News Room

The United States is set to mark 400,000 deaths due to COVID-19 about a month after recording 300,000 deaths. Ten percent of all American COVID deaths have been reported in the past 11 days, according to data from the New York Times and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Dr. Ajay Sethi, an infectious diseases expert from UW-Madison, said it doesn't look like the pace for new deaths will slow down any time soon. "[With] our current trajectory, we're gonna be at about half a million deaths in the United States a little after Valentine's Day," he said. The numbers are increasing quickly because of the way the virus spreads, according to Dr. Oguz Alagoz, a professor at UW-Madison who models the spread of infectious diseases.

The travel industry should be ready to start feeling good. Although there have been 400,000 deaths and 24 million cases in the United States alone, COVID-19 vaccine rollout has begun. But ‘last-mile’ problems of distribution and sluggish city and state response has slowed vaccination programs across the country. The US Travel Association (USTA) calls the rollout “a long-awaited light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, bringing to life the number one assurance travelers need—a vaccine.”

Top public health officials and long-term care stakeholders have both praised West Virginia for how quickly it’s been able to distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines to long-term care facilities. Last week, the state announced that it’s now administering doses to more seniors after finishing initial vaccine rounds at all of its nursing homes. Its success sent experts digging to see just how the state was able to master its long-term care vaccination program, while so many others are struggling. “The first important point is that West Virginia opted out of a federal partnership program that relies on the giant CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains to deliver vaccines to nursing homes.

Many are counting the hours until Inauguration Day, when Joe Biden becomes the nation’s 46th presidents. He inherits the country from a dysfunctional administration that will leave behind a spate of unimaginable carnage, more of which will be revealed in the coming weeks. Biden’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic will be front and center on his agenda. Unfortunately, it will take the first two years of his administration to gain traction in the battle. By that time, history suggests that Republicans will likely have gained control of both the House and the Senate, a common phenomenon in midterm elections. As such, COVID-19 will not only define Biden’s presidency, it may be its undoing. 

As COVID-19 vaccine production ramps up, with millions of doses distributed into the nation’s immunization supply chain every week, state and county public health departments are working to immunize a growing cohort of the population. The CDC recently reduced the age eligibility guidance for immediate immunization to 65 years, and added younger adults (those 16 to 64 years old) with underlying health conditions including cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, heart disease, obesity, sickle cell disease, diabetes and smoking, and those immunocompromised due to organ transplant.