Another wave of coronavirus could be just around the corner, U.S. public health officials say, and now is not the time to relax COVID-19 restrictions.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on Sunday that while the number of new daily infections is significantly lower than in January, they have reached a very high level.
“Historically, if we look at the different floods we have had, when they go down and then start to reach the plateau at a very high level, the heights at a level of 60 to 70,000 new cases a day are not an acceptable level. That’s really very high, ”Fauci said in an interview on CBS’s“ Face the Nation. ”
“And if we look at what happened in Europe a few weeks ago, they are usually a couple of weeks ahead of these patterns, they also went down and then they were saved. And over the last week or so, they’ve had a 9% increase in cases. “
See: Rapid variants of COVID-19 increase virus growth in Europe
Several states have recently moderated restrictions, as infection rates have fallen since the peaks of the winter increase in COVID-19. California plans to reopen schools, outdoor sports stadiums, live outdoor performances and Disneyland in April, while Texas and Mississippi lift face mask mandates despite requests from health officials.
Fauci warned that mitigation measures should be relaxed slowly and carefully – “But don’t turn this switch on and off because it would really be risky to have another rise again, which we don’t want to happen because we are approaching a level quite high “.
Her concerns were echoed by Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist, who warned that new, more contagious variants of COVID-19 are spreading rapidly, especially variant B.1.1.7, first discovered in the US. United Kingdom.
“This strain is growing exponentially. It’s rising, “Gounder told CNN.” So we’re probably at a turning point in another wave now. “
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the current vaccination rate is not fast enough to stop the spread of new variants. .
“We are now in the eye of the hurricane,” Osterholm said. “Things are going really well, we see the blue sky.” But the UK variant “is about to reach us,” he said. “It’s wreaking havoc in parts of Europe today.”
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Osterholm said the UK variant has grown from 1% to 4% of all US cases about a month ago to about 30% to 40% now. “What we’ve seen in Europe, when we get to 50%, you see cases increasing.”
To counter the threat, Osterholm said the United States should not set aside coronavirus restrictions and should work to vaccinate the population even faster.
Fauci said, however, the United States is on the right track. “Every day that passes, we keep the lid on things getting better, because now we put at least 2 million shots in people’s arms every day. … So we’re going in the right direction. We just have to stay a little bit. month “.
By the end of Sunday, the United States had reported 28.9 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 525,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Both are, by far, the countries around the world.