WASHINGTON — The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an impassioned plea to Americans Monday not to let their guard down in the fight against COVID-19, saying she has a recurring feeling “of impending doom,” even as President Joe Biden announced further efforts to expand access to coronavirus vaccines.
Speaking during a virtual White House briefing, Dr. Rochelle Walensky grew emotional as she reflected on her experience treating COVID-19 patients who are alone at the end of their lives.
“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope,” she said. “But right now, I’m scared.”
“I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said.
Cases of the virus are up about 10% over the past week from the previous week, to about 60,000 cases per day, with both hospitalizations and deaths ticking up as well, Walensky said. She warned that without immediate action the U.S. could follow European countries into another spike in cases and suffer needless deaths.
“I have to share the truth, and I have to hope and trust you will listen,” she added.
Later Monday, Biden addressed the nation from the White House, declaring, “If we let our guard down now, we can see the virus getting worse, not better. People are letting up on precautions, which is a very bad thing.”
Biden delivered a direct appeal to governors, state and local leaders to reinstate mask-wearing requirements if they have eased them.
“Please, this is not politics, reinstate the mandate if you let it down,” he said.
Biden announced that by April 19 at least 90% of the adult U.S. population would be eligible for vaccination — and would have access to a vaccination site within 5 miles of home. Quick vaccination would still depend on supply as well as overcoming some people’s hesitancy about the shots.
Biden had previously directed that all states make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1, but many have moved to lift eligibility requirements sooner in anticipation of supply increases.
Meanwhile, the White House was moving to double the number of pharmacies participating in the federal retail pharmacy program — which has emerged as among the most efficient avenues for administering vaccines — and increase the number of doses for them to deliver. The retail pharmacies are located in close proximity to most Americans and have experience delivering vaccines like the flu shots.
Biden announced that the U.S. was expecting delivery of 33 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine this week — including 11 million doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.
“The president has not held back in calling for governors, leaders, the American people to continue to abide by the public health guidelines,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “He will continue to do that through all of his engagements.”
Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. appealed to elected officials, community leaders and everyday Americans to maintain social distancing measures and mask wearing.
“We are doing things prematurely,” Fauci said, referring to moves to ease up on restrictions. Walensky appealed to Americans, “Just please hold on a little while longer.”
She added: “We are not powerless, we can change this trajectory of the pandemic.”
Walensky pointed to an uptick in travel and loosening virus restrictions for the increase in cases. “People want to be done with this. I, too, want to be done with this,” Walensky said.
“We’ve seen surges after every single holiday,” she reiterated: “Please limit travel to essential travel for the time being.”
The White House, meanwhile is ruling out the creation of a national “vaccine passport” for Americans to verify their immunization status, saying it is leaving it to the private sector to develop a system for people show they’ve been vaccinated. Some other countries are establishing national databases to allow vaccinated people to resume normal activities.
“We do know that there is a segment of the population that is concerned that the government will play too heavy-handed of a role in monitoring their vaccinations,” said White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt. He said officials are worried that “it would discourage people” from getting vaccinated if the federal government was involved.
The administration, instead, is developing guidelines for such passports, touching on privacy, accuracy and equity, but the White House has not said when those guidelines will be ready.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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The Biden Reich sounds like it got its script from “Ghost Busters” with the end of the world dooms day prophesies. Dogs living with cats? Once again, the Democrat message to the nation in its desperate and determined goal of taking over complete control of every facet of America is “We have nothing to offer but fear itself.”
Honestly, I wish Covid was the plague that these communists pretend it is.
To captjellico: WHY?
Starting in DC.
Real pandemics tend to have the most impact in large population centers.
MAYBE if it was really this bad, as they make it out to be, it would start WEEDING OUT THE dems…
I think …THEY…. should ….ALL… wear 8 masks… 3 of them sealed plastic.
Which get sealed to their faces via industrial strength superglue!
Just what we need, a leader who is outwardly afraid, shows and sows fear !
Perhaps if we didn’t have FRAUDULENTLY “elected” communists shoved into office that wanted President Trump OUT by “all means necessary” (including financing the development and introducing a “virus” to do so as well as numerous scams and schemes,) this country would not be in the “problems” we have now, The border is now wide open, and more infected illegal aliens are being allowed in by the boatload, and ‘distributed” to a city near you. Enjoy your “new” administration” and your ‘new neighbors”.
