Congratulations to all Americans responsible for wearing masks and for social detachment. Health experts say their efforts are paying off.
After a bad start to winter, some Covid-19 numbers have been dropping for weeks. But it’s not just because of the vaccines.
More than 14 million Americans have been fully vaccinated with both doses of their Covid-19 vaccines, but that is only about 4% of the US population. And it takes weeks for vaccines to take effect.
So, why are we seeing improvements?
“That’s what we’re doing right: staying apart, wearing masks, not traveling, not mixing with other people in the home,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After widespread travel and holiday gatherings, the US broke its records for new daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths in early January.
Since then, Covid-19’s cases and hospitalizations have gradually declined. Doctors say there are several reasons for this:
“First, we go out with really high numbers on holidays,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health.
“Second, there is very good evidence that people are doing a better job of social detachment and wearing masks,” he said.
“Third, I think that in many communities, we have had so many infections that we have reached some level of population immunity. It is not herd immunity, but enough population immunity to make the virus decrease. “
Where the USA is now
The seven-day average of new daily cases is now 90,416 – below the peak of around 250,000 in early January, according to Johns Hopkins University.
On Sunday, 67,023 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 – about half of the 132,447 record set on January 6, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
But Covid-19’s deaths are still painfully high. More than 42,500 Americans have died from Covid-19 in the past two weeks. That’s an average of more than 3,000 lives lost every day.
And disturbing variants continue to spread, threatening another outbreak.
“We had three outbreaks. Whether or not we have a fourth outbreak depends on us, ”said Frieden.
“And what is at stake could not be greater – not only in the number of people who may die in the fourth wave, but also in the risk that even more dangerous variants will arise if there is more uncontrolled spread.”
That is why health experts say state leaders should not ease restrictions, such as masking mandates now.
“It is encouraging to see these trends falling, but they are coming from an extraordinarily high place,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told NBC on Sunday.
“Whether we want to take our kids back to school, and I believe we all do, it all depends on how much the community is spread out there,” she said.
“We all need to take responsibility for reducing the spread of the community, including wearing masks, so that we can have our children and our society back.”
US variants include home grown strains
More than 1,100 cases of the highly contagious variant B.1.1.7, first detected in the UK, have been reported in 39 U.S. states, according to the CDC. About a third of the cases were reported in Florida.
The disturbing strain B.1.351, first detected in South Africa, was found in 17 cases in the United States. This strain is worrying because some vaccines may be less effective against it.
Now, researchers have identified a lot of worrying mutations in samples from the US that also appear to make the virus more transmissible.
All of these mutations affect the same stretch of the spike protein – the button-shaped extension of the virus that is used to connect to the cells it infects, the researchers wrote in a pre-printed report that has not yet been reviewed.
But so far, these mutations appear to be “relatively rare”, said one of the researchers.
States still struggle with vaccine supply
Public health experts say the United States is now in a race to vaccinate as many Americans as possible before strains of the coronavirus continue to spread and mutate.
But the supply shortage continues.
In Washington state, officials said that appointments for the first dose will be “extremely limited” this week, as the state will focus on administering second doses.
“We are closely monitoring the dose distribution and making the necessary adjustments,” said Health Secretary Umair A. Shah.
“Although the limited availability of the first doses will be challenging next week, focusing on the second doses will help pave the way for better and more sustainable vaccine allocation in the coming weeks.”
In San Francisco, officials said the high-volume vaccination site will pause for a week and reopen “as soon as supplies are sufficient to resume operations”.
A second high-volume site hopes to resume vaccinations on Friday – but only for second doses. A third high-volume vaccine site is scheduled to launch this week, but “with commitments available well below full capacity,” officials said in a press release on Sunday.
“The city has the capacity to administer more than 10,000 vaccines per day, but the vaccine stock is lacking,” they added.
Several Los Angeles Covid-19 vaccination sites were forced to close temporarily because of a lack of vaccine doses.
Washington and California are far from alone in their struggles. Officials said supply will likely remain a challenge for a while, and experts say vaccines are unlikely to be widely available to the American public until late spring or summer.
“By the end of the summer, we will have enough vaccine to vaccinate the entire eligible US population,” Walensky, the CDC’s director, told Fox News on Sunday.
Debates about vaccinating teachers and reopening schools
Emergency doctor Dr. Leana Wen said that vaccinating teachers is crucial to reopening schools – a stance that differs from the CDC school reopening guidance released last week.
The agency’s guidelines do not list vaccination as a “key” strategy for opening schools, focusing on measures such as masks and physical distance, among others. Vaccination for staff and teachers is “an additional layer of protection,” said Walensky.
On Sunday, Walensky told CNN that while vaccinating teachers is not a prerequisite for reopening schools, the current CDC guidance says that those most at risk should have virtual options.
“I strongly advocate that teachers get vaccines,” said Walensky. “But we do not believe that it is a prerequisite for the reopening of schools.”
Wen, however, called the vaccination of teachers “essential”.
“If we want students to go to school to learn in person, the least we can do is protect the health and well-being of our teachers,” said Wen.
She said that vaccinating teachers is especially important because “in many parts of the country, teachers are already being forced to go back to school in tight and poorly ventilated areas, with many students who are not always masking and practicing physical distance” .