A Third of Patients Feel Symptoms of Coronavirus for Weeks: CDC

The CDC surveyed 292 people who tested positive for the virus, and 35% said they still weren't back to their usual good health even two or three weeks after testing positive, CNN reported.

While older people were more likely to feel prolonged symptoms, even young adults without underlying conditions reported feeling unwell for a long period of time, the CDC said.

The new understanding into how the virus affects patients comes as more than 4.1 million cases of coronavirus cases and 145,546 deaths have been reported in the US, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Health experts have stressed the importance of testing to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus but have also said that people who do not show symptoms can spread of the virus.

On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration announced an emergency use authorization for the first coronavirus test for asymptomatic cases -- and even people who think they aren't infected at all.

"FDA's authorization of the first diagnostic test to be used for anyone, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of COVID-19 or have other exposure risk factors, is a step toward the type of broad screening that may help enable the reopening of schools and workplaces," FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said in a statement Friday.

For those hoping to reopen the US after the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines have been a beacon of hope.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he believes that hope is warranted and that a vaccine could stop the pandemic in its tracks, but he also doesn't believe that will happen until well into 2021.

"I think as we get into 2021, several months in, that you would have (a) vaccine that would be widely available to people in the United States," Fauci told the Washington Post's Bob Costa during a Post Live event.

Fauci noted that some companies have said they could have a vaccine available before the end of the year.

"I'm a little skeptical about that, but, you know, anything is possible," he told the Post.

Once a vaccine is found and made available, the public will need to agree to take it in order for it to be effective. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Thomas Frieden said Friday that could be difficult.

"This is the first time we've had an anti-vaccine movement before we've had the vaccine," Frieden said in a podcast sponsored by the online news site Axios.

"There's already too much suspicion and hesitancy about vaccines, and the way to address that is to just say it like it is and be sure that we're saying what we're doing, when we're doing it, what we're learning, when we're learning it," said Frieden, who is now the president of Resolve to Save Lives.

The US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 145,000 following a surge of new infections across swaths of the nation that began in mid-June.

The country reported more than 68,000 new cases Thursday, slightly lower than the previous day’s tally. The US accounts for over a quarter of the more than 15.5 million coronavirus cases world-wide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.