Health Experts Urge Restraint To Curb Spread Of Coronavirus

Top health experts in the US are cautioning the country against being relaxed in the fight against Covid-19, even as vaccine doses are being administered throughout the country. 

On Friday, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told that 71%of Americans aged 65 or older have received at least one dose of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine. It is further estimated that by Mid-April, about half of the US states would open eligibility to all American adults. 

Health Experts Urge Restraint To Curb Spread Of Coronavirus

Zients added that the country needs to meet the goal of 200 million shots in the first 100 days of the Biden administration. He also outlined the importance of the American Rescue Plan to scale up activity as per strategy to defeat the pandemic. 

The co-ordinator also referred that the present time is a case of optimism, but not relaxation. He outlined the importance of the public health guidelines including vaccinations and abiding by the mask mandates. 

So far, the country has overseen more than 30 million coronavirus cases and 548,000 deaths since WHO declared a pandemic last year, as per data from the John Hopkins University. On Friday alone, the country reported 80,684 cases and 1,256 deaths. 

Additional warning came from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky that the cases in the country were rising, with the recent 7 per day average being 57,000 cases per day, a 7% increment from the previous trends. She added that hospitalization numbers were on the increase while the number of deaths hovering at about 1,000 per day. 

Walensky warned that based on the past trend of the pandemic, if the country couldn’t control the spread of the virus now, there are chances that the cases could soar again. 

The CDC Director believes that unity of Americans could turn things around, with more than 2.5 million people being vaccinated everyday. However, she urged citizens to wear their masks and abide by the mitigation strategies to get maximum people vaccinated and avoid another surge in infection rates at all costs. “We just want to make sure that we intend up in a surge that truly is avoidable”, she added. 

The CDC director showed her solidarity with the masses, saying that she understood that people were tired, but it would take a little bit more longer to relax the measures. 

In recent weeks, many states have eased restrictions with permitting in-person dining, learning and travelling, with the TSA data revealing more than 1 million passengers at airports across US for two consecutive weeks. 

On Friday, CDC released data that more than 77% of the 177,501,775 doses have been administered. Additionally, 27% Americans have received at least a single shot of the vaccine, while 14% have received both shots of the anti-Covid-19 vaccines. 

At the White House briefing on Friday, Walensky said that  federal health officials are closely monitoring the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first tracked in the UK and has now spread across 51 US jurisdictions with 8,000 confirmed cases. 

The country’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci was also part of the briefing. The Director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases also said that the B1.1.7 variant seems to be spreading quickly, as the week-to-week percentage keeps on  growing. “It has the capability to become dominant”, said Fauci. 

Many government health experts also fear rising cases not due to the slow distribution of the vaccines, but due to the withdrawal of the public in general from safety measures. They said that the country is on the right path, but the general public needs to ‘hang in a little bit longer’.