COVID-19 Hospitalizations In US Declining In Most States

COVID-19 Hospitalizations in the U.S. declined in almost every state over the past week, COVID Tracking Project said on Thursday. Only New York saw an increase in hospitalized patients, the U.S. collaborative volunteer-run effort to track the pandemic said on Twitter.

After 16 weeks of increases, weekly hospitalizations are down 4 percent.

The country’s COVID hospitalization numbers are continuing to fall on a daily basis. It is down from a January 6 peak of 132,474 to 119927 on Thursday. Out of this, 22,304 patients are admitted in Intensive Care Units.

With 3955 additional deaths reporting in the last 24 hours, the total U.S. death toll from the pandemic rose to 410,105, according to the latest data by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 189,000 new cases were reported across the country in the same period.

This week, California surpassed 3 million COVID-19 cases, which means 1 in 13 Californians has tested positive since the start of the pandemic.

The test positivity rate fell further. Out of nearly 1.80 million people who were tested for coronavirus on Thursday, 9.61 percent were diagnosed with the disease.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that if up to 85 percent of adults in the United States are vaccinated by the end of summer, the country can begin a return to normalcy by fall.

Dr.Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, made this observation during a White House media briefing Thursday.

“If we get 70 to 85 percent of the country vaccinated — let’s say by the end of the summer, middle of the summer — I believe by the time we get to the fall, we will be approaching a degree of normality,” he told reporters. “It’s not going to be perfectly normal, but one that I think will take a lot of pressure off the American public,” he added.

To a question if the Biden administration is trying to increase production by Moderna and Pfizer in the next six weeks, he answered positively.

“Yeah, as well as to utilize what we hope will be another player in the field: the J&J, Janssen, as well as other of the companies,” he told reporters.

The country’s top infectious disease expert said the new UK strain of the virus has spread to 20 states in the United States.

Earlier in the day, President released a national COVID-19 strategy and signed 10 executive orders and other directives to move quickly to contain the crisis.

Johnson & Johnson board member Dr.Mark McClellan told MSNBC Thursday that the pharmaceutical giant plans to have vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring.

Britain’s Environment Secretary George Eustice said the government is considering complete closure of the country’s borders to break the spread of new variants of coronavirus.

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