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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging local health authorities to consider enhanced prevention strategies such as “universal masking” for indoor public places, especially when it comes to large indoor gatherings with travelers. He cited new data from a delta variant outbreak in Massachusetts that has led to hundreds of coronavirus infections – many among fully vaccinated travelers.
The CDC, in the agency’s weekly Morbidity and Mortality report, also released more details about the “crucial discovery” that prompted federal health officials to increase their masking guidance earlier this week. The tests used to diagnose cases linked to the Massachusetts outbreak had similar “cycle threshold” values among unvaccinated and fully vaccinated “breakthrough” cases, suggesting that the two groups could carry similar loads of the virus.
“High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and have raised concerns that, unlike other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta could transmit the virus,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.
“This finding is concerning and was a crucial finding leading to the CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” Walensky said.
Scientists who wrote the report, released Friday, said their findings amounted to a “gross correlation” with transmissibility, and warned that “microbiological studies are needed to confirm these findings.”
Beyond just measuring how much virus someone is carrying, scientists should confirm the risk by growing a live virus from a sample, a Massachusetts Department of Public spokesperson told CBS News. Health.
However, the investigation’s findings add to a growing body of evidence that has prompted federal health officials to step up guidance to curb the increase in delta variant cases across the country.
In Provincetown, CDC researchers – along with local, state and academic scientists and investigators – had discovered 469 cases of COVID-19 among Massachusetts residents who traveled to the Cape Cod destination from the weekend. July 4.
A total of 346 of these cases, or about three in four patients, involved fully vaccinated people. A majority of them had symptoms and almost all of them had the delta variant. However, no deaths have been reported and only five have been hospitalized, suggesting that the vaccine’s goal of reducing the severity of the disease has remained successful.
A internal document within the agency recently urged health officials to step up their warnings about the virus, acknowledging that “the war has changed” in light of the highly contagious new delta variant.
Nationally, with the delta variant now estimated to constitute almost all of the virus circulating in the United States, the average rate of new cases has reached rates not seen since mid-April. Walensky warned members of Congress on Thursday, according to a statement from a House subcommittee, that hospitalizations had reached levels above the peak in the summer of last year.
The new data also comes as the public health agency came under new criticism for not releasing the data underlying its shifting directions earlier this week, aside from vague references to the numbers in conferences. press releases and online publications.
“This investigation into the outbreak is one of many that the CDC has been involved in across the country and data from these investigations will be quickly shared with the public when available,” Walensky said.
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