The CDC says it is collaborating with other federal agencies to coordinate and enhance genomic surveillance to better understand local epidemiology in the face of the new variant. The agency also underscored the importance of public health strategies to reduce transmission, which will buy “critical time to increase vaccination coverage.”
The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 2 million on Friday as vaccines developed at breakneck speed are being rolled out around the world in an all-out campaign to vanquish the threat.
The milestone was reached just over a year after the coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It took eight months to hit 1 million dead. It took less than four months after that to reach the next million.
While the count is based on figures supplied by government agencies around the world, the real toll is believed to be significantly higher, in part because of inadequate testing and the many fatalities that were inaccurately attributed to other causes, especially early in the outbreak.
“Behind this terrible number are names and faces — the smile that will now only be a memory, the seat forever empty at the dinner table, the room that echoes with the silence of a loved one,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He said the toll “has been made worse by the absence of a global coordinated effort.”
“Science has succeeded, but solidarity has failed,” he said.
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