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Scientists Don’t Need to Ignore the Wuhan ‘Lab Leak’ Concept, Regardless of No New Proof

Scientists Don’t Want to Ignore the Wuhan ‘Lab Leak’ Theory, Despite No New Evidence

As scientists find more animal coronaviruses, they can recognize more and more pieces of SARS-CoV-2 spread out among them. Researchers have also been able to reconstruct some of the evolutionary steps by which SARS-CoV-2 evolved into a potential human pathogen while it was still infecting animals.

This pattern is probably one that’s been followed by many viruses that are now major burdens on human health. H.I.V., for example, most likely had its origin in the early 1900s, when hunters in West Africa got infected with viruses that infected chimpanzees and other primates.

But some scientists thought it was too soon to conclude something similar happened in the case of SARS-CoV-2. After all, the coronavirus first came to light in the city of Wuhan, home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers study dozens of strains of coronaviruses collected in caves in southern China.

Still, that a top lab studying this family of viruses happens to be located in the same city where the epidemic emerged could very well be a coincidence. Wuhan is an urban center larger than New York City, with a steady flow of visitors from other parts of China. It also has many large markets dealing in wildlife brought from across China and beyond. When wild animals are kept in close quarters, viruses have an opportunity to jump from species to species, sometimes resulting in dangerous recombinations that can lead to new diseases.

That lab’s research began after another coronavirus led to the SARS epidemic in 2002. Researchers soon found relatives of that virus, called SARS-CoV, in bats, as well as civet cats, which are sold in Chinese markets. The discovery opened the eyes of scientists to all the animal coronaviruses with the potential of spilling over the species line and starting a new pandemic.

Virologists can take many measures to reduce the risk of getting infected with the viruses they study. But over the years, some accidents have happened. Researchers have gotten sick, and they’ve infected others with their experimental viruses.

In 2004, for example, a researcher at the National Institute of Virology in Beijing got infected with the coronavirus that causes SARS. She passed it on to others, including her mother, who died from the infection.

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Every day U.S. information on Could 27

Daily U.S. data on May 27

Audrey Vakker, 14, watches as she receives a Covid-19 vaccination at the Fairfax Government Center Vaccination Clinic in Fairfax, Virginia on May 13, 2021.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The average daily number of Covid cases in the US is below less than half of the level recorded in early May, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.

The country is seeing an average of 23,407 new infections per day for the past week, compared to 49,600 on May 1, a decrease of 53%.

Federal data shows that the US reports an average of 1.7 million daily vaccinations and nearly 50% of the US population has received one dose or more.

US Covid cases

The 7-day average of daily US Covid cases is 23,407 on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins data, a 23% decrease from the previous week and 53% from the start of the month.

The number of cases has not been so low since June 2020.

According to a CNBC analysis of the Johns Hopkins data, the average daily case number in 44 states and the District of Columbia has decreased by 5% or more over the past week.

In other countries, the outbreaks are worsening. India is currently the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, but other countries from Argentina in Latin America to Nepal in Asia have reported record increases in Covid cases in recent weeks.

US Covid deaths

The country reports an average of 571 daily Covid deaths over the past seven days, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Wednesday’s numbers include 373 Oklahoma reported deaths announced by the state as part of “ongoing efforts to investigate and clear the backlog in COVID-19 deaths.” In some situations, state health departments assign a number of previously unreported cases or deaths to a single day, even if they may have occurred previously.

While this reporting problem makes the latest trend difficult to interpret, the pace of daily nationwide Covid deaths has been declining for weeks.

US vaccine shots administered

According to CDC data, an average of 1.7 million vaccine shots were given per day over the past week, a 5% decrease from the previous week.

Daily vaccinations have largely declined since peaking at 3.4 million shots per day in mid-April, although the average has been between 1.7 million and 2 million for nearly two weeks.

US percentage of the vaccinated population

Almost half of the US population has received at least one dose of vaccine, with 40% fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.

On Wednesday, Pennsylvania became the 10th state to report that 70% of its adult population is at least partially vaccinated. The other nine states are Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New Mexico.

