White House COVID-19 Response Team discuss vaccines, variants

Around 1.3 million shots given per day

DETROIT – Members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team said that President Joe Biden’s goal of administering 100 million vaccines doses in 100 days is on track for success.

The U.S. is averaging more than 1.3 million shots given per day, but the demand for the vaccine far outpaces the supply.

Nationally, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are continuing to decrease. However, new cases are still twice as high as the peak number over the summer. There is also great concern that a new, more contagious variants of the virus could reverse that downward trend.

The CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, warned that too many people are giving the new variants an easy path to spread.

“Based on contact tracing and review of recent variant cases -- not wearing masks and participating in in-person social gatherings have contributed to the variance spread,” Walensky said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed the question of double masking, wearing two masks at once -- he said the CDC is still waiting on science.

“There is nothing wrong with people wearing two masks. I often myself wear two masks. Can we make a general recommendation that doesn’t have a scientific basis yet? No,” he said.

Experts also expressed concern about the Super Bowl this weekend. They urged Americans to watch it at home with just people from their household. They don’t want to see a bump in cases.


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About the Authors:

Dr. McGeorge can be seen on Local 4 News helping Metro Detroiters with health concerns when he isn't helping save lives in the emergency room at Henry Ford Hospital.

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.