Even though the pace of vaccination has picked up dramatically and the number of daily new COVID-19 cases continues to decline in all regions of the United States, the emergence of new strains of the disease remains cause for serious concern. The COVID Tracking Project has reported that seven-day average cases in the U.S. are down nearly 50% since their peak in the middle of January while the number of people hospitalized has fallen for the 28th consecutive day. Meanwhile, 44.4 million doses have now been administered and the daily average last week was 1.53 million. Despite the progress, a clutch of more infectious COVID-19 strains have arrived in the U.S. and the CDC has warned that one of them, B.1.1.7 or the so-called "U.K. variant", is likely to become predominant by March.