The United States can still bring the raging COVID-19 pandemic under control if undisciplined Americans commit themselves to practicing the three basic essentials of transmission control for at least three months.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) remains confident this goal is attainable, said CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield. On Friday, Dr. Redfield said the country can still get the pandemic under control if most Americans wear masks, commit to social distancing and practice good hand hygiene -- and do all these for up to three months.
He said, however, at least nine in 10 Americans must wear masks, social distance and wash hands regularly for this goal to be attained. Dr. Redfield made this same appeal late July.
"It's in our hands, within our grasp," said Dr. Redfield Friday.
He said, however, this effort is going to require all of us to embrace mitigation steps. He estimated it might need from four to 12 weeks to place this outbreak under control.
Dr. Redfield said CDC has seen more Americans adopt these three guidelines over the last four weeks, and hopes progress will continue. He said, however, no one thinks we should turn away from the recognition that it's vital each of us recognize we want to make sure COVID stops with us.
Getting Americans to perform the most important of these precautions -- wearing face masks -- is going to take some doing, however. A study conducted by Fortune and SurveyMonkey in the third week of July revealed only 67% of the more than 2,800 polled saying they regularly wear face masks. This compared to the 54% that said so in May. CDC said at least 90% of Americans need to wear masks.
The U.S. reported more than 44,000 new COVID19 cases on Thursday, marking an 11% drop in the seven-day average of daily new cases compared with last week, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. The daily new cases, however, jumped to 50,000 Friday.
This means the U.S. now has to contend with 5.8 million cases and 179,000 deaths. Both these numbers are the highest in the world.
Dr. Redfield said, Thursday, COVID-19 deaths have remained above an average of 1,000 a day since the end of July. This toll, however, will likely begin to decrease over the next week. The reason for the impending drop is because new cases have been on a sustained decline since about the same time.
CDC expects the death rate to drop in Arizona, Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina over the next four weeks. On the other hand, it predicts deaths in Minnesota will increase.
