The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that if guidelines are not followed, the United States faces “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had.”
Invoking former President John F. Kennedy’s adage of “don’t ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” CDC Director Robert Redfield asked people to follow four guidelines to help make the fall less deadly.
“For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against COVID, I’m asking you to do four simple things: Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds,” Redfield said during an interview with WebMD.
“You do those four things, it will bring this outbreak down. But if we don’t do that, as I said last April, this could be the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had,” he said.
Redfield also pointed out that people should be forward-looking when it comes to the pandemic and highlighted the importance of getting an influenza vaccine prior to the upcoming flu season. Experts have repeatedly expressed fears about the dual threat of COVID-19 and the flu. Redfield said that “either one of those by themselves can stress certain hospital systems.”
Redfield said his goal is to get 65% of people vaccinated this year.
“By getting vaccinated, you can protect your children. Clearly, when we look at the mortality that we see with flu, one thing is for certain. The kids who get vaccinated — they basically get protected against death. It also has an impact on the rest of us in terms of severity of illness and hospitalization,” he said. “This is the year I’m asking people to really think deep down about getting the flu vaccine.”
The U.S. has had some 5.2 million coronavirus infections resulting in at least 166,000 deaths, according to the most recent count by Johns Hopkins University.
