Despite encouraging national trends in hospitalizations and coronavirus-related cases, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fears that “pandemic fatigue” in the spring could significantly harm the country’s path towards collective immunity induced by vaccination .
Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s comments also come as other states continue to detect highly transmissible coronavirus variants first identified in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351). A separate variant found for the first time in Brazil (P.1) has also been identified in two states. CDC models projected that the B.1.1.7 strain could become dominant in the United States in March.
“I worry that it’s spring and we all have enough already,” Walensky told Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor in chief of JAMA in an interview on Wednesday. “Around that time, I fear that life looks and looks a little better and that the motivation for those who may be hesitant about the vaccine will be diminished.”
COVID-19 VACCINE BEARINGS MAY BE AROUND A VARIANT PROBLEM, SAYS THE EXPERT
While states are grappling with vaccine supply issues now, an inflection point will reach where supply will exceed demand, said Walensky, noting that a continued increase in vaccination will continue to be crucial at this point for progress towards collective immunity.
“Although I’m really hopeful of what can happen in March and April, I really know it can go wrong so quickly and we saw it in November, we saw it in December, we saw what could happen.”
Reports from health officials concerned about so-called “pandemic fatigue” surfaced last summer and fall, when some tired of careless roadblocks and precautions to venture out and socialize with others.
However, experts advise the public to remain diligent in taking precautions to protect themselves against contracting the new virus and spreading the transmission chain.
The seven-day average for hospitalized COVID-19 patients continues to decline after a record peak in mid-January, dropping from around 130,000 to around 67,000 patients more recently, according to data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project. The seven-day average for new cases is also decreasing from around 260,000 daily infections in late December to less than 100,000 new cases in the past few days, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The drop below 100,000 new daily cases in the past few days was a milestone for the first time in months.
Public health experts, including Walensky, attributed the reduction of cases and hospitalizations to the gradual departure from the holiday season with their travels and meetings closed indoors.
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The United States is now receiving an average of 1.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered daily, the White House said on Wednesday, compared with an average of 900,000 vaccines a day a month ago. The latest seven-day average daily data reflects an increase of 200,000 doses in the previous week. More than 15 million people, or about 5% of the population, received two doses by February 17, or the complete vaccination schedule.
Fox News’ Alexandria Hein contributed to this report.