Joe Biden said that the US should ‘do better’ on Covid vaccination (File)
Washington, United States:
People vaccinated against Covid-19 in high-risk parts of the United States should resume wearing masks indoors, the top health authority said on Tuesday, a major change in coronavirus guidance that is expected to suppress the Delta version. Underlines the country’s struggle for
President Joe Biden said the announcement showed the US needed to “get better” at vaccinations, adding that a mandate for the country’s more than two million federal workers was now “under consideration”.
Rochelle Valensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, relayed the masked decision in a press call, citing new data showing that while the vaccines remain highly effective, the rare success cases involving Delta increase the risk of further transmission. Is.
“In areas with substantial and high transmission, the CDC advises fully vaccinated people to wear masks in public indoor settings,” she said.
According to the latest CDC data, much of the southern United States is experiencing high or substantial transmission, while the highly vaccinated parts of the Northeast are experiencing mostly moderate rates of community transmission.
Sufficient is defined as 50 to 100 daily cases per 100,000 people over an average of seven days, while high is defined as more than 100 daily cases per 100,000.
In a statement following the move, Biden said he would take new steps Thursday to address a gap in vaccinations that have been badly stalled for months despite the fact that the United States has the largest number of deaths of any country. There is more supply.
In a separate address to the US intelligence community, when asked about a potential vaccine mandate for US federal workers, Biden replied: “It’s under consideration.”
On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it would require its frontline health workers, about 115,000 people, to get the shot, becoming the first federal agency to meet the requirement.
‘Temporary’ measure
Valensky stressed that so-called “breakthrough” cases in people who are vaccinated remain rare – authorized shots reduce the risk of symptomatic disease by seven times, and hospitalization and death by a factor of twenty.
However, new research from the CDC has shown that when a vaccinated person becomes infected, their viral load is similar to that of an uninfected person.
“This leads us to believe that breakthrough infections, which are rare, have the potential to carry on on the same lines as an uninfected individual.”
To prevent the spread of the delta variant, the CDC will recommend schools adopt universal masking, including teachers, staff, students and visitors – regardless of vaccination status – when they reopen in the fall, he said. .
As recently as last week, the CDC defended its May decision that vaccinated people do not have to wear masks indoors under most circumstances, with exceptions, including on public transportation and in hospitals.
But infection numbers are now rising, thanks to the delta variant, which accounts for about 90 percent of cases.
The latest seven-day average of daily cases is over 56,000, similar to the levels last seen in April.
Forty-nine percent of the US population is fully vaccinated, but vaccination rates are high among politically liberal and conservative parts of the country.
Valensky stressed that he saw masks as a “temporary” measure, adding: “What we really need to do to reduce these transmissions in areas with high transmission is to vaccinate as many people as possible.” can go.”
solution vaccination
Eric Sio-Pea, director of global health at Northwell Health in New York, told AFP that rather than being a reflection of vaccines losing their effectiveness, “it is a solution to a problem that exists because we have a high level of people who are not vaccinated.” planted.”
“The main predictor of an area’s rise in COVID-19 is vaccination rates,” he said, so areas that are heavily vaccinated would actually be exempt from the new guidance.
According to a recent paper published in the journal Virological, the amount of virus detected in the first trials of patients with the delta variant was 1,000 times higher than in patients with the first wave of the virus in 2020, greatly increasing its infectivity.
Last month, Israel reinstated the mask mandate, just 10 days after lifting them, due to the Delta version, and local US jurisdictions, including Los Angeles County, have taken similar steps.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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