Dr. Rochelle Walensky, appointed by US President-elect Joe Biden to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hears Biden announce the nominees and nominees to work on his health and coronavirus response teams during a press conference at its transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, December 8, 2020.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday that it is too early for states to lift requirements for mask use due to the high number of daily coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States.
“We still have 100,000 cases a day. We still have somewhere between 1,500 and 3,500 deaths a day,” Walensky said during an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “And we still see some communities relaxing some of their mitigation strategies. We are not out of danger.”
As the spread of the virus in the United States slows down and the vaccine’s launch accelerates, states have begun to loosen restrictions. Republican governors in Montana and Iowa lifted statewide mask requirements this month. The North Dakota mask term expired in January.
In New York, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo recently allowed indoor meals with a 25% capacity, despite the high risk of contagion in indoor spaces, and opened stadiums and arenas with limited capacity.
But health experts fear that the rapid spread of more contagious variants could lead to a further increase in cases and deaths in the United States. The cases of the most contagious variant found for the first time in Britain, known as B.1.1.7, are doubling every 10 days across the country.
“If we relax these mitigation strategies with the increase in communicable variants, we could be in a much more difficult situation,” said Walensky. “Now is the time to not let our guard down. Now is the time to double.”
Health officials are asking Americans to tighten and fold the masks, which provide significant protection against viral transmission. Recent CDC research suggests that well-worn surgical masks or folding with a surgical and cloth mask reduce the risk of transmission by up to 96%.
“We need to get our communities back to normal functioning before we start thinking about abandoning our mitigation strategies,” said Walensky.