So far this week, all 50 U.S. states have seen a decline in newly confirmed cases of neocoronavirus (CCLV) for the first time since the outbreak last February, with no deaths reported in 15 of those states. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attributed the progress to the effectiveness of vaccination
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky SUSAN WALSH POOL/AFP/File
CNN and other media outlets reported that 392 deaths from the disease were reported in the United States on the 17th, bringing the seven-day daily average to below 550, the first time since March of last year that the number of deaths fell below 600. The 15 states with no reported deaths are: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky attributed the decline in cases to vaccination; more than one-third of the nation’s population is now fully vaccinated and more than 60 percent of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the report. President Joe Biden hopes that by the Fourth of July, 70 percent of adults will have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Varensky said she is cautiously optimistic about the outlook for U.S. vaccination; however, former CDC director Tom Frieden warned that “the global epidemic will not end until the U.S. epidemic ends.”
According to Marcella Nunez-Smith, senior advisor to the White House’s vaccination team, more people of color have been vaccinated in the past two weeks, and 51 percent of those vaccinated are people of color. But vaccinations in rural areas are lagging behind those in cities, potentially slowing down the end of the outbreak. As of April, only about 39 percent of rural residents had been vaccinated, compared with 46 percent in metropolitan areas.
In the week since the Pfizer vaccine was approved for children ages 12-15, more than 600,000 children in that age group have been vaccinated, according to CDC figures. About 17 million children ages 12-15 across the United States are eligible for the Pfizer vaccine, but only half of parents want their children vaccinated, and only 30 percent want their children vaccinated as soon as possible.
Experts expect that about 20 to 25 percent of the U.S. population will not be vaccinated.
The Washington Post also reports that restaurant traffic has returned across the U.S. after the new crown epidemic subsided: restaurant reservations across the U.S. increased 230 times in April 2021 compared to April 2020, when the vast majority of people had already begun to stay home to avoid the epidemic. OpenTable, a restaurant reservation service, showed that U.S. restaurant performance even jumped ahead of the outbreak, with a 46% increase in restaurant reservations in April compared to April 2019.
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