This clown should not be leading the CDC. She obviously is one of two things: 1. over her head and incapable of leading the CDC and projecting a positive path forward instead of fear mongering; 2. she is just another Xiben lacky working to instill fear in us as things get demonstratively better and further out from under government control. Then again, its likely both…
To: TallnOld – Geez, we’d be in a hell of an emotional CRISIS if our personal doctors were so hysterical and on the verge of tears! I agree with you that she appears to be in over her head. Get this gloom and doom person out of this position!! Between her and Dr. Fauci there’s no hope for us – sarcasm! for those of you who had an immediate reaction to vilify me!
And our so-called President is an idiot; WHY is he wearing two masks when he’s been vaccinated? If the vaccine works he should be only too eager to get rid of the masks, not double up.
Come on Man , he is doing what he has been told to do. I realize sometimes it is hard to see the strings move.
Because these so-called vaccines (and they are NOT vaccines) do not work in preventing this virus. That is not what these nonvaccines are about. He’s just hoping two masks will work. Of course if he followed “the science” he would be wearing a N95 masks instead of those worthless cloth masks.
I agree. IF SOMEONE IS THAT ‘fearful’ in their job, perhaps they need to get a NEW ONE.
Doom? With Pedo Joe and Cameltoe Harris in charge it is guaranteed ! Get these traitors out of the White House or else !
Dr. Rochelle Walensky if you know something that is really making you frightened then you need to share this with the public. We have the right to know that this disease is going o kill almost everyone or not. Stop the crying and be up front and forward about your fears.
It’s liberal progressive melodrama. They are worried their boot is coming off the throat of the American People…
AND why is she ‘feeling’ such doom, WHEN SO MANY folks are being vaccinated.. OR IS SHE SAYING the vaccines don’t do jack!??
Well then tell BIDEN to close the Border, test these people for COVID before doing anything else. And stop releasing them into the United States in town’s without resource’s to deal with the influx of people.
IT is shanked up, that they’re CHATTING about mandating WE AMERICANS start having to carry “vaccine passports” just to LIVE OUR OWN lives/go back to work/shop etc, but are WILLFULLY LETTING IN thousands of infected folks, and not giving a hoot where they go, and whom THEY INFECT.
THE SKY IS FALLING. Quick, go hide under your bed. The end is near. All is lost. The worst is yet to come. WE ARE DOOMED. If you don’t wear a mask you are killing people. If you don’t obey your government rulers, you will be punished. Welcome to the communist states of america.
Why do I get the sensation that the mask is todays version of the tinfoil hat of the nuclear fallout hoax
AT least those foil hat folks, HAD REASON to be fearful…
No need to worry as we’re all going to be dead from AGW, er, I mean like, Climate Change, in ten years anyhow when the oceans boil and it rains toads or some such nonsense. In the75 years I’ve been on this planet, I’ve never known climate or weather to be a constant. What about the fact that the amount of light we receive from the sun changes daily? Is that like, Light Change?
Her ‘feeling of impending doom’ is because of the stolen election and a fake Biden, anti-American presidency. She just mistakenly attributed it to the wrong factor…
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Joe the Criminal, Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci, the Airspace between your ears is “doomed”, because you people have no brain between your ears. Dr. Birx, are you going to tell everyone this coming Thanksgiving, not to have Thanksgiving in 2021, because we will otherwise be “doomed”? Of course you told all Americans to stay home for Thanksgiving in 2020, because it was too dangerous to gather for Thanksgiving. Of course you went to your vacation home, with relatives to celebrate Thanksgiving. Oh, what a toxic cesspool of bureaucrats. Deep state metastatic cancer personified aka deep state bureaucrats.
PITY we can’t make a plague JUST TO affect all these commucrats.. AND there be no known cure for it.
HORSE PUCKY! We’ve heard the stories of impending doom several times already! Invariably they fail to come about. I still haven’t heard why the standard flu didn’t rear it’s ugly head this past season. Is it that the LSM won’t ask about it, or that you have no reasonable answer so you just ignore the question?
MAYBE cause covid cured the standard flu? OR THEY JUST LIED!
So, Dr, do you think illegals with possible covid pouring through our open border is a problem? Maybe you should tell joe!
DAH, if the information is correct maybe Fauci, Birk, her and all these other clowns should stand by the border and tell people “DON’T come in here “ILLEGALLY” without getting tested. Have them tell all these illegals to wear masks or two or three masks and all should be sent back to their original country of origin paid for by those countries who allow them to come here uninvited or from our people who allow it. There are enough people that agree with this open border policy that we could register those people and set up a fund from all of them to pay for these “ILLEGALS” costs. The spike also coincides with record high invasion of our border.
