US Covid Infections Rising Again, Deaths in 2021 Surpass Last Year's Toll

Daily case reports increase over 20% across the upper Midwest, with Michigan and Minnesota, the states first to experience the onset of winter, leading the country “by a significant margin in recent cases per capita,” according to analysis by the New York Times.

The fresh worsening of the coronavirus pandemic in the US is happening as the holiday season is approaching and cold weather is driving more people to meet indoors.

The combination of Thanksgiving, Christmas and falling temperatures makes this time of year “the perfect storm” for Covid, Dr. Bruce Farber, Chief of Infectious Disease at Northwell Health in New York, told CNBC.

“I wouldn’t allow anybody to go to Thanksgiving who’s not vaccinated,” Farber said. “I think that should be the price you pay.”

On Thursday, the country reported a seven-day average of almost 95,000 new Covid infections, up 31% over the past two weeks, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

Meanwhile, medical authorities are struggling to get adult vaccination rates above 60% nationwide.

However, even those states with high rates of early vaccination take-up, including New Mexico, New Hampshire and Vermont, are reporting elevated Covid case levels, suggesting that the efficacy of vaccines may be diminishing in terms of infection.

Individuals vaccinated in the earliest stages of the rollout are prone to breakthrough infections, according to Dr. Reynold Panettieri, Vice Chancellor for translational medicine and science at Rutgers University.

“I would anticipate that we will see an uptick in and around the holidays, just because people are going to be getting together with more exposures,” Panettieri said.