Recent declines in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths are showing signs of stagnation, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Wednesday, adding that the country is in a “critical nexus” in the pandemic.
“We knew that this would happen as variants emerged and reached more people in more communities, but we can still reduce their impact,” said Walensky.
The US is seeing a seven-day average of 66,010 new cases of coronavirus, marking an increase of 3.5% over the previous week, while deaths also increased by 2.2% over the previous week’s average.
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“Today we are at a critical juncture in the pandemic, a lot can change in the coming weeks,” said Walensky. “On the one hand, cases in the country are stabilizing at rates just on the verge of resurgence potential, and the hyper-transmissible variant B.1.1.7 is ready to hijack our success so far. And on the other hand, resistance has run out, fatigue is winning and the exact measures we have taken to prevent the pandemic are now being blatantly ignored. “
Walensky’s warning comes at a time when several states are moving to end restrictions on coronavirus, such as mask mandates and limits on internal meetings. Texas, for example, on Tuesday got rid of its masked mandate by marking the largest state to do so.
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The Biden government, which announced on Tuesday that the United States would have enough vaccine to inoculate all adults by May, has repeated calls to the public to continue wearing masks, regardless of state mandates. Walensky again asked people to “reach out deeply” and continue to adhere to public health measures to “protect the health of the nation and our loved ones”.
“How it plays out depends on us, the next three months are crucial,” she said.
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With regard to the variants, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that work is being done at the National Institutes of Health in conjunction with vaccine manufacturers to study various approaches to increase the vaccine’s effectiveness. He has already described several approaches, including creating new boosters to target the variant, such as Moderna developed against the South African strain, or simply adding a booster to the existing vaccine to increase the titer of antibodies against the wild type of the virus.