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2021-01-11 03:35:12

By Dwaipayan

It just took 10 days to hit 2.2 million cases in 2021, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

"We're in a dire situation," said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "We know how to slow the spread of the virus. We need mask mandates. We need people to really stay at home and avoid any indoor gatherings."

But officials say many Americans did the opposite over the holidays, gathering with friends or extended family. Now the consequences are becoming more evident in packed hospitals across the country.

More than 27,000 new Covid-19 deaths have been reported in just the first 10 days of 2021, according to data from Johns Hopkins. At this rate, more people could die from Covid-19 in January than any other month of this pandemic. December had a record high of 77,431 deaths due to Covid-19.

There were 129,229 Covid-19 patients in US hospitals on Sunday, according to the COVID Tracking Project -- the sixth highest figure recorded. It was the 40th consecutive day that US Covid-19 hospitalizations remained above 100,000.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the recent riot at the US Capitol would likely be a "surge event" that "will probably lead to a significant spreading" across the country.

"You had largely unmasked individuals in a non-distanced fashion, who were all through the Capitol," Dr. Robert Redfield told the McClatchy newspaper group. Hospitalizations are climbing in Texas, where a record number of Covid-19 patients were reported for the seventh day in a row Saturday. At least 13,935 patients were hospitalized in the state, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

There were 7,497 Covid-19 patients in Florida hospitals on Sunday, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. That's about 3,000 patients more than were hospitalized in the state about a month ago, on December 12, when the AHCA reported 4,343 hospitalizations.

And California set two new records Saturday -- the most deaths reported in one day, 695, and the most Covid-19 patients in intensive care units -- 4,939. On Sunday, the state reported nearly 50,000 new cases and 468 deaths.

Biden team announces plan to ratchet up vaccine rollout

Meanwhile, the nation's Covid-19 vaccine rollout "is absolutely not working as intended," said Dr. Megan Ranney, a CNN medical analyst and an emergency physician.

"We have three times as many doses that have been distributed to states as have actually gotten in arms," she said. "We have to do something different, and we have to do something different now."

President-elect Joe Biden will aim to release nearly all available doses of Covid-19 vaccines in an effort to quickly ramp up the US vaccine rollout, a spokesman for his transition team said.