Covid-19 nowhere near control in US, says Fauci

The US recently surpassed 40 million Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with more than 4 million of these cases reported in the past few weeks, reports Asian Lite News

Expressing concerns over the rising Covid-19 cases, White House Chief medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said deadly pandemic is nowhere near “under control” in the US.

Fauci reiterated that the only way out of this pandemic is vaccination. “Right now, we’re still in pandemic mode, because we have 1,60,000 new infections a day. That’s not even modestly good control,” Fauci was quoted as saying by The Hill.

“In a country of our size, you can’t be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You’ve got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable,” he said during his interview with AXIOS.

The daily average number of new coronavirus cases in the US as of September 9, fell slightly below 1,48,000, which is a 5 per cent decrease over a 14-day period.

Nationwide hospitalisations have also increased by 1 per cent over the same period, bringing the average total to more than 100,000 per day, The Hill reported.

Earlier this month, the US has planned to provide boosters shots of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 after the Delta variant wreaked havoc in the country.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention had also again cautioned Americans, asking them to mask up when they enter a building, even if they are vaccinated.

The United States recently surpassed 40 million Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with more than 4 million of these cases reported in the past few weeks. Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have generally increased throughout most of the country since the beginning of summer, fueled by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. Low vaccination coverage in many communities is driving these increases, as per the reports of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A total of 40,523,954 Covid-19 cases have been reported as of September 8, 2021.

The country reported 1,36,558 cases in the last seven days. The current 7-day moving average is 99.3 per cent higher than the value observed approximately one year ago (68,527 new cases on July 20, 2020).

The current 7-day moving average is 46.2 per cent lower than the peak observed on January 10, 2021 (254,016) and is 1,076.0 per cent higher than the lowest value observed on June 18, 2021 (11,613).

16,000 unreported nursing home deaths

Nearly 16,000 Covid-19 nursing home deaths were unreported during the early months of the pandemic, a report led by Harvard researcher Karen Shen has revealed.

The report, published in the JAMA Network Open, found the missing numbers take up 14 per cent of all nursing home deaths in 2020, reports Xinhua news agency.

By studying data across 20 states, the report found that 44 per cent of all Covid-19 cases and 40 per cent of deaths in nursing homes counted by states health departments were unaccounted for in the federal data.

“This may demonstrate a widespread inability of nursing homes to reliably collect data early in the pandemic or that pressures to report fewer cases and deaths were common to all facilities,” the researchers wrote.

The US is witnessing a Covid-19 resurgence fuelled by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

As of Sunday morning, the total number of confirmed cases in the country increased to 40,920,922, while the death toll stood at 659,691, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s latest data.

The two tallies are the highest in the world, making the US the worst hit country.

ALSO READ: True number of US Covid-19 cases likely over 100 mn by 2020-end

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