Biden Pushes Mask Mandate as C.D.C. Director
Warns of ‘Impending Doom’
The administration is stepping up the pace of
vaccinations and expanding access to shots, but it remains in a race against a
virus on the upswing.
Sharon
LaFraniereSheryl Gay Stolberg
By Sharon
LaFraniere and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
March 29,
2021
WASHINGTON
— President Biden, facing a rise in coronavirus cases around the country,
called on Monday for governors and mayors to reinstate mask mandates as the
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of “impending
doom” from a potential fourth surge of the pandemic.
The
president’s comments came only hours after the C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle
Walensky, appeared to fight back tears as she pleaded with Americans to “hold
on a little while longer” and continue following public health advice, like
wearing masks and social distancing, to curb the virus’s spread.
The
back-to-back appeals reflected a growing sense of urgency among top White House
officials and government scientists that the chance to conquer the pandemic, now
in its second year, may slip through their grasp. Coronavirus infections and
hospitalizations are on the upswing, including a troubling rise in the
Northeast, even as the pace of vaccinations is accelerating.
“Please,
this is not politics — reinstate the mandate,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “The
failure to take this virus seriously is precisely what got us into this mess in
the first place.”
According
to a New York Times database, the seven-day average of new virus cases as of
Sunday was about 63,000, a level comparable with late October’s average. That
was up from 54,000 a day two weeks earlier, an increase of more than 16
percent. Similar upticks in Europe have led to major surges in the spread of
Covid-19, Dr. Walensky said.
Public
health experts say that the nation is in a race between the vaccination
campaign and new, worrisome coronavirus variants. Although more than one in
three American adults have received at least one shot and nearly one-fifth are fully
vaccinated, the nation is a long way away from reaching so-called herd immunity
— the tipping point that comes when spread of a virus begins to slow because so
many people, estimated at 70 to 90 percent of the population, are immune to it.
But states
are rapidly expanding access to more plentiful quantities of the vaccine. On
Monday, at least six — Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and
Oklahoma — made all adults eligible for vaccination. New York said that all
adults would be eligible starting April 6.
Mr. Biden
said on Monday that the administration was taking steps to expand vaccine
eligibility and access, including opening a dozen new mass vaccination centers.
He directed his coronavirus response team to ensure that 90 percent of
Americans would be no farther than five miles from a vaccination site by April
19.
The
president said doses were plentiful enough now that nine of 10 adults in the
nation — or more — would be eligible for a shot by that date. Previously, he
had called on states to broaden eligibility to all adults by May 1. He revised
that promise because states, buoyed by projected increases in shipments, are
opening their vaccination programs more rapidly than expected, a White House
official said.
But it was
Dr. Walensky’s raw display of emotion that seemed to capture the angst of the
moment. Barely three months into her new job, the former Harvard Medical School
professor and infectious disease specialist acknowledged she was departing from
her prepared script during the White House’s regular coronavirus briefing for
reporters.
She
described “a feeling of nausea” she experienced last year when, caring for
patients at Massachusetts General Hospital, she saw the corpses of Covid-19
victims piled up, overflowing from the morgue. She recalled how she stood —
“gowned, gloved, masked, shielded” — as the last one in a hospital room before
a patient died alone, without family.
“I am
asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so
that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic
ends,” Dr. Walensky said. The nation has “so much reason for hope,” she added.
“But right
now,” she said, “I’m scared.”
In nine
states over the past two weeks, virus cases have risen more than 40 percent,
The Times database shows. Michigan led the way with a 133 percent increase, and
the Northeast has also seen a marked rise in virus cases. Connecticut reported
a 62 percent jump over the past two weeks, and New York and Pennsylvania both
reported increases of more than 40 percent.
Michigan’s
increase has not been traced to any one event, but epidemiologists have noted
that cases started to rise after the state eased restrictions for indoor dining
on Feb. 1 and lifted other restrictions in January. Other hot spots included
North Dakota, where cases rose by nearly 60 percent, and Minnesota, where cases
have risen 47 percent. Of those states, North Dakota is the only one currently
without a mask mandate.
The wave of
new cases does come at the same time as some promising news: A C.D.C. report
released Monday confirmed the findings of last year’s clinical trials that
vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer were highly effective against
Covid-19. The report documented that the vaccines work to prevent both
symptomatic and asymptomatic infections “in real-world conditions.”
Researchers
followed nearly 4,000 health care employees and essential workers beginning in
December. They found 161 infections among the unvaccinated workers, but only
three among those who received two doses of vaccine. The study suggested even a
single dose was 80 percent effective against infection two weeks after it was
administered. Studies are continuing to determine whether vaccinated people can
still transmit the virus to others, although many scientists consider that
unlikely.
The pace of
vaccination continues to pick up. The seven-day average of vaccines
administered hit 2.76 million on Monday, an increase over the pace the previous
week, according to data reported by the C.D.C. On Sunday alone, nearly 3.3
million people were inoculated, said Andy Slavitt, a senior White House
pandemic adviser.
Broader
eligibility pools should bolster that further, with at least three dozen states
now allowing all adults to sign up for shots by mid-April.
Minnesota
will open up to all adults on Tuesday, and Connecticut on Thursday. Florida has
lowered the age of eligibility to 40, and Indiana has lowered it to 30.
At the same
time, Covid surges in some states have health officials increasingly on edge.
Similar escalations several weeks ago in Germany, France and Italy have now
turned into major outbreaks, Dr. Walensky said.
“We know
that travel is up, and I just worry that we will see the surges that we saw
over the summer and over the winter again,” she said.
As his
presidency enters its third month, Mr. Biden is still fighting some battles
started by his predecessor, who turned the act of mask wearing into a political
statement. As soon as he took office, Mr. Biden used his executive authority to
impose mask requirements where he could — on federal property. And he urged all
Americans to “mask up” for 100 days.
But some
governors, particularly in more conservative states, ignored him. When the
governors of Mississippi and Texas announced this month that they would lift
their mask mandates, Mr. Biden denounced the plans as a “big mistake” that
reflected “Neanderthal thinking.”
In Texas, a
recent drop in cases may be reversing. Although The Times database shows that
over the past two weeks coronavirus infections there have declined 17 percent,
deaths have declined 34 percent and hospitalizations have declined 25 percent,
the seven-day average of newly reported coronavirus infections was up on Sunday
to 3,774. Last Wednesday, the average case count was at a low of 3,401.
“There is
something particularly difficult about this moment,” said Dr. Joshua M.
Sharfstein, a former top Food and Drug Administration official who now teaches
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. With more and more
Americans vaccinated and the potential to bring the pandemic to an end in
sight, he said that “it feels like every case is unnecessary.”
Dr.
Walensky, who has issued several warnings in recent weeks about the need to
keep up mask wearing and social distancing, said she planned to talk to
governors on Tuesday about the risks of prematurely lifting restrictions.
“I know you
all so badly want to be done,” she said. “We are just almost there, but not
quite yet.”
Eileen
Sullivan contributed reporting.
Sheryl Gay
Stolberg is a Washington Correspondent covering health policy. In more than two
decades at The Times, she has also covered the White House, Congress and
national politics. Previously, at The Los Angeles Times, she shared in two
Pulitzer Prizes won by that newspaper’s Metro staff. @SherylNYT
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