Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strongly encouraged those living in communities designated yellow or orange, indicating they have large numbers of new infections and hospitalizations, to consider wearing masks in indoor public spaces and taking other steps to protect themselves.
“As we’re currently seeing a steady rise of cases in parts of the country, we encourage everyone to use the menu of tools we have today to prevent further infection and severe disease, including wearing a mask, getting tested, accessing treatments early if infected and getting vaccinated or boosted,” she said.
Wednesday’s warnings from Walensky and two other officials — Ashish Jha, White House coronavirus coordinator, and Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser — came on the same day the United States surpassed the grim milestone of 1 million covid-19 deaths, a toll that even the starkest predictions at the start of the pandemic in 2020 did not anticipate.
While officials stressed that the current situation is far less dire than the winter omicron-variant surge, they cautioned that the country will be ill prepared to respond effectively in coming months if Congress does not soon appropriate billions of dollars in coronavirus aid to buy a new tranche of antiviral treatments, vaccines and tests.
Walensky said the seven-day average of new infections has climbed to regarding 94,000 per day, an increase of 26 percent over the previous week and a threefold increase over the past month. Hospitalizations are also beginning to rise, she said, with admissions increasing regarding 19 percent over the previous week, to regarding 3,000 per day.
Administration officials and experts have said they expect a summer surge in the South as the heat forces people indoors, as has happened the two previous summers. Some experts have warned this summer’s surge might be worse than last year’s, because cases are higher than they were in May 2021.
They have also warned of a possible fall and winter wave that might result in regarding 1 million daily coronavirus infections, driven by omicron subvariants that have shown a remarkable ability to escape immunity. That wave might be deadly if the administration cannot buy more vaccines, antivirals, tests and high-quality masks, officials said.
“We have a pretty high degree of immunity in our population,” Jha said. “But we’re also seeing at this moment a lot of infections across the country. … What is primarily driving that is these incredibly contagious subvariants … with more immune escape.”
Adding to that challenge: Immunity fostered by vaccines and previous omicron infections wanes within a couple of months, meaning people can become reinfected following a short time span.
Moderna and Pfizer — with its German partner, BioNTech — are working on new booster shots that combine versions of the coronavirus to protect once morest the omicron family of variants. But it remains unclear whether those shots will be more effective than existing vaccines. Even so, officials said the administration will struggle to buy enough doses of the new vaccines without money from Congress.
“I’m confident we’ll find money to be able to get some Americans vaccinated, maybe just [those at] the highest risk,” Jha said. “But these are not decisions we want to be having to make. … I think we would see a lot of unnecessary loss of life if that were to happen.”
The administration requested $22.5 billion in coronavirus aid several months ago, but a deal collapsed over differences regarding how to pay for it. In early April, the Senate hammered out a bipartisan $10 billion deal, but backlash over the Biden administration’s decision to relax pandemic restrictions at the border imperiled passage of the compromise. Its prospects remain unclear.
The rise in cases comes as most mitigation measures, including mask mandates and limits on capacity at venues such as bars and restaurants, have been lifted. CDC guidance advises implementing mask requirements when hospitalizations rise, and many counties now meet that threshold.
Dan Keating contributed to this report.