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The coverings must be worn on both the nose and the mouth while waiting, boarding, traveling and disembarking, he said. Masks should be made of at least two or more layers of breathable fabric and should be secured to the head with ties, earrings or elastic bands, depending on the order.
The CDC said it reserves the right to enforce the order through criminal penalties, but it “strongly encourages and anticipates widespread voluntary compliance” and awaits support from other federal agencies to implement the order. ‘order.
As U.S. death toll from Covid-19 surpasses 436,000, Biden administration has already called for 100 days of mask use as well as a 16% increase in vaccine dose allocation for every state in the hope of managing the impacts of the virus that made January the deadliest month in the pandemic.
Variants could dominate pandemic in future
And although the vaccines are reaching the public, health experts say the country faces many months of a pandemic and the spread of variants has raised alarm bells.
More than 400 cases of a variant of the coronavirus first identified in the UK have been reported in the US, and health experts say new strains like this may soon become dominant.
At least 434 cases of the variant have been detected in 30 states, the CDC said on Wednesday – that number is more than 100 more than the cases reported days earlier.
The British variant as well as another first identified in South Africa have worried officials and experts because it is more easily transmitted than the strain that the United States is fighting so far. And as leaders rush to get Americans vaccinated, they say the new strains could spread quickly.
“The projection that is made about the UK (variant) is that probably by the end of March, beginning of April, it will actually become more dominant in this country”, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and infectious diseases, said Friday at a White House press briefing.
“The point is, when you have a virus that has the ability to transmit more efficiently than the wild type in the community, sooner or later through pure viral dynamics itself, it will become more dominant than the wild type,” said Fauci.
His model now projects 594,624 deaths on May 1, up from its previous forecast of 569,000 deaths on that date.
And a rapid spread of variants would bring that number to 620,000 by May 1, the IHME said. In a worst-case scenario, nearly 654,000 Americans could be dead from Covid-19 by May 1, the IHME has warned.
Bridging the vaccine gap while fighting new strains
Controlling the spread of the virus requires closing the gap between the number of vaccine doses available and those that have been administered, experts say.
So far, at least 49,216,500 doses of vaccine have been distributed and at least 27,884,661 doses of vaccine have been administered, according to the CDC.
Experts say they expect existing vaccines to protect against newer strains of the virus, but the nature of the South African-sourced strain may make them less effective, adding another obstacle to efforts to bring back a sense of normalcy in the United States. .
But officials also said they expect production of new boosters or vaccines will have quick turnaround times, thanks to the systems already in place.
Biotech company Novavax said it was developing a booster to protect against new emerging strains.
On Thursday, the company announced that its vaccine, known as NVX-CoV2373, was 89.3% effective in a Phase 3 clinical trial in the UK and that the vaccine appeared to demonstrate clinical efficacy against certain variants of the coronavirus.
In January, Novavax started developing boosters for the new variants and hopes to select its ideal candidates in “the days to come”.
“The company plans to start clinical trials of these new vaccines in the second quarter of this year,” Novavax said.
CNN’s Jen Christensen, Rebekah Riess, Lauren Mascarenhas, Michael Nedelman and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.
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