Fauci Says US Is Lacking Control Needed To Suppress Covid

CNN: This Is What A US Endgame For Covid-19 Should Look Like, Fauci Says 
With more than 75 million eligible Americans still not vaccinated, hospitals in many states overwhelmed and fears that cases could grow further in the fall, experts and officials are scrambling to slow the Covid-19 pandemic. "The one thing that we do know for sure... 160,000 cases a day is not where we want to be," the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday. "Unfortunately, that is where we are right now." (Holcombe, 9/10)

Fox News: Fauci On COVID-19: US Lacking ‘Modestly Good Control’ Over Pandemic
The U.S. is logging daily COVID-19 infections at a rate more than 10 times the threshold needed to suppress the pandemic, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser. "The endgame is to suppress the virus," Fauci told Axios. "Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control...which means it's a public health threat. "As of Sept. 7, the latest federal figures, the country recorded a seven-day moving average of 140,058 daily infections, while an estimated 62.4% of Americans aged 12 and older are fully vaccinated. President Biden is expected to announce later on Thursday a six-part strategy to tamp down spread of the delta variant and boost vaccinations. (Kayla Rivas, 9/9)

New York Post: 99% Of Hospital Admissions Were Among Those Not Fully Vaccinated
They are the new 99 percenters: The vast majority of Americans who are getting serious cases of COVID-19 or dying are unvaccinated. While COVID-19 cases continue to spike across the US, the overwhelming majority of deaths and hospitalizations from the virus continue to overwhelmingly be among unvaccinated Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30, about 99 percent of hospital admissions were among those who hadn’t been fully inoculated, which is defined by the CDC as two weeks after the second dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two weeks after Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose jab. (Fonrouge, 9/9)

In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —

Las Cruces Sun-News: Ivermectin Suspected Cause Of Fatal Poisoning In New Mexico
New Mexico's acting Health Secretary came down hard Wednesday on unfounded claims that the drug Ivermectin is a suitable treatment for COVID-19 disease. During a weekly update on the state's COVID-19 cases and response, state Human Services Secretary Dr. David Scrase, temporarily heading the state health department as well, said clinicians were investigating what was likely the state's first fatal case of an individual dosing themselves with the drug, while a suspected second case was in critical condition. “I’d like people to know, if they’re out there taking it, it can kill them," Scrase said. (D'Amassa, 9/9)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: About 40 Cases Of Mu Coronavirus Variant Detected In Nevada
There have been roughly 40 cases identified in Nevada of the mu variant of the coronavirus, the latest troubling strain to join the World Health Organization’s watchlist, a top state public health official said. In designating mu a “variant of interest” on Aug. 30, WHO said it possesses a constellation of mutations that could make it resistant to the protection against disease afforded by vaccination or past COVID-19 infection. Despite the designation, the head of the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory thinks it’s unlikely that mu (pronounced “mew”) will overtake the highly contagious delta mutant as the state’s dominant strain. (Hynes, 9/9)

Journal Star: COVID Hospitalizations In Illinois Surging Among Pregnant Women
A recent surge in the number of pregnant women hospitalized for COVID-19 is causing Dr. Michael Leonardi to lose sleep. Leonardi is an OB-GYN with OSF HealthCare who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. He said there was a dramatic jump in the number of pregnant COVID-19 patients hospitalized at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center between July and August. “The last weekend that I was on call, one-third of labor and delivery beds were taken up by women with COVID who had no reason other than COVID to be in the hospital,” said Leonardi. “I can think of two people recently who were intubated and on ventilators in the ICU and delivered early because of COVID. I am concerned that we're on the  beginning of an upsurge." (Renken, 9/9)

The Advocate: Louisiana COVID Cases Peak In Fourth Surge, Remain ‘Exorbitantly High': State Health Officer
While COVID-19 cases in Louisiana remain "exorbitantly high," the state appears to have peaked in its fourth surge of the deadly disease, state health officer Dr. Joseph Kanter said Thursday. "In short we are moving in the right direction," Kanter said. "That is encouraging. But the level of COVID out there remains exorbitantly high." Gov. John Bel Edwards said about 2 million state residents are fully vaccinated, which is just over 50% of the eligible population. (Sentell, 9/9)

Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi Nurses Talk The Last 18 Months In The COVID-19 Pandemic
Thirty minutes after the clinic double-doors at Urgent & Primary Care of Clarksdale opened, two people had already tested positive for COVID-19. Another three were awaiting test results. By then, Mary Williams had at least eight hours left in her workday. Her Clarksdale clinic, in a Mississippi Delta city of about 15,000, typically treats 18 to 20 patients a day. A month ago that number doubled. In the past 18 months, Williams' staff of eight have fought to stay healthy. Three have had the virus. (Haselhorst, 9/9)

AP: Michigan Hospital Leaders Renew Vaccination Plea Amid Deaths
Brian Peters, CEO of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, said hospitals are operating at near capacity as coronavirus caseloads rise and high numbers of non-COVID-19 patients seek care they delayed earlier in the pandemic. The number of adults hospitalized with the disease Wednesday — 1,300 — was well below the state’s peak of roughly 4,100 in April. However, Peters said there are fewer employees and non-virus patients who waited need higher levels of care and longer hospital stints. “Our staffing is stressed to a level that we have not seen previously,” Peters said. “One of the ways to prevent that is to get the vaccine. There’s just no question.” (Eggert, 9/10)

KHN: ECMO Life Support Is A Last Resort For Covid, And In Short Supply In South
Hospital discharge day for Phoua Yang was more like a pep rally. On her way rolling out of TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, she teared up as streamers and confetti rained down on her. Nurses chanted her name as they wheeled her out of the hospital for the first time since she arrived in February with covid-19, barely able to breathe. The 38-year-old mother is living proof of the power of ECMO — a method of oxygenating a patient’s blood outside the body, then pumping it back in. Her story helps explain why a shortage of trained staff members who can run the machines that perform this extracorporeal membrane oxygenation has become such a pinch point as covid hospitalizations surge. (Farmer, 9/10)

Also —

The New York Times: When Was The First U.S. Covid Death? CDC Investigates 4 Early Cases 
Late last year, the federal government’s chief statistician on death received word about a tantalizing discovery: Someone had died from Covid-19 in January 2020, a death certificate said, a revelation that would have sped up the timeline of the virus’s spread in the United States by several weeks. That death was ultimately not what it seemed. The person who certified it had meant June 2020, not January. But that blip on the radar screen of Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helped to kick off a quiet, yearlong campaign at the agency to check and recheck the country’s first suspected Covid-related deaths in the uncertain days of early 2020. (Mueller, 9/9)