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Decide Clears Purdue Pharma’s Restructuring Plan for Vote by Hundreds of Claimants

Judge Clears Purdue Pharma’s Restructuring Plan for Vote by Thousands of Claimants

“It’s not unprecedented, but it’s highly controversial” for a bankrupt company’s owners to be released from future litigation as part of a settlement, said Adam J. Levitin, a law professor specializing in bankruptcy at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s not even clear that the bankruptcy court has the jurisdiction to do this,” as the Sacklers are not parties to the bankruptcy themselves.

Judge Drain has long urged the negotiators to work quickly, because no money can flow to the claimants until the bankruptcy case is concluded.

According to the plan, the reconstituted, as-yet unnamed company would fund about a half-dozen trusts, including separate ones for tribes, adults and children. Proceeds from the sales of the nonprofit’s overdose-reversing medications as well as from moderate quantities of OxyContin would continue to be pumped into these trusts.

But more than 100,000 individual claimants, including relatives of people who died from prescription overdoses, would receive relatively paltry compensation, ranging roughly from $3,000 to $48,000 apiece — before lawyers’ fees and costs are deducted.

Indeed, more than a half-billion dollars overall will go toward fees and costs accrued by plaintiffs’ public and private lawyers.

The oversight of the new trusts will also be expensive. The trust distribution is incredibly complex, said Lindsey Simon, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, who has closely followed the case. “From my perspective, the biggest question is how much money will get eaten up in the administration of all those trusts,” she said.

Scott Bickford, a lawyer who represents individuals, families and babies who showed symptoms of withdrawal from drugs they were exposed to in utero, noted that the current proposal did dedicate $60 million for programs to assist these children and a fund to compensate them, an improvement from earlier versions.

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DOJ expenses 14 individuals in alleged Covid-related health-care fraud

DOJ charges 14 people for alleged health-care fraud related to Covid-19

Paul Hennessy | LightRocket | Getty Images

Federal prosecutors have charged 14 people — including a medical doctor and owners of laboratories, pharmacies and a home health agency — in multiple Covid-related fraud schemes that allegedly bilked consumers and insurers out of $143 million, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

In addition, the Center for Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it took administrative action against more than 50 medical providers for their involvement in health-care fraud schemes relating to Covid-19.

The DOJ’s Fraud Section, which leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, announced it is prosecuting cases in the following districts: Western District of Arkansas, Northern District of California, Middle District of Louisiana, Central District of California, Southern District of Florida, District of New Jersey and the Eastern District of New York.

“These medical professionals, corporate executives, and others allegedly took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to line their own pockets instead of providing needed health care services during this unprecedented time in our country,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “We are determined to hold those who exploit such programs accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray also said the agency is committed to combating Covid-related health-care fraud. “Medical providers have been the unsung heroes. … It’s disheartening that some have abused their authorities.”

The defendants allegedly engaged in various types of schemes “designed to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic,” the DOJ said in a news release.

“For example, multiple defendants offered COVID-19 tests to Medicare beneficiaries at senior living facilities, drive-through COVID-19 testing sites, and medical offices to induce the beneficiaries to provide their personal identifying information and a saliva or blood sample,” the DOJ said. “The defendants are alleged to have then misused the information and samples to submit claims to Medicare for unrelated, medically unnecessary, and far more expensive laboratory tests, including cancer genetic testing, allergy testing, and respiratory pathogen panel tests.” The DOJ said the proceeds of the schemes were allegedly laundered through shell corporations and used to buy exotic cars and luxury real estate.

In another example, a defendant allegedly exploited telehealth regulation expansions to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare for telemedicine encounters that never happened, according to the DOJ. Telehealth regulations had been broadened after Covid-19 was recognized as a national emergency to give Medicare beneficiaries greater access to a wider range of services so they could avoid risky travel to health-care sites.

Here are some of the cases the DOJ announced it is prosecuting:

In Arkansas, a man who owns two testing laboratories was charged with health-care fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the U.S. of more than $88 million. The man allegedly used access to beneficiary and medical provider information from prior lab testing orders to submit hundreds of fraudulent claims for urine, drug and other tests. Some of the falsely submitted claims were for beneficiaries who were already dead.

