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 Dr. Rochelle Walensky spoke about the rapidly evolving virus during
a Fox News Sunday interview as the number of Americans known to be
infected surpassed 25 million, with more than 417,000 dead, just
over a year after the first U.S. case was documented.
Walensky, who took over as CDC director the day President Joe Biden
was sworn in, also said the greatest immediate culprit for sluggish
vaccine distribution was a supply crunch worsened by inventory
confusion inherited from the Trump administration.
"The fact that we don't know today, five days into this
administration, and weeks into planning, how much vaccine we have
just gives you a sense of the challenges we've been left with," she
told Fox News Sunday.
Biden's transition team was largely excluded from the vaccine
rollout deliberations for weeks after his election, as then
President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat and permit access
to information his successor needed to prepare to govern.
In a separate interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Ron Klain,
Biden's chief of staff, said a plan for distributing the vaccine,
particularly beyond nursing homes and hospitals, "did not really
exist when we came into the White House."
Walensky said she was confident the government would soon resolve
supply questions, and go on to dramatically expand vaccine
production and distribution by late March.
Uncertainty over immediate supplies, however, will hinder efforts at
the state and local levels to plan ahead for how many vaccination
sites, personnel and appointments to set up in the meantime,
exacerbating short-term shortages, she added.
RACE AGAINST VARIANTS
Vaccination has become ever more urgent with the recent emergence of
several coronavirus variants believed to be more transmissible, and
in the case of one strain first detected in Britain, possibly more
lethal.
"We are now scaling up both our surveillance of these and our study
of these," Walensky said, adding that the CDC was collaborating with
the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration
and even the Pentagon.
The object, she said, was to monitor "the impact of these variants
on vaccines, as well as on our therapeutics," as the virus continues
to mutate while it spreads.
Until vaccines can provide "herd" immunity in the population,
mask-wearing and social distancing remain vital to "decrease the
amount of virus that is circulating, and therefore, decrease the
amount of variants," Walensky added.
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 Although British officials on
Friday warned that the so-called UK variant of
the coronavirus, already detected in at least 20
U.S. states, was associated with a higher level
of mortality, scientists have said existing
vaccines still appeared to be effective against
it.
They worry, however, that a more contagious
South African variant may reduce the efficacy of
current vaccines and shows resistance to three
antibody treatments developed for patients.
Similarities between the South African variant
and another identified in Brazil suggest the
Brazilian variety may likewise resist antibody
treatment. "We're in a race
against these variants," said Vivek Murthy, nominated by Biden to
become the next U.S. surgeon general, on ABC's "This Week" program
on Sunday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease
specialist, said in late December he was optimistic the United
States could achieve enough collective immunity to regain "some
semblance of normality" by the fall of 2021.
But Murthy said getting to herd immunity before a new school year
begins in September was "an ambitious goal."
Nevertheless, Murthy suggested the government may exceed Biden's
objective of 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days of his
presidency, telling ABC News, "That's a floor; it's not a ceiling."
 Fauci, appearing separately on CBS News' "Face the Nation," said the
100-million goal includes those who may have received both
injections of the two-dose vaccines and those who only got the
first.
About 21.8 million Americans, or about 6.5% of the population, have
received at least one dose of vaccine to date, of the 41.4 million
doses shipped, CDC data showed on Sunday.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los
Angeles; Additional reporting by Sarah Lynch and Doina Chiacu in
Washington and Anurag Maan in Bengaluru; Writing by Steve Gorman;
editing by Diane Craft)
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