CDC CHIEF WARNS OF ‘IMPENDING DOOM’ AS CASES RISE
President urges states to reinstate mask mandates to prevent another surge
President Joe Biden, facing a rise in coronavirus cases around the country, called Monday for governors and mayors to reinstate mask mandates as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of “impending doom” from a potential fourth surge of the pandemic.
The president’s comments came only hours after the CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, appeared to fight back tears as she pleaded with Americans to “hold on a little while longer” and continue following public health advice, like wearing masks and social distancing, to curb the virus’s spread.
The back-to-back appeals reflected a growing sense of urgency among top White House officials and government scientists that the chance to conquer the pandemic, now in its second year, may slip through their grasp. Coronavirus infections and hospitalizations are on the upswing, including a troubling rise in the Northeast, even as the pace of vaccinations is accelerating.
“Please, this is not politics — rein
state the mandate,” Biden said, adding, “The failure to take this virus seriously is precisely what got us into this mess in the first place.”
According to a New York Times database, the sevenday average of new virus cases as of Sunday was about 63,000, a level comparable with late October’s average. That was up from 54,000 a day two weeks earlier, an increase of more than 16 percent. Similar upticks in Europe have led to major surges in the spread of COVID-19, Walensky said.
Public health experts say that the nation is in a race between the vaccination campaign and new, worrisome coronavirus variants.
Although more than 1 in 3 American adults have received at least one shot and nearly one-fifth are fully vaccinated, the nation is a long way away from reaching socalled herd immunity — the tipping point that comes when spread of a virus begins to slow because so many people, estimated at 70 percent to 90 percent of the population, are immune to it.
But states are rapidly expanding access to more plentiful quantities of the vaccine. On Monday, at least six — Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma — made all adults eligible for vaccination. New York said that all adults would be eligible starting April 6.
Biden said Monday that the administration was taking steps to expand vaccine eligibility and access, including opening a dozen new mass vaccination centers. He directed his coronavirus response team to ensure that 90 percent of Americans would be no farther than 5 miles from a vaccination site by April 19.
The president said doses were plentiful enough now that 9 of 10 adults in the nation — or more — would be eligible for a shot by that date. Previously, he had called on states to broaden eligibility to all adults by May 1. He revised that promise because states, buoyed by projected increases in shipments, are opening their vaccination programs more rapidly than expected, a White House official said.
But it was Walensky’s raw display of emotion that seemed to capture the angst of the moment. Barely three months into her new job, the former Harvard Medical School professor and infectious disease specialist acknowledged she was departing from her prepared script during the White House’s regular coronavirus briefing for reporters.
She described “a feeling of nausea” she experienced last year when, caring for patients at Massachusetts General Hospital, she saw the corpses of COVID-19 victims piled up, overflowing from the morgue. She recalled how she stood — “gowned, gloved, masked, shielded” — as the last one in a hospital room before a patient died alone, without family.
“I am asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends,” Walensky said. The nation has “so much reason for hope,” she added.
“But right now,” she said, “I’m scared.”
The wave of new cases comes at the same time as some promising news: A CDC report released Monday confirmed the findings of last year’s clinical trials that vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer were highly effective against COVID-19. The report documented that the vaccines work to prevent both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections “in real-world conditions.”
Researchers followed nearly 4,000 health care employees and essential workers beginning in December. They found 161 infections among the unvaccinated workers, but only three among those who received two doses of vaccine. The study suggested even a single dose was 80 percent effective against infection two weeks after it was administered. Studies are continuing to determine whether vaccinated people can still transmit the virus to others, although many scientists consider that unlikely.