A doctor in New Jersey allegedly ordered expensive and medically unnecessary cancer genetic testing for Medicare beneficiaries that attended a Covid-19 testing event that he participated in. The man also allegedly billed Medicare for services to beneficiaries that he never provided, totaling about $19 million in health-care fraud schemes.

Another man in the state who was a partner at a diagnostic testing lab allegedly offered kickbacks in exchange for respiratory pathogen tests that were improperly bundled with Covid tests and billed to Medicare. The man allegedly paid and received bribes in a scheme totaling $5.4 million.

In New York, charges were brought against two people who owned several pharmacies and sham pharmacy wholesaling companies for allegedly committing health-care fraud, wire fraud and money laundering totaling $45 million. The two and their co-conspirators allegedly acquired billing privileges for multiple pharmacies. They also allegedly submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare by abusing emergency Covid-19 rules to avoid otherwise applicable limits on refills for expensive drugs. The DOJ news release said the defendants “allegedly used an elaborate network of international money laundering operations to conceal and disguise the proceeds of the scheme.”

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Biden Orders Intelligence Inquiry Into Origins of the Coronavirus

Biden Orders Intelligence Inquiry Into Origins of the Coronavirus

The intelligence on the three workers came from outside the United States intelligence agencies’ own collection, which means its veracity is more difficult to authenticate. The source of the information was unclear, but several American officials said they believed the report that the three researchers got sick.

American intelligence officials do not know whether the lab workers contracted Covid-19 or some other disease, like a bad flu. If they did have the coronavirus, the intelligence may suggest that they could have become sick from the lab, but it also could simply mean that the virus was circulating in Wuhan earlier than the Chinese government has acknowledged.

Also toward the end of Mr. Trump’s term, State Department officials began examining the origins of the virus and concluded that it was highly unlikely to have appeared naturally and thus was likely the product of laboratory work.

CNN first reported the effort and suggested that the group’s efforts had been shut down by the Biden administration, prompting scathing Republican criticism. A State Department spokesman, Ned Price, denied that, saying that the team’s findings were briefed to senior officials in the department’s arms control bureau in February and March.

“With the report delivered, the work was ended,” Mr. Price said.

Mr. Trump issued a statement on Tuesday boasting of his early insistence that the Wuhan lab was the source of the virus. “To me, it was obvious from the beginning,” he said. “But I was badly criticized, as usual.”

Despite the absence of new evidence, a number of scientists have lately begun speaking out about the need to remain open to the possibility that the virus had accidentally emerged from a lab, perhaps after it was collected in nature, a lab origin distinct from a creation by scientists.

“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators on Wednesday.

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Privateness legal guidelines want updating after Google cope with HCA Healthcare, medical ethics professor says

Privacy laws need updating after Google deal with HCA Healthcare, medical ethics professor says

US privacy laws need to be updated, especially after Google signs a deal with a major hospital chain, medical ethics expert Arthur Kaplan said on Wednesday.

“Now we have electronic medical records, huge amounts of data, and it’s like asking a navigation system from a WWI plane to guide us to the space shuttle,” said Kaplan, professor at the Grossman School of New York University Medicine. said “The news with Shepard Smith.” “We need to update our privacy and informed consent requirements.”

On Wednesday, Google’s cloud unit and hospital chain HCA Healthcare announced a contract that, according to the Wall Street Journal, gives Google access to patient records. The tech giant said it will use it to develop algorithms to monitor patients and help doctors make better decisions.

Jonathan Perlin, HCA’s chief medical officer, told the Journal that the company will remove any identifying information before giving the data to Google so it won’t know who you are. HCA collects data from 32 million patient visits each year and has more than 2,000 locations in 20 states.

But Kaplan told host Shepard Smith that he was concerned that a company like Google, which does a lot of commercial advertising, could correlate and potentially sell the health system information.

“They may not have your name, but sure enough they can find out which subgroup and subpopulation is best by promoting you,” Kaplan said.

