Senior health officials are calling for Americans to get vaccinated — and get their booster shots — as cases tick back up across the country and the approaching holiday season brings with it more indoor, maskless gatherings. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said Tuesday in an interview with Reuters that the “overwhelming majority” of vaccinated Americans should receive a booster dose. Fauci also said it is possible that the definition of a full vaccination could expand to include three doses of an mRNA vaccine such as those from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or two doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — to incorporate the booster doses. Adding to the urgency, new daily coronavirus cases in the United States rose by 10 percent in the past week, according to Washington Post figures. Deaths have increased by 10 percent while hospitalizations have risen by 4 percent during the same period. On Monday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged Americans to get vaccinated ahead of the holiday season. “We are really enthusiastic for people to be able to gather again for this holiday season, and we would just encourage that people do so safely,” Walensky said. More than 36 million Americans have received their booster shots, according to the CDC. Almost 60 percent of people have been fully vaccinated in the country so far. Traveling has always come with complications, but the coronavirus pandemic has made it more challenging than ever. Our By The Way Concierge column will take your travel dilemmas to the experts to help you navigate the new normal.“How should I handle visits (after air travel) to households where some members are unvaccinated?” — AnonymousWe recently broke down the ins and outs of seasonal safety in our guide to safer holiday travel. You will find that expert advice from doctors and epidemiologists changes distinctly for those who are unvaccinated, or those who will be around people who are unvaccinated.“The safest protection for you and your loved ones is for everybody who’s eligible to be immunized and everybody who’s eligible for a booster to be boosted,” Chris Beyrer, epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told me when I called him with your question. If someone involved in your holiday festivities is unvaccinated, Beyrer said, it is appropriate to ask the un-immunized to get a rapid test in advance of gathering. Europe and parts of central Asia could face another 700,000 deaths by March, the World Health Organization says, as the region’s coronavirus cases soar. As winter sets in and people gather indoors, Europe has once again become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with death rates on the rise — especially in pockets where vaccination rates are low. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that covid-19 deaths in the 53 countries it includes in the European region are projected to reach 2.
All data is taken from the source: http://washingtonpost.com
Article Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/24/covid-delta-variant-live-updates/
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