Amid growing fears of a fourth wave of US Covid-19 cases, government officials urged Americans to continue taking precautions to prevent the virus from spreading.
During a press conference on Monday, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky said she felt an “impending doom” and urged the Americans to “hold out just a little longer”. Later that day, President Joe Biden said the “war on Covid-19 is far from over”. He condemned behaviors that could likely spread infection and said some states should suspend their reopening plans.
At the same time, a new CDC study of vaccinated health care workers showed that one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was 80% effective in preventing coronavirus infections and 90% two weeks after the second dose. The pace of daily vaccinations is close to 3 million shots per day.
US Covid cases
About 66,000 new Covid cases are reported daily in the U.S. based on a 7-day average of Johns Hopkins University data that has ticked up. That number is well below January’s peak of around 250,000 daily cases, but is more in line with the summer increase when daily cases hit close to 70,000 in late July.
Cases are increasing by 5% or more in more than half of the US states based on the change in the 7-day average of daily cases from a week ago.
US Covid deaths
According to Hopkins data, the US reports a weekly average of 990 Covid deaths per day. In total, more than 550,000 US coronavirus deaths have been reported.
US vaccine shots administered
Almost 2.4 million vaccine shots were administered on Monday, bringing the seven-day average of daily vaccinations to a record 2.8 million.
Biden said Monday that 90% of adults in the US will be eligible for Covid shots by April 19.
“For the vast majority of adults, you don’t have to wait until May 1st. You can be eligible for your shot on April 19th,” said Biden
US percentage of the vaccinated population
CDC data shows that 95 million people, nearly 30% of the US population, received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. About 53 million are fully vaccinated with two shots of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of Johnson & Johnson.
About half of those over 65 are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.
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