US coronavirus deaths pass 600,000 as New York lifts more curbs
- President Joe Biden said that while the daily death toll is dropping sharply, ‘we have more work to do to beat this virus’
- Progress against the coronavirus was underlined as New York said over 70 per cent of adults had received at least one vaccine dose
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The US death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday, although authorities hailed progress towards a return to normality as its vaccination programme promised to turn the page on one of the worst health crises in its history.
The United States has racked up by far the largest national death toll – ahead of Brazil and India – after a heavily-criticised early response to the pandemic, but has since organised among the world’s most effective vaccine roll-outs.
“My heart goes out to all those who have lost a loved one,” he said, speaking on Monday in Brussels as the Johns Hopkins University tally ticked close to 600,000. “We have more work to do to beat this virus. And now’s not the time to let our guard down. Please get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
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Progress against the coronavirus was underlined as New York announced more than 70 per cent of adults had received at least one vaccine dose and the last of the state’s restrictions could be lifted.
“We have hit 70 per cent vaccination,” state Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
“It is the national goal, and we hit it ahead of schedule. What does 70 per cent mean? It means that we can now return to life as we know it.”
In New York City – where more than 33,000 died from Covid-19 – life took a major step forward as almost all restrictions were lifted. New Yorkers, for now, will continue to have to wear masks in schools, subways, large venues, homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, jails and prisons.
Effective immediately, the state is lifting rules that had limited the size of gatherings and required some types of businesses to follow cleaning protocols or take people’s temperatures or screen them for recent Covid-19 symptoms. Businesses will no longer have to follow social distancing rules, or limit how many people they can allow inside based on keeping people 6 feet (2 metres) apart.
The US’s massive vaccination campaign has been pushed hard since the authorisation of the first vaccines in December, and peaked in April, with up to more than 4 million shots a day. But the pace has slowed rapidly since then, and unvaccinated people remain vulnerable to the disease.
Just over 52 per cent of the US population, or 174 million people, have received at least one dose of one of the three vaccines authorised in the country, according to health officials.
Biden has set a goal of 70 per cent of adults to have received at least one shot by the national holiday of July 4, but the programme may fall short of that goal.
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The US passed the 500,000 death mark at the end of February, just under four months ago. By comparison, it had only taken one month for the country to go from 400,000 to 500,000 deaths.
Experts are concerned about the recent arrival of the new delta variant of the disease, which initially appeared in India.
Health authorities are trying to convince more people to get the shot by increasing vaccination sites and helping people access to them in partnership with private companies that can provide transport or childcare.
Some states have even launched lotteries which only vaccinated people can enter, with prizes of up to several million dollars.
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STUDY FINDS VIRUS CIRCULATING IN US IN 2019
Meanwhile, a new antibody testing study published on Tuesday has found further evidence that the coronavirus was present in the United States from at least December 2019, weeks before the first confirmed case was announced on January 21.
The National Institutes of Health study analysed 24,000 stored blood samples contributed by volunteers across the country from January 2 to March 18, 2020. Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were detected via two different serology tests in nine patient samples, according to the paper, which was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The participants were outside the major hotspots of Seattle and New York City, thought to be the key entry points of the virus to the United States.
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The first positive samples came from participants in Illinois and Massachusetts on January 7 and 8, 2020, respectively, suggesting that the virus was present in those states in late December.
“Antibody testing of blood samples helps us better understand the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the US in the early days of the US epidemic, when testing was restricted,” said lead author Keri Althoff, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The research builds on a similar investigation published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last November that reached the same conclusion. But since there are uncertainties surrounding serology testing, further confirmation builds extra confidence in the finding.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
