Washington:
A current plateau in new Covid infections in the United States was most likely linked to the “premature” easing of anti-virus efforts in some areas, major pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci mentioned Sunday.
While the emergence of coronavirus variants is element of the trouble, so are states that are “pulling back on the mitigation” also quickly, he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
When case numbers start to plateau, he mentioned, “you’re really in danger of a surge coming up.”
“We’ve seen that in our own country, and that’s exactly what’s happened in Europe in several of the countries in the European Union, where they plateaued and then started to come back.”
After a spike more than the fall and winter in the United States that reached into the hundreds of thousands of new instances each day, infections have come to levels close to 50,000 reported per day.
The United States has suffered the highest reported absolute toll at just more than 549,000 deaths because the pandemic began, but has now produced an aggressive push to roll out vaccines.
Meantime, France, Belgium and Poland on Saturday tightened curbs as coronavirus instances surged in Europe, with France calling the scenario there “critical.”
“It really is almost a race between getting people vaccinated and having this peak that… we don’t want to see,” Fauci mentioned.
US states such as Texas, Maryland, Connecticut and Mississippi have eased Covid-associated restrictions, lifting mask mandates or enabling restaurants, retailers and other folks to reopen with fewer or no restrictions.
Fauci also warned that travel more than the coming Easter vacation could fuel a new surge, as occurred following the year-finish holidays.
“Even if on the planes people are wearing masks, when you get to the airport, the check-in lines, the food lines for restaurants, the boarding… invariably increase the risk of getting infected,” he mentioned.
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