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Close to 50% of the United States’ coronavirus cases are said to be concentrated in five states, according to Fox News.
The five states are that of New York, Florida, Michigan Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
These five states accounted for 44% of all new infections between March 29 and April 4 with about 197,500 cases out of around 452,000 seen nationwide, according to John Hopkins University.
New York, which recorded 52,922 cases last week, or an average of about 7,560 a day, accounted for about 12 percent of the nation’s total cases.
Florida logged 37,927 cases, while Pennsylvania and New Jersey saw around 29,847 and 29,753 new infections.
Michigan recorded 47,036 new positives over the last week, or an average of about 6,719 each day.
“You wouldn’t want to make those folks wait because they were doing better,” Geng Dr. Elvin H. Geng, an infectious diseases professor at Washington University explained.
“On the other hand, it only makes sense to send vaccines to where the cases are rising.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly demanded more vaccine supply from the federal government, “We still need supply, supply, supply.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she asked the White House whether it’s considering sending extra vaccine to states like hers.
Whitmer said she didn’t plan to tighten restrictions to handle the surge and instead blamed it on pandemic fatigue and more contagious variants of the virus.
From Fox News:
The concentration of new cases has prompted some experts and elected officials to call on the Biden administration to ship additional vaccines to hotspots — though the White House has made no indication they plan to shift their policy.
While sending extra doses to hot spots sounds logical, it could mean states that are doing a better job of controlling the virus will see fewer doses, noted Dr. Elvin H. Geng, an infectious diseases professor at Washington University.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he is constantly in talks with the White House about demand for the jabs, but stopped short of saying he’s asking for more doses to handle the high infection rate. He noted that vaccine shipments to the Garden State are up 12 percent in the last week — but he still questioned if it was enough.
— Advertisement — “We constantly look at, OK, we know we’re going up,” Murphy said.
“But are we going up at the rate we should be, particularly given the amount of cases we have?”
