US vaccinations accelerate. But experts say you should continue to wear a mask

As the US launches its mass vaccination campaign, public health experts are warning against complacency – and a possible new increase in cases.

On Sunday, dr. Michael Osterholm, who heads the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, compare the current situation in the US Covid-19 after “the eye of the hurricane” in an interview with host Chuck Todd on Meet the press. Specific concerns, Osterholm said, are coronavirus variants that have higher transmission rates and are believed to be more lethal.

“It seems to be going very well,” Osterholm said. “You can see blue sky. We’ve had a terrible, terrible year. But what we do know is about to come over us is the situation with this B.1.1.7 variant … we need to keep America as safe as we can from this virus through no public health measures we was taken. ”

One of those measures for public health is increasingly successful: White House Covid-19 Tsar Jeff Zients tell Meet the press Sunday that a record 2.9 million Covid-19 vaccines were administered on Saturday, setting a new record for the third consecutive day.

On average, Zients said, the U.S. now allows about 2.2 million shots per day, an increase of 1.3 million doses per day compared to mid-January levels.

And according to Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to the White House Covid-19 response, received a majority – 59 percent – of adults 65 and older receiving at least one dose of the vaccine, as well as about 23 percent of all U.S. adults.

Poll suggests that vaccine hesitation is also declining in the US, even though the supply of vaccines is increasing. According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center on Friday, a total of 69 percent of the U.S. population has already been vaccinated or is planning to get a vaccine when one is available.

This is a significant increase from November, when only 60 percent of U.S. adults said they would definitely or probably get the vaccine when it was available, according to Pew, and even more because of the negative confidence in the U.S. vaccine. in September, when only 51 percent planned to be vaccinated. Public health experts believe that 70 to 80 percent of Americans must be vaccinated for the U.S. to have herd immunity.

Vaccine hesitation has dropped even more sharply among black Americans in the latest Pew poll: 61 percent now say they have already been vaccinated, or that they plan to get a vaccine, compared to 42 percent in November.

These statistics are just the latest news on good vaccines in the US, following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a third emergency vaccine late last month, and President Joe Biden’s Tuesday announcement that the US ‘was on track to to have enough vaccine stock for every adult in America by the end of May. ”

On Saturday, Biden had a even more ambitious targetindicating that the US may have enough vaccines by mid-May.

Biden also announced on Tuesday a new partnership between pharmaceutical giants Merck and Johnson & Johnson. The two companies will work together to increase the production of Johnson & Johnson’s newly approved single shot vaccine, which according to clinical trials is very effective in preventing hospitalization and serious Covid-19 diseases.

And billions of federal dollars for the distribution of vaccines are almost on the way after the Senate passed a $ 1.9 billion stimulus package on Saturday, according to strict party lines. The bill will be in the House again this week for a final vote, and is expected to end up on Biden’s desk soon for signing.

Collectively, the vaccine news points to a much more optimistic path for the country going to spring and summer, as dr. Anthony Fauci remarked. Face the Nation Sunday.

‘We must gradually withdraw [on restrictions] as we get more people vaccinated, ”he told host Margaret Brennan. “And it happens every day, more and more people, and especially if we get more doses, which will increase dramatically as we come in April and May.”

Do not relax yet, say public health experts

Despite the tide of good news in recent weeks, Fauci also warned against withdrawing the restrictions too quickly, and in his Face the Nation appearance Sunday that although U.S. Covid-19 cases have fallen sharply in recent weeks, the decline is ‘starting to flatten’.

“Plateauing at a level of 60,000 to 70,000 new cases per day is not an acceptable level,” Fauci said. ‘And if you look at what happened in Europe a few weeks ago, they usually lie a few weeks ahead of us in these patterns; they also descended and flattened. And over the past week or so, they have increased by about 9 percent. ‘

However, not every state in the U.S. has taken Fauci’s warnings to heart: despite concerns about a U.S. boom, the Texas government, Greg Abbott, and the Mississippi government, Tate Reeves, have both lifted the mask mandates. and other public health restrictions loosened in their states last week, upsetting public health officials.

“If you look at the numbers in Mississippi,” Reeves tell CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, ‘It does not justify government intervention. … Our main tool against the virus is to shoot arms. ‘

However, according to the Washington Post, Mississippi has been distributing vaccines per capita to the rest of the country since Thursday, just like Texas. And although vaccines are an important mitigation tool, Osterholm advocates maintaining other techniques to stop infections as well. Meet the press“You will not catch me tonight in a busy restaurant somewhere, not even with my vaccination.”

Some of Abbott and Reeves’ fellow Republican governors, such as the West Virginia government, Jim Justice, noted that public health guidelines continue to recommend masks and social distance, and they were confused by Texas and Mississippi’s decision to relax the restrictions early. .

“Because you cried out loud,” Justice said Face the Nation Sunday, “If we had another 30 days, or another 45 days, or whatever it took us to get to rock solid ground, that would be an approach that West Virginia is going to take.”

Justice’s position is not only supported by public health experts, but polls also indicate that it is popular: according to a new poll by ABC and Ipsos, a majority of Americans – about 56 percent – think that the mandate of the mask is weakening too quickly word.

Zients repeated that post to Todd on Sunday.

“We have to make sure we do not keep waiting,” Zients said. “We must stay on this path and defeat this pandemic.”