Daily averages of coronavirus cases, deaths and hospitalizations are trending downward | ONN REPORTS

THE DIRECTOR OF THE Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said that the recent plateau of daily Coronavirus infections appears to be trending downward.

The U.S. daily case average has fallen nearly 15% from the previous week to 56,000 infections per day, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press briefing. She added that hospitalizations and deaths are also down. Earlier this week, daily deaths dropped below 1,000 for the first time since November. "While these trends are starting to head in the right direction, the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths still remain too high and are somber reminders that we must remain vigilant as we work to scale up our vaccination efforts across this country," Walensky said. Cartoons on the Coronavirus Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response, announced that President Joe Biden will on Wednesday direct his administration to secure 100 million more coronavirus vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson. Slavitt did not provide a timeline for when those doses are expected, but Biden previously pledged to have enough shots manufactured for every adult in May.

According to CDC data, over 123 million doses have been delivered and nearly 94 million have been administered. The agency this week released new guidancefor some activities fully vaccinated people can resume, including maskless visits indoors with unvaccinated individuals from a single household who are not at high risk for severe COVID-19. Leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci speculated that the percentage of people who need to be protected from the coronavirus to reach herd immunity could be 70-85%. "That's the time that we believe, if you look at the planned rollout of the vaccines, that we would hopefully get to that point somewhere by the end of the summer and the early fall," Fauci said. Still, he cautioned against getting "too hung up on reaching this endgame of herd immunity" because vaccinated people don't have to wait for full herd immunity to resume some normal activities.