“Many Americans are now paying the price for what they did on Thanksgiving Day and falling ill with covid-19. The health authorities in the United States are warning people – begging even – not to make the same mistake during the Christmas and New Year season, ”says the AP, who talks about possible consequences and political positions at the White House. .
Thanksgiving Day, celebrated on November 26, is a holiday celebrated mainly in the United States and Canada, being a day of gratitude to God, with prayers and feasts, for the good events that occurred during the year.
“There is growth above the expected increase,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metric sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“Honestly, it is a warning sign for all of us,” he warned.
Across the U.S., investigators who track contacts and emergency doctors are finding that new coronavirus patients socialized during Thanksgiving with people outside their homes, despite public health warnings and warnings to stay home. and kept their distance from third parties.
The virus was spreading across the country even before Thanksgiving, but it showed some signs of abating.
Since Thanksgiving Day, the virus has gained momentum, with new cases a day rising steadily to more than 200,000 infections.
This gloomy outlook comes when the United States is on the verge of a major vaccination campaign against covid-19, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which regulates the pharmaceutical industry – giving the “green light” at any time to use of the Pfizer vaccine against the scourge that has already killed 290,000 Americans and infected more than 15.6 million people.
On Friday, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pressured FDA chief Stephen Hahn to grant authorization by the end of the day or face a possible layoff, two government officials told AP, who asked anonymity.
Acting US President Donald Trump is “furious” with the FDA for not having acted more quickly on the vaccine, calling the agency “big, old and slow turtle” on Twitter, also writing: ” Get the vaccines out of the fence NOW, Dr. Hahn. Stop playing games and start saving lives ”.
Hahn had justified earlier that he would be guided by “science, not politics”.
Deaths from covid-19 in the United States rose to an average of almost 2,260 per day in just one week, almost equal to the peak reached in mid-April, when the New York City area was in confinement.
New cases are occurring with about 195,000 active cases per day, a 16% increase over the day before Thanksgiving, according to an AP analysis
In Washington State, investigators who track contacts / contagions counted at least 336 people who tested positive who admitted to attending meetings or traveling during Thanksgiving weekend.
Thus, more are expected, according to experts, since the virus may still be incubating in someone who was exposed while traveling home on Sunday after Thanksgiving (November 26), given that the end this two-week incubation period does not end until next Sunday.
The worrying situation in the United States should not surprise anyone after, on November 29, the American epidemiologist Anthony Fauci warned of a sharp increase in the number of covid-19 infections, after the Thanksgiving holiday, marked by the movement of millions of people across the country.
“In two or three weeks, we will be able to see an explosion of cases” of new contamination by coronavirus, warned the director of the North American institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said at the time, to the television channel ABC.
According to the AFP news agency, at least 1.1 million people flew to the United States on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, a record since the pandemic arrived in the country in March, according to data from the TSA agency, responsible for airport security checks.
“This weekend, with all those trips, is really worrying for us,” said then Assistant Secretary of Health Brett Giroir, in statements to CNN, in a statement that proved to be premonitory.
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