Newsman: While NYC restaurants to reopen on Friday at 25% indoor capacity ahead of Valentine’s Day and the Iowa lifted mask mandate as of Sunday and Massachusetts have recently backed off some stricter restriction, the Biden administration’s coronavirus task force does not agree with states that have begun to loosen restrictions as cases begin to drop from the all-time peak endured over the last month. The increased risk of variants spreading across the country is reason to keep those restrictions up, not weaken them-Biden’s coronavirus task force warned during a White House briefing on Monday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, Chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt clearly stated in Monday’s briefing that they were encouraging states not to go that route again.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “we can do two things that A, make sure we adhere to the public health measures and B, get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can. That’s the best defense against the evolution of variants.”
“We have yet to control this pandemic. We still have this emerging threat of variants, and I would just simply discourage any of those activities,” CDC director Walensky said, regarding loosened restrictions. “We really need to keep all of the mitigation measures at play here if we’re really going get control of this pandemic.”
She urged all Americans to “keep your guard up” as cases and hospital admissions drop — noting that the country is still seeing well over 100,000 cases a day and far more hospitalizations per day than were reported during the summer peak.
“We are continuing to watch these data closely, and although hospital admissions and cases are consistently dropping, I’m asking everyone to please keep your guard up. The continued proliferation of variants remains of great concern, and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends we are seeing,” Walensky said.
Rochelle Walensky said, a numbers of 7, 699 variant cases have been confirmed across 34 states as of Feb. Of those cases, 690 are the B-117 variant, the variant first reported in the U.K… She said, it’s estimated that far more variant cases are already here, but most testing centers don’t do the type of detailed sequencing required to find variants. Over the last three weeks, the CDC has increased surveillance of variants by tenfold and aims to increase another three or four times that -Walensky said.
Walensky said “it’s important to wear a mast, stay 6 feet apart and to avoid travel, crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. The public also needs to “get vaccinated when it’s available to you. I recognize that the pandemic has taken an enormous toll on all of us. But if we all work together and take these prevention steps, we can finally turn the tide,”
“I will just say I think our stand on this is pretty well-established. We attend a weekly governors call at least and I’ve been in touch one on one with numerous governors already, so I’m doing my best and I’m happy to do more to encourage the states to decrease their community spread so that we can decrease the threat of these variants, decrease our hospitalizations and get this pandemic under control,” Walensky said.
Slavitt added that they understand the pressure states are under to reopen.
“And the only thing I’ll add to that is that, you know, we understand the pressures the governors are under. We are taking a collaborative approach as much as possible, sharing with them the data, helping them understand as we’ve covered on this call why we’re in such a critical period to combating the virus and hope to continue to work to persuade and partner with states and localities, to continue to follow sensible public health measures,” he said. Massachusetts, Iowa and New York a