Blah, blah, blah. Enough fear mongering. If our government really cared about OUR nation’s safety, they wouldn’t be letting in thousands of sick illegals. Find something else to whine about. Or…you could actually fins something constructive to do. How novel would that be?
Please, please, please let us continue to control your life. The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
I live in a state that is pretty much wide open and has been for quite some time. We have hospitalization of under 200 statewide and have never had a statewide mask mandate. Restaurants are full, concerts are happening and people are happy and living their lives. And most important, schools have been open with in person classes since the beginning of the normal school year.
Scare mongers in Washington can’t have that. They see their self imposed power slipping away.
Now they come with the next level of government control——-vaccine passports. There aren’t enough 4 letter words in the English language to allow me to properly express my opinion on that.
CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL. We are obviously too stupid to handle every day activities
FOR months a # of us were saying “just you wait, vaccine passports will eventually become mandatory”..
I believe we can limit the feeling of impending doom to her personal life. I feel threatened by the Socialist Democrats, but do not sense doom. There are still some avenues to curtail their power grabs. I just hope the conservatives in government will avail themselves of the court system to neuter the usurper Biden’s regime.
99.8% survival rate for the majority of people from Covid. She is afraid that people will stop believing her. If you are seriously listening to Fauci please seek real medical help from a real MD. Vaccine 90% effective. Natural immunity 99% effective. It won’t be long before the Government forces us to get the experimental vaccines. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Or Democrats!
They used the pandemic as an excuse to make sure they could steal the election, both by their ballot methods and making the pandemic Trump’s fault. They had to lock everyone down for more than a year for complete fear mongering control, reminiscent of the Polish ghettos where the Jews were isolated and not allowed to co-mingle with the “elite” population and ruling class. They cried “super spreaders!” to try and dissuade Trump rallies and put the evil eye on conservatives that they were animals and a danger to the rest of the population. Now they have two problems- open states without COVID spikes, and the southern border crisis. Southern birder- just letting them in with COVID and allowing them to go on, the schools remain closed, yet the teachers volunteer to teach in person to the illegals in the children’s holding areas. The Dems are absolutely their own enemy. Voter ID is racist, but making everyone prove who they are to get a vaccine and force them to show they are either COVID negative or been vaccinated. Which is it? Working on a vaccine passport? Why do I feel like my forearm is being tatooed with a number and a star pinned to my chest? Wake up!
ITS Only racist if Conservatives ask for it.. WHEN DEMS demand it, it’s For “The good of the nation!”
She should be terrified, the wheels are coming off this scam and people are going to be pi$$ed when they find the truth.
MILLIONS already DO know the truth. BUT since the CONTROL the media, the courts, the ballot boxes and the judges, WHAT DO THEY have to fear, the truth getting out??
“Speaking during a virtual White House briefing, Dr. Rochelle Walensky grew emotional as she reflected on her experience treating COVID-19 patients who are alone at the end of their lives.”
Like the ones in the New York nursing home that Cuomo murdered?
It’s a freaking flu!!!!! These deep state swamp creatures need to stop trying to scare the sheep. Any American with a brain and common sense knows what’s going on but the sheeple are being sucked in…don’t be fooled!
When you lie about everything, sooner or later, most people catch on, This is an experimental drug, our only value, is that we are cash cows.
More like Lemmings, blindly going to the slaughter.
Fact is the number of deaths due to traditional causes have dropped almost exactly the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19.
How? Faulty test methods and doctors guessing at diagnosis for monetary gain. The virus has still NOT been isolated.
“….so much promise and potential of where we are…” What does that even mean? Leftists doublespeak nonsense.
Ok…if it is terrible and we are “all doomed” why are they letting thousands and thousands of unaccompanied, sick homeless kids into the country???
This entire administration needs to be IMPEACHED!!!
NOT just impeached, but TRIED for treason!
Sounds like paranoia to me. Does she hear footsteps behind her as well?
I’ve always been curious as how fast the so called uptiks happen. Do these people who gather in groups, don’t want to where masks, want to be free and most likely feeling just fine run straight to a test site. I’m sure most people , who have done there research, realize this is a casedemic and should never have been a pandemic. Keep telling everybody to get tested whether they need it or not so they can keep those cases up.
To those who are afraid, do they think that when this is over(?) that no one will ever get sick or die.
She should be having a feeling of impending doom… The vaccines they’re forcing all of us to take, permanently destroy our body’s own natural immune system, so we won’t be protected from all the mutations that are coming out!