The situation is being made worse by the fact that young adults are one of the very groups lagging when it comes to vaccinations.
Even though case numbers have declined dramatically since the start of 2021, cases have plateaued and even ticked slightly upward in recent days. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday the seven-day average climbed to almost 15,000 new cases, from about 12,500 the week before.
“While this is a 95% decrease, lower from our peak into early January, it does also reflect a 10% increase in the seven-day average from last week,” CDC head Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday, during a virtual White House briefing.
The question now is: Will we also soon see an uptick in hospitalizations and deaths?
The Biden administration is so concerned about the double-whammy of variants and low vaccination rates, it is planning to deploy response teams across the country to areas with a high spread of the Delta variant to offer surge testing, support staff for vaccination sites and medicines such as monoclonal antibodies that have been shown to help people avoid getting very sick.
As a sign of how troubling the Delta variant is — Fauci called it the “greatest threat” to progress against Covid-19 in the United States — consider that masks are once again inching onto the stage, both here and abroad.
The World Health Organization, whose mandate is to safeguard global health, never stopped encouraging indoor masking (even among the vaccinated), probably because much of the world remains unvaccinated. But even Israel, a country with very high vaccination rates, returned recently to mandatory indoor masking, specifically to combat the spread of the Delta variant.
In this country, the CDC is so far sticking by its guidance, which
it changed back in mid May, stating that fully vaccinated people can choose to not wear masks both indoors and out, in most situations. It was a decision that surprised many of us caring for this patient at the time, as if the CDC were allowing the patient to run before it could fully walk — especially because it came so quickly and without warning, leaving many people, businesses, organizations unprepared.
But the tide is turning in some localities, especially places that are seeing a high number of cases due to the Delta variant, like Los Angeles County, which urged everyone, even those who are vaccinated, to wear masks in public indoor spaces. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker this week also encouraged people to wear masks indoors even if they are vaccinated due to spread of Delta variant. And New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said that while the state will not reinstate masks for students in the fall, that could change if things get worse.
Walensky agrees that mask guidance should be flexible. “We are still seeing uptick in cases in areas of low vaccination, and in that situation we are suggesting that policies be made at the local level. And those masking policies are really intended to protect the unvaccinated,” she said. “The vaccinated, we believe, still are safe.”
Recovery is a rollercoaster ride
I find it encouraging that local authorities are stepping in and making good sound decisions based on science and what is going on in their communities. It’s become pretty clear that we’re never going to be completely rid of SARS-CoV-2: All signs point to it circulating among us for the foreseeable future.
While we can’t eradicate it, we can manage it, especially with the tools we have at our disposal right now, like vaccines and even mask-wearing. And until there’s a vaccine for the entire population, we can protect children and others by getting vaccinated ourselves, wearing masks and keeping them away from big crowds and risky situations.
We have to be flexible and nimble, adapting to all the curve balls that the virus throws our way. But we should never let our guard down, nor should we make unforced errors.
For the patient, our country, that means recovery may look less like a straight line and more like a roller coaster, with highs followed by dips.
As a doctor, I want to remind America that it is not 100% healed yet; I strongly urge the country to take it slowly, to finish taking all of its medicine. By that, I mean get vaccinated, get your second shot if you haven’t already and get your kids vaccinated when they become eligible.
What’s heartbreaking to me as a doctor is that throughout the pandemic, my patient didn’t do very well. And while things are certainly much better, America is still not where it could be. There is a seven-day average of well over 10,000 new infections a day; a portion of those people will need to be hospitalized, and another portion will struggle with long-haul Covid. And we can’t forget that every single day, an average of more than 250 people are still dying of Covid-19. At this point, almost all these are preventable deaths.
I am convinced the patient will recover, but now it is just a question of how long it will take and what the human and economic cost will be of letting the infection smolder too long.
Going forward the patient must do better; we must do better. Because as I keep on saying, we’re still all in this together.
CNN Health’s Andrea Kane contributed to this report.