Neither Google nor HCA responded to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Subway Swabbers Discover a Microbe Jungle — And 1000’s of New Species

Subway Swabbers Find a Microbe Jungle — And Thousands of New Species

Teams of researchers and volunteers fanned out across the mass transit systems of 60 cities, collecting thousands of samples from 2015 to 2017. They swabbed a wide variety of surfaces, including turnstiles, railings, ticket kiosks and benches inside transit stations and subway cars. (In a handful of cities that did not have subway systems, the teams focused on the bus or train system.)

The scientists’ subterranean sampling expeditions often attracted attention. Some commuters grew so curious that they joined the volunteer swabbing corps, while others insisted that they absolutely did not want to know what was living on the subway poles. Passengers occasionally misunderstood what the researchers were doing with their tiny swabs. “One man effusively thanked us for cleaning the subway,” Dr. Mason said.

The researchers also collected air samples from the transit systems of six cities — New York, Denver, London, Oslo, Stockholm and Hong Kong — for a companion paper on the “air microbiome” that was published on Wednesday in the journal Microbiome.

“This is huge,” said Erica Hartmann, a microbiologist at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study. “The number of samples and the geographic diversity of samples — that’s unprecedented.”

Then the team extracted and sequenced the DNA from each sample to identify the species it contained. In total, across all of the surface samples, they found 4,246 known species of microorganisms. Two-thirds of these were bacteria, while the remainder were a mix of fungi, viruses and other kinds of microbes.

But that was just the beginning: They also found 10,928 viruses and 748 kinds of bacteria that had never been documented. “We could see these were real — they’re microorganisms — but they’re not anywhere in any database,” said Daniela Bezdan, the former executive director of MetaSUB who is now a research associate at the University Hospital Tübingen in Germany.

The vast majority of these organisms probably pose little risk to humans, experts said. Nearly all of the new viruses they found are likely to be bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, Dr. Danko said. Moreover, genetic sequencing cannot distinguish between organisms that are dead and those that are alive, and no environment is sterile. In fact, our bodies rely on a rich and dynamic community of microbes in order to function properly.

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DOJ expenses 14 folks for alleged health-care fraud associated to Covid-19

DOJ charges 14 people for alleged health-care fraud related to Covid-19

Paul Hennessy | LightRocket | Getty Images

The federal prosecutor has indicted 14 people in multiple fraud programs that allegedly charged consumers and insurers with $ 143 million, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

In addition to those charged by the DOJ, more than 50 medical providers are facing administrative actions by the Center for Program Integrity and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for participating in healthcare fraud programs related to Covid-19.

The DOJ’s fraud division, which heads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, announced that it is pursuing cases in the following counties: Western District of Arkansas, Northern District of California, Middle District of Louisiana, Central District of California, Southern District of Florida, Borough of New Jersey and the eastern borough of New York.

“These health professionals, executives and others have allegedly taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to fill their own pockets instead of providing the health services they need in our country at this unprecedented time,” said Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “We are determined to hold those who use such programs accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray also said the agency is determined to fight healthcare fraud related to Covid-19.

The DOJ’s announcement also found that the profits from the fraudulent operations were allegedly laundered by Shell companies and used to purchase exotic cars and luxury homes.

After Covid-19 was recognized as a national emergency, telehealth regulations were expanded to allow Medicare beneficiaries better access to a wider range of services to avoid risky trips to health locations. The defendant allegedly used these extensions to bring fraudulent claims to Medicare over telemedicine encounters that the DOJ said never took place.

In Arkansas, a man who owns two testing laboratories was charged with more than $ 88 million in healthcare fraud in connection with an alleged fraud program against the United States. The man allegedly used access to beneficiary and medical provider information from previous laboratory test assignments to file hundreds of fraudulent claims for urine, drug and other tests. Some of the falsely submitted claims concerned deceased beneficiaries.

A doctor in New Jersey allegedly ordered expensive and medically unnecessary cancer genetic testing for Medicare beneficiaries attending a Covid-19 testing promotional event he attended. The man also reportedly billed Medicare for services to beneficiaries he never performed, totaling around $ 19 million in healthcare fraud systems.

