Coronavirus-related deaths are expected to fall in new parts of the United States by next week, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an interview Thursday.
“Hopefully this week and next week you will start to see the death toll really start to drop,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a streamed interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Redfield attributed the projected drip to humans following mitigating steps to stop the spread of new coronavirus, including following social distance measures, wearing face masks, closing bars, restricting food and controlling crowds.
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Redfield said it takes time for the figures to reflect these efforts to stop the spread of the virus. “It is important to understand that these interventions have a delay, that delay will be three to four weeks,” Redfield said in the JAMA interview.
The director of the Federal Health Agency said that COVID-19 cases are declining in the red zones, but that the trend does not apply to the yellow zones, and warned that a third wave should be avoided in the heartland of America.
“Central America is stuck right now,” he said. “That’s why it’s so important for Central America to recognize the mitigation we’re talking about.”
Redfield said the Northeast Polder has seen a significant drop in cases due to mitigation efforts and the possibility of immunity against the new coronavirus.
Mitigation efforts such as wearing face masks contributed to the decline in the number of COVID19 cases, said CDC director
According to Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 5.5 million coronavirus cases reported in the US and more than 174,000 deaths. While optimistic about the COVID-19 numbers falling next week in certain regions, Redfield is worried about the upcoming flu season combined with the coronavirus crisis.
Redfield stressed the importance of vaccinations, calling them one of the “important gifts or contributions of science to modern medicine.”
The CDC director noted during the interview that in the fall “nothing can be more important than trying to increase the decision of the American public to embrace the flu vaccine with confidence.” He further stated that less than 50 percent of the American public is vaccinated.
The combination of COVID-19 and the flu could lead to “one of the most complicated winters”, Redfield warned, before adding that he was optimistic that the country might want to see “one of the best flu seasons” because of the mitigation efforts already on site during the COVID-19 pandemic, including hand washing and wearing face masks. However, he noted that the public still needs to be vaccinated against the flu.
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The CDC director said he was “taking the flu off the table” this winter with the aim of vaccinating 65 percent of the population. If hospital systems overwhelm, he said, that’s when mortality rates rise, and getting the flu vaccine will help transmit hospital systems during the pandemic.
