For the first time in weeks, coronavirus cases are on the rise across the country, with experts fearing that Thanksgiving will spark an even bigger spike.
On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government’s chief medical adviser, warned that time was running out to prevent a “dangerous” new wave of Covid-19 infections from wreaking havoc on the forthcoming holiday season.
Coronavirus cases are on the rise again in the United States, topping 100,000 per day for the first time in weeks. Experts are concerned that this week’s Thanksgiving holiday, when tens of millions of Americans will travel indoors to celebrate with family and friends, will fuel a new spike.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it was not too late to prevent a significant worsening of Covid-19 rates in the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year’s if the public took action now on new measures to combat the virus, such as the approval of booster shots for adults on Friday and the recent expansion of vaccinations to children aged five to 11.
“We still have about 60 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not been, and that results in the dynamic of virus in the community that not only is dangerous and makes people who are unvaccinated vulnerable, but it also spills over into the vaccinated people,” Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“We have a lot of virus circulating around. You can’t walk away from the data, and the data show that the cases are starting to go up, which is not unexpected when you get into a winter season. People start to go indoors more and we know that immunity does wane over time.
“The bottom line is get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated, and boostered if you have been vaccinated. Since we can vaccinate children from five to 11, you start vaccinating them now [and] they will be fully vaccinated by the time we get to the Christmas holidays.”
The federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has forecast that the number of Americans traveling for Thanksgiving this year would be close to pre-pandemic levels, raising fears at a time when the Biden administration has struggled to get its vaccination message out.
According to a New York Times research, the daily average of new cases has increased by 29% in the last 14 days, while only around 60% of those eligible are fully vaccinated. According to the Wall Street Journal, the death toll from Covid in the United States in 2021 has surpassed that of 2020.
Furthermore, Joe Biden’s efforts to boost those numbers through mandatory immunization have come to a halt. Courts have blocked the requirement for businesses with more than 100 employees, and Republican leaders in several states have thwarted the president by drafting laws specifically prohibiting such mandates.
After the governor, Ron DeSantis, signed sweeping legislation on Thursday overturning Biden’s directive, Disney, one of Florida’s largest employers, said on Saturday that it will no longer require cast members to get vaccinated. DeSantis chose the rural Florida hamlet of Brandon for the signing, a move that many perceived as childish – “Let’s Go Brandon” has become an inflammatory anti-Biden rallying cry for the right in recent weeks.
In a later appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Fauci voiced concerns about vaccine producers’ predictions that annual boosts would be required to keep Covid-19 at bay.
“We would hope, and this is something that we’re looking at very carefully, that that third shot with the mRNA [vaccine] not only boosts you way up, but increases the durability so that you will not necessarily need it every six months, or a year,” he said.
“We’re hoping it pushes it out more. If it doesn’t and the data show we do need it more often then we’ll do it.”
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