The United States lost more than 23,000 lives to Covid-19 during the week ended Jan. 17, setting a record for the third week in a row, though the number of new infections and the amount of patients in hospitals both fell from the previous seven days.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against Covid-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he called a “dismal failure.”
As the events that unfolded in Washington on Jan. 6 captured the nation’s attention, the raging coronavirus pandemic claimed its highest U.S. death toll yet, killing more than 4,000 people in a single day according to a Reuters tally.
Los Angeles health officials told first responders to stop bringing adult patients who cannot be resuscitated to hospitals, citing a shortage of beds and staff as the latest Covid-19 surge threatened to overwhelm healthcare systems in America’s second-largest city.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned health care personnel not to make any changes to the dosing of Covid-19 vaccines and that doing so would place the public health at risk and undermine “the historic vaccination effort to protect the population.”
More than two-thirds of the 15 million coronavirus vaccines shipped within the United States have gone unused, U.S. health officials said on Jan. 4, as the governors of New York and Florida vowed to penalize hospitals that fail to dispense shots quickly.
New York State Health officials are investigating a Brooklyn-based healthcare provider on suspicion it violated state guidelines for distribution of Covid-19 vaccine.
In the United States during the week ended Dec. 20, someone died from Covid-19 every 33 seconds.
The United States is monitoring the new strain of Covid-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, with U.S. officials unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America.
A third vaccine to stave off Covid-19 could get U.S. approval as early as January, a top U.S. health official said as the second vaccine began shipping out nationwide..
