The number of COVID-19 cases topped 60 million worldwide on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
A tracker run by Johns Hopkins University reported the grim milestone, as well as more than 1.4 million deaths attributed to the virus.
The United States still leads the world in the number of reported cases, with just under 12.7 million, and dramatic surges have been taking place across the country in recent weeks. More than 1 million new cases were recorded in less than a week, and 178,000 new cases and 2,200 deaths were reported on Tuesday alone.
With the holiday season beginning, officials are warning people to use caution when or even refrain from visiting relatives. California, for example, has instructed its residents to limit gatherings to three families or fewer.
Though several vaccine candidates have shown significant promise in recent weeks, experts still believe that distribution of a vaccine to the public will take time.
When Pfizer announced earlier this month that its candidate was considered 90% effective, the medical community rejoiced. However, Dr. Katie Passaretti, medical director of infection prevention at Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center, told Fox News, “It doesn’t mean a ton of changes to the timeline of things.”
Passaretti said a significant barrier to distribution could be people’s suspicion of the vaccine.
“It’s potentially a big issue,” she said. “Vaccine hesitancy has become a concern for a number of infectious diseases — there’s a large chunk of the population that says, ‘No, I’m not willing to get it.’ The benefit of the vaccine goes down significantly.”
