The top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned COVID-19 cases could balloon if restrictions are not followed, even with a trio of vaccines receiving approval for emergency use.
Director Rochelle Walensky, who took over the CDC on Inauguration Day, pointed out that after weeks of declining infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, new cases of the virus are again beginning to increase “slightly,” a trend that will spark a fourth surge if the public doesn’t exercise caution.
“At this level of cases, with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” she said during a White House briefing on Monday.
DONALD AND MELANIA TRUMP RECEIVED FIRST COVID-19 VACCINE SHOTS AT WHITE HOUSE
A United Kingdom strain is estimated to be 40% to 70% more transmissible than the original virus, and a variant discovered in California is also thought to be more contagious than the first strain.
Walensky argued that the United States must remain vigilant to prevent the new trends from becoming a fourth nationwide surge of the virus.
“These variants are a very real threat to our people and our progress. Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close,” she said. “We have the ability to stop a potential fourth surge of cases in this country. Please stay strong in your conviction. Continue wearing your well-fitted mask and taking other public health prevention actions that we know work.”
Around the same time on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he will be reopening the Lone Star State “100%,” including lifting a mask mandate and allowing businesses of all types to reopen fully.
Although new infections peaked in early January before plummeting precipitously, they began to level out late last month and even increased slightly in some states, according to data from the New York Times.
Walensky, a Biden appointee, also talked about vaccination efforts. Last week, the U.S. granted emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which only requires one shot, unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
“We’re scaling up vaccination,” she said. “The goal in this first 100 days [of the Biden administration] has always been to sort of make sure that we are in a place to be out of this pandemic, [and] at 70,000 cases per day, we’re not in that place right now.”
COVID-19 restrictions, which have been in place to varying degrees for almost a year, have been met with resistance by some who point out the damage they have done to businesses and the effects that prolonged isolation can have on mental health.
Another major point of contention in the debate over COVID-19 restrictions is about in-person learning in schools. In Chicago, teachers in the Chicago Public Schools district almost went on strike over plans to reopen as parents pushed for a return to in-person classes.
“[Students] have wounds of isolation, falling behind, [and] not connecting with their peers or other adults. … Now it’s time. We need to triage them,” said Sarah Sachen, a mother of three CPS students. “And our teachers are a vital part of healing children right now from this pandemic.”
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More than 78 million vaccine doses have been administered so far, according to the CDC.
