The US, on Thursday, reported a daily record of nearly 4,000 deaths due to COVID-19 deaths. Brazil's COVID-19 death toll passed the 200,000-mark on Thursday, the second-highest in the world. Paul Lotufo, an epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paulo told AFP that the situation would get worse before it gets better. “I don't even know how we're going to get through January,” he said.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in its most recent forecast predicted between 405,000 and 438,000 deaths by the end of the month. According to John Hopkins University, 3,998 were recorded in the US, taking the total number of new infections to 265,246. Even as the US works to distribute the vaccines, the spread of the virus has been climbing.
The increasing number of coronavirus cases have led authorities around the world to impose new lockdown rules. Tokyo will begin a month-long lockdown on January 9. China has imposed emergency measures to control an outbreak in the city of Shijiazhuang. Canada and Lebanon have ordered night-time curfews.
The Australian city of Brisbane called for a three-day lockdown after a worker in a quarantine hotel contracted the highly infectious new strain of COVID-19. France has reported 10 cases of the mutant British coronavirus strain— there’s a worry that the infectious strain could be spreading widely in the country.
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted, "States not only can but SHOULD aggressively expand vaccinations to other phases if current supply exceeds demand in phase 1a.”
Officials say that California has deployed 166 refrigerated trailers to be used as temporary morgues by overwhelmed hospitals.
Till date, about 6 million Americans have received the first shot of their coronavirus vaccines and another 21.4 million doses have been distributed. California seems to be at the centre of the pandemic with a record of 22,820 being treated in hospitals for the virus.
