States ease virus restrictions despite experts’ warnings

Cases dropped since January, but have risen over past several days

With the U.S. vaccination drive picking up speed and a third formula on the way, states eager to reopen for business are easing coronavirus restrictions despite warnings from health experts that the outbreak is far from over and that moving too quickly could prolong the misery.

Massachusetts on Monday made it much easier to grab dinner and a show. In Missouri, where individual communities get to make the rules, the two biggest metropolitan areas — St. Louis and Kansas City — are relaxing some measures. Iowa’s governor recently lifted mask requirements and limits on the number of people allowed in bars and restaurants, while the town of Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas, now lets establishments stay open until midnight.

Mike Lee, who owns Trezo Mare Restaurant & Lounge in Kansas City, said he hopes increased vaccine access, combined with warmer weather, will improve business.

“I think that people are excited to put this past them and be able to start to get back to their ways of doing things,“Lee said.

The push to reopen comes as COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the states are ramping up. Nearly 20 percent of the nation’s adults — or over 50 million people — have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 10 percent have been fully inoculated 2½ months into the campaign to snuff out the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Johnson & Johnson shipped out nearly 4 million doses of its newly authorized, one-shot COVID-19 vaccine Sunday night to be delivered to states for use starting on Tuesday. The company will deliver about 16 million more doses by the end of March and a total of 100 million by the end of June.

That adds to the supply being distributed by Pfizer and Moderna and should help the nation amass enough doses by midsummer to vaccinate all adults. The White House is encouraging Americans to take the first dose available to them, regardless of manufacturer.

In New York City, where limited indoor dining has resumed, officials said the J&J vaccine will help the city to inoculate millions more people by summer, including through door-to-door vaccinations of homebound senior citizens.

But the efforts come with strong warnings from health officials against reopening too quickly, as worrisome coronavirus variants spread.

On Monday, the head of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, urgently warned state officials and ordinary Americans not to let down their guard, saying she is “really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures that we have recommended.”

“I remain deeply concerned about a potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic,” she said. “We stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground that we have gained.”

Cases and hospitalizations have plunged since the end of January, and deaths have also dropped sharply, but they are still running at dangerously high levels and have even risen slightly over the past several days.

“We cannot be resigned to 70,000 cases a day and 2,000 daily deaths,” Walensky said.

Overall, the outbreak has killed more than a half-million Americans.

The vaccine already is contributing to a decrease in severe cases and deaths among older people, and is “quickly becoming a bigger contributor” nationally, Justin Lessler, an expert in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University, said in an email.

“I suspect we will see it overtake natural infection as the biggest driver of immunity late spring earliest, more likely midsummer,” Lessler said.