While coronavirus deaths tend to vary more than in cases and hospital admissions, dr. Walensky said the most recent seven-day average was slightly higher than the average earlier in the week. The average of seven days of newly reported deaths as of Thursday was 2,165.
“We at CDC see this as a very worrying shift in the trajectory,” she said, adding, “I want to make it clear: cases, hospital admissions and deaths – everything remains very high and the recent shift in the pandemic must be extremely serious. be recorded. . ”
Dr. Walensky said some of the increase could be attributed to new variants of the coronavirus that spread more efficiently and faster. The so-called B.1.1.7 variant, which first originated in Britain, is now about 10 percent of all cases in the United States, a few weeks ago from 1 percent to 4 percent, she said.
The United States’ ability to detect variants is much less strong than that of Britain. Nevertheless, data collected by the CDC show that the number of cases with the variant in the country increased from 76 January from 12 January to more than 2,100 in 45 states as of Thursday. But the actual infections can be much higher due to insufficient surveillance efforts.
‘I know people are tired; they want to return to life, to normal, ‘said Dr Walensky. “But we are not there yet.”
Dr. Walensky’s strong and outspoken warnings made it clear that the CDC director in the Biden government, unlike the Trump administration, had gained a powerful voice. Under President Donald J. Trump, the agency was virtually silenced after one of its top officials, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, told reporters almost exactly a year ago that the coronavirus would cause serious disruption to American life.
At the same time, administration officials were trying to highlight their efforts to lead the country out of the pandemic, including clearing up the national coronavirus vaccination campaign, acquiring new drugs and getting the private sector into the fray.