Morgues overflow as US averages ‘one Covid-19 death per minute’
- US health officials plan for rapid vaccine roll-out as Covid-19 surges to new heights
- More than 2,500 deaths recorded in a 24-hour period, the highest total since late April
Top US health officials announced plans to begin vaccinating Americans against the coronavirus as early as mid-December, as nationwide deaths hit the highest number for a single day in more than seven months.
Some 20 million people could be inoculated against Covid-19 by the end of 2020 and most Americans will have access to highly effective vaccines by mid-2021, the chief adviser of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed programme said on Tuesday.
“Within 24 hours, maybe at most 36 to 48 hours, from the approval, the vaccine can be in people’s arms,” Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive who is overseeing the vaccine portion of the US programme, said at an event conducted by The Washington Post.
His comments came on the same day the US registered more than 2,500 deaths in a 24-hour period, the highest total since late April, Johns Hopkins University said.
More than 180,000 new infections were recorded, according to real-time data provided by the Baltimore-based university.
The last time the daily death toll was higher than Tuesday’s total of 2,562 was in late April, at the height of the pandemic’s first wave.