Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The new highly transmissible Covid-19 variants “stand to reverse” the nation’s control over the pandemic and could “undermine all our efforts” against the disease if the virus is allowed to proliferate in different parts of the globe, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
Senior US health officials have warned in recent weeks that the emergence of highly contagious variants, especially the B.1.1.7 strain that has appeared in the UK, could reverse the current downward trajectory of US infections and delay the nation’s recovery. the pandemic.
The problem is not isolated from the United States. As the coronavirus spreads, it makes a large number of copies of itself and each version is slightly different from the one before it, experts say. As more people become infected, problematic mutations are more likely to occur.
“Even if you do not necessarily lean towards the desire to be part of the global health effort, we must do so, because all the efforts we are making, which we are making here in this nation, could potentially be undermined in “A heartbeat from these variants that appear,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told the National Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association on Wednesday.
Scientists are not surprised by the emergence of variants and have reiterated that currently available vaccines should work against them, although they may not be as effective as against the original “wild” strain.
Moderna said on Wednesday that it had delivered doses of a booster shot specifically targeting the variant that is spreading in South Africa, known as strain B.1.351, to the National Institutes of Health.
“We know that this virus knows no geographical boundaries and the approach to this reality is more pressing than ever, given the rapid proliferation of Covid-19 variants that will reverse the progress that has been made to control this pandemic,” Walensky said.
The US reports a weekly average of approximately 71,562 new cases of Covid-19 per day, a decrease of 12% from a week ago and a significant decrease from the time when the average of new cases in the US reached the peak of almost 250,000 cases per day in early January, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Although not all countries report similar declines, global cases of Covid-19 in the US have declined for six consecutive weeks since Sunday, according to the latest World Health Organization status report released on Tuesday.
The decline is welcome news, as countries compete for the initial doses of Covid-19 vaccines. While some countries have been administering vaccines since December, however, some are starting to receive the initial vaccines.
The first shipment of vaccines delivered through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program arrived in Ghana on Wednesday. Some experts have previously said that equitable distribution of vaccines may be too late, as richer nations have concluded their own deals with vaccine manufacturers, supporting the initial supply of doses.
“The Covid-19 pandemic was a powerful reminder of how we are interconnected as a global community,” Walensky said.
– Berkeley Lovelace Jr. CNBC and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.