Another man in the state who was a partner in a diagnostic testing lab allegedly offered setbacks in exchange for breath tests that were not properly bundled with Covid tests and billed to Medicare. The man reportedly paid and received bribes totaling $ 5.4 million.

In New York, charges were brought against two people who owned several pharmacies and bogus pharmacy wholesalers for allegedly guilty of healthcare fraud, wire fraud and money laundering totaling $ 45 million. The two and their co-conspirators have reportedly acquired billing privileges for several pharmacies. They also allegedly filed fraudulent claims with Medicare by abusing the Covid-19 emergency rules to avoid otherwise imposed restrictions on refilling expensive drugs.

The report alleges that the defendants “allegedly used an ingenious network of international money laundering activities to hide and disguise the proceeds of the system.”

“Medical providers have been the unsung heroes … It’s disheartening that some have abused their agencies,” Wray said.

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Immunity to the Coronavirus Might Persist for Years, Scientists Discover

Immunity to the Coronavirus May Persist for Years, Scientists Find

Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, and improves over time, especially after vaccination, according to two new studies. The results could help dispel lingering fears that protection from the virus will be short-lived.

Taken together, the studies suggest that most people who have recovered from Covid-19 and were later immunized don’t need boosters. However, vaccinated people, who most likely never got infected, need the shots, as do a minority who were infected but did not evoke a robust immune response.

Both reports looked at people who had been exposed to the coronavirus about a year earlier. Cells that hold a memory for the virus remain in the bone marrow and can produce antibodies when needed, according to one of the studies published in Nature on Monday.

The other study, which is also being examined for publication in Nature, found that these so-called memory B cells continue to mature and strengthen at least 12 months after the initial infection.

“The publications are consistent with the growing body of literature suggesting that immunity induced by infection and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 appears to be long-lasting,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research.

The studies could allay fears that immunity to the virus is temporary, as is the case with coronaviruses, which cause colds. But these viruses change significantly every few years, said Dr. Hensley. “The reason we become repeatedly infected with frequent coronaviruses over the course of life could have a lot more to do with the variation in these viruses than with immunity,” he said.

In fact, memory B cells, which were produced in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and boosted by vaccination, are so effective that they even thwart variants of the virus and nullify the need for boosters, according to Michel Nussenzweig, immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York, who led the study on memory maturation.

“People who have been infected and vaccinated really have a great response, a great set of antibodies, because they keep developing their antibodies,” said Dr. Nut branch. “I assume they will last a long time.”

The result may not only apply to vaccine protection, as immune memory is likely to be organized differently after immunization than after natural infection.

That means people who haven’t had Covid-19 and have been vaccinated may need a booster shot, said Dr. Nut branch. “We’ll know something like that very, very soon,” he said.

When a virus first appears, B cells multiply quickly and produce antibodies in large quantities. Once the acute infection has subsided, a small number of cells take their place in the bone marrow and steadily pump out modest amounts of antibodies.

To study the memory B cells specific to the new coronavirus, researchers led by Ali Ellebedy of Washington University in St. Louis analyzed the blood of 77 people at three-month intervals, starting about a month after they were infected the coronavirus. Only six of the 77 had been hospitalized for Covid-19; The rest had mild symptoms.

Antibody levels in these people fell rapidly four months after infection and then slowly decreased for months afterward – results that are in line with other studies.

Some scientists have interpreted this drop as a sign of waning immunity, but it’s exactly what is expected, other experts said. If blood contained large amounts of antibodies to every pathogen the body had ever encountered, it would quickly turn into thick mud.

Updated

May 26, 2021, 11:32 a.m. ET

Instead, blood levels of antibodies drop sharply after an acute infection, while memory B cells in the bone marrow remain calm and ready to take action if necessary.

Dr. Ellebedy received bone marrow samples from 19 people approximately seven months after infection. Fifteen had detectable storage B cells but four did not, suggesting that some people may have very few cells or no cells at all.

“It tells me that even if you got infected, it doesn’t mean you have a super immune response,” said Dr. Ellebedy. The results confirm the idea that people who have recovered from Covid-19 should be vaccinated, he said.

