|
 Dr. Rochelle Walensky's warning that face-covering requirements are
still critical came just days after governors in Iowa and Montana
lifted long-standing mask mandates in their states.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Walensky said preventing
further surges of infection is key to safely reopening schools and
regaining some level of social normalcy until collective COVID-19
immunity can be achieved through mass vaccinations.
Whether Americans can look forward to walking down the street
without wearing a mask by the end of the year "very much depends on
how we behave right now," she said.
Asked if it was still too early for states to eliminate rules
requiring the use of face masks in public, Walensky replied,
"Absolutely."
While COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations appear to be
waning, the United States has a long way to go before it can safely
return to a mask-less normal, she said.
"The cases are more than two-and-a-half-fold times what we saw over
the summer," said Walensky, who was sworn in as CDC director last
month after President Joe Biden took office. "It's encouraging to
see these trends coming down but they're coming down from an
extraordinarily high place."
Health experts say population-wide mask wearing is one of the most
effective ways of pushing COVID-19 transmission down to controllable
levels.
[to top of second column] |
 Continued adherence to social
distancing and face coverings remains especially
urgent given the risks posed by new coronavirus
variants found to be more transmissible, and
possibly more resistant to antibodies, than the
original strain.
COVID-19's grip on the United States remained
strong on Sunday, with 27.6 million cases
confirmed and more than 484,600 lives lost to
the highly contagious respiratory virus to date,
according to a Reuters tally.
The U.S. inoculation campaign has gained
considerable momentum since a sluggish start in
December, with 52.9 million total vaccines
administered so far, according to the CDC.
As the United States continues wrestling to ramp
up vaccine supplies and distribution, an
unusually broad swath of wintry weather in
recent days caused the latest setback, forcing
mass vaccination centers from Texas to Virginia
to suspend operations.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York;
Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in
Washington; Editing by Steve Gorman and Daniel
Wallis)
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