CDC Chief Just Issued “Deeply Concerning” Warning

With vaccination efforts underway, life appears as if it is slowly returning back to a (new) normal. Kids are back at school, restaurants are filling up, and people are starting to travel once again. However, according to health experts it is too-fast, too soon. During Friday’s White House COVID-19 Response Team Briefing, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the number of infections and hospitalizations are increasing across the country. Read on to hear what she said about the recent COVID surge—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure Signs You’ve Already Had Coronavirus. 

Dr. Walensky started out by revealing some pretty shocking statistics. “The most recent seven day average is about 57,000 cases per day, which is an increase of 7 percent from the prior seven days. The most recent seven day average of new hospitalizations about 4,700 per day represents also a slight increase from the prior seven period. The seven day average of deaths continues to hammer at 1000 deaths per day,” she revealed. 

She continued to express her fear that these numbers will continue to rise. “I remain deeply concerned about this trajectory,” she said. “We have seen cases and hospital admissions move from historic declines to stagnations, increases. And we know from prior surges that if we don’t control things, now there is a real potential for the epidemic curve to soar again.” 

Dr. Walensky hopes that the public will take this recent surge into consideration and act accordingly—especially because we are so close to the finish line. “Please take this moment very seriously,” she said. “We’re vaccinating at 2.5 million people a day, and they are protected from COVID. If you haven’t been vaccinated, your turn is likely very soon. we can turn this around, but it will take all of us working together. Please keep wearing your well-fitting mask and taking the public health actions now that we know and reverse these concerning trends.”

“We continue to scale up our surveillance of the variants,” said Walensky. “The 1.7.7 has now been detected in 51 jurisdictions, per 8,000 cases, we’re watching it very closely.” As for tracking the sequencing, “It takes a while to do the sequences and, and to sequence the variants and do that population based analysis.”

RELATED: Doctors Say “DO NOT” Do This After Your COVID Vaccine.

Follow the public health fundamentals and help end this pandemic, no matter where you live—wear a face mask that fits snugly and is double layered, don’t travel, social distance, avoid large crowds, don’t go indoors with people you’re not sheltering with (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, get vaccinated when it becomes available to you, and to protect your life and the lives of others, don’t visit any of these 35 Places You’re Most Likely to Catch COVID.