1/ A record 4 million people in U.S. received a coronavirus vaccine on Saturday. Over the past seven days, an average of 3.1 million shots have been administered each day and about 1 in 4 adults are now fully vaccinated, Andy Slavitt said, the White House’s senior adviser for Covid-19 response. While the daily coronavirus death toll in the U.S. is at its lowest level in months, the seven-day average of new daily cases rose 7% to 64,000, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. In Michigan, daily new cases are up 39% compared with a week ago. Experts, however, disagree on whether the U.S. is on the cusp of a “fourth wave” or seeing the last gasps of the 14-month pandemic. Michael Osterholm, an adviser to Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board, predicted that the next two weeks would bring “the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic.” Osterholm called Michigan’s 8,400 new cases a “wake-up call to everyone.” Meanwhile, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA under Trump, said he did not foresee a fourth wave, saying “I think with the rate of vaccination that we’re having right now […] I think that there’s enough immunity in the population that you’re not going to see a true fourth wave of infection.” (Washington Post / CNBC / New York Times / CNN / Axios)
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2021/04/05/day-76/