Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who has been selected to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks at an event at the Queen’s Theater in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, December 8, 2020.
Susan Walsh | A?
The decline in Covid-19 cases reported in the US since early January could flatten, a worrying change as highly communicable variants threaten to exacerbate infections, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.
“Over the past few weeks, cases and hospitalizations in the United States have declined since early January, and deaths have declined in the past week,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a news conference. “But the latest data suggests that these declines could stall, potentially leveling at a still very large number.”
The nation now reports a daily average of about 73,376 new cases in the past week, a slight increase from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The United States reached a maximum of almost 250,000 cases a day in early January after the winter holidays.
The recent change may be a sign that new highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus are beginning to emerge, Walensky said. A variant, known as B.1.1.7 and found for the first time in the UK, is expected to become the predominant strain by mid to late March, experts predicted.
Senior US health officials have warned in recent weeks that the variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of US infections and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic. Variant B.1.1.7 appears to account for about 10 percent of new Covid-19 cases in the United States, up from just 1 percent a few weeks ago, Walensky said. However, some states have more cases of the highly transmissible variant than others.
Senior US health officials have warned in recent weeks that the variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of US infections and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
The head of the federal health agency said states should not start lifting restrictions on business and assemblies, given the direction of cases and the high level of viral spread.
“I want to be clear: cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain very high, and the recent pandemic change must be taken extremely seriously,” Walensky said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, said the nation would be in a “precarious position” if new cases began to hit the plateau at about 70,000.
“We need to look closely at what’s going on next week, with these numbers, before you start to make sense of the relaxation with certain restrictions,” Fauci said.
This is a developing story.