Authorities American watch “Very carefully” the new variant of coronavirus which spreads to United Kingdom but are not planning a travel ban on the country at this time, senior health officials said on Sunday.
Senior adviser on the government immunization program, Moncef Slaoui told CNN that U.S. officials “Don’t know yet” whether this new strain of the virus is present in the country.
“No reason to be alarmed”
“We are, of course, examining this very carefully”, he said, ensuring that for the moment no strain of the virus seems to be resistant to the available vaccines.
“This particular variant in the UK is, I think, very unlikely to escape the immunity provided by the vaccine.”, continued Mr. Slaoui.
“I don’t think there is any reason to be alarmed at the moment”, assured for his part Admiral Brett Giroir, responsible for supervising the campaigns of tests on the coronavirus.
Asked by the ABC channel on the possibility for the United States to follow the example of European countries which have suspended their air links with the United Kingdom, Mr. Giroir replied: “I really don’t think we need to do this just yet”.
Recommendations to vaccinate
A group of American experts has approved recommendations for the next groups of people to be vaccinated, starting with those aged 75 and over as well as the 30 million “Essential front-line workers”, including teachers, grocery store workers and police.
Nearly eight million additional doses of vaccine are to be delivered Monday across the United States, two million of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 5.9 million of the Moderna vaccine which received the green light from health authorities on Friday.
The first Moderna vaccine “Will most likely be administered tomorrow morning”, he declared Moncef Slaoui.
The latter was speaking after some American states complained about delays in receiving doses of the Pfizer vaccine, a delay for which General Gus Perna, who oversees the logistics operation as part of Operation Warp Speed, presented his apologies on Saturday. “We will work and learn from our mistakes”, did he declare.
20 million people by the end of the year
The US government still expects 20 million people to be vaccinated by the end of the year or the first week of January.
According to health officials, 2.8 million doses of vaccine were distributed across the country over the past week, while 556,208 doses were administered.
While Vice President Mike Pence has done so publicly and President-elect Joe Biden is due to do so on Monday, President Donald Trump has so far not indicated whether he will get the vaccine soon.
The country is facing a dramatic rebound in the epidemic, with around 3,000 deaths and 200,000 new infections daily. Covid-19 has already caused the death of more than 316,000 people in the United States.
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