Paramedics arrive with a patient with Covid-19 in the emergency department of Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, California.
Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty images
New cases of Covid-19 are on the rise in more than half of the United States as officials race to vaccinate more people before highly contagious variants become more common in the country.
As of Sunday, the seven-day average of new cases rose 5% or more in 27 states, according to a CNBC analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University. In the US, the country registered an average of 54,308 new cases per day for the past week – a 1% increase from the previous week after months of rapidly declining numbers of cases, according to the data.
Even with the US speeding up the pace of vaccinations, giving about 2.5 million injections every day, some health officials have warned the country is in a precarious place. The lifting of restrictions in many states and the spread of more contagious variants in the US threaten to reverse the country’s progress, causing cases, hospitalizations and deaths to drop dramatically since the spike earlier this year.
‘Serious threat’
The lifting of restrictions is a “serious threat to the progress we have made,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters at a news conference on Monday. She said she is concerned about an inevitable rise in the number of cases. “We are at a critical point in this pandemic, a fork in the road.”
The number of new deaths every day continues to decline, probably helped by the vaccination prioritization of the elderly and those with co-morbid conditions most likely to die from Covid-19. According to the CDC, about 68.8% of people over 65 have received at least one injection of a vaccine as of Sunday. In total, more than 124.4 million doses have been administered, but most of these are for two-dose vaccines.
As optimism about the steady increase in vaccinations grows, many states have begun to relax restrictions on businesses and meetings, despite warnings from the CDC not to do so. Although some states, such as New Jersey, are starting consider delaying further reopening as the number of cases begins to increase.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, last week urged states not to declare victory prematurely.
He said he was concerned about some states and cities pulling back on public health measures and scrapping mask mandates.
“So it’s unfortunate but not surprising to me that you see an increase in the number of cases per day in areas – cities, states or regions – even though vaccines are being distributed at a pretty good clip of 2 (million) to 3 million per day Fauci said Friday. “That could be remedied if certain areas fall back prematurely to the mitigation and public health measures we’re all talking about.”
B.1.1.7 in Michigan
Beyond the urgency of the need to get people vaccinated quickly is the looming threat of new variants, which have apparently already caused serious spikes in much of Europe and other parts of the world. The CDC has predicted that the more contagious and potentially deadly variant B.1.1.7, discovered in the UK, could become the dominant species in the US by month’s end.
Some health officials have said that the B.1.1.7 variant could be the cause of some particularly worrying spikes in several states, including Michigan, where cases have soared dramatically in recent days. According to Hopkins data, Michigan reports an average of nearly 3,000 new cases per day, about 50% more than a week ago.
The increase in cases there comes after the state allowed restaurants to dine indoors on Feb. 1, prompted schools to offer face-to-face learning on March 1, and relaxed restrictions on restaurants and gatherings earlier this month. The recent rise there has even prompted Fauci to do so recently argue with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to “wait” for reopening.
In addition to the relaxation of restrictions, Michigan also has the second highest count of B.1.1.7 cases of any state in the country, behind only Florida. The state has 616 cases of the variant, according to the CDC, although there are likely many more cases that have not yet been confirmed, meaning the strain could be causing the outbreak there.