Newsman: while President Joe Biden has set a goal for every state to open vaccination to all adults who want them by April 19, the Covid-19 variant B.1.1.7, first identified in the UK, is now dominate in the United States. And most young adults are getting this variant as the numbers of cases and severe diseases are showing in hospitals. Now these variants became the most common strain of coronavirus in the United States. Five states New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have accounted for about 43% of new coronavirus cases over the last week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Those states are home to just 22% of the US population, according to estimates from the US Census Bureau. The US has averaged 774 Covid-19 deaths a day over the last week — down 22% from the average the week prior, according to Johns Hopkins data.
New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey had more than 196,400 of the country’s 453,360 cases reported in the last week, according to data available Wednesday morning. The CDC says more than 16,200 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant have been confirmed in surveillance testing in the US, and B.1.1.7 has been found in every state. This number does not represent the total number of such cases circulating in the United States, but rather only those found by analyzing samples.
The US has averaged more than 64,760 new coronavirus cases a day over the past week — slightly lower than week prior, but still about 21% higher than two weeks ago, and more than 12% higher than four weeks ago, according to Johns Hopkins.
Case rates have risen especially in Michigan lately, averaging more than 6,600 cases a day over a week now against 1,350 daily cases five weeks ago. And elected officials and health experts have said highly contagious variants such as B.1.1.7 have helped spur increases there and in other parts of the country.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday.
“Based on our most recent estimates from CDC surveillance, the B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States,” Walensky said at the White House Covid-19 response team briefing. The country’s daily rate of new coronavirus cases rose over most of the last four weeks.
As of early Wednesday, the US had more than 109.4 million people ages 18 and older with at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. That’s about 42.4% of the adults in the US and a .7 percentage point’s increase in the past day, according to CDC data. According to the latest CDC data, 19.4% of the total US population was fully vaccinated as of Wednesday morning; and 57.4% of people age 65 and older are fully vaccinated. But the US has a long way to go before reaching herd immunity. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that foregoing preventative measures while the majority of Americans are still unvaccinated is a mistake. We’ve got to continue and hang in there a bit longer by continuing with the public health measures; it is premature to declare a victory.”
Dr.Fauci has estimated 70%-85% of the population needs to become immune. And the pace for vaccinating all willing adults varies greatly among states, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.
But, while cases have been recently rising or plateauing, the number of daily Covid-19 deaths has been dropping,Dr Walensky said “I’m really encouraged about these decreased numbers of deaths that I believe to be an impact of vaccination, especially the vaccination of our elderly communities.” At Wednesday’s briefing, Walensky attributed these dropping numbers to vaccinations. But, she added, current case counts are “way too high to be thinking that we’ve won this race.”
