Month: January 2021

And by February 13, that number could reach 508,000, according to an ensemble forecast published by the CDC. The last forecast, on January 13, projected up to 477,000 deaths by February 6. In the meantime, vaccines have begun to be distributed, but there remain significant challenges with the supply across the country, according to state officials. New CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Wednesday described the toll of the pandemic as "truly heartbreaking" but that "healthier days lie ahead" -- although that getting there would require a rapid acceleration of testing, surveillance and vaccination. She said the agency will be conducting a review of all of its guidance regarding the pandemic, so "people can make decisions and take action based upon the best available evidence." To all...

Despite some promising signs that the worst wave of the COVID-19 pandemic may finally be receding, a top Los Angeles County health official warned Wednesday that the situation remains precarious, with thousands more people becoming infected every day and an unsustainable number of patients requiring hospital treatment. “The end is not yet in sight,” county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. Though the county has recently seen welcome downticks in the number of coronavirus-positive patients in its hospitals, as well as the daily infection rate, Ferrer emphasized that “COVID-19 is still rampant at our workplaces, in our neighborhoods and, really, across every corner of this county.” “While more people are being vaccinated, it’s important to remember that we do have a long road in...

California is releasing hundreds of thousands of doses of coronavirus vaccine that it had put on pause Sunday after the vaccine batch was linked to a cluster of allergic reactions in San Diego last week. The matter was examined by the state committee that reviews coronavirus vaccine safety and other agencies, according to state health officer Dr. Erica Pan. “Yesterday, we convened the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup and additional allergy and immunology specialists to examine the evidence collected,” the California Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday ni...

As the coronavirus swept across the globe last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sank into the shadows, undermined by some of its own mistakes and stifled by an administration bent on downplaying the nation’s suffering. Now a new CDC director is arriving to a mammoth task: reasserting the agency while the pandemic is in its deadliest phase yet and the nation’s largest-ever vaccination campaign is racked by confusion and delays. “I don’t know if the CDC is broken or just temporarily injured,” but something must be done to bring it back to health, said Timothy Westmoreland, a Georgetown University law professor focused on public health. The task falls to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, 51, an infectious-diseases specialist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hosp...