The United States is optimistic about the success of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19, but the expectation of an imminent return to normalcy has caused many states to have relaxed or eliminated precautionary measures (mandatory use of masks, social distance, etc. ).
The federal government is thus reiterating with increasing urgency the need for governors and citizens to remain cautious, since there is an increase in infections, hospitalizations and deaths: the fourth wave of the coronavirus could already be underway.
Daily cases are growing 10% compared to the previous week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English), despite the fact that almost three million people are vaccinated every day.
President Joe Biden has pledged to reach 200 million injected doses by April 29.
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"We're walking on the razor's edge right now
," Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told USA Today.
The country already has 30.4 million infections and more than 552,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to data from the NBC News network.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, warned this Monday during a briefing at the White House with the media: "Right now I'm scared."
According to him, the success of the vaccination campaign and the spring weather are causing too many displacements and citizens have lowered their guard in measures such as masks, social distancing or washing their hands.
"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. "
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"In the last week we have seen a continuous increase in cases, now we are in the range of between 60,000 and 70,000 (daily), and when we have seen an increase like this in the past is when things have a tendency to pick up, already rebound in a big way, "explained the CDC director.
On the same Monday afternoon, Biden reiterated Walensky's message at a press conference and called on governors and mayors to maintain or reinstate sanitary restrictions.
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"We are far from winning the war on COVID-19," he said, "we could still suffer a setback in the vaccination program. And most importantly, if we let our guard down now, we could see that the pandemic is getting worse and not better."
Nurse Alanna Bretzmann walks with a COVID-19 patient through the corridors of St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, California, Thursday, March 4, 2021. Paul Bersebach / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images
Although approximately 30% of adults in the country have already received the vaccine, only 16% are fully protected with the two necessary doses, and many more remain vulnerable.
But at least a dozen governors have eased sanitary restrictions this month, citing an improvement in infection and hospitalization rates.
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Alabama Governor, Republican Kay Ivey, will go ahead with her plan to end the obligation to wear a mask next week, as previously Republicans Greg Abbott in Texas and Tate Reeves in Mississippi.
In Arizona, restrictions on businesses and mass events were lifted this week due to the pandemic.
Some scientists predicted weeks ago that the number of infections could rebound in late March, in part due to the spread of variants of the coronavirus.
Variant B.1.1.7, for example, is increasing exponentially in Florida, where it accounts for a higher proportion of total cases than in any other state, according to the CDC.
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In the past week, an average of 1.3 million people passed through security checkpoints at U.S. airports each day, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
Only last Sunday 1.5 million people did it.
Amid so much relaxation, the state of Vermont, for example, reported a sharp increase in infections, reaching figures that had not suffered since January.
On Friday they reached a new record with 283 new confirmed cases, according to a database from The New York Times.
"This is a worrying number of new cases and should not be taken lightly," Dr. Mark Levine, the state health commissioner, told a news conference on Friday.
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Biden stressed that more injections should be given in April than in March: "We are in a race to life and death and cases are increasing again. New variants are spreading. And sadly, some reckless behaviors that we have seen on television. During the last weeks they will cause new infections in the coming weeks. "
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The United States has touched the three million vaccines administered daily in recent days, surpassing the mark on Sunday.
As of Monday, 73% of older people had received their first doses and more than 1 in 3 adults had received their first doses.
Jeffrey Zients, coordinator of the response team against the COVID-19 pandemic at the White House, said that the Biden Administration does not plan to create a vaccination passport that gives more freedom to those who have been immunized as other countries do.
The good news
The vaccination campaign is progressing at a record pace and the three vaccines being distributed (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson) appear to be working well against the B.1.1.7. Variant, detected in November in England. and that it has spread rapidly throughout the world.
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Some 95 million people (29% of the population) have received at least one dose of the vaccines in the country, and 52.6 million (16%) are already fully immunized, according to the CDC.
A single injection of the coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories and Moderna pharmaceutical company is 80% effective in preventing coronavirus infection, according to the CDC.
But with the two doses, the coronavirus vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are proving to be highly effective and are 90% effective in preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic infections leading a normal life.
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The German consortium BioNTech and the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer plan to increase the production of their vaccine this year from the 2 billion doses initially planned to 2.5 billion, in order to respond to the increase in demand.
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Until March 23, the two companies supplied more than 200 million doses of their BNT162b2 vaccine worldwide and by the end of the year they will add more than 1,400 million, according to the orders received so far, although there are already talks for a supply additional.
With information from CNN, USA Today, The New York Times and NBC News.
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