As states across the country continue to struggle with the death of a deadly polar vortex, senior Biden health officials are concerned that the days-long emergency will also lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks.
Over the past few days, senior administration officials have been scrambling to put together a federal response to the winter emergency, primarily in Texas, but also in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other northwestern and southern states. As part of the response, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinated to send 60 generators, meals, blankets, water, diesel and other life-saving supplies to Texas. President Joe Biden has approved emergency declarations in several states, and he has personally spoken to dozens of local and state officials in Texas to see what more can be done to help those in need.
In addition to assessing and addressing the obvious risks that have no power, water or access to reliable health care, administrative officials are beginning to understand the full extent of the COVID-19 problems caused by the storm, including vaccination sites that are shut down in more than six. states and the delay in sending nearly 6 million doses of vaccine. Officials say their biggest fear is that increased transmission among people who gather indoors to find heat will cause an increase in new cases at a time when vaccination in the state is delayed due to weather conditions. The state would drastically expand the vaccination before the storm hit by setting up a mass vaccination site in collaboration with Pentagon and FEMA officials. Staff hired to help set up the site were delayed in reporting to Texas due to the snow.
‘Look at the patterns of hospitalizations and deaths from diseases. They are going really dramatically in the right direction. I just hope that we will bounce back and I think we will do it, ”said dr. Anthony Fauci, president Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said in an interview Friday. “It’s a setback. We must continue to do whatever we can – do the same things we know we have done. I know, it’s hard to do that. If you are not in your home because the pipes have blown out, you and your family are freezing and you may need to go to the shelter. Clearly, this is not the best way to prevent the spread of disease. But hopefully it will be fixed soon. ‘
Officials are also concerned that the situation on the ground, especially the lack of water and power at hospitals, especially in rural communities, will lead to the deaths of those who have already searched for the virus. One senior Biden official said there is no reliable way to detect COVID-19 cases and deaths in real time, but that they expect the Texas Department of Health to have both COVID-19-related deaths and other deaths due to the storm will report in the coming weeks. .
“It can take weeks, sometimes months, for these deaths to reach the federal government database,” said a senior Biden official. ‘But we’re probably going to see a slew of deaths under hypothermia and carbon monoxide, as well as deaths related to COVID. The question will be whether the COVID deaths occurred due to lack of power or for reasons that can be explained. ”
Concerns about transmission come at a time when the Biden government is working overtime to control the spread of COVID-19, in part by increasing vaccination. More than 73 million doses were sent and approximately 58 million were administered. And the government of Biden has recently entered into more deals to ensure that doses will flow faster in the coming months. But the emergence of new, more lethal variants has hampered the effort, although there is evidence that vaccines still provide protection against it. It is forced health officials to tighten the calls for Americans to adhere to public health guidelines – the same officials who have been insisting for more than a year – to reduce the spread.
“The continued proliferation of more transferable variants could jeopardize the progress we have made over the past month … if we are let down,” he said. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a Wednesday press conference. . “We are not in a position to believe that the current level of vaccination is the current level of disease. We believe that much of the increase in illness has occurred with holidays, which are related to travel. We get off of it. I really want to say out loud that if you rely on our current level of vaccination rather than the other mitigation efforts to keep us low … we should not rest in that comfort. ‘
In the winter storm crisis, senior government officials in Biden are worried that they will once again have an uphill battle to try to control the spread of the virus as they begin to make progress. They are trying to avoid a situation where states have to force residents back. indoors, which reduces the capacity of restaurant and gym.
Fauci said the US “by no means” has the pandemic under control – that the numbers for community broadcasts across the country are too high to start reworking public health measures.
“If you get such a high level of background infections, like we had a month ago when we got 300,000 new infections a day, it becomes almost impossible to do effective identification, isolation and contact detection,” Fauci said. . ‘Once the base of infections is very low, and as more and more people are vaccinated, you can gradually withdraw from some of the strict public health measures. And by gradually withdrawing, I mean restaurants are starting to open up, increasing the capacity with which they open up … outdoor sports and spectators watching. We need to do this gradually instead of saying, ‘Okay, the numbers are lower. Let’s put everything back on. ‘”
Fauci said this is exactly what happened during the Trump administration last summer – the country was reopened before the broadcast was under control.
“There is a dynamic of outbreaks, that when they accelerate on the way up, they have a momentum of more and more cases,” he said. “If you get the momentum in the opposite direction, the same thing happens, the fewer people get infected.”
Even if the U.S. gets the shipment under control, there is always the chance that new variants will emerge that will pose an even greater threat, Fauci said.
‘What worries me is that even if we reach a level of very, very significant suppression of the base level of virus in the United States, and the virus continues to rage in the rest of the world, developing world that is not the ability or the resources to vaccinate, there will always be the long-term threat of new variants that jeopardize the protection of the vaccines, ”said Fauci. “This is a global pandemic. And the only way to fight it is worldwide, because otherwise it’s just going to be a sword of Damocles over us. ‘