US COVID-19 Cases Cross 11 Million

The COVID-19 cases in the United States have crossed 11 million, with the latest one million cases coming at breakneck speed in the last week alone, according to Johns Hopkins.

More than 45 states are seeing record spikes during the pandemic's winter surge. Hospitals are at capacity in several states and doctors are pleading with Americans to hunker down because the "vaccines are coming, it's just a matter of a couple of months."

Coronavirus
Coronaviruses infect animals, humans, and birds. Human coronaviruses, such as SARS, MERS, and 2019-nCoV cause respiratory distress and even death. The S protein is the infectious agent of the virus.

‘COVID-19 in the US: The seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths was more than 1,000 this weekend, ticking higher than in preceding weeks.’

North Dakota is in such dire straits that hospitals there are allowing infected but asymptomatic nurses to treat Covid-19 patients.

But outside, in malls and grocery stores, Americans are out in full force - a stark contrast to the grim public health crisis that continues to hammer the country.

Based on current trajectory, America is hurtling towards an ominous coronavirus toll of more than 4,00,000 by next Spring, according to new projections from a predictive model used often by data crunchers in Donald Trump's White House coronavirus task force.

Emergency Brake to Curb COVID-19 Surge
California has hit the emergency brake to curb the COVID-19 surge. 41 of California's total 58 counties would be labeled as the purple tier.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington is predicting a total of 438,941 deaths in America by March 1, 2021.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who serves on the Trump coronavirus task force, and President-elect Biden are pleading with Americans to wear masks and socially distance until the vaccines arrive - very soon.

New Drug Against COVID-19 Discovered
New drug compounds that target the protein complex – SKI complex, responsible for the replication and survival of coronaviruses, have been discovered.

Roughly 20 million people could be vaccinated against the coronavirus in December, the chief of the Donald Trump administration's vaccine coordination program has indicated. Anywhere from 25 to 30 million people could be vaccinated each month afterward.

The US is working with a portfolio of six vaccines, using three different platform technologies and two candidates from each platform: messenger RNA, live viral vectors and recombinant protein.

COVID-19 Infection in Children Has a Shorter Duration Than Adults
Children clear the SARS-CoV-2 infection that leads to COVID-19 more effectively than adults due to the difference in their antibodies.

Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines use the messenger RNA platform, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University are on the live vector path while Novavax and Sanofi/ GlaxoSmithKline are building out their vaccine candidates on the recombinant protein platform.

One of them - Pfizer - announced that it has achieved 90 per cent efficacy. The company hopes to file for emergency use authorisation as soon as its final efficacy results arrive in the third week of November.

Source-IANS