EXPERTS fear Thanksgiving will be the “mother of all superspreader events” after the CDC warned the vast majority of reported Covid-19 infections are missed.
At least 53 million people contracted the deadly bug by September but the agency now estimates that eight coronavirus infections went unreported for every one caught.
Former White House medical team adviser Dr Jonathan Reiner warned that Thanksgiving could lead to a massive surge in infections.
“It’s potentially the mother of all superspreader events,” Reiner told CNN as North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oregon, Maine and Alaska reported record numbers of deaths on Tuesday.
“People [are] leaving from every airport in the United States, and carrying virus with them,” he said, citing the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota this summer as an example.
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His comments come as AAA forecasts estimate that 6.3 million Americans will have flown in the days before and after Thanksgiving – even though officials have urged people to keep celebrations small and at home.
As the country battles this deadly second wave, the daily death toll on Wednesday surged to 2,284 in the USA, according to The Covid Tracking Project – the highest level since May 7.
This is the second day in a row that more than 2,000 Americans have died; hospitalizations also reached single day record of 89,954 with a seven-day average of 84,840.
This disturbing news emerged after the CDC revealed that a whopping 53 million people had contracted the virus two months ago – just under eight times the confirmed cases reported at the time.
The agency had previously estimated that one of every 10 infections were being missed
Their more recent calculation is supposed to paint a more accurate picture of how many people actually contracted the deadly virus since the pandemic hit the USA.
Of the 53 million estimated infections, around 45 million were sick at some point while about 2.4 million patients were hospitalized.
On November 24, the CDC reported 12,498,734 cases of the new coronavirus – an uptick of 165,282 from its previous count.
Reuters reported that the number of deaths had risen by 1,989 to 259,005.
This was the CDC tally as of 4pm ET on November 24 versus its previous report a day earlier.
America has now suffered its deadliest day since May with more than 2,100 daily coronavirus deaths amid fears of the Thanksgiving “time-bomb” spiral.
Across the US, hospitals have been overwhelmed with Covid patients – with at least one medical center turning a parking lot into treatment areas.
The death toll reached 2,157 on Tuesday – one person every 40 seconds – with another 170,000 people infected.
Experts worry those numbers could explode with more than six million Americans disregarding official warnings and traveling for Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday.
Officials have pleaded with families to keep holiday gatherings small as the contagion escalates around the country.
The deadliest day in more than six months was still short of the record of 2,806 deaths on April 14, according to a Reuters tally of official data.
That one-day figure is sometimes reported higher due to a backlog of deaths that were not compiled until April 14.
With hospitalizations for Covid-19 reaching a record high of 87,000 in America on Tuesday, the nation’s leading infectious diseases official urged people to keep celebrations as small as possible.
Dr Anthony Fauci stressed the need to “hang in there a bit longer” on wearing masks, maintaining distance and avoiding crowds – especially indoors.
“If we do those things, we’re going to get through it. So that’s my final plea before the holiday,” he said during an interview on Good Morning America.
On Tuesday, shocking pics showed bodies in bags marked “Covid” were stacked in refrigerated trucks in hard-hit Texas this week.
Mobile morgues were seen at the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday as the number of cases across the country totaled more than 12 million.
Staffers at the medical examiner’s office were photographed moving bodies in bags labeled “Covid” in what appears to be written in marker.
The body bags were set to be moved from the refrigerated trailers to the morgue office.
The photos are similar to pictures taken in New York City earlier this when hundreds of bodies were seen in freezer trucks in Brooklyn.
The CDC announced on Tuesday that it is reassessing the quarantine period.
Officials are reportedly set to publish new guidelines lowering the recommended period from 14 days to between seven and ten days.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Dr Henry Walke, the CDC’s incident manager for Covid-19 response, said research suggested the change could be introduced safely.
“We do think that the work that we’ve done, and some of the studies we have and the modeling data that we have, shows that we can – with testing – shorten quarantines,” he said.
He added that, if a person’s swab test is negative, then “their probability of going on and developing an infection after that is pretty low”.
Help may also be coming with vaccines showing promise.
Officials from the government’s “Operation Warp Speed” program told reporters on Tuesday they plan to release 6.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses nationwide in an initial distribution.
This will happen after the first one is cleared by regulators for emergency use, which could happen as soon as December 10.
If all goes well, 40 million doses will be distributed by the end of the year, they said.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruling on the Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer vaccine is expected on December 10.
Moderna said its two-dose jab was 94.5 percent successful at fighting the deadly virus in infected volunteers – and Fauci said it may also be rolled out next month, pending FDA approval.
Both Pfizer and Moderna’s company bosses plan to submit their vaccines to the regulators in the US for emergency authorization “within days” before sharing them with others around the world.
Pfizer chairman, Dr Albert Bourla said: “The study results mark an important step in this historic eight-month journey to bring forward a vaccine capable of helping to end this devastating pandemic.
“We continue to move at the speed of science to compile all the data collected thus far and share with regulators around the world.”
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to make fighting the pandemic his top priority upon taking office on January 20.
Fauci told C-SPAN on Wednesday that he had been in contact with Biden’s staff and was willing to serve on any task force to beat the virus.
Donald Trump made a one-minute appearance in the White House briefing room on Tuesday to talk about the stock market after touting his involvement in the vaccine rollout last week.
