“A pandemic of the unvaccinated”: More dire warnings in latest COVID-19 briefing

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “There is a clear message that is coming through. This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk and communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well. The good news is that if you’re fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe COVID hospitalization and death and are even protected against the known variants, including the Delta variant circulating in this country. If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk. And our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and sadly deaths among the unvaccinated. Lastly, I want to reiterate the importance of getting fully vaccinated. I want to reiterate the people who got the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are most effective, especially when against the Delta variant, when given as two shots in a series. Both vaccines are most effective two weeks after the second dose, with each exceeding 90 percent effectiveness against severe disease, hospitalization and death in real world studies. As we have said, this is very heterogeneous across the country and these decisions have to be made at the local level. If you have areas of low vaccination and high case rates, then I would say local policymakers might consider whether masking at that point would be something that would be helpful for their community until they scale up their vaccination rates because more people than not in the community are unvaccinated.”

Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General: “During this pandemic, health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high risk settings to turn down proven treatments, in some cases to turn to unproven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated. All this has led to avoidable illnesses and deaths. Simply put, health misinformation has cost us lives. Technology companies have enabled misinformation to poison our information environment with little accountability to their users. It allowed people who intentionally spread misinformation, what we call disinformation, to have extraordinary reach. In this advisory, we’re telling technology companies that we expect more. We’re asking them to operate with greater transparency, to modify their algorithms, to avoid amplifying misinformation and to swiftly and consistently take action against misinformation, super spreaders on their platforms. It’s painful to know that nearly every death we are seeing now could have been prevented. The truth is that across our nation, the voices of doctors, nurses, scientists and public health experts are too often being drowned out by the false sirens of misinformation. Misinformation robs us of our freedom to make decisions for our health based on science and facts. Addressing health misinformation is an urgent challenge, a moral and civic responsibility that we must make together. That’s why I issued the Surgeon General Advisory.”

Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator: “Thing we can do right now is to get more Americans vaccinated. Every person matters, every shot matters, every shot is progress. It’s another life protected. It’s another community that’s safer. It’s another step toward putting this pandemic behind us.”