Dr. Anthony Fauci sees sobering data on South Africa variant; US daily cases below 100K, but danger lurks: Latest COVID-19 updates Grace Hauck and John Bacon, USA TODAY
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Data on the South Africa variant of the coronavirus is sobering, and current vaccines are less effective against it than the original strain or U.K. variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday.
Fauci, speaking on NBC s Meet the Press, said less is known about the South African variant than the U.K. version, which has proved to be more transmissible than the original version of the virus.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought countries to a standstill. Meanwhile, vaccinations have already started in some countries as cases continue to rise. Follow here for the latest.
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 17.3 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago. U.S. hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are now 8.6 %
LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 11.8 %
HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today s posts include:
U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 146,640
U.S. Coronavirus hospitalizations are at an elevated 108,957
U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at an elevated 4,087
U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 7.1 % of the population
The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases worsened, hospitalizations improved, and deaths worsened
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting lab managers that several COVID-19 tests, including one used in Minnesota s free public testing, carry a slight risk of returning inaccurate results because of recent genetic mutations in the virus.
But there s an upside. Thermo Fisher Scientific, which makes the TaqPath COVID test used at community testing sites across the state, says the test not only remains accurate, but it may offer an important clue that a more infectious COVID strain is present.
And the technique has already worked in Minnesota.
Department of Health officials say three of Minnesota s first confirmed cases of a more infectious variant of COVID-19, announced Jan. 9, were found after analyzing samples that returned a specific test result in the lab called an S-gene drop out.