Dra. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that she is “really concerned” that some states will back down public health measures aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic, as U.S. cases appear to be at a very high level.
The decline in Covid-19 cases seen since early January appears to be saving about 70,000 new cases a day, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing. “With these statistics, I’m really concerned that more states are pushing back exactly the public health measures we’ve recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”
“Seventy thousand cases a day seem good compared to what we found a few months ago,” he said. “Please listen to me clearly: at this level of cases with variants extending, we are completely losing the hard-won ground.”
The U.S. records at least 67,300 new cases of Covid-19 each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States peaked at about 250,000 cases a day in early January after the winter break.
The top health officials in the United States, including Dr. Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, has warned in recent weeks that the rise of more contagious variants could reverse the current downward trajectory of infections in the U.S. and delay the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
Since Sunday, the CDC has identified 2,400 cases of variant B.1.1.7, first identified in the UK. The agency has identified 53 cases of strain B.1.351 from South Africa, as well as 10 cases of P.1, a variant first identified in Brazil.
Fauci said Monday that U.S. health officials are also closely monitoring another variant in New York that involves mutations that help it evade the body’s natural immune response.
Officials say viruses cannot mutate if they cannot infect guests and reproduce. They are also pressuring Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible before potentially new and even more dangerous variants continue to be taken.
Walensky said Monday that vaccinations would help the U.S. emerge from the pandemic, saying the Food and Drug Administration had authorized Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, making it the third unless approved for distribution in the US. vaccine that requires only one dose. Walensky signed the vaccine on Sunday.
The J&J vaccine is a “much-needed addition to our toolbox,” he said, adding that the authorization will make it possible for more people to get vaccinated.