The waiting area at a vaccination site at the Minneapolis convention center in Minnesota on 4 November. (Photo via The Guardian)
Covid-19 infections are rising in the United States again, and could soon hit a weekly average of 100,000 cases a day, a report says.
Daily case reports increase over 20% across the upper Midwest, with Michigan and Minnesota, the states first to experience the onset of winter, leading the country "by a significant margin in recent cases per capita," according to analysis by the New York Times.
The fresh worsening of the coronavirus pandemic in the US is happening as the holiday season is approaching and cold weather is driving more people to meet indoors.
The combination of Thanksgiving, Christmas and falling temperatures makes this time of year "the perfect storm" for Covid, Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious disease at Northwell Health in New York, told CNBC.
"I wouldnt allow anybody to go to Thanksgiving whos not vaccinated," Farber said. "I think that should be the price you pay."
On Thursday, the country reported a seven-day average of almost 95,000 new Covid infections, up 31% over the past two weeks, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.
Meanwhile, medical authorities are struggling to get adult vaccination rates above 60% nationwide.
However, even those states with high rates of early vaccination take-up, including New Mexico, New Hampshire and Vermont, are reporting elevated Covid case levels, suggesting that the efficacy of vaccines may be diminishing in terms of infection.
Individuals vaccinated in the earliest stages of the rollout are prone to breakthrough infections, according to Dr. Reynold Panettieri, vice chancellor for translational medicine and science at Rutgers University.
"I would anticipate that we will see an uptick in and around the holidays, just because people are going to be getting together with more exposures," Panettieri said.
Meanwhile, the number of 2021 Covid-19 deaths in the US surpassed the 2020 total, according to the latest available data from Johns Hopkins University.
The country has recorded at least 770,691 deaths over the full course of the pandemic, 385,343 and 385,348 in 2020 and 2021 respectively, show data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This is despite the fact that nearly 69 percent of the US population are at least partially vaccinated and 59 percent are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/24025
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