Health officials make their final pleas for holiday Covid caution
With nationwide coronavirus hospitalisations topping 80,000 and case counts on the cusp of 200,000 a day, officials and experts are giving their final pleas for caution in the days before Thanksgiving.
As of Saturday, US time, average cases reported each day in the United States had spiked more than 17 per cent in a week, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. Deaths are also on the rise, with some communities overwhelmed by the bodies – in El Paso County, Texas, the National Guard was called in to help the morgues. With the holiday travel rush underway, public health leaders cautioned this weekend that ‘‘herd immunity’’ from promising vaccines remains months away and that every American’s choices this week will shape the country’s virus trajectory.
In an interview on CBS News’s Face the Nation, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said he understands that many Americans are experiencing ‘‘covid fatigue’’ after months of pandemic restrictions, now tightening again in many parts of the country. But travelling over the holidays and ignoring public health guidelines are ‘‘going to get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now,’’ he said.
Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to the White House’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine effort, said on CNN’s State of the Union that about 70 per cent of the American population will need to be vaccinated for true herd immunity to occur. That will probably happen around May, he said, based on health officials’ current plans.
‘‘Most people need to be immunised before we can go back to a normal life,’’ he said.
Some the front lines of the country’s pandemic response are not sure that months of messaging have gotten through to the public, however. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention advised Americans against Thanksgiving travel and get-togethers just days ago, when many people’s plans were already set.
‘‘Absolutely not,’’ said Utah physician Sean Callahan when asked whether the urgency of the country’s situation has sunk in. He said soaring cases are already straining the quality of care at the University of Utah, where he works in one of the hospital’s intensive-care units.