“I think we will see an increase in the number of infections,” emergency doctor Dr. Leana Wen told CNN on Wednesday night. “I think what helps at the moment is that the most vulnerable – particularly nursing home residents, older people – are now vaccinated. And so we can prevent an increase in hospitalizations and deaths.”
Meanwhile, governors and local leaders have eased restrictions on internal meetings, citing fewer cases of Covid-19 and more vaccines. And spring break crowds are gathering in Florida and the number of air travel across the country is breaking records for the pandemic era.
Dr. Wen still has her concerns, however.
“I think we will see an increase in the number of infections, but not necessarily an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, which again is a very good thing,” she told CNN on Thursday. “But we also noted that many governors are not going to impose restrictions again, unless we see our hospitals becoming overloaded.
“So we can see a situation of many more infections overtaking our vaccines’ ability to function and people letting their guard down, but not having the restrictions in place to contain it. And I fear that we may lose, as a result, that race of variants versus vaccines. “
In schools, three feet are the new six feet
The CDC is expected to update its physical distance guidelines for schools from 1.80 to 1 meter on Friday, a government official confirmed to CNN.
Moving to a meter is the key to reopening schools safely because most do not have space for six meters away with all the students present. An analysis of studies of reopens published last week found that school districts in Indiana, Virginia and Massachusetts adopted a 90 cm pattern instead of 1.8 meters.
These states “have not seen a wave of cases that you would expect if this protection were somehow less adequate,” wrote education and policy expert John Bailey.
At a Senate hearing on Thursday, the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said the science on this subject had evolved over time.
“In fact, because 1.80 meters has been a big challenge, science has leaned in and studies are now emerging on the issue between a meter and a meter and eighty,” she told Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. “This is an urgent matter.”
Almost 1 in 8 Americans fully vaccinated
In the meantime, vaccinations have accelerated as authorities rushed to get as many shots into the guns as possible.
On Wednesday, Fauci and Walensky resisted questions about collective immunity, saying that much depended on how quickly Americans got vaccines.
“We will continue to push to vaccinate as many people as possible,” said Fauci. “And as we do that, you will see the type of infection, the dynamics of the outbreak, getting less and less and less, so whatever the season – mid-summer, late summer, early autumn, we’ll be very, very better than we are now. “
The United States is expected to have many vaccines available soon and will need to start persuading people who are reluctant to get vaccinated, said a senior Health and Human Services official on Thursday.
“In essence, we will have quadrupled our vaccine supply in 90 days,” said Dr. David Kessler, Director of Science for COVID Response at HHS, at a Senate hearing. “I believe that we will soon be moving from a question of supply to a question of demand.”
In addition, the CDC will soon release more guidance on what people can safely do when they are fully vaccinated, Walensky said on Thursday.
“We are reviewing what we should do about travel for those who are vaccinated and this should happen soon. This is likely to be the next step in this regard,” said Walensky at a hearing in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. .
The question is not what is safe for vaccinees, but what is safe for their contacts, she said.
“We are still analyzing data on whether vaccinated people can be infected asymptomatically and potentially spread to others,” said Walensky. Doctors note that vaccinated people can still breathe the virus and have it in their nose and throat – and they can exhale, cough or sneeze the infectious virus on others.
CNN’s Melissa Alonso, Adrienne Broaddus, Elizabeth Cohen, Maggie Fox, Deidre McPhillips, Brandon Miller, Nick Neville, Rebekah Riess and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.