Staff Reports
As the number of reported cases of COVID-19 continues to climb once more, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha encourages the continuous usage of masks when indoors.
During an interview on “This Week,” Jha said, “I agree with Mayor Adams that when you are indoors, you should be wearing a mask.” “I feel very strongly that people should do that in busy interior areas, in locations with high transmission, and other places like that,” she said.
In spite of a significant winter surge that recorded the greatest level of infection with a seven-day rolling average of about 800,000 cases, the United States was able to withstand the outbreak. Over the course of the last several months, the volume of cases has decreased to a far more manageable level; nevertheless, the month of May has witnessed another surge, with the seven-day average reaching a peak of over 100,000 for the first time since February.
Jha was appointed to his position in April and has shown support for further harsh measures, including as an extension to the rule that travelers wear face masks when they are traveling.
However, his primary focus is still on expanding access to diagnostic tests, therapeutic medicines, and immunizations. He emphasized that the government is still worried about the approximately 300 individuals who continue to die from COVID-19 every day, making reference to the seven-day rolling average of deaths.
According to Jha, “The [tools] that are the ones that work – vaccinations, therapies, testing, masking, and improving indoor air quality, are the major tools” he stated. “But the discussion that are going on that we have as we are looking at the numbers and asking: Which of those tools are the most significant at this point, and which ones do we want to emphasize?”
Jha explained that the government is looking into preparing for “a number of scenarios,” including a surge of new infections in the fall and winter and new variants that will continue to arise. One method of preparing for such events is to develop new generations of vaccines.
Early in the month of May, the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna, Paul Berton, stated that the firm “remains confident” that a variant-specific vaccination would be approved by the FDA by the fall of 2022.
Jha stated that a second wave of illnesses in the autumn might prove hazardous if there was not such a vaccine available.
Jha stated, “One of the reasons I’ve been talking a lot about the need for Congress to step up and fund this effort is if they don’t, we will go into the fall and winter. Without that next generation of vaccines, without treatments and diagnostics, that’s going to make it much harder for us to take care of and protect Americans.”
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Fox News.
