The United States will send special teams with health personnel to critical points in the country to face the Delta variant of COVID-19, which is already the cause of 25% of all new infections from this disease.
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients announced these new resources at a press conference in the presidential office in which he and top experts on the Administration’s pandemic response team warned that this mutation is “hypercontagious”.
The teams will work with communities “at higher risk or already experiencing outbreaks due to the spread of the delta variant and its low vaccination rate,” said Zients, who did not specify which states will be assisted.
In addition, he explained that these teams “will improve the contact tracing of the sick and provide treatment to the infected,” among other issues, in the affected areas.
NO TO THE USE OF THE MASK
Despite the increase in the number of cases of the delta variant, the Administration experts reiterated that it is not necessary to use a mask for fully vaccinated people.
This was stated by the main epidemiologist of the US Government, Anthony Fauci, and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in its acronym in English), Rochelle Walensky, at the same press conference.
Asked by the press about the need for the mask, Fauci explained that people who are fully vaccinated “have a high degree of protection” against this new variant.
“Therefore, it is not necessary for them to use tagging, either indoors or outdoors,” Fauci said, agreeing with the CDC guidelines.
LOS ANGELES AND THE STATE OF ILLINOIS DO RECOMMEND IT
The increase in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta mutation worries in the United States, where there is a debate about whether or not to use the mask again after the Los Angeles County, the Illinois State Government and the World Organization of Health recommended it indoors even for people with complete vaccination guidelines.
The reality is that three out of five Californians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, but less than half of all state residents are fully inoculated.
That is why the authorities of Los Angeles County, the most populous in the country, advised earlier this week to wear a mask indoors such as bars or supermarkets.
This recommendation was added in the last hours by the governor of Illinois, Jay Robert Pritzker, who asked state residents to use the mask indoors and when in the company of “large crowds.”
THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT MESS WITH DECISIONS
Despite maintaining their position, both Fauci and Walensky assured that these local decisions fall precisely on the local and state authorities, and that they depend on the situation in each place.
In their statements, both experts said that the best way to deal with the delta variant is to continue vaccinations in the US.
“Those who are not vaccinated have a higher risk, we have to continue promoting vaccinations, which are free and convenient,” insisted Fauci.
In his statements, Walensky stressed that there are about 1,000 communities in the US that have vaccination rates of 30% or less, which makes their populations “vulnerable.”
More than 180 million Americans have received at least one injection, making the United States the country with the largest number of doses administered in the world.
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