The head of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doubled on Monday with his warnings against the reversal of COVID-19 restrictions at the state level, while Governor Charlie Baker expressed confidence that his plan to loosen the rules of economic reopening is “appropriate” at the current juncture.
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On the same day that the director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, again urged state governors and leaders not to loosen the limits designed to keep the highly infectious virus in check, Baker defended the “balancing act” behind his decision .
Both Walensky and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said in the past few days that acting too fast to ease the limits could undo progress in the national effort to limit transmission.
Asked about Fauci’s comments, Baker said 1.2 million Massachusetts residents received the first doses of the vaccine and 550,000 received the second doses, many of which are among the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19. The state’s hospitalization rate, case count and daily case rates have also dropped in the past month.
“We felt, based on these data and the successful launch of the vaccine so far, that it was appropriate to make some adjustments,” said Baker. “Now, the adjustments we’ve made that are effective today basically go back to where we were last fall, before the second increase, and we’ll continue to review the data every day and every week, and if we see things in the data that concern us, we’ll do adjustments again. But I think it is important for everyone to understand that this is an act of constant balance and I think that for us, at this moment based on the data, it made sense to make some adjustments regarding the reopening. “
The capacity limits of companies in Massachusetts increased from 40% to 50% on Monday, and various sectors, such as indoor venues and recreational activities, are now able to reopen.
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The restaurants no longer face a capacity limit based on a percentage, but must impose a social distance of almost two meters, limit the tables to six customers and allow a maximum of 90 minutes per visit. They will also be able to receive musical performances.
When he announced the move on Thursday, Baker also set a target for an additional reopening in late March, which will allow large venues with more than 5,000 seats to bring back 12 percent of the guests.
Walensky, who headed the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Infectious Diseases Division before being chosen to head the CDC, said on Monday that she is concerned about “a possible change in the path of the pandemic.”
After a period of steady decline in new cases, Walensky said national data shows that infections have stabilized at a high level. The most recent seven-day average of 67,200 new confirmed cases is about 2 percent higher than in the previous seven days, she said.
“With these new statistics, I am really concerned by reports that more states are reversing the exact public health measures that we recommend to protect people from COVID-19,” said Walensky. “I understand the temptation to do this. Seventy thousand boxes a day looked good compared to where we were just a few months ago. But we cannot settle for 70,000 cases a day, 2,000 deaths daily. “
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The growing presence of new COVID-19 strains, which experts believe can spread more easily, further complicates the picture.
“Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases, with the variants spreading, we can completely lose the ground conquered with so much effort,” said Walensky, who also warned against loosening restrictions on Friday. “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 prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close. “
(Copyright (c) 2020 State House News Service.