“The question that currently hangs in the balance is: will we have a fourth boom?” The former director of the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, told Wolf Blitzer of CNN on Thursday. “Any uncontrolled spread increases the risk that there will be dangerous variants that could be more contagious, deadly or escape immune protection.”
The point is to keep doing what worked, Friedan said. ‘To locate very carefully and recognize the masking, is here to stay for many more months. It is very important to avoid sharing indoor air with others, ‘he added.
Such measures could help avoid the potential outbreak of the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK and which is more transmissible, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Ho said Thursday it could lead to the loss of vaccine efficacy, although studies suggest that vaccines may still offer strong protection against variants. He added that the variant could be more contagious, but his team does not yet have evidence to prove it.
States release restrictions on salons, stadiums and socialization
Despite the warning that they are paying too much attention to the downward trends of the past few weeks, many states are easing their restrictions.
“We should by no means accept that the downhill slope is inevitable. It could start all over again,” Collins said.
For example, barber shops and salons in Wyoming, including hair, nail and tattoo parlors, will no longer have capacity constraints, Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement. During the next month, the state will also ease other health restrictions, including allowing buffets to resume work and limiting events to 50 people instead of 25.
In response to a “sustained decline in the number of cases”, the city of New Orleans is also implementing changes: from Friday, the city will increase meetings to 75 people inside and 150 outside, as well as increase table boundaries and increase indoor and outdoor stadium capacity limited to 15% and 25% respectively.
A particular point of contention was the reopening of schools: Although some officials and parents think it is urgently necessary to have students back in the classroom, there are teachers who are concerned that it is too early and not yet safe enough to campus does not open.
In Virginia, the state Senate on Thursday approved a bill that, if signed by Governor Ralph Northam, would require every school board to offer a full-time personal tuition option to students enrolled in the local school department, with a few exceptions. .
According to the bill, schools can return to temporary distance education if the school council and local department of health determine that the transfer level at the school is high.
Officials extend the admission and availability of vaccines
As some states facilitate restrictions, others provide more access to vaccination for more of their residents, including teachers.
As of March 15, teachers and other essential workers in Missouri will be eligible for the vaccine, Gov. Mike Parson said Thursday.
In addition to educators and staff of K-12 students, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday that adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers and parents of children with complex medical conditions will be eligible for vaccinations on March 8.
And as of Thursday, all people over the age of 16 who have certain medical conditions are eligible for the vaccines in Utah, Spencer Cox said.
“We re-prioritize these individuals, based on age and these underlying comorbidities, because that’s the greatest risk for hospitalization or death,” Cox explained, pleading with Utahans not to jump ahead and assure them they have so much. more vaccines coming soon.
Officials have been working in recent months to speed up and optimize the distribution of vaccine doses as countries try harder to meet the growing demand.
If Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine gets approval for FDA use over the weekend, President Joe Biden has said it will be deployed immediately.
“The FDA will decide on the emergency approval of a vaccine based on science, not because of political pressure from me or anyone else, no outside factors,” Biden said. “What I will say to the American people is if we have a plan to make it as fast as Johnson and Johnson can, if the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine.”
Pfizer’s existing vaccine could also spread rapidly, thanks to the FDA’s agreement on Thursday to allow it to be transported and stored for up to two weeks at ‘conventional temperatures’ commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers.
The company and its partner Biotech are also responding to the growing threat of variants with new tests to see how well a third dose protects against it.
CNN’s Christopher Rios, Lauren Mascarenhas, Nadia Kounang, Andy Rose, Jamiel Lynch, Rebekah Riess, Lindsay Benson, Artemis Moshtaghian, DJ Judd, Jacqueline Howard and Amanda Sealy contributed to this report.