Posted on 07/18/2021 5:08:14 PM PDT by lightman
July 18 (UPI) -- Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday said it was "very reasonable" for local officials to reestablish COVID-19 restrictions as cases are on the rise throughout the United States.
Appearing on ABC News' This Week, Murthy acknowledged that the United States is seeing an increase in cases "particularly among the unvaccinated in many parts of the country" as Los Angeles County reinstated indoor mask mandates beginning Sunday.
"In areas where there are low numbers of vaccinated people, where cases are rising, it's very reasonable for countries to take more mitigation measures, like the mask rules coming out of L.A.," Murthy said. "And I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country -- and that's not contradictory to the guidance the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] issued."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May issued guidance that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear face coverings in public -- except on transit, in health care facilities and other crowded areas or where local mandates require them -- however Los Angeles County on Thursday announced it would require that all residents wear masks while indoors, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated against the virus.
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County health officials reported an average of 1,077 new cases per day for a weeklong ahead of the announcement, and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis told ABC News the measure was meant to prevent further spread as the county works to vaccinate more of its residents.
"We still have 4 million people out of 10 million that haven't been vaccinated -- and many of them are young people," Solis said. "And we're seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run."
Throughout the United States, 68.2% of people 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose while 161,232,483 people, or 48.6% of the total U.S. population, are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. RELATED Three Texas Democrats who fled to Washington, D.C. test positive for COVID-19
The United States continues to lead the world in total cases and deaths with 34,073,372 infections and 609,001 fatalities since the start of the pandemic, adding 12,960 cases and 69 deaths nationwide on Saturday, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University. A majority of states didn't report data Saturday.
Johns Hopkins data also showed that cases were on the rise in all 50 states as the more infectious Delta variant becomes more prominent. In one week nationally, cases are up 69%, deaths 26% and hospital admissions 36%, according to the CDC.
Murthy said he was "deeply concerned" about the state of vaccinations in the United States. RELATED CDC head says COVID-19 is becoming 'pandemic of the unvaccinated'
"We've made so much progress over this past year, but what I worry about are those that we still have -- millions of people in our country who are not vaccinated," he said.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Murthy said he has "been in dialogue with a number of technology companies in good faith efforts" after issuing an advisory on Thursday that COVID-19 misinformation, particularly on social media and elsewhere online, is "a public threat."
"This is about the health of Americans and the reality is that misinformation is still spreading like wildfire in our country, aided and abetted by technology platforms," he said.
Murthy's comments came after President Joe Biden said platforms such as Facebook are "killing people" by allowing misinformation to spread, prompting the social media giant to respond that "Facebook is helping save lives" by providing tools to help Americans locate vaccines.
The surgeon general said Sunday that the government has a role in addressing misinformation and "investing in research" to learn how it's affecting Americans while acknowledging that platforms such as Facebook may have good intentions but can still fail to properly combat misinformation.
"Intention is good, but at the end of the day it doesn't save the life of somebody who is misled by misinformation on these sites, who didn't get vaccinated, who got sick and lost their life as a result," Murthy said. "I'm asking these companies to step up and take responsibility for what's happening on their side. I'm asking them to look out for the people across this country whose lives depend on having access to accurate information."
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reminds me of some sesame street or muppet puppet, not sure which one.
regardless, if he was a competent doctor he would have given his own family decent medical advice
Careful, pretty soon Murthy will also ask counties to require non-lobotomized citizens (not all residents, of course) to wear anti-lobotomy caps.
After all, if we can save just one life...
Has anyone noticed, if the CDC numbers are to be believed, that twice as many people have died, in 6 months, under the biden / harris regime, with the vaccines, than in one year under the President Trump administration, without vaccines?
I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
Enough. Fed up.
“....better to die free men than to lives as slaves..”
Patrick Henry, Virginia Convention, 1775
Vivek Murthy - sounds like something the gangster from “Johnny Dangerously” would say.
I wouldn't trust this "doctor" to treat my parakeet.
Looks like another winter of no flu deaths.
If you have symptoms of anything, stay home. If not live your life. There is no danger of asymptomatic spread. That is an invention of the lying liars in medicine and media.
A lot of so called doctors need to find a new calling...This has destroyed any trust in the medical community....
My next door neighbor told me a year ago masks did not work...she is a nurse...
He’s in “dialogue” with businesses. I America, we say “We are/have been talking with....” Screw dialogue. I belongs on the stage, not at a press conference.
Coronavirus PING!
it’s a whole lot of word salad to say positive cases have gone from 0.4% (not much spread) to 4.1%
it would take a lot more courage to say where it’s coming from but OpenBorders Biden knows
Flooding a MILLON ILLEGAL ALIENS into the country making it impossible to get a handle on this stinking virus DEMANDING we be vaccinated F THEM ALL!!! The republicans should be SCREAMING from the rooftops about this but as usual their weak asses have nothing but CRICKETS!! WE as American citizens are supposed to tolerate illegals who have not been tested OR vaccinated flood into the country while our freedoms are once again stomped on!!!!
Scroll about half way down to spreadsheet preview and it has a breakout of covid vs flu/pneumonia, covid and total deaths. Covid looks to be about 12% of all US deaths (600K/5M). (Start of pandemic it was 16%)
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex-and-Age/9bhg-hcku
hospitalization rates, cummulative chart
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html
July, 2021: 1 in 5 infected need hospitalization and 1 in 5 of those need advanced levels of care. Total hospitalized since August of last year 2.3 million :
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/07/13/coronavirus-severity-hospitalizations-study/6711626184324/
I went back and looked at Nov 7 2020 death rate, which would have been pre-vaccine, and that estimate was 12.3% (with 102,579 in hospital):
https://usafacts.org/articles/there-was-one-new-covid-19-case-for-every-76-americans-in-november/
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