The CDC Is Literally Begging You to Keep Up COVID-19 Safety Protocols

San Luis Obispo county moved into the red tier that allows for indoor dining and gym reopening.
San Luis Obispo in California is one of the counties that has allowed indoor dining to resume. | Photo: Al Seib/Getty Images

‘I’m 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,’ said director Rochelle Walensky

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House are calling for continued vigilance and the reinstatement of mask mandates amid a worrying rise in COVID-19 cases as states relax their restrictions and reopen restaurants and other businesses.

The U.S. has surpassed 30 million cases of COVID-19 and is seeing an increase in 7-day averages of new cases per day, CDC director Rochelle Walensky announced in a virtual White House briefing on March 29. The 7-day averages of daily hospitalizations and deaths have also started to rise, prompting worries that we may experience a fourth surge of the pandemic more than a year after it officially took hold in this country.

“I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope — but right now I’m scared,” Walensky said during the briefing, appearing to speak candidly and emotionally from the heart. She continued:

I’m speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer. I so badly want to be done, I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just almost there, but not quite yet. And so I’m 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.

President Joe Biden echoed Walensky’s sentiments a few hours later, appealing to local and state leaders to pull the brakes on the easing of COVID-related restrictions and to require people to wear masks again. “Now is not the time to let down,” he said. “Now’s not the time to celebrate. It is time to do what we do best as a country: our duty, our jobs, take care of one another.”

In cities and states across the U.S., schools have reopened, restrictions on indoor dining have been lifted, and governments have ended mandates to wear masks inside businesses and in public settings. Restaurants and bars are showing signs of a positive financial rebound thanks in part to such easing of restrictions, as Restaurant Business points out. Increased dining out has been linked to COVID-19 spikes, while mask mandates are linked to decreases in infections and deaths, according to a CDC study published earlier this month. Until enough of the population is vaccinated to achieve herd immunity — which experts say is still a long way away — it’s as important as ever to remain cautious, despite whichever restrictions have eased locally.



from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2Pr5Luh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Comforting Braised Pig Feet Recipe Perfect for Your Pressure Cooker

Image
Louiie Victa Chef Jenny Dorsey’s recipe is a testament to the trotter’s versatility When I go grocery shopping, I always look for pig feet. In the sea of unrecognizably standard-looking cuts of animal muscles at grocery stores — disk-shaped loins, round humps of pork butt — trotters are always the anomaly. They look most precisely as they were: feet, hooves, the tired bones and tissue that kept an animal upright its whole life. Unfortunately for pig feet, their look hasn’t exactly made them a popular part of the mainstream American diet. As Cecil Adams wrote back in 2016, one of the challenges in encouraging more Americans to consume offal and organ meat is that “organs resemble, well, body parts: any steak slapped on a plate looks like dinner, while a lovingly presented calf heart may suggest an autopsy.” And, Adams added, there’s the “socioeconomic stigma…that had a racial component too,” which is only exacerbated by “travelogue shows [like] Bizarre Foods .” Despite being mali...
Read more

Beyond Impossible: The Sanitarium and World War II Past of Meat Substitutes

Image
Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images We’ve come a long way from John Harvey Kellogg’s “protose cutlets” It’s no stretch to say that fake meat is having a moment . With the popularity of brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat joining fast-food menus and grocery store aisles alike, plant-based meats are no longer seen as a sad option for vegetarians long denied flavor with meat substitutes (though, as we know, plenty of vegetarian food is packed with flavor), but for anyone who enjoys a good burger, fried chicken, or nuggets. But are meat substitutes really the future of eating? Maybe by necessity as food resources run out, but not likely by choice. In fact, despite the big money raked in by Impossible and Beyond over the past few years, industrial meat consumption in America is actually on the rise. This week on Gastropod , Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley see how the not-sausage gets made, with visits to the Impossible Meat lab and Meati , a Colorado-based start-up that’...
Read more

Without Government Aid, Americans in Need Are Shoplifting Food Essentials

Image
Photo: Niloo /Shutterstock Plus, Colin Kaepernick gets his own Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, and more news to start your day More people admit to shoplifting what they need to survive Since the pandemic began, Americans have called for relief for individuals and small businesses. Stimulus checks, rent and mortgage cancelation, and universal health care have all been on the table. But aside from $1,200 months ago, we’ve gotten none of that, and the latest stimulus package is woefully inadequate. So, as the Washington Post reports , more people than ever have resorted to stealing essentials like bread, baby formula, and diapers to survive. Honestly, what did the government expect? WaPo says there’s been a 45 percent increase in the number of Americans facing hunger this year, up to 54 million people. Lines at food banks have been miles long for months, with many saying that mutual aid groups and donations can’t keep up with demand . And with SNAP and WIC programs cut back,...
Read more