The third Covid-19 spike may be leveling off at a high level, a stressing shift in the trajectory of the pandemic, a top government health authorities warned Friday.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Illness Control and Prevention, offered a sobering upgrade about the latest data on cases, hospital admissions and deaths in the United States, and she stated the direction of the numbers may imply states ought to rethink strategies to unwind restrictions on in-person activities.
” Over the last couple of weeks, cases and medical facility admissions in the United States had actually been coming down since early January, and deaths had been declining in the past week, however the current information recommends that these decreases might be stalling, possibly leveling off at still a very high number,” she said in an instruction.
” We at CDC consider this a very concerning shift in the trajectory,” she stated.
It’s not clear where the numbers will go from here– whether they will resume falling, plateau or even increase once again– however Walensky said her firm was seeing the data closely.
The warning comes as states and areas are preparing to loosen up some regulations on financial activity and in-person events, an advancement that she stated might be premature, particularly as the Biden administration gets ready for a ramp-up in vaccinations in the coming weeks.
” It’s important to keep in mind where we remain in the pandemic. Things are rare. Now is not the time to unwind restrictions,” she said.
Walensky stated the data may reflect “the start effects” of new variations spreading out throughout the U.S. The variant called B. 1.1.7, first determined in the UK, now represents about 10 percent of cases in the U.S., she stated.
” We may be done with the virus, however clearly the virus is not done with us,” she stated.
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