Medical staff moves the body of a COVID patient to a refrigerated morgue outside of a Brooklyn hospital.Photo: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty
As 2020 nears its end, December has become the nation’s deadliest month since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, claiming over 63,000 American lives.
TheNew York Timesreported that in the last week, the United States has seen an average of 188,908 new cases per day.
Despite warnings from the health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) against traveling, more than 1.1 million people were screened at airports on Wednesday, the day beforeChristmasEve, according to theTransportation Security Administration.
A daily tally from the TSA showed that officials screened 1,191,123 people nationwide Thursday, the largest number of people to fly since March 16, when 1,257,823 people were screened,TSA spokespersonLisa Farbstein announced.
On Dec. 14, a critical care nurse in Queensbecame the first New Yorker and among the firstin the U.S. to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Ahead of the holidays,Dr. Anthony Faucireceived his first dose of the Moderna vaccine on live television. And on Sunday, while speaking to CNN’sState of the Union,he said he’s had no side effects besides a brief ache in his arm after getting the shot.
Anthony Fauci.Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty
“The only thing I had was 6-10 hours following the vaccine I felt a little bit of an ache in my arm that lasted maybe 24 hours, a little bit more,” he said. “Then went away and completely other than that I felt no other deleterious types of effects.”
Fauci, 79, added, “It was really quite good, it was even as good or better than an influenza vaccine. Nothing serious at all. Perhaps when I get the boost I might feel a little aching because the immune system will be revving up even more but I’ll be getting that in about three weeks.”
In his interview with CNN, Fauci also expressed concern that COVID-19 cases will likelycontinue to surge across the countryafter the holidays.
“The reason that I’m concerned is that we very well might see a post-seasonal, in the sense of Christmas and New Years, surge,” he explained. “And as I’ve described it as a surge upon a surge because if you look at the slope, the incline of cases we’ve experienced as we’ve gone into the late fall and soon to be early winter, it really is quite troubling.”
As of Dec. 27, over 19,092,600 people in the U.S. have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic and at least 332,600 have died, according to aNew York Timesdatabase.
As information about thecoronavirus pandemicrapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from theWHOandlocal public health departments.PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMeto raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, clickhere.
source: people.com