Five of the participants in Dr. Ellebedy’s study donated bone marrow samples seven or eight months after the initial infection and again four months later. He and his colleagues found that the number of storage B cells remained stable over this time.

The results are especially noteworthy given that bone marrow samples are difficult to obtain, said Jennifer Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the work.

A landmark 2007 study showed that antibodies can theoretically survive for decades, perhaps well beyond the average lifespan, suggesting the long-term existence of memory B cells. But the new study offered rare evidence of its existence, said Dr. Gommerman.

Dr. Nussenzweig studied how memory B cells mature over time. The researchers analyzed the blood of 63 people who had recovered from Covid-19 about a year earlier. The vast majority of participants had mild symptoms and 26 had also received at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

So-called neutralizing antibodies, which were needed to prevent re-infection with the virus, remained unchanged between six and twelve months, while related but less important antibodies slowly disappeared, the team found.

As memory B cells evolved, the antibodies they produced developed the ability to neutralize an even wider group of variants. This continued maturation may be due to a small piece of the virus being bound by the immune system – for target practice, so to speak.

One year after infection, the neutralizing activity was lower in the non-vaccinated participants compared to all forms of the virus, with the greatest loss being recorded compared to the variant first identified in South Africa.

The vaccination significantly increased antibody levels and confirmed the results of other studies. The shots also increased the body’s ability to neutralize by 50 times.

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul said Sunday he would not receive a coronavirus vaccine because he was infected last March and was therefore immune.

However, there is no guarantee that such immunity will be strong enough to protect him for years, especially given the emergence of variants of the coronavirus that can partially bypass the body’s defenses.

The results of the study by Dr. Nussenzweig suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and were later vaccinated will continue to have extremely high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without receiving a vaccine booster later.

“It looks exactly what we’d hope a good memory B-cell response would look like,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the new research.

All experts agreed that immunity in people who have never had Covid-19 is likely to vary widely. Fighting a live virus is different from responding to a single viral protein introduced by a vaccine. And in those who had Covid-19, the initial immune response had time to mature over six to 12 months before being challenged by the vaccine.

“These kinetics are different from someone who has been immunized and re-immunized three weeks later,” said Dr. Pepper. “That doesn’t mean they might not have that broad answer, but it could be very different.”

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Every day U.S. information on Could 26

Two doses of Covid vaccines provide protection against India variant

A healthcare worker holds syringes of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a vaccination center in El Paso, Texas on May 6, 2021.

Jose Luis Gonzalez | Reuters

The 7-day average of new US Covid cases continued to fall to around 24,155 infections per day on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University, and the average pace of daily deaths is also falling.

The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that half of American adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid.

For those who are not vaccinated, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to be cautious about the upcoming Memorial Day holidays, noting that those who got a shot are protected.

“If you are not vaccinated, our instructions have not changed for you,” Walensky said at a press conference at the White House on Tuesday. “You are still at risk of infection. You still need to mask and take other precautions.”

Last year, US Covid cases rose after the holiday weekend when vaccines were not available at the time.

US Covid cases

The US reports an average of 24,155 infections per day over the past week, a 23% decrease from the previous week and a sharp decrease from the last peak of more than 71,000 cases per day in mid-April.

A CNBC analysis of the Hopkins data shows that the average number of cases in 41 states and the District of Columbia has decreased by at least 5% over the past week.

US Covid deaths

According to Hopkins data, the US has recorded an average of 520 Covid deaths per day over the past week.

The total number of reported Covid deaths in the US since the pandemic began is now about 591,000.

US percentage of the vaccinated population

About 50% of the US population had at least one shot, according to the CDC, with more than 131 million Americans, or nearly 40%, fully vaccinated.

Of those over 18, around 62% have received at least one dose of vaccine, while 50% are now fully vaccinated. President Joe Biden’s goal is to bring the proportion of adults on one dose or greater to 70 percent by July 4th.

US vaccine shots administered

The 7-day average of vaccinations given in the US is 1.8 million per day over the past week, according to CDC data. That number has hovered between 1.7 and 2 million for more than a week.