Covid instances are rising, hospital stays have reached a plateau regardless of rising vaccinations

Paramedic Lenny Fernandez, medical assistant Rodnay Moore, and paramedic certified Calvin Davis (left to right) prepare doses of the Pfizer COVID vaccine as the City of Vernon Health Department workers open the new clinic for the city’s mobile health unit for delivery Vaccinations used by COVID-19 against nearly 250 food processing workers at Rose & Shore, Inc. March 17, 2021 in Vernon, CA.

Al Seib | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Covid-19 cases are on the rise and hospital admissions in the US have increased despite the country setting a new record for coronavirus vaccine doses given in one day on Saturday.

The US had a 7-day average of 61,359 new Covid-19 cases per day on Friday, a 12% increase from last week. This comes from a CNBC analysis of the data from Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus daily hospital admissions steadily decreased from January to February, but now hospital admissions are on the decline. The country recorded an average of 7,790 Covid-19 hospitalizations in seven days on Thursday, up 2.6% from a week earlier. This is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I remain deeply concerned about this development,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a press conference at the White House on Friday. “We have seen cases and hospital admissions that have gone from historical declines to stagnations and increases. We know from previous waves that the epidemic curve has real potential to rise again if we don’t control things now.”

Europe battles third wave of Covid infections as countries like France, Poland and Ukraine reintroduce lockdowns to contain the spread of viruses.

The rising cases and stagnant hospital stays occur as more and more Americans are vaccinated. More than 3.4 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were given on Saturday, according to the CDC. Saturday’s total broke the previous record for the most Covid-19 vaccine shots given on a day set on Friday, with 3.37 million doses reported.

The rate of vaccination is increasing rapidly with an average of seven days on Saturday of more than 2.6 million daily shots. More than 140 million Covid vaccine doses have been administered in the US since Saturday, according to the CDC.

President Joe Biden set a new goal Thursday of administering 200 million coronavirus vaccine shots in his first 100 days in office.

The urge for increased vaccinations comes from the fact that on March 19, the chief physician of the White House of the USA, Dr. Anthony Fauci, highly infectious and potentially more deadly variants of the virus continue to spread. The coronavirus variant first identified in the UK probably makes up 30% of vaccinations from Covid infections in the US

New strains are of particular concern to public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines. Still, the World Health Organization said in February that Covid-19 vaccines had been shown to be effective in preventing serious illnesses and deaths among those infected.

Covid-related deaths in the US have decreased. According to a CNBC analysis of the Johns Hopkins data, the US recorded a seven-day average on Friday with 992 new coronavirus-related deaths per day, a 14% decrease from the previous week.