“The question at stake now is: do we have a fourth wave?” former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, told CNN newspaper Wolf Blitzer on Thursday. “Each uncontrolled spread increases the risk that there are dangerous variants that can be more infectious, more deadly or that can escape immune protection.”
The goal is to continue doing what has worked, said Friedan. “Monitoring closely and recognizing the masking is here to stay for many more months and avoiding sharing the indoor air with others is very important,” he added.
These measures may help prevent the potential feared increase in the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK, which is believed to be more transmissible, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Ho said on Thursday that this could result in a loss of vaccine effectiveness, although studies indicate that vaccines can still provide strong protection against variants. He added that the variant could be more contagious, but his team has no evidence to prove it at the moment.
States loosen restrictions on halls, stadiums and socialization
Despite caution about paying close attention to the downward trends of the past few weeks, many states are loosening their restrictions.
“We should not, under any circumstances, assume that this fall is inevitable. It could rise again,” said Collins.
For example, until Monday, Wyoming’s barbershops and beauty salons, including hairdressers, nails and tattoos, will no longer have capacity restrictions, Governor Mark Gordon said in a statement. Over the next month, the state will also ease other health restrictions, including allowing buffets to resume and limiting meetings to 50 instead of 25.
In response to the “sustained decrease in the case count,” the city of New Orleans is also making changes: as of Friday, the city is increasing the meeting size limits to 75 indoors and 150 outdoors. , as well as increasing the table limits and increasing the indoor environments and capacity limits of the outdoor stadium to 15% and 25%, respectively.
A particular point of contention was the reopening of schools: although some staff and parents think that the need to have students back to school is urgent, there are teachers who worry that it is too early and not yet safe enough to open campuses .
In Virginia, the state Senate passed a bill on Thursday that, if signed by Governor Ralph Northam, would require each school council to offer a full-time classroom teaching option to students enrolled in the local school division, with a few exceptions.
Schools can return to temporary remote instruction if the school board and the local health department determine that the level of transmission in the school is high, according to the bill.
Officials extend vaccine eligibility and availability
As some states ease restrictions, others are opening the vaccine’s eligibility to more residents, including teachers.
Beginning March 15, teachers and other essential professionals in Missouri will be eligible for the vaccine, Governor Mike Parson said on Thursday.
In addition to educators and staff for elementary and high school students, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced on Thursday that adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers and parents of children with complex medical conditions will be eligible for vaccines in March 8th.
And as of Thursday, all people over the age of 16 and with certain comorbidities are eligible for vaccines in Utah, said Governor Spencer Cox.
“We are prioritizing these individuals, again, based on age and these underlying comorbidities, because they are the greatest risk of hospitalization or death,” explained Cox, pleading with the Utahans not to jump in line and assuring them that they have so many more vaccines coming soon.
Authorities have been working in recent months to speed up and optimize the distribution of vaccine doses, as states are clamoring for more to meet growing demand.
If the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine obtains FDA authorization for emergency use this weekend, President Joe Biden said it will be launched immediately.
“The FDA will decide whether to authorize the emergency use of a vaccine based on science, not due to any political pressure from me or anyone else, without external factors,” said Biden. “What I will say to the American people is this: if the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine, we have a plan to implement it as soon as Johnson and Johnson can do it.”
Pfizer’s existing vaccine may also become easier to distribute quickly, thanks to the FDA’s agreement on Thursday to allow it to be transported and stored for up to two weeks at “conventional temperatures” normally found in pharmaceutical freezers.
The company and its partner Biotech are also responding to the growing threat of variants with new tests to see how a third dose protects against them.
CNN’s Christopher Rios, Lauren Mascarenhas, Nadia Kounang, Andy Rose, Jamiel Lynch, Rebekah Riess, Lindsay Benson, Artemis Moshtaghian, DJ Judd, Jacqueline Howard and Amanda Sealy contributed to this report.