“It will not surprise me if in the next weeks we see over 200,000 new cases a day,” he added.
The country’s seven-day average of new daily cases was 119,238 on Monday — more than three times higher than it was around mid-September, when it was at a post-summer-surge low.
That’s the country’s highest total number since July 25, and not far from the nation’s pandemic peak of 59,940 set on April 15.
And as more people are infected and more are hospitalized, more American deaths will likely be recorded daily. Last week saw five days in a row with more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths — the first time that’s happened since August.
Azar: Vaccine will be available for vulnerable people by end of December
A vaccine should be ready for most highly vulnerable Americans by the end of December, and all Americans by the end of March to early April, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday.
“We have anticipated that we will have enough vaccine by the end of December to have vaccinated our most vulnerable citizens and nursing homes and otherwise; and by the end of January enough for all health care workers and first responders; and enough for all Americans by the end of March to early April to have general vaccination programs,” Azar said.
The distribution of the company’s two-dose vaccine will be a “logistical challenge,” said Dr. John Burkhardt, Pfizer’s vice president of Global Drug Safety Research and Development, on Monday. That’s because the shot needs to be stored in extremely low temperatures, far below the capacity of standard freezers.
“There’s a whole suite of very experienced and talented people at Pfizer who are solely working on this,” he said.
US to start distributing new antibody treatment this week
The single antibody treatment, called bamlanivimab, will be provided free of charge, Azar said at a news conference.
Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful antigens like viruses. This is the first monoclonal antibody to be authorized for use in treating coronavirus.
Bamlanivimab is specifically directed against the virus’s spike protein, designed to block attachment and entry into human cells, the FDA said.
“Getting new therapeutics like this to patients has the potential to save thousands of lives and significantly reduce the disease’s burden on our health care system,” Azar said.
This treatment must be delivered by an infusion, so the government will require it to be administered in hospitals, outpatients clinics or settings where the infusion can be properly monitored, officials have said.
About 80,000 doses are available for distribution, though the US government has a contract for more, Azar said.
Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody therapy is an important first step in developing treatments that will help prevent people from being hospitalized with coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday.
The treatment is “just one of a number of things that we’re doing to look at the disease early on and prevent people from being hospitalized,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“We need more of those interventions that prevent people from going in the hospital,” Fauci said.
Hospitals at ‘brink’ of hitting capacity
As of Monday, 44 states accumulated at least 10% more Covid-19 cases in the last week than the week before that, according to Johns Hopkins data.
The rising numbers have begun taking their toll on American communities.
In Texas, the hard-hit county of El Paso has six mobile morgues and has asked for four more trailers, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said Monday. That comes as the state nears a million infections since the pandemic’s start.
In Ohio, all parts of the state are affected by an “unprecedented spike” in hospitalized patients, said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the incoming chief medical officer for the state’s health department.
“Every county in the state is feeling the brunt of rising Covid-19 hospitalizations,” Vanderhoff said. “If we don’t control the spread of the virus and our case numbers, we won’t be able to continue caring for the acutely ill without postponing important, but less urgent care.”
And among the issues that are concerning officials — not just in Ohio, but across the nation — are the strained and exhausted staff that are taking care of the surging number of patients.
“We’re exhausting the available supply of trained personnel,” Vanderhoff said. “They can’t escape the rising numbers of Covid-19 numbers in their communities.”
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said the state’s hospital capacity is shrinking and went on to declare a state of emergency and a statewide mask mandate Monday.
“They are really at the brink of not being able to take any more people … particularly in our intensive care units,” the governor said Monday, speaking on the state’s shrinking hospital capacity.
“We just don’t have rooms that have got doctors and nurses that can provide the health care.”
CNN’s Jen Christensen, Shelby Lin Erdman, Maggie Fox, Kay Jones, Lauren Mascarenhas and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.
