Dra. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The new, highly transmissible variants of Covid-19 will “reverse” the country’s pandemic control and could “undermine all our efforts” against the disease if the virus is allowed to proliferate in different parts of the world, the none of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
Senior US health authorities have warned in recent weeks that the emergence of highly contagious variants, in particular the B.1.1.7 strain that emerged in the UK, could reverse the current downward trajectory of infections in the US and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic. .
The problem is not isolated from the United States. As the coronavirus spreads, it makes a large number of copies of itself and each version is a little different from the one it had before, experts say. As more people become infected, problematic mutations are more likely to occur.
“Even if you don’t necessarily lean towards wanting to be part of the global health effort, we need it because all the efforts we’re making, that we’re advancing here in this nation, could be undermined in a heartbeat from “these emerging variants,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told the National Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association on Wednesday.
Scientists are not surprised by the appearance of the variants and have reiterated that currently available vaccines should work against them, although they may not be as effective as against the original “wild” strain.
Moderna said Wednesday it sent doses of a booster shot specifically aimed at the variant that extends into South Africa, known as strain B.1.351, to the National Institutes of Health.
“We know that this virus has no geographical boundaries and addressing this reality is more urgent than ever, given the rapid proliferation of Covid-19 variants that seek to reverse the progress that has been made to control this pandemic,” Walensky said.
The United States reports a weekly average of approximately 71,562 new cases of Covid-19 per day, a 12% drop from a week ago, and a significant drop from the average new case in the United States. it peaked at about 250,000 cases a day in early January. , according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
While not all countries report similar declines, global Covid-19 cases in the U.S. have fallen for six consecutive weeks since Sunday, according to the latest World Health Organization status report released Tuesday.
The decline is welcome news, as countries compete to administer their initial doses of Covid-19 vaccines. Although some nations have been administering vaccines since December, however, some are just beginning to receive their initial vaccines.
The first shipment of vaccines delivered through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program arrived in Ghana on Wednesday. Some experts have said earlier that equitable distribution of vaccines may be too late, as richer countries have made their own deals with vaccine manufacturers, demanding their initial dose supply.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has been a reminder of how interconnected we are as a global community,” Walensky said.
– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.