WASHINGTON: America should prepare for a ‘surge upon a surge’ in coronavirus cases as millions of travellers return home after the Thanksgiving holiday, top US scientist Anthony Fauci warned Sunday.
The United States is the world’s worst-affected country, with 266,831 Covid-19 deaths, and President Donald Trump’s administration has issued conflicting messages on mask-wearing, travel and the danger posed by the virus.
“There almost certainly is going to be an uptick because of what has happened with the travel,” Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Travel surrounding Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday made this the busiest week in US airports since the pandemic began.
“We may see a surge upon a surge” in two or three weeks, Fauci added.
“We don’t want to frighten people, but that’s the reality.”
The trend is ominous, Fauci and other government scientists said, with the Christmas holidays sure to bring more travel and family gatherings.
Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, noted a surge in Covid-19 after a holiday weekend in May.
“Now we’re entering this post-Thanksgiving surge with three, four and 10 times as much disease across the country,’ she told CBS’s ‘Face the Nation.’
“We are deeply worried.”
The US surgeon general, Jerome Adams, was equally blunt.
“I want to be straight with the American people,” he told ‘Fox News Sunday.’
“It’s going to get worse over the next several weeks.”
In the 24 hours to 0130 GMT Monday, the country added 140,651 coronavirus cases, taking its total to 13,373,673, according to Johns Hopkins University.
There had been 822 additional deaths.
Elsewhere, thousands of health workers marched in Madrid in support of Spain’s public health system, in one of the European countries hardest hit by the pandemic.
In France, the highest administrative court ordered the government to loosen rules allowing no more than 30 people at religious services, in the face of angry objections from church leaders.
New York City again took a small step back toward normality, as Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that elementary schools would reopen for in-person instruction on December 7.
The US news media meanwhile reported that first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 — one of the first to claim high effectiveness, along with a Moderna product — had arrived in the United States from a Pfizer lab in Belgium.
Pfizer was using charter flights to pre-position the vaccine for quick distribution once it receives US emergency authorization — expected as early as December 10 — the Wall Street Journal and other media reported.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both said to be safe and 95 percent effective, have introduced a glimmer of hope after months of gloomy news.
“This is the way we get out of the pandemic.
“The light is at the end of the tunnel,” Admiral Brett Giroir, the US official overseeing coronavirus testing, told CNN.
But, like Fauci and the other scientists, he expressed grave concerns about the months ahead.
“About 20 per cent of all people in the hospital have Covid, so this is a really dangerous time,” Giroir said. — AFP