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The governors of Maryland and New Jersey on Sunday defended steps to ease Covid restrictions.All cases of coronavirus in their state justified a change even as new cases and deaths still quite high in some parts of the United States.
“The best we can say right now is that this thing get out of the pandemic with endemic“We think it’s a responsible step to allow local school districts and municipalities to make their own decisions,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” he one of the few Democratic governors As the United States begins to emerge from the Omicron surge, it announced plans to lift the statewide mask requirement last week, whether they’re applying to schools or generally.
His optimistic tone was in line with that of Maryland’s Republican governor, Governor Larry Hogan, who urged his state’s Board of Education to abolish the school mask mandate. Mr. Hogan lifted Maryland’s state masking requirement last May, but the schools are run independently. “I think it’s safe enough for our kids to try to get back to normal,” Mr. Hogan said on CNN’s State of the Union.
Several states are moving to lift restrictions as a new GIS survey The majority of Americans, including schools, still support mask requirements, but this most of them are exhausted and angry by a pandemic entering its third year.
Public health experts in schools agree that mask requirements should not last forever. but it depends if the time has come to remove them.
According to many health experts, The next stage of the virus in the United States may depend about which new possible variants are emerging, vaccination rates and risk tolerance. Public health experts say it is unlikely to achieve herd immunity against Covid. And scientists warned that protection may decrease over timeand future variants can better dodge our defense.
Still, while nationwide case numbers have not returned to pre-Omicron levels and remain high in states like Alaska, Mississippi, and West Virginia, known coronavirus infections are falling across the country. Hospitalizations and deaths are also on the decline, but still high.
This week, the chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky reiterated her agency’s view that masks should not be removed when meeting indoors. “We’re not at that stage yet,” said at a White House briefing on Wednesday.
Former head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Scott Gottlieb said he thinks the country is moving from a period of collective action to protect vulnerable groups to an era where individuals need to protect themselves as cases drop and restrictions are lifted. based on their own risk assessments.
Dr. “I think there are certain parts of the population that are going to be in a very difficult situation right now because they are being vulnerable,” Gottlieb said on “Face the Nation.”
Young children are also one of these groups, he said. The FDA’s announcement on Friday Delaying Pfizer-BioNTech’s decision on whether to allow the vaccine for children younger than 5 years old until more data is available.. Research so far has found that two doses are not enough to protect children aged 2 to 4 years, but the company expects to have data on the effectiveness of a third dose in April.
Serving on Pfizer’s board of directors, Dr. Gottlieb said the recent delay, which has affected nearly 18 million children and their families, has been frustrating. But he said the FDA’s decision was prudent. “They will have a very solid picture of how effective the vaccine is,” he said, waiting. “This is important for patients and pediatricians to make fully informed decisions.”
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