The U.S. marked another grim milestone in the global coronavirus pandemic, as the nation surpassed 13 million confirmed COVID cases.
As of 5::15 p.m. Friday, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine had recorded more than 13,047,202 cases of the virus in the U.S., by far the most cases of any nation in the world. The U.S. also continues leading the world in the number of COVID-related deaths, with more than 264,000.
Globally, Johns Hopkins has recorded more than 61 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.
On Thursday evening, President Donald Trump said vaccine distributions to front-line workers, medical personnel and senior citizens will begin next week.
The announcement came during a special Thanksgiving holiday message to U.S. troops overseas via teleconference, according to Fox News. Trump noted that front-line workers, medical personnel and senior citizens would be the vaccine’s first recipients.
On Dec. 10, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration will review Pfizer’s request for an emergency use of of its vaccine. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have applied for emergency authorization of their coronavirus vaccine, a signal that a powerful tool to help control the pandemic could begin to be available by late December.
Before any vaccine is permitted in the U.S., it must be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, which requires study in thousands of people. Normally, the process to approve a new vaccine can take about a decade. But the federal government is using various methods to dramatically speed up the process for COVID-19 vaccines.
The coronavirus testing numbers that have guided much of the nation’s response to the pandemic are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, experts said Friday, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and testing sites observe shorter hours.
The result could be potential dips in reported infections that offer the illusion that the spread of the virus is easing when, in fact, the numbers say little about where the nation stands in fighting COVID-19.
“I just hope that people don’t misinterpret the numbers and think that there wasn’t a major surge as a result of Thanksgiving, and then end up making Christmas and Hanukkah and other travel plans,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University and an emergency physician.
A similar pattern unfolds on many weekends. Because some testing centers, labs and state offices are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, COVID case numbers often drop each Sunday and Monday, only to peak on Tuesday.
Johns Hopkins University reported a high of more than 2 million tests a few days before Thanksgiving as people prepared to travel, but that number had dropped to less than 1.2 million tests reported on Thanksgiving Day. The latter number, as well as positive case numbers, which had dropped by about a third Friday, could be adjusted as more results are returned.
In several states and cities, health officials said they anecdotally saw people getting tested before deciding to travel or gather for Thanksgiving meals. They warned that the tests are often a snapshot, not a complete assurance that someone has not been exposed to the virus.
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