Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who has been selected to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks during an event at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del, on Tuesday, December 8, 2020.
Susan Walsh | AP
The decline in Covid-19 cases reported in the U.S. since early January may be flattening, a significant change as highly transmissible variants threaten to exacerbate infections, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Units.
“Over the past few weeks, cases and hospital admissions in the United States have been declining since early January and deaths have declined last week,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told a news conference. “But the latest data suggests that these falls could be stagnant, which could be at even higher levels.”
The nation now reports a daily average of approximately 73,376 new cases over the past week, a slight increase from a week ago, according to a CNBC data analysis compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The United States peaked at about 250,000 cases a day in early January after the winter break.
The recent change may be a sign that new highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus are beginning to gain strength, Walensky said. A variant, known as B.1.1.7 and first found in the UK, is expected to become the predominant strain in mid or late March, experts have predicted.
Top U.S. health officials have warned in recent weeks that variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of infections in the U.S. 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 U.S., up from 1 percent a few weeks ago, Walensky said. However, some states have more cases of the highly transmissible variant than others.
Top U.S. health officials have warned in recent weeks that variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of infections in the U.S. and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
The head of the federal health agency said states should not begin lifting restrictions on businesses and meetings, given the direction of cases and the high level of viral spread.
“I want to be clear: cases, hospital admissions and deaths are still very high and the recent change in the pandemic has to be taken very seriously,” Walensky said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said the nation will be in a “precarious position” if new daily cases start to reach 70,000.
“We need to look closely at what’s going on next week with these numbers before we start to understand the need to relax on some restrictions,” Fauci said.
This is a developing story.