“Winter of serious illness, death” for the unvaccinated, warns the White House

Unvaccinated people are dying needlessly from COVID-19, and the situation is likely to worsen as the more transmissible variant of Omicron tightens its grip on the United States, the COVID-19 response team said on Friday. of the White House.

Jeffrey Zients, the response team coordinator, urged unvaccinated Americans to do their part to prevent Omicron outbreaks. “For the vaccinated, you did the right thing, and we are going to get by,” he said.

“For the unvaccinated,” Zients warned, “you envision a winter of serious illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals that you may soon overwhelm.”

A total of 160,000 unvaccinated people have “needlessly lost their lives” since June, he said. That number will continue to rise unless unvaccinated people take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their families, he said, advocating for immunizations and masks in indoor public places.

Zients pointed out that vaccines To do work against Omicron. Although breakthrough infections are possible for those vaccinated, these infections are more likely to be asymptomatic or mild, he noted.

“Now is not the time to panic because we know how to protect people and we have the tools to do it,” Zients said. “The more people are vaccinated, the less severe this Omicron outbreak will be.”

During the briefing, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, said cases of Omicron have been confirmed in 39 states and more than 75 countries. As the Delta variant continues to “circulate widely” in the United States, “Omicron is growing rapidly and we expect it to become the dominant strain in the United States … in the weeks to come,” she said. declared.

Anthony Fauci, MD, chief medical adviser to President Biden, stressed the importance of being boosted. While mortality is already low in people vaccinated, “it drops to practically negligible values” following a booster dose, he said.

He cited one to study which found that among people 50 years or older who received a booster 5 months after their second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, death rates were 90% lower than those who did not receive a booster.

Fauci also pointed out UK real world data suggesting that two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine were much less protective against infection with Omicron – offering just under 40% protection against the variant at around 25 weeks – compared to Delta. A booster restored the efficacy of the vaccine against symptomatic infection to over 70% in this study. “Optimal protection is fully immunized plus a boost,” he said.

Even for vaccinated and boosted individuals, it is important to practice additional prevention measures – indoor masking in public places, better ventilation, testing – as there is more overcrowding during the holidays, stressed Walensky.

“Test to stay” school policy

The CDC director also highlighted new research on so-called test-to-stay (TTS) policies that can help even unvaccinated children avoid missing school due to exposure to COVID-19.

This approach focuses on increased screening of close contacts – at least twice in the 7 days following exposure to COVID-19 – and allows children who meet certain criteria to stay in school rather than go into school. quarantine if they continue to test negative.

In Los Angeles County, where one in five public schools adopted a TTS strategy, the ratio of COVID-19 infections among students in TTS districts to non-TTS districts remained unchanged during the rollout of the policy, according to an encouraging opinion. cited study by Walensky and published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

The study authors added that non-TTS schools in Los Angeles lost an estimated 92,455 days of in-person school due to quarantine during the study period, compared to zero in TTS schools.

A separate MMWR report from 90 TTS schools in Lake County, Illinoishad a secondary transmission rate of just 1.5% among 1,035 students and staff, who saved 8,152 days of in-person schooling thanks to TTS.

In both studies, Walensky noted, masks were “consistently and correctly” worn and close contacts of all positive cases were monitored for symptoms and advised to stay home if they became ill.

Under the TTS, schools are expected to promote immunization for eligible students and staff; keep the masking indoors for anyone over 2 years old; maintain 3 feet of distance between the students; in addition to maintaining ventilation, hand washing and encouraging anyone who is ill to stay home.

The CDC has updated its Kindergarten to Grade 12 Science of Transmission Thesis to incorporate the new research, and is currently working to update material to help advise parents and schools on this “promising and now proven practice,” Walensky said.

She noted that the safety data for coronavirus vaccines continues to be favorable for children aged 5 to 11. Side effects such as pain at the injection site, fever, fatigue, and headache indicate that the body is building its immune response to SARS-COV-2.