Tag Archives: U.s. health officials

U.S. officials hope new mask advice drives uptick in COVID shots

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With new federal guidance allowing people to ditch their masks in most places, it will be up to individuals to decide how to protect themselves now that vaccines are readily available, top U.S. health officials said on Friday.

“What we’re really doing is empowering individuals to make decisions about their own health,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. “If you are vaccinated and you’re making the decision to take off your mask … you are safe. If you are unvaccinated, then you’ve made the decision to take that risk.”

She said officials were still encouraging unvaccinated people to get their shots as soon as possible to protect themselves and others against the novel coronavirus that is still circulating even as cases decline.

“People who are unvaccinated should not be taking off their masks,” Walensky told CBS News’ “CBS This Morning” program. In mixed settings where people aren’t wearing masks, “It is the vaccinated people who will be protected.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official, echoed the idea that looser recommendations should encourage people to get their COVID-19 shots so they can shed their masks.

“Hopefully this will be an incentive for people to get vaccinated,” Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer, told MSNBC in an interview.

The CDC’s official recommendation on Thursday that fully vaccinated people could avoid wearing face masks indoors in most places marked a significant shift toward normalcy for the country, where more than half a million have died in the pandemic over the past year.

There are caveats. The looser mask guidance does not apply to certain situations such as public transportation and prisons. There is also no approved U.S. COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 11 and younger.

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and now Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb told CNBC he backed the new policy given that half the U.S. states had a low case rate of 10 per 100,000 people per day and that vaccination rates were high in many places.

“This is going to provide a pretty strong incentive for a lot of people who were on the fence about getting vaccinated to go out and get vaccinated. I would not be surprised if we see a pretty big bump up in the number of people going out to get vaccinated because now being vaccinated provides more value: you can go around without a mask,” he said.

Many states had already relaxed mask mandates and other restrictions in recent weeks as case loads dropped.

While some retail locations may keep masks as a requirement for another two weeks, masks will likely no longer be required there either as we get into June, Gottlieb said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Caroline Humer; Editing by Howard Goller)

U.S. health officials consider face masks for Americans to slow coronavirus, but ‘not there yet’

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health officials said on Tuesday they are discussing whether to recommend that the general public wear face masks as a way to prevent transmission of the new coronavirus, but that it was too soon to take that step.

The wide use of masks outside the healthcare setting, which has been employed in other countries with some success, is under active consideration by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the White House coronavirus task force will discuss it on Tuesday, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

“The thing that has inhibited that bit is to make sure that we don’t take away the supply of masks from the healthcare workers who need them,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN.

The coronavirus outbreak in the United States has prompted more Americans to don surgical or other cotton masks or even makeshift masks when they leave home to buy groceries or get some exercise.

Meanwhile, healthcare workers across the country are facing acute shortages of personal protective equipment including N95 respirator masks and surgical masks as they treat an onslaught of highly contagious patients.

When the country gets into a situation where there are enough masks, Fauci said, there will be very serious consideration of broadening the recommendation on face masks.

“We’re not there yet, but I think we’re coming close to some determination, because if in fact a person who may or may not be infected wants to prevent infecting someone else, one of the best ways to do that is with a mask,” Fauci said.

The consideration of wider use of masks stems from the likelihood that people who have no idea they are infected are spreading the virus because they either have no symptoms or have not begun to experience symptoms.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams cautioned that wearing surgical-type cotton masks may not protect healthy Americans from contracting coronavirus and may even put them more at risk, since people who wear masks were likely to touch their face to make adjustments.

“Wearing a mask improperly can actually increase your risk of getting disease. It can also give you a false sense of security,” Adams told Fox News.

The CDC is looking at data involving the cotton masks, Adams said.

“The data doesn’t show that it helps individuals,” he said. “If you’re sick, wear a mask. If you have a mask and it makes you feel better then by all means wear it. But know that the more you touch your face the more you put yourself at risk.

“There may be a day when we change our recommendations – particularly for areas that have large spread going on – about wearing cotton masks,” Adams said. “But again, the data’s not there yet.”

The idea is being pushed by some health experts, including Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In a pandemic roadmap for the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, Gottlieb advocated that the public “initially be asked to wear fabric nonmedical face masks while in the community to reduce their risk of asymptomatic spread.”

President Donald Trump said at the White House coronavirus briefing on Monday, “it’s certainly something we could discuss.”

“After we get back into gear, people could – I could see something like that happening for a period of time, but I would hope it would be a very limited period of time,” Trump said.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Trump will hold White House news conference on coronavirus on Wednesday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he will hold a news conference on the coronavirus at 6 p.m. (2300 GMT) on Wednesday, as infections surge globally and U.S. health officials urge Americans to prepare for it to spread in the United States.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Nearly 200 Americans evacuated from China set to be freed from quarantine

(Reuters) – Nearly 200 Americans evacuated from the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China could be released from quarantine at a U.S. Air Force base in California on Tuesday after 14 days, a leading U.S. health official said.

The first group of U.S. citizens to be evacuated from the coronavirus-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan are mostly U.S. State Department employees and their families. They were flown by government-chartered cargo jet to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County about 60 miles (97 km) east of Los Angeles.

“They are being assessed to make sure they remain symptom-free and we hope they’ll be released to travel home today,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

The fast-spreading virus has killed more than 1,000 people in China, where there have been nearly 43,000 cases. There have been another 319 confirmed cases in 24 other countries, including 13 in the United States.

The 195 people arrived in the United States on Jan. 29 and their quarantine expires on Tuesday. On Feb. 5, two more planes carrying about 350 Americans out of Wuhan arrived at two other military base in California and are subjected to 14-day quarantines.

The first group was limited to a fenced quarantine area on the base, where only official medical staff were allowed to enter. However, employees at the base including uniformed airmen have been accosted out of unfounded fears that they were at increased risk of exposure, a local health official said.

“There have been comments made that have been hurtful – both in person and on social media – that are often based on incorrect or incomplete information,” Cameron Kaiser, the public health officer for Riverside County, said in an open letter to the public on Monday.

“A few base workers have even been accosted in uniform. This is not acceptable, and needs to stop,” Kaiser said.

As of Monday, none had reported positive for the coronavirus, and all of those who have not developed symptoms will be allowed to leave, Kaiser said. Only two people developed symptoms and both retested negative, he said.

The United States has also authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. government employees and their relatives from Hong Kong, the State Department said on Tuesday.

The authorization was made “out of an abundance of caution related to uncertainties associated” with the disease, according to a department spokesperson.

(Reporting by Michael Erman, Manas Mishra, Lisa Lambert and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 37, cases of illness to 1,888

U.S. vaping-related deaths rise to 37, cases of illness to 1,888
(Reuters) – U.S. health officials on Thursday reported 1,888 confirmed and probable cases and 3 more deaths from a mysterious respiratory illness tied to vaping, taking the total death toll to 37.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 1,604 cases and 34 deaths from the illness and said the number of reported cases in the epidemic appears to be leveling off or declining.

However, the CDC said last week it was too early to say whether the outbreak had peaked.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla and Saumya Sibi Joseph in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)