States are relaxing the rules of social distancing, but it is “too soon” to back Covid restrictions, Dr. Atul Gawande warned on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
“We are currently at case levels that are still above the highest level of our last climb, so we didn’t even go below the climb last summer,” said the surgeon and professor at TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard. “We continue to have 2,000 deaths a day, so that’s not the level we’re at in a good way to position ourselves just on the plateau. We have to pull further down.”
According to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins, the U.S. has a seven-day average of 67,365 new cases a day in the U.S., 73 percent less than the maximum average of about 249,000 in mid-January.
Gawande echoed concerns about the reopening shared by Director of Disease Control and Prevention Centers Rochelle Walensky, who said she is still “deeply concerned” about the virus.
“Recent falls seem to be stopping, stopping at more than 70,000 cases a day,” Walensky said during a White House press conference on Monday. “With these new statistics, I’m really concerned about reports that more states are backtracking on the exact public health measures we’ve recommended to protect people from Covid-19.”
Gawande argued that the new Covid variants circulating in the United States, including the latest variant circulating in New York, B.1.526, should be another reason for Americans to be alert when it comes to coronavirus.
The CDC reports that nearly 25.5 million Americans are fully vaccinated, about 8% of the country’s population, and with delayed manufacturing, the demand for gunfire is very high.
“I think the evidence is pretty solid that giving a single chance to people who have reported being infected before would be a smart thing to do and that more vaccination could be done to others as well,” he said. Gawande on temporary strategy to make the current offer even more widespread.
Two new studies in Britain show that a vaccine can offer “robust” protection for Covid survivors. However, the CDC is debating the issue. Gawande told host Shepard Smith that he would like the CDC to get its assessment as soon as possible.
The U.S. vaccination effort is now armed with the firing of Johnson & Johnson, the third vaccine approved in its arsenal to fight Covid. The White House said Americans could begin receiving the single vaccine after Tuesday.
“As for the expected supply of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, this week we will be distributing 3.9 million doses,” said Jeffrey Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator. “This is the entire current inventory of Johnson & Johnson. We are taking these doses out immediately to ensure vaccines get into the arms as quickly as possible.”