COVID-19 deaths in U.S. spike again as new cases stay under 100,000

Feb. 10 (UPI) -- For the third day in a row, new COVID-19 cases in the United States have totaled fewer than 100,000 -- but new deaths once again spiked, according to updated data Wednesday.

Data from Johns Hopkins University show there were about 95,400 new cases nationwide on Tuesday. The total marked the third consecutive day that new cases were below the 100,000 -- a threshold that new U.S. cases had passed every day since the start of November.

Over the past three days combined, there have been about 275,000 new cases. A month ago, that figure represented the number of new cases added in a single day.

New coronavirus deaths in the United States, however, spiked to about 3,100 on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins.

New cases nationwide have been trending downward over the past month. Experts say the dwindling cases are likely the result of more vaccinations and revised policy from President Joe Biden's administration.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been a total of 27.2 million cases and about 468,300 coronavirus deaths in the United States.

According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 43.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered and 62.9 million doses have been distributed to health centers.

Health officials in the United States and pharmaceutical companies are continuing to study variants of the coronavirus and the effectiveness of currently available vaccines.

Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday that mutated strains of COVID-19 may require that people receive a vaccine every year, for several years, much like annual flu shots.

"Every time it mutates, it's almost like another click of the dial so to speak where we can see another variant," he said.

Johnson & Johnson said last month its one-dose vaccine is 85% effective in preventing severe cases of COVID-19, but the efficacy varied in the different regions where it was tested in clinical trials.

The vaccine requires only a single dose, unlike the two-shot regimens required by the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, and does not need to be stored or shipped at constant freezing temperatures.

Other COVID-19 updates on Wednesday:

• The vaccine by AstraZeneca has been approved for use in South Korea and is the first to be authorized in the Asian nation.
• New Zealand has approved Pfizer's vaccine for use nationwide for persons over the age of 16.
• The FDA has authorized a monoclonal antibody treatment from Eli Lilly for use against COVID-19.