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US Covid-19 deaths drop, UK witnesses sharp one-day rise in fatalities
As vaccination under the Joe Biden administration in the US gathers pace, Covid-19 deaths have begun to decline in every section of the country.
The global tally of Covid-19 cases has topped 103.8 million. The United States continues to remain the worst affected nation by the deadly disease though the number of cases and deaths from the viral disease have started to decline. The situation in the United Kingdom, the country with the fourth highest number of coronavirus cases, remains equally tense with the emergence of the new variant of the virus that causes the infection.
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As vaccination under the Joe Biden administration in the US gathers pace, Covid-19 deaths have begun to decline in every section of the country. As of Wednesday morning, there were a total of 446,731 fatalities in the US and 26,430,237 positive cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s dashboard. According to news agency Bloomberg, now, the seven-day average has shown signs of having peaked in all four US Census Bureau regions, even the laggard South. The declines will buy states time as they attempt an unprecedented vaccination effort to get shots to most of the country’s 330 million people, Bloomberg reported.
Also Read: Covid-19 variant in UK picks up worrying South Africa mutation
In the past week, the US has administered about 1.35 million doses of Covid vaccines a day, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. Around 31.8 million doses have been given in the country overall.
Meanwhile, Britain, which has been forced into another lockdown following the spike in cases, recorded 1,449 deaths within 28 days of a positive test for Covid-19 on Tuesday, up from 406 a day earlier, with a further 16,840 cases of the disease, a decrease from a day earlier, Reuters reported. Official data showed that 9.65 million people have been given the first dose of a vaccine, up from a figure of 9.29 million people announced on Monday.
The steep spike in the number of fatalities due to the disease comes a day after the deaths dropped to 406 on Monday, the lowest daily figure since December 28.
The nation continues to worry as its UK variant of the coronavirus has developed a new, concerning mutation in a small number of cases, which scientists said makes it similar to the South African and Brazilian variants and could reduce the efficacy of vaccines, Reuters reported, with Public Health England saying there had been 11 reports of the UK variant which feature the E484K mutation, mostly in south-west England. The E484K mutation, which occurs on the spike protein of the virus, is the same change as has been seen in the South African and Brazilian variants that have caused international concern, the report added.
(with agency inputs)
