The increase in more contagious coronavirus variants is threatening an encouraging downward trend in COVID-19 cases across the country.
New cases of COVID-19 in the United States on Sunday dropped to less than 100,000 for the first time since November, a hopeful sign after a brutal post-Thanksgiving period that saw cases, hospitalizations and deaths soared.
Health officials are asking the public and governors not to take precautions, despite the slightly better situation, as measures such as wearing a mask and distancing themselves from others are even more important when the virus is more contagious.
Furthermore, although the trend is positive, the levels of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still much higher than the previous peaks in the spring and summer of last year.
There were 96,000 new cases on Sunday, according to the COVID Tracking Project, below a peak of almost 300,000 in early January. But that is still far above any level that experts consider a goal. It is still greater than the peak of cases in summer, for example, which was around 75 thousand cases per day.
About 3,000 people die every day from the virus and about 80,000 are hospitalized with COVID-19.
Still, the positive trend has spurred some governors to start easing restrictions.
In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds (R) last week lifted the mask’s mandate and restrictions on distance from restaurants and bars.
Although this is perhaps the most drastic recent measure, other states have been taking more gradual steps to slow the pace. Governor Andrew Cuomo
Andrew CuomoRepublican 2024 aspirants draw the first battle lines for the post-Trump era Cuomo signs bill to repeal the law ‘walking while transgender’ NY Republicans want the Justice Department to summon Cuomo over asylums MORE (D) announced that indoor meals may return at 25% capacity in New York before Valentine’s Day.
Asked about the Iowa decision, the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Rochelle WalenskyRochelle WalenskyCDC could set requirements for school reopening this week, Biden says the Maine governor warns against Super Bowl parties, Republicans seek to attack Democrats in reopening schools MORE on Monday, he urged states not to suspend precautions, in part citing the emergence of new variants of the virus.
“We still have this emerging threat of variants, and I would simply discourage any of these activities,” she said. “We really need to keep all mitigation measures at stake here if we are really going to get control of this pandemic.”
Highlighting the threat of a more contagious variant of the virus first identified in the UK, a study released on Sunday found that the variant is doubling every 10 days in the U.S. and is likely to become the dominant strain in many states in March.
As the variant is 35 to 45% more transmissible, experts warn that its increase can lead to a sharp increase in cases and hospitalizations.
“We certainly expect to see an increase in cases” in the current trajectory, said Karthik Gangavarapu, a researcher at the Scripps Research Institute and one of the study’s authors. “We still don’t know how much peak it will be.”
Increasing genomic sequencing to track the prevalence of different variants, as well as additional contact tracking efforts by local public health departments with the aim of slowing the spread of the UK variant, may help in the fight, said Gangavarapu.
Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, issued an alert pointing to the example of Ireland, which was hit hard by the new variant. It peaked at 132 new cases per 100,000 people in early January. “The US has never seen numbers like that. Only the Dakotas had such high infection rates, ”wrote Jha on Twitter.
Jha added that he is “optimistic about the end of spring and summer”, since vaccines will be more widely available by then, but he said the next few weeks are more worrying.
Although there are not enough vaccines available to immunize everyone in the coming months, and there are logistical challenges to injecting into millions of arms, the faster the vaccination campaign can go, the more any peak in the new variant will be mitigated.
Encouragingly, vaccines appear to work well against the UK variant.
But another variant, first identified in South Africa, is more worrying based on the initial data. The results so far have suggested some drop in the effectiveness of vaccines with the South African variant. This variant has also been found in the USA, but is less prevalent so far.
Tom Frieden, a former CDC director, wrote that the recent improvement trends are likely due to a continued recovery from the post-holiday peak, when an increase in travel and internal meetings has led to spikes.
“Now is not the time to let your guard down,” he wrote on Twitter. “We are making progress with vaccines, but variants are coming.”