And while some Republican officials have criticized his decision as excessive, health experts say the president should have implemented stricter measures to curb the recent wave of Covid-19 cases.
“From a public health perspective, it’s not an excessive extension. And in fact, I’d like them to come out earlier and go even further,” Wen said. “We are in the midst of the greatest public health crisis of our lives. We have over a thousand Americans dying every day. We, as a society, establish laws that protect the health and well-being of people all the time.” ”
Although 73.5% of those over the age of 12 have been vaccinated with at least one dose, tens of millions of eligible recipients remain unvaccinated as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to take the country’s pockets. . About 62% of the same age group is fully vaccinated as of Friday.
“That’s the way it should be in this country. And if it’s going to be a persistent threat to public health by refusing to get vaccinated, their actions have consequences and the consequences may be that you can’t work.”
And as for those who haven’t received the shots yet, it’s not too late to convince them, former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams.
“We have to remember that most of these people are not what I call ‘vaccine resistant’; some people say ‘anti-vax’; I find that term pejorative,” Adams told John Berman of the chain CNN Television. “Most of these people are in the mobile center. They doubt the vaccine.
“I found that when I speak to them with compassion and empathy, I can convince many of them in time to get vaccinated.”
Health systems are tightening
Alabama, one of the states that saw the recent drop in new cases, now faces a shortage of 60 intensive care beds, an increase of 20 from last Friday, said the state health official, the Dr. Scott Harris.
These are 60 patients “who receive critical care because they are chronically ill and yet have no ICU bed,” Harris said Friday.
“They are cared for in an emergency department or in a ward bed that has been turned into an ICU ward or a waitress in the hallway,” Harris said.
Alabama on Thursday reported 2,667 hospitalizations for Covid-19 and 53 deaths, he added.
In West Virginia, 252 Covid-19 patients are in the ICU and another 141 in ventilators, marking the majority of people hospitalized with the disease since the pandemic began, Gov. Jim Justice said Friday.
“A high percentage of people in hospitals are not vaccinated,” Justice said. “We lost 38 more people since Wednesday. We will continue to lose people in this wave without any questions,” he said.
Heated debate about the mandates of masks
Meanwhile, the debate over the mandates of masks continues to be heated in many states, especially when it comes to schools.
In Kentucky, schools will be able to choose whether to ask for masks, after the General Assembly overturned the governor’s partial veto on this part of a bill related to Covid-19 provisions in schools, officials say.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the part of the SB1 bill that would remove the mask mandate for K-12 schools and leave it to school districts to decide whether to disguise themselves, he said Friday in a media joke.
Beshear said the recent Senate rejection of a state school mask mandate is a wrong choice and one that will yield harmful results.
“The mask requirement for schools is not only right for our young people, especially those who are too young even to be vaccinated,” Beshear said. “It’s our best way to keep our kids learning in the classroom.”
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves said Thursday that the mandate plan for the Biden vaccine is unconstitutional.
“A member of the government’s executive branch doesn’t have the authority to mandate something like this,” Reeves said.
CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas, Melissa Alonso, Jaide Garcia, Claudia Domínguez and Jennifer Feldman, Mirna Alsharif, Rebekah Riess and Liam Reilly contributed to this report.