“Four weeks ago, the B.1.1.7 variant accounted for about 1 to 4% of the virus we saw in communities across the country. Today it is up to 30 to 40%. , “Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota ‘s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told NBC’ s” Meet the Press “Sunday.
“What we saw in Europe, when we hit that 50% mark, you see things go up,” he said.
Here is what we know about the B.1.1.7 variant
Although several variants of coronavirus are circulating in the U.S., experts have been particularly concerned about the dangerous potential of the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variable.
To date, the group has reported more than 2,600 known cases of the variant across 46 states, Puerto Rico and Washington DC. Nearly a quarter of these cases are in Florida. However, the CDC has stated that this does not appear to represent the total number of such cases in the U.S. – but only those detected by advanced sample analysis, with the help of classification. genomic.
Infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist Dr. Celine Gounder told CNN on Sunday that she had an emergency meeting with a group of experts on Christmas Eve to discuss the opposite.
“We’ve been keeping a close eye on him ever since,” she said. “Where it has hit the UK and now elsewhere in Europe, it has been horrific. It has increased hospitalization and death rates and is very difficult to control. “
“It’s as if we’ve been running this really long marathon, and we’re 100 yards from the finish line and we sit down and give,” Gounder said Sunday. we are almost there, we just need to give ourselves a little more time to get a larger proportion of the population covered by vaccines. “
‘This is not just about personal choice’
On Sunday, Reeves defended his decision, saying trying to get rid of the state of Covid-19 cases would be a total unrealistic goal, and Covid-19 numbers officials were worried about him going down.
“We look a lot closer from a data point of view at hospitals, the number of Mississippians in the ICU, the number of Mississippians on airplanes … all of those numbers have fallen in our state over the two last month, “he told CNN.
Reeves said the state has tried to protect life “but also to protect livelihoods.”
“We need to get our economy out so people can get back to work, and I think that’s very important,” he said.
And even in the absence of mask orders, the governor said he recommends and “strongly” encourages residents to wear masks.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told ABC that the responsible thing for states to do is to keep masonry orders in place.
“It’s not just about personal choice, right, it’s like drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car, it’s not just personal choice that would endanger my life, I would put other things people’s lives are in danger, ”Jha said.
“When you wear a mask you’re not just protecting yourself, you’re protecting those around you,” he said.
Less than 10% of Americans fully vaccinated
More than 30.6 million have received two doses, the data show. That’s about 9.2% of the U.S. population.
But officials hope vaccines will ramp up in the coming months with the help of a larger supply.
“We’ll have enough vaccines, I think we said for 300 million Americans,” Slavitt said Sunday. “There are currently 250 million adults in the country, and right now, as we know, most teenagers don’t deserve it, and younger children don’t deserve it, so it’s more than enough for every adult. “
Slavitt said vaccines are now going from factories to arms “very quickly,” and the country is becoming more efficient at delivering doses.
And the country’s high school students could get vaccinated by the fall, according to Fauci, while younger students may have to wait a little longer.
“The tests are currently being conducted to determine both relative safety and immunogenicity in high school students,” Fauci told CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We’re projecting that it’s very likely that high school students will get the vaccine before the fall term, maybe not the first day, but definitely at the beginning of the fall for that fall education term.”
CNN’s Nadia Kounang, Naomi Thomas and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.