By Shannon Pettypiece -
NBC News
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English), Rochelle Walensky, warned this Monday about the "doom" toward which the United States is heading due to the constant growth of coronavirus infections, and She excitedly begged the citizens to continue wearing the mask and maintaining social distance.
"I speak to you as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to hold on a little more," said Walensky, "I wish with all my might for this to end, I know everyone wants it, we are almost there, but not yet, like this. to hold out a little longer until they get vaccinated when they can, so that all the people we love are still here with us when the pandemic ends. "
Walensky, who has been warning for weeks about the worrying data on infections linked to the new variants of the coronavirus, said he fears that the United States will suffer a new wave of cases similar to that of last summer and the one that Europe is now suffering.
He attributed it to the new mutations, to the fact that more and more people are traveling more, and that the governors are relaxing the precautionary measures too quickly (today he urged them again not to reopen their states prematurely).
"I'm going to go off script," he said, "right now I'm scared."
The average number of cases grew 10% to almost 60,000 a day in the last week, he said, and hospitalizations and deaths have also increased (3%, to an average of 1,000 a day).
At the same time, the United States is already close to three million daily vaccinations in recent days (in this case, injections of one dose, although two are necessary in most cases).
This Monday, 73% of those over 65 had received at least one dose, and in total more than a third of all adults.
The president, Joe Biden, announced today that within three weeks up to 90% of adults in the United States will be able to get vaccinated if they want, and that the number of pharmacies where they can do it has doubled.
