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“Please hear my message: With the level of mutated virus variants spreading in society now, we are in danger of losing our recent progress in fighting infection,” Rochelle Walensky told CNN.
She is the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
After several weeks of declining infection trends, the numbers are rising again in the United States. The country registered about 2 percent more cases last week than the previous week, Walensky notes.
– At the same time, last week’s average death rate increased by more than two percent, to nearly 200 deaths per day, he says.
– the devil is here
American researchers believe they have detected another variant of the mutated virus that is more contagious and appears to be more resistant to vaccines.
According to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), it is a mutated virus similar to those discovered in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.
But it can be more dangerous, they warn.
– The devil is already here, said Charles Chiu, who has led the team that has analyzed the new variant under the name B.1.427 / B.1.429, when he reported on the variant last week.
Researchers believe the variant may explain why California has seen a dramatic increase in the number of covid-19 cases and corona-related deaths in recent months.
– I wish it were different. But science is science, Chiu told the Los Angeles Times.
Respond to relief
According to the Worldometer survey, the United States has registered a total of 29,314,069 corona cases in the wake of the pandemic, 53,962 new cases in the last 24 hours alone.
At the same time that infection rates are increasing again, several states have also begun to relax their measures, including Massachusetts, St. Louis, and Kansas City in Missouri, where cities in the state can decide the level of measures for themselves and Iowa.
It comes largely after reports that the country’s vaccination program is working positive, and that the country has a third corona vaccine on the way, from Johnson & Johnson, writes the AP news agency.
“I’m very concerned about this, that more states are relaxing the measures we recommend to keep infection low and protect the population,” says Walensky.
– That is why I ask you to be so kind as to persevere. Keep wearing skins and stick to any recommendations we can think of, which we know work. Vaccination is what will get us out of this, but to get there you have to vaccinate many more people, he continues.
– It is urgent
Harvard School of Public Health professor Dr. Eric Rubin tells CNN that “it is more urgent to implement vaccines now.”
– Because it is very important to take strong measures against the variants of the virus that are spreading in society, which may be resistant to vaccines, he says.
Vaccination with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine begins Tuesday.
The company will deliver about 16 million more doses by the end of March and will have delivered 100 million doses in total by the end of June.
Only one dose of the J&J vaccine is needed, as opposed to two doses of the vaccines previously approved by Pfizer / Biontech and Moderna.
US infection control expert Anthony Fauci has previously urged people to accept the first dose offered to them, regardless of which manufacturer endorses it.
