White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Americans should be wearing a mask in crowded indoor spaces to combat the current coronavirus surge.
Anchor Martha Raddatz said, “We have the daily case number more than 100,000, I know you think the number is actually higher because of home testing, so what is your advice in these high transmission areas?”
Jha said, “First and foremost, my advice is, if you have not gotten vaccinated in the last five months, if you have not gotten boosted, now is a good time to do it. What we know is vaccines continue to provide a high level of protection against people getting seriously ill. That’s advice number one. Advice number two, I agree with Mayor Adams that when you’re in an indoor space, you should be wearing a mask. Crowded indoor places, high transmissions, people should be doing that. People have access to masks, vaccines, and therapeutics and testing.”
He added, “We have a lot of infections out there because it’s still quite disruptive, and 300 people a day are still dying of this disease. That’s way too much. What I would say is we’ve certainly started really breaking that link between infections and deaths through two mechanisms, one, by getting people vaccinated and boosted, and secondly, by making therapies widely available. Those therapies really help a lot. Despite how many infections there are, death numbers are still relatively low. We’ve got to keep working on it.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN