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(CNN) – 3,157 deaths from covid-19 were recorded in the U.S. Wednesday, an all-time high during the pandemic, as health systems struggle to bear the brunt of this deterioration.
The most recent death toll is an increase of about 20% from the previous record of 2,603, set on April 15. During the course of the pandemic, 273,799 people in the United States died from the virus and more than 13.9 million were infected, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The record comes as the United States suffers from cases of escalation and hospitalizations that resemble the devastation of spring, but which health experts warn will worsen over the winter.
The rise resulted in records one day being broken the next day. The peak in coronavirus deaths came on the same day that the number of people hospitalized exceeded 100,000, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The number of hospitalizations has steadily increased over the past month, setting records almost every day since November 10, and experts fear that health systems will soon come under pressure.
The 911 emergency call system is “at a breaking point,” the American Ambulance Association, which represents all ambulance services in the country, said in a letter Wednesday.
“Without further relief, it looks likely to rupture, even as we enter the third wave of the virus in the Midwest and West,” the letter said.
And the top official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday that things are not expected to get better for hospitals anytime soon.
“The reality is that December, January and February will be difficult. In fact, I think they will be the most difficult times in the history of public health in this nation, largely due to the stress that will be placed on our healthcare system, said Dr. Robert Redfield.
Los Angeles asks residents to ‘erase everything’
Several states in the United States are racing to reach the dizzying number of coronavirus hospitalizations.
If the coronavirus continues to spread at its current, unprecedented rate, Los Angeles will run out of hospital beds by Christmas, Mayor Eric Garcetti warned at a press conference on Wednesday. There he asked residents to “take refuge” and “erase everything” to help stop the spread of the virus.
“The public health conditions in our city are as bad as they were in March, in the early days of this pandemic,” he said. He added that the number of daily coronavirus infections in Los Angeles has tripled since the beginning of November and hospitalizations are at a new peak.
In southwestern Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly said Wednesday that there are no intensive care unit (ICU) beds available.
“While the number of cases may have decreased slightly, the pressure on our hospitals and healthcare workers has not been,” he said.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in Nevada have increased every day since November, with few exceptions, peaking on Wednesday with 1,652 people hospitalized, according to the state council.
100 million people could be vaccinated by February
There may still be some avenues to go before the general public has access to a coronavirus vaccine, but developments are moving rapidly.
By February, 100 million Americans could be vaccinated against the coronavirus, Moncef Slaoui, senior adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said Wednesday.
“All the investments we have made to expand and start vaccine production allow us to be confident that we will be able to distribute 20 million vaccines, enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the United States in December,” Slaoui said in a statement. Press conference.
The United States said that if both Pfizer and Moderna obtain emergency use clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December, they could distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the month. Each vaccine requires two doses, which makes it enough to fully vaccinate 20 million people.
Slaoui said he expected another 60 million vaccinations by the end of January.
An FDA panel is expected to meet to decide whether to authorize candidate vaccines Pfizer and Moderna on December 10 and 17, respectively.
Assuming the vaccines are licensed, the first shipments could take place on December 15 and 22, respectively, according to a document from the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed.
A CDC panel of experts recommended Tuesday that health and long-term care workers be vaccinated first.
Dr Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Group, said Wednesday that the technology could help increase vaccine production enough to cover the world’s population.
“I think you can really, in a couple of years, produce enough vaccines for 7 billion people,” he said. “There’s no reason to think this can’t happen.”
Covid vaccine studies for children scheduled for 2021
Although vaccines are on the way, they have only been studied in adults and children over the age of 12.
Trials for younger children could begin early next year, Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Wednesday. “We absolutely have to get there,” Collins told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“We would like, soon after the first part of the year, to find out if it works for younger children as well, because we know they can be infected and can spread,” he said.
“So this is the next level of testing that will need to be done in a … vaccine trial to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective in that group,” he said.
“We think it will be, but we want to be sure,” Collins said.
As of November 19, according to the latest available data, nearly 1.2 million children have tested positive for covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. And in just two weeks, between November 5 and November 19, the number of childhood cases increased by 28 percent, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Children’s Hospitals.
Children now account for nearly 12% of all covid-19 cases in the country.
Steve Almasy, Jason Hanna, Shelby Lin Erdman, Raja Razek, Maggie Fox, Andrea Diaz, Jamie Gumbrecht, Jennifer Henderson, Rebekah Riess and Lauren Mascarenhas de CNN contributed to the shapeless esteem.
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