Medical personnel transfer an infected victim to a refrigerated bus used as a temporary morgue at Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City, April 9, 2020.
On Tuesday (12), the number of deaths in the United States due to infection with the Chinese Communist virus (Neocoronavirus) hit a single-day high. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has made changes in vaccine policy, expanding the distribution of vaccines.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. reported 4,327 new deaths on Tuesday, a one-day high. This distressing figure brings the total number of deaths in the United States from the epidemic to more than 380,820.
In addition, 215,805 new confirmed cases were reported on Tuesday.
The record high single-day death toll comes as U.S. vaccination policy is changing, shifting toward distributing more vaccines to a wider range of people to speed up the process. On Tuesday, the Trump administration recommended that states expand their distribution programs to include people 65 and older and those at high risk of infection. The Trump administration said states should avoid holding back a second dose of the vaccine for people who have already received the first dose, because the vaccine should be in sufficient supply when needed.
U.S. health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar said the policy change was made when the administration was confident in the production and yield of the vaccine. Hours later, Anthony Fauci, a leading U.S. infectious disease expert, told the Futures Forum on Preparedness that the U.S. was “too rigid” when the vaccine was first introduced. “.
Fauci said the overemphasis on categorizing and prioritizing people has prevented the U.S. from getting vaccines into the hands of the public in the most effective way. He said that while the U.S. does not plan to abandon the prioritization strategy, he expects the efficiency of mass vaccinations to increase in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, officials are calling on the public to continue to comply with public health measures. More states have reported confirmed cases of the British variant of the virus. The variant is said to be more contagious than the original virus found at the beginning of the pandemic, but not more deadly.
The U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the German biotech company BioNTech, and leading experts have expressed confidence in the ability of the currently approved vaccine to fight the new variant. The CEO of Gilead Sciences, maker of Remdesivir, said the antiviral should also remain effective.
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