Over 52M COVID vaccines administered in US as cases dip

WASHINGTON

The US has administered well over 52 million coronavirus vaccines, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Monday.

In all, the health authority tracked 52,884,356 administered shots, with over 70 million distributed doses.

Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have received emergency use authorization from US health authorities, both of which require two separate doses spaced weeks apart.

The two vaccines have proven very effective in preventing patients from contracting COVID-19, but they require specialized storage in extremely cold temperatures.

Those conditions have led to some doses going to waste, particularly early in the vaccine roll out when states struggled to adequately control the logistics of vaccine distribution and administration.

The vaccine push comes as the US sees a stark drop in daily virus cases from earlier highs hit last month when over 300,000 cases were reported on Jan. 2 -- the highest number of daily infections during the US outbreak.

Just under 65,000 cases were recorded Sunday as cases have continued to fall from mid-January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Daily deaths have also been on a steady decline, except for a significant spike on Feb. 12 when the highest number of COVID-related fatalities ever recorded. A total of 5,443 was tallied by the university.

Deaths tend to lag behind confirmed cases.

In the nearly one year since the outbreak began in the US over 486,000 people have succumbed to the virus' complications, while over 27.6 million people have been infected.