While New York and New Jersey were the first virus hotspots, California, Florida, Arizona and Texas have now become the states to watch, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor. .
Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, called Covid-19 a “pandemic of historical proportions.”
“I think we cannot deny that fact,” he said during a Georgetown University Global Health Initiative webinar. Fauci compared the current crisis to the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide and around 675,000 in the United States. “That was the mother of all pandemics and truly historic. I hope we don’t even address that with this, but it has a chance to … approach it seriously.”
As new cases emerge, at least 27 states have paused or reversed plans to reopen their economies. Among them is Nevada, where 37 bars filed a lawsuit to fight Governor Steve Sisolak’s order to return to Phase 1 of the state’s reopening plan.
But Fauci cautioned that relaxed restrictions in California, Florida, Arizona and Texas are partly to blame for the increase in cases in those states, particularly among young people.
Addressing the escalation in case numbers overall and among youth, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday that the nation is in one place. much better than in the spring, because the mortality rate is lower, but he said “we are not out of danger because of this.”
“While we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go in terms of getting this under control,” Redfield said during a webinar with the Buck Institute.
Expect a successful vaccine
According to experts, a determining factor in how long the US will have to live with a coronavirus pandemic is how quickly researchers can produce a vaccine.
Without one, Redfield said, “we are going to have to go through two or three years of fighting this virus.”
But Redfield also said he “has never seen the government move faster” and hopes the nation will have a successful vaccine by January.
However, the creation of the vaccine is not the end of the virus. Then it should be distributed to enough people, along with virus survivors, to establish collective immunity.
Companies developing vaccines have said they will be able to make up to a billion doses, Fauci said Tuesday. He hopes those vaccines can be developed and distributed within the next year to a year and a half, he said.
“I feel much better when receiving a vaccine that is distributed not only within our country, but also in order to have doses for people around the world, who cannot pay, nor are they in a situation where it is very easy for them get vaccinated, “Fauci said.
The predictions of fatalities increase by the increase
Before that happens, thousands more Americans will die from the virus, according to an influential model.
The University of Washington Institute for Health Measurement and Assessment model now projects that 224,000 people will die from the virus by Nov. 1, representing an increase of nearly 16,000 from the previous week.
That jump is due to the shooting cases across the country, particularly in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, said IHME President Dr. Chris Murray, CNN’s Don Lemon Tuesday
Some of those states established coronavirus registries on Tuesday.
Texas reported a record daily number of new cases Tuesday with more than 10,745. Mississippi has its highest number of coronavirus hospitalizations since the first case was reported, Governor Tate Reeves said. California also established records with 6,745 hospitalizations and 1,886 ICU admissions, according to data from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
The virus is so widespread that labs collect more samples of coronaviruses than they can process, the American Association of Clinical Laboratories said Tuesday.
Discussion continues as back-to-school dates get closer
In California, some of Orange County’s largest school districts said they will not follow the controversial recommendations of the county Board of Education to return students and teachers to the classroom this fall without the use of face masks or social distancing.
Many are still discussing their alternatives, but Anaheim and Santa Anita Unified School Districts said their school years will begin with distance learning.
“During these difficult times, the safety of our school community remains our top priority. While at some point we expect our students to attend our schools along with their peers and teachers, now is not the time,” said the Unified School of Santa Ana. District Superintendent Jerry Almendarez.
President Donald Trump, who has threatened funding for non-returning schools on campus in the fall, said Tuesday in an interview with CBS News that it would be a “terrible decision” for schools not to return and that people are playing. to politics. with the problem
CNN’s Sarah Moon, Amanda Watts, Joe Sutton, Jason Hoffman, Jennifer Henderson, Molly Silverman, Raja Razek, and Jenn Selva contributed to this report.
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