U.S. under siege from COVID-19 as hospitals overwhelmed before holidays
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[December 23, 2020]
By Susan Heavey and Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans were
warned again on Tuesday not to travel for Christmas as the latest
COVID-19 surge left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick and
political leaders imposed restrictions to try to curb new infections,
making for a grim holiday season.
A new, even more contagious variant of the coronavirus quickly spreading
across Britain caused more fear in Americans already weary from nine
months of the pandemic and prompted talks among top U.S. officials to
ban travel from the United Kingdom
The new coronavirus variant has emerged as the United States grapples
with a nationwide spike in infections that added more than a million new
cases in just six days, according to a Reuters tally, a total of more
than 18 million since the pandemic began.
In California, an epicenter of the latest surge, intensive care unit
(ICU) beds were scarce and hospitals said they lacked enough doctors and
nurses to care for patients.
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"The whole California ICU capacity has been going down. We are all
struggling," said Dr. Imran Mohammed of Sutter Roseville Medical Center,
north of Sacramento. "We really don’t want to see more than this. We
will be challenged to see further ICU patients and we will have no place
eventually."
Many U.S. states and cities have imposed lockdowns and business closures
to try to get a handle on a wave of illness driven by last month's
Thanksgiving gatherings.
Political leaders have asked Americans to stay home for the upcoming
holidays to prevent a surge upon the surge threatening to overwhelm
healthcare systems, a request that many have defied.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on
Tuesday that the altered coronavirus had not yet been detected in the
United States.
U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News that the Pfizer/BioNTech
and Moderna vaccines, which received U.S. emergency use authorizations
this month, should work against the new variant.
Moderna Inc and BioNTech SE, which worked with Pfizer Inc to develop its
vaccine, are scrambling to test their shots against the new virus
mutations, but expressed confidence in them.
"Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this
vaccine can also deal with this virus variant," BioNTech Chief Executive
Ugur Sahin told reporters.
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Evelia De La Cruz cleans the isolation room of coronavirus positive
patient Andre Johnson on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois,
December 8, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
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MORE THAN 600,000 VACCINATED
More than 600,000 Americans had received their first COVID-19
vaccine doses as of Monday, according to the CDC.
The first wave of shots have so far gone to healthcare workers and
nursing home residents, as well as some top government officials.
Americans in "non-essential" jobs have been told they would likely
wait months for their turn.
Azar and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease
official, received the Moderna shot on live television on Tuesday.
President-elect Joe Biden was inoculated with the Pfizer/BioNTech
vaccine in front of cameras on Monday.
The White House coronavirus task force has no plans to restrict
travel from the UK, people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.
But Michael Osterholm, one of Biden's pandemic advisors, said all
options needed to be considered, suggesting that the U.S. government
could mandate a 14-day quarantine for visitors from the UK.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee has ordered a 14-day quarantine for
travelers arriving from the UK, South Africa or other "countries
with circulation of a new, potentially more contagious COVID-19
variation."
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he asked airlines to add his
state to a list of 120 countries that require COVID-19 screening for
incoming air travelers.
"The United States should say the same thing that New York said. Say
that people need to test before they come from the UK," Cuomo said
on a Tuesday call with reporters.
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(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Lisa Lambert in Washington, Peter
Szekely and Gabriella Borter in New York, Anurag Maan in Bengaluru,
Nathan Layne in Roseville, California and Jill Serjeant and Dan
Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Gabriella Borter and Dan
Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Matthew Lewis and Bill
Berkrot)
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