The U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) is considering the possibility of reducing the number of days of self-isolation for people who may have been exposed to COVID-19 disease.
Current guidelines recommend that people self-quarantine themselves for 14 days under such circumstances. However, an official said Tuesday that people who test negative during the quarantine period would be able to shorten the number of days, but the actual number of days has not yet been confirmed.
The U.S. government is also planning to rapidly distribute the first round of coronavirus vaccine, and will begin distributing it if it receives regulatory approval.
General Gustave Perna, the federal government’s chief operating officer for Operation Warp, told reporters Tuesday that 40 million doses of the vaccine, produced by two manufacturers, will be available by the end of December.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will decide on Dec. 10 whether to give emergency approval to Pfizer’s vaccine. In the meantime, Moderna is also expected to apply for approval in the near future. Both companies have recently released preliminary trial results showing that their vaccines are effective.
The U.S. government last week notified states and territories how many doses of vaccine they will distribute in the initial distribution of the vaccine and issued further recommendations on prioritization plans for vaccine recipients. Health care workers are expected to be the first round of vaccine recipients. By next April, everyone in the United States will be able to receive the vaccine, officials said.
The U.S. ranks first in the world in total number of confirmed cases, and infection rates have spiked in the past month. In the past week, an average of more than 170,000 new infections and 1,500 deaths were reported daily. The number of hospitalized patients is setting new records.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and officials in many states are urging people not to travel or gather in large family groups for the Thanksgiving holiday, which begins Thursday, because it could make the spike in infections more serious.
Neighboring Canada celebrated its Thanksgiving holiday in early October, and the number of daily infections has doubled since then.
The Canadian province of Alberta announced Tuesday a ban on social gatherings, limits on the number of people allowed in retail stores, and school closures for certain students.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said, “These are really strict measures, but they are very necessary,” he said. He added that social gatherings are the biggest transmitters of the new coronavirus. “These measures are needed to prevent our health care system from being overwhelmed by the weight of the disease.”
In Japan, the government downgraded an event intended to increase tourism, which began after a spike in cases. Yasutoshi Nishimura, the special minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy at the Cabinet Office, said travel to Sapporo and Osaka would be temporarily canceled.
Nishimura told reporters, “Although we are trying to balance economic revitalization and virus containment, we have made this decision at the request of local governments.”
Some European countries are planning to ease restrictions ahead of next month’s Christmas holiday. French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday that some stores could reopen starting Sunday, and that a nationwide home order put in place to stem another wave of infections would be lifted Dec. 15.
We will be able to travel without authorization, including between regions, and spend Christmas with our families,” Macron said.
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