Two weeks after celebrating America’s approaching “independence” coronavirusPresident Joe Biden is facing the worrying reality of rising cases and deaths, as well as the limitations of his ability to fight the ongoing vaccine hesitation that caused summer regression.
The number of COVID-19 cases has tripled in the past three weeks, and the number of hospitalizations and deaths of unvaccinated people is rising. Although interest rates are still down sharply from their January highs, officials are concerned about the reversal of the trend line and illnesses and deaths they consider unnecessary. It is expected that the number of cases will continue to increase in the coming weeks.
Trudeau said that by August, fully vaccinated U.S. travelers may be allowed to enter Canada
Although the national emergency may have subsided, officials say the epidemic is now a more localized crisis because there are not enough people in the community to roll up their sleeves.
“Look, our only epidemic is people who have not been vaccinated,” Biden said on Friday, echoing the comments made by Dr. Rochelle Varensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier in the day.
The large number of infections among more than 90 million eligible Americans who have not yet been vaccinated is driving this number up. Last week, only four states with low vaccination rates accounted for 40% of new cases, and nearly half of them came from Florida alone.
However, since 161 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, the White House has little interest in restoring broad authorization for masks or other measures.
Reflecting this mentality, Varensky said on Friday that in low-vaccination areas where cases are increasing, “local policy makers may consider whether wearing masks will help their communities at that time.”
Some communities are taking action. Los Angeles County on Thursday re-enacted the requirements for wearing masks in most indoor environments, regardless of the vaccination situation, and health officials in Las Vegas on Friday advised staff and customers in tourist hotspots to wear masks when they are indoors.
With three highly effective vaccines approved for use in the United States, the Biden administration believes that the most effective way to attack the virus is not to try to slow the spread of the virus through large-scale cover, and so on. The United States did not perform well last year. importance.
This is not an easy task. Although federal and state officials and the private sector have often and creatively worked to disseminate information about vaccine safety and accessibility over the past few months, many Americans still resist or have no incentive to vaccinate.
Surgeon Vivek Murthy added that although the government can play an important role, “this must be a strategy of’all of the above’ in which everyone is involved,” including schools, employers, technology companies and individuals.
In recent days, the government has turned its attention to young Americans. It invited pop star Olivia Rodrigo (Olivia Rodrigo) and Biden and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to visit the White House on Wednesday for a one-day visit. Young people are at the lowest risk of the adverse effects of the virus and have proven to be the least likely to be vaccinated.
But it turns out that another large group is a more difficult challenge: Republicans. The White House has long admitted that, given the proliferation of false information about vaccines and the country’s partisan differences, persuading the Republican Party to join the party has little effect. On the contrary, government officials have intensified criticism of public officials and social media companies for spreading or not condemning the spread of vaccine misinformation in the Republican Party in recent days.
“They are killing people,” Biden said of social media companies on Friday, a day after surgeon Murti warned that false information about vaccines circulating on platforms such as Facebook poses a public health risk to the country. Say.
Efforts to comment on major platforms did not immediately succeed.
While the new government expressed frustration, it hardly believed that tens of millions of Americans continued to refuse vaccinations, unnecessarily prolonging the pandemic and causing loss of life, because health officials emphasized that almost all serious cases and deaths are Preventable.
According to the CDC, more than 99% of COVID-19 deaths and 97% of hospitalized patients are not vaccinated.
The White House COVID-19 coordinator, Jeff Zients, said on Friday that the epidemic now “mainly threatens unvaccinated people”.
He said that the Biden administration expects an increase in cases in the next few weeks due to transmission in communities with low vaccination rates, but Zients added that there are signs that the increase in cases is pushing more people in these communities to seek vaccination, the report said. The highest case rate saw their vaccination rate rise “faster than the national average.
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