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“We need to act now, and I fear that if we don’t take the right steps now, we will experience another preventable surge – just as we are seeing now in Europe and as we scale up vaccination so aggressively,” La director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Rochelle Walensky, said Monday.
And high levels of infection could also cause problems for vaccines later, an expert told CNN on Monday.
“Not only does an uncontrolled spread cause preventable illness, hospitalizations and death, it increases the risk that an even more dangerous variant will emerge that could make the vaccine less effective,” said Dr Tom Frieden, former CDC director. .
Travel and crowds tend to cause surges
As vaccines roll out, Frieden says Americans should continue to take precautions, such as wearing face masks and limiting travel and time indoors with people outside their homes.
“When people travel and mix, you can see a big increase in infections a few weeks later,” he added.
Vaccines have already saved thousands of lives
Frieden says he thinks the United States will likely experience another outbreak, but this one will be “much less deadly” because of the vaccines being administered.
“We estimate that vaccination has already saved at least 40,000 lives in the United States,” Frieden said. “These are very good vaccines and the sooner we get them out the better.”
The Data and Safety Oversight Committee “expressed concern that AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from this trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of efficacy data,” the statement said.
“We urge the company to work with the DSMB to review the efficacy data and ensure that the most accurate and up-to-date efficacy data is made public as quickly as possible,” he added.
Previously, AstraZeneca said it expects to deliver 50 million doses in one month if it obtains emergency use authorization.
“We plan to submit to the FDA in the first half of April, assuming the FDA fully supports our submission,” Ruud Dobber, president of AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceutical business unit, said in a statement.
“After FDA approval, we will instantly release 30 million doses in this first phase, and then in the same month an additional 20 million,” the statement added.
Recommendations for fully immunized people
Americans who are already fully vaccinated should feel free to visit unvaccinated family and friends without restrictions, CDC officials said on Monday, but added that visits should be limited to an unvaccinated household at the times.
“In the context where unvaccinated people come from a single household and all unvaccinated people are at low risk of serious illness with Covid-19, no preventive measures are necessary, so these visits could have held indoors without a mask or physical distance, ”Tami Skoff, CDC epidemiologist, said.
For example, fully immunized grandparents can visit their unvaccinated daughter and unvaccinated children indoors and without a mask, assuming neither of them are at higher risk of serious illness, Skoff said.
The recommendations only apply to people who are fully vaccinated, Skoff said, which means at least two weeks have passed since the second dose of a two-dose series of vaccines or two weeks since receiving the vaccine. single dose from Johnson & Johnson.
“A growing body of evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people are less likely to have an asymptomatic infection, and therefore potentially less likely to pass SARS-CoV-2 to others,” Skoff said.
But there are two important exceptions that would require everyone to follow safety precautions: if one of the unvaccinated people at high risk of severe Covid-19 or if there are more than two unvaccinated households mix.
One-third of hospital patients experience long-term effects
Researchers are also trying to better understand the long-term consequences of infections – and the number of people who could be affected.
About a third of hospitalized Covid-19 patients experience long-term effects that can affect multiple organ systems, according to a comprehensive review of scientific studies published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
Researchers looked at the scientific literature on post-acute Covid-19 – which means complications caused by the virus that extend beyond four weeks after symptoms start.
The effects of “Long Covid” can impact more than half a dozen organ systems, including the pulmonary, hematologic, cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, renal, dermatologic, gastrointestinal and endocrine systems, according to studies.
Among the most common prolonged symptoms: fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, tachycardia, anxiety, sleep disturbances, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The researchers suggested a framework for caring for these patients through long multidisciplinary Covid clinics and praised the work of patient advocacy groups, including the COVID Advocacy Exchange, Body Politic and Survivor Corps, for collecting evidence. patient symptom data and coordination with researchers to help gather more information.
CNN’s Pete Muntean, Michael Nedelman, Ryan Prior, Christopher Rios, Ben Tinker, and Maggie Fox contributed to this report.
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