses of any state. Coronavirus cases there continue to surge despite the state being under a lockdown
South Dakota had the second-highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the nation last week, according to the new White House report. Yesterday, it saw more than 1,200 new infections and a record number of new deaths, though new cases and hospitalizations have fallen this week
More than 21,000 Texans have died in the pandemic, including 170 on Tuesday.
This allocation plan could pose a problem to some less populous states, which have been hit particularly hard in recent months.
As shown by the new White House report, North Dakota saw more new infections last week than any other state in the U.S. Yesterday the state, with a population of just 760,000 saw 486 new infections and 12 deaths. That means that about one in every 800 people living in the rural state have died of coronavirus.
Neighboring South Dakota is second on the report’s list of hardest-hit locations. The state reported 1,047 new confirmed cases and 244 new probable infections on Tuesday. So far, 955 people have died there.
On a brighter note, the state saw a record number of recoveries yesterday. South Dakota still doesn’t have a mask mandate and is set to receive 7,800 doses of coronavirus vaccine.
GIVE US WHAT THE BRITS HAVE GOT: AMERICA DEMANDS PFIZER’S COVID VACCINE BE ROLLED OUT NOW AFTER UK GIVES US FIRM’S SHOT THE GREEN LIGHT
Outraged Americans are demanding to know why the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been approved in the UK but not in the US, where it was developed and funded.
On Wednesday, British health authorities said they had approved the vaccine and that it will start being rolled out to the most needy patients imminently.
But in the US, the FDA says it won’t meet to even discuss emergency authorization for either Pfizer’s vaccine or the one that has been developed by Moderna until December 10.
Even then, it will take another five days for the first doses to start being rolled out, according to a document obtained by CNN on Wednesday.
Coronavirus was likely in the US as early as December 13, a new CDC analysis antibodies to the virus in blood donated to the Red Cross revealed Tuesday
Stephen Hahn, the head of the FDA, has said that they are taking longer because they look at the raw data and determine themselves whether or not it is safe, rather than relying on the drug company’s findings.
But with COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations at an all-time high and with millions of Americans desperate to get back to work, the urgency to approve it is unprecedented.
The vaccines are also being touted by the science community as being largely safe and effective.
Scientists from Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s COVID task force, have assured the American people that the science stands up.
Pfizer says its vaccine is 95% percent and Moderna says its is 94% effective which scientists say is a higher standard than most vaccines, especially given the size of the test groups they were used in. AstraZeneca, another brand, says its vaccine is 70% effective.
President Trump has put pressure on the FDA to act swiftly to get a vaccine out.
Sources say he and other White House officials are angry that it has been approved overseas before on US soil.
‘It’s crazy to imagine the European Union or U.K. may approve a vaccine developed in the United States before us though, right?’ one source said.
Dr Hahn was summoned to the White House on Tuesday to explain why it was taking so long for vaccines to be approved but so far, there has been no public explanation for it.
The administration did not immediately respond to inquiries on Wednesday morning.
There is already concern over how many Americans will willingly take the vaccine, given the heightened politicization it was developed under.
It became a focal point of Trump’s unsuccessful re-election campaign and many are worried that it was rushed out to be used as a campaign tactic.
Others are convinced the virus and entire pandemic is a hoax that was designed by the Democrats to encourage mail-in voting, rather than in-person voting, to steal the election from Trump via fraud.
There is no tangible evidence of that.
In an interview on Wednesday morning, one of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed advisors said there was ‘great concern’ over the reluctance of so many people to get the vaccine.
‘It is a big concern there has been frankly so much politicization of the development process it created a high level of … decreased trust. No corners have been cut.