As states across the country continue to struggle with the fall of a deadly polar vortex, senior Biden health officials are concerned that the emergence of days will also lead to an increase in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. 19 in the coming weeks.
Over the past few days, senior government officials have struggled to gather a federal response to the winter emergency, primarily in Texas, but also in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other northwestern and southern states. As part of this response, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have coordinated the shipment of 60 generators, food, blankets, water, diesel and other supplies to save lives in Texas. President Joe Biden has approved emergency statements in several states and has spoken personally with dozens of local and state officials in Texas to see what more can be done to help those in need.
Beyond assessing and addressing the obvious risks posed by electricity, water, or access to reliable health care, government officials are working to understand the full magnitude of COVID-19 problems caused by the storm, including sites of vaccination that close in more than six states and delay in the delivery of about 6 million doses of vaccine. Officials say their biggest fear is that greater transmission among people gathering inside to find heat will lead to an increase in new cases at a time when vaccination is declining due to conditions weather. The state planned to drastically expand vaccination before the storm arrived by creating a mass vaccination site in coordination with Pentagon and FEMA officials. Staff assigned to help set up the site were delayed in reporting to Texas due to snow.
“Look at the patterns of hospitalizations and deaths from illness. They were really going drastically in the right direction. I just hope we recover and I think we will, ”said Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, in an interview on Friday. “It simply came to our notice then. We need to keep doing what we can, doing the same things that we did and that we know work. I know, it’s hard to do that. When you’re not at home, because the pipes have exploded, you and your family are freezing and you may have to go to the shelter. Obviously, this is not an optimal way to prevent the spread of disease. But I hope this is corrected quickly. “
Officials are also concerned that the situation on the ground, mainly the lack of water and electricity in hospitals, especially in rural communities, will lead to the death of those who were already seeking care for the virus. A senior Biden official said there is no reliable way to track COVID-19 cases and deaths in real time, but that he expects the Texas state health department to report both deaths related to the COVID-19 like other casualties caused by the storm in the coming weeks.
“It can take weeks, sometimes months, for these deaths to reach the federal government database,” a senior Biden official said. “But we will probably see a lot of deaths from hypothermia and carbon monoxide, as well as COVID-related deaths. The question will be whether these deaths by COVID occurred due to lack of power or for explainable reasons. “
Concerns about transmission arise at a time when the Biden administration is working overtime to control the spread of COVID-19, in part by increasing vaccination. More than 73 million doses have been sent and about 58 million have been administered. And the Biden administration has recently signed more deals to ensure doses continue to flow at a faster pace in the coming months. But the emergence of new, more deadly variants has complicated this effort, although there is evidence that vaccines will still offer protection against them. It has forced health officials to double the calls for Americans to more strictly comply with public health guidelines (the same ones that officials have been calling for for more than a year) as a way to reduce transmission.
“The continued spread of more transmissible variants could jeopardize the progress we have made over the past month … if we let the guard down,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a Wednesday press conference. “We are not in the place where we believe that the current level of vaccination is what is lowering the current level of disease. We believe that much of the increase in the disease happened related to the holidays, related to travel. From this I would say very strongly that if you trust our current level of vaccination instead of the other mitigation efforts to get us low … we should not rest on that comfort. “
The winter storm emergency worries senior Biden administration officials that they will once again face an upward battle trying to control the spread of the virus just as they began to advance, trying to avoid a situation where states will have to force residents to return inside, reducing the capacity of the restaurant and gym.
Fauci said the U.S. “in no way” has controlled the pandemic: that community transmissions are too high nationwide to begin undoing public health measures.
“If you have such a high level of underlying infections, like the one we had a month ago, when we received 300,000 new infections a day, it’s almost impossible to do efficient identification, isolation, and contact tracking,” Fauci said. “Once you get the really low infection base, once you vaccinate more and more people, you can start gradually withdrawing from some of the strict public health measures. And by gradually withdrawing, I mean that restaurants are starting to open, they are increasing the capacity with which they open … outdoor sports and for spectators to watch it.We have to do it slowly instead of saying, “okay, the numbers they’ve come down. “Let’s turn it all back on.”
Fauci said that’s exactly what happened during the Trump administration last summer: the country reopened before transmission was under control.
“There is a dynamic of outbreaks, which when accelerated on the rise, have a propensity to propagate more and more cases,” he said. “When you get the momentum in the opposite direction, the same thing happens, fewer and fewer people get infected.”
However, even if the U.S. controls transmission, there is always the possibility that new variants will appear that pose an even greater threat, Fauci said.
“What worries me is that even if we achieve a very, very significant level of suppression of the basal level of viruses in the United States and the virus continues to spread to the rest of the world, usually a developing world that does not have the capacity or resources needed to vaccinate, there will always be this persistent threat of new variants and, essentially, avoid the protection of vaccines, ”said Fauci. “It’s a global pandemic. And the only way to fight it is globally, because if we don’t, we will continue to be a protruding sword of Damocles over us. “