New York: With a 60-minute briefing on Wednesday, the Joe Biden administration marked the return of the country's finest medical professionals to top of the heap in taking on the challenge of Covid-19's deadly rampage in the US which is likely to claim 90,000 lives in the next four weeks alone.
The US leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths. More than 25 million have been infected, more than 427,000 people have perished.
It's now more than a year after Covid-19 arrived on America's shores but it's almost the first time that Americans got spin-free communication from the White House on the pandemic response. Jeff Zients, the Biden administration's coordinator for the pandemic response; his deputy, Andy Slavitt; Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert; Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, the chair of Biden's Covid-19 equality task force, and Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drove Wednesday's briefing.
Here are 20 core data highlights which capture both the scale of the challenge and the catastrophe that has already wrecked America in its deadliest 12 months so far.
4,383: The highest daily number of deaths, current peak on January 20, 2021.
3,787: The highest seven-day moving average of deaths, January 13, 2021.
78,000: Number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19, as of January 24
3113: Current seven day average, from January 19-25, 2021. That's a 4.9 per cent decrease from the earlier seven-day average.
2.1: Number of anaphylaxis cases per 1 million administered doses of the two-shot Moderna vaccine.
6.2: Number of anaphylaxis cases per 1 million administered doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine.
3: Number of vaccines that will begin Phase 3 trials between February and March - Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax. Johnson and Johnson trial could deliver "important" news as early as a week from now, according to Fauci. J and J is using an adenovirus vector-based technology to develop its Covid-19 vaccine just like it did with its Ebola, Zika, RSV, and HIV vaccine candidates.
293: Number of cases reported in the US of the B.1.1.7 strain of the coronavirus. The UK and 46 other countries are reporting cases of this new strain.
73: Number of deaths among Asians per 1,00,000 people in the US.
7.83 million: Number of people vaccinated in the first seven days of the Biden administration.
533 million: Number of doses required to vaccinate everyone over 16 years of age. There's no talk yet of kids under 16, although trials are ongoing.
10 million: Number of doses promised across all states each week, and states will have three weeks of visibility into supply.
6%: Percentage of the US population that has received one or more doses.
200 million: Total number of doses available in the first quarter of 2021, mostly concentrated towards the end of March.
100: Number of community vaccination clinics to be set up by the end of February.
40%: Nursing-home residents account for 4 in 10 Covid-19 deaths in America. In the country's vaccination challenge, this is the most vulnerable flank.
202 million: Number of doses required to vaccinate those who are currently eligible across 5 categories: Long term care facilities, frontline essential workers, healthcare personnel, those aged 65-74 years and those aged above 75 years.
75-80%: The percentage of Americans who need to be vaccinated by summer for the country to return to some "semblance" of normalcy by Fall, according to Dr Fauci.
479,000-514,000: Total number of deaths expected to be recorded by February 20, 2021, according to the CDC's most recent national forecast.
120 million: Number of doses that Pfizer thinks it can deliver this quarter to the US. The best chance for a dramatic supply increase may come from Johnson & Johnson, which is likely to drop some big news in a week.
IANS
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