Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that she was “really concerned” that some states would withdraw public health measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic, as US cases appear to be “very high.” .
The decline in Covid-19 cases seen since early January now seems to stop at about 70,000 new cases a day, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House press briefing. “With these statistics, I am really concerned that more states will withdraw the exact public health measures that we have recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”
“Seventy thousand cases a day seem good compared to where we were a few months ago,” she said. “Please hear me clearly: at this level of cases with widespread variants, we will completely lose the hard-won ground we have won.”
The United States records at least 67,300 new cases of Covid-19 each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States reached a maximum of almost 250,000 cases a day in early January after the winter holidays.
Senior U.S. health officials, including Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, have warned in recent weeks that rising more contagious variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of U.S. infections and delay the nation’s recovery. pandemic.
As of Sunday, the CDC has identified 2,400 cases of variant B.1.1.7, identified for the first time in the UK. The agency identified 53 cases of B.1.351 strain in South Africa, as well as 10 cases of P.1, the first variant identified in Brazil.
Fauci said Monday that US health officials are closely monitoring another variant in New York, which has mutations that help it evade the body’s natural immune response.
Officials say viruses cannot move if they cannot infect hosts and reproduce. They are also pushing Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible before potentially new and even more dangerous variants continue to catch on.
Walensky said Monday that vaccinations will help the U.S. emerge from the pandemic, saying the Food and Drug Administration has authorized Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, making it the third vaccine to be approved for distribution in the U.S. and the only vaccine that requires a single dose. Walensky signed the vaccine on Sunday.
The J&J vaccine is a “much-needed addition to our toolbox,” she said, adding that the authorization will make it possible to vaccinate more people.