Covid-19 numbers are dipping in the US, even as variants are lurking and the vaccine rollout lags – CNN

So, as the nation waits for widespread vaccines, the steps people should take to slow the spread are the same as always: wear masks, avoid congregate settings and wash hands, experts have said.

Covid-19 numbers are on a downswing

New daily recorded cases in the US are falling. Health experts had warned that the November-December holidays, with boosts in travel and indoor gatherings, would send Covid-19 cases soaring.

And soar they did, reaching a pandemic-record average of more than 249,200 cases a day across a week as of January 10, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The surge has fallen off: The average was down to about 166,380 cases a day across a week as of Tuesday -- a drop of more than 33% from the peak.

And the country has reported fewer than 200,000 new cases a day for 10 straight days -- the longest such stretch since before Thanksgiving.

Hospitalizations are falling: About 108,950 Covid-19 patients were in US hospitals on Tuesday -- a number generally dropping since a pandemic peak of 132,474 patients recorded January 6.

The statistic is now about where it was just before mid-December, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Deaths reported per day are hovering just under a record: The country averaged 3,349 Covid-19 deaths a day across a week as of Tuesday.

That's very close to a pandemic peak average of 3,355 reached on January 13 -- and far ahead of the averages around 1,000 just in mid-November.

Experts have said movements in the volume of deaths can lag weeks behind case and hospitalization numbers, because those who succumb to the disease can first be sick for weeks.

That's in part because of seasonality, institute director Dr. Christopher Murray said Monday -- meaning warmer weather can mean less opportunity for spread, with more social opportunity outdoors.

But vaccinations, too, "will prevent a lot of death," Murray said.

About those variants

Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, is among experts worrying that more-transmissible variants could lead to more case surges if they take hold.

"We've seen what happens in other countries that have actually had coronavirus under relatively good control, then these variants took over and they had explosive spread of the virus, and then overwhelmed hospitals," Wen told CNN Monday.

'Get as many people vaccinated as quickly as you possibly can'

One obvious way to combat these variants -- and to lessen the chances of more-dangerous mutations from occurring -- Fauci has said, is to get vaccinated.

"The best way you prevent the evolution of mutants is to suppress the amount of virus that's circulating in the population. And the best way to do that is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as you possibly can," Fauci told CNN on Monday.

Evidence indicates the effectiveness of vaccine-induced antibodies might be diminished against the mutant first seen in South Africa, but "it's still well within the cushion-range of being an effective vaccine," Fauci said.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has stressed that rich nations need to do more to ensure vaccines are available worldwide. That's not only for moral reasons but also because dangerous mutations could emerge in places where people are not vaccinated in sufficient numbers -- and end up sickening people already vaccinated.

"A me-first approach leaves the world's poorest and most vulnerable people at risk. It's also self-defeating," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

Keep masking up, experts say

The steps people should take to fight variants and get the country closer to normal while waiting for vaccines follow the now-familiar roadmap of pandemic precautions, from wearing masks to avoiding crowds to basic hand-washing.

New strains put "a lot of pressure on us to try (to) do everything we can to get transmission down," Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, said Tuesday.

"Vaccines are part of that, but the biggest part of that is trying to come together as a nation and see: Can we get those people who aren't wearing masks to do so? Can we get people to social distance and avoid crowded indoor places?" he said

"If we can do those things, we can blunt the impact of the pandemic this winter."

These prevention measures in tandem with the vaccine rollout -- even over several months -- should bring increasing relief, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, told CNN late last week.

"I am hopeful that by late spring into early summer, life will begin to feel really meaningfully different and better," he said.

CNN's Amanda Watts, Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield, Andrea Diaz, Maggie Fox, Naomi Thomas, Sandee LaMotte, Deidre McPhillips and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

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Covid-19 numbers are dipping in the US, even as variants are lurking and the vaccine rollout lags - CNN