After more than a month of declining coronavirus cases across the country, the numbers began to flatten and even rise again, generating a stern warning from U.S. public health leaders on Friday to remain cautious in the coming years. weeks.
The situation was better in California and the Bay Area, where cases and hospitalizations continue to decline and counties have begun to ease public health restrictions. And the severe national briefing was compensated on Friday afternoon by an important federal advisory group that recommended the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for emergency clearance. The Food and Drug Administration was due to grant authorization as early as Friday night.
Taken together, national, state and local reports highlighted the precarious state of the pandemic, despite the increase in vaccinations.
“The latest data suggests that these declines may be stalling, potentially stabilizing at an even very high number,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a meeting at the White House on Friday. Monday morning. “We at CDC consider this a very worrying risk on the way,”
She warned that a more transmissible variant of the virus first detected in Britain, along with emerging variants in New York and California that also seem to spread more easily, may become dominant in the country in mid-March and may already be causing the recent spikes.
“We may now be seeing the initial effects of these variants on the most recent data,” said Walensky. She added that “things are fragile” with the pandemic and emphasized caution in reopening the economy. The current figures remain higher than the peaks reached in the past summer and spring.
“Now is not the time to relax restrictions,” said Walensky.
Despite worrying trends across the country, California is making gains against the coronavirus. Cases continue to decline, albeit at a slightly less aggressive pace than at the beginning of the month. The state reported about 5,500 cases a day this week, down about 20% from the previous week. Bay Area cases fell 16% to about 770 cases a day this week. Nationally, cases have risen to over 70,000 a day for the past three days, an increase of several days in the range of 55,000 to 65,000.
California counties are beginning to open parts of the economy and loosen some restrictions. Indoor restaurants have resumed in San Mateo and Marin counties in the bay area, and San Francisco and Santa Clara county officials said they hope to enter the less restrictive red level next week and plan to reopen indoor restaurants then.
Forty-seven of the state’s 58 counties – representing 96% of the population – are in the most restrictive purple layer. Governor Gavin Newsom said at a news conference on Friday that eight more counties are likely to move to the less restrictive red level next week.
“This is happening very, very quickly,” said Newsom. “It is a point of true optimism. We are really seeing that bright light at the end of the tunnel because of all of your hard work. “
San Francisco public health officials said in a statement on Friday that they will continue to monitor cases closely as parts of the economy reopen and expect some increases in numbers as more activities resume. Santa Clara County officials said the benefits of the partial reopening outweigh the risks at this point, with cases continuing to decline. They also said they would closely monitor the numbers of cases and hospitalizations.
Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, said that with the case count and other metrics still improving after the long winter wave, some reopening in the Bay Area is acceptable.
“What the state is proposing appears to be prudent and the Bay Area public health departments are going with it,” he said, noting that three main factors are making people comfortable with the slow reopening: the vaccine, social distance masks, and immunity acquired naturally in hard-hit communities.
But despite the encouraging reduction in cases, Rutherford echoed Walensky’s comments and said that Californians should not relax too much and let their guard down.
“Vaccines are a miracle, but they are a slow miracle. We will not be out of danger until we have the entire population vaccinated, ”he said. “Until then and until a little later, we need to follow the public health guidelines on masks and social distance.”
Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist at UC Berkeley, took an even more cautious tone. He noted that the seven-day average for new cases of coronavirus in the Bay Area appears to have stabilized in the past few days, a potentially worrying sign that recent falls are over and cases are stabilizing at a high rate.
“I’m not going to say it’s a cause for concern, but it’s something we need to keep an eye on,” he said. Counties base their plans to reopen on two weeks of data, which is part of the state’s strategy to ensure that cases are going in the right direction, “so if this (leveling) continues, it’s going to stop them and you must do them take a break, ”said Swartzberg.
Swartzberg also emphasized the importance of this coming month in terms of significant advances against the virus. He advised that more people be vaccinated before counties reopen further, especially with variants that appear to be more infectious now circulating widely. More than half of the cases in most California counties are caused by a new variant grown locally, according to recent studies.
“We are in a race with the variants. We want to vaccinate as many people as possible, so that the variants do not have a big effect in terms of cases of infection, ”said Swartzberg. “That’s why the health departments should try to contain things for another month. The vaccine will be widely available in April. “
On Friday, state officials said they were working to consolidate vaccinations into a single state system. Starting on Monday, vaccine eligibility will be the same in all counties, said Yolanda Richardson, the government’s secretary of operations. This means that teachers, for example, will be eligible to be vaccinated in all counties, she said.
Throughout March, the state will try to make MyTurn, the state’s online portal and telephone registration system, the only “gateway” for people to schedule vaccination appointments, officials said.
Also starting on Monday, California will offer counties a three-week preview of the number of vaccine doses they can expect, Newsom said. He anticipated an increase in the pending supply of Johnson & Johnson vaccine federal authorization – potentially more than 380,000 doses as early as next week.
“There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel,” said Newsom.
Catherine Ho, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, contributed to this report.
Aidin Vaziri and Meghan Bobrowsky are editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] [email protected]