U.S. to Boost Surveillance of Covid-19 Variants, CDC Head Says

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The U.S. government, including the Pentagon, is stepping up surveillance of coronavirus variants to monitor their impact on Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics, the new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“We are now scaling up both our surveillance of these and our study of these,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on “Fox News Sunday.” The agency is working with others, including the Defense Department and the Food and Drug Administration, to monitor the variants, she said.

Vivek Murthy, President Joe Biden’s nominee for surgeon general, said achieving broad immunity against the coronavirus by the start of the school year in September is “an ambitious goal,” and that new strains of the disease will require continued masking, social distancing and better government tracking.

172,650 in U.S.Most new cases today 63,​054,​502 Vaccine doses administered in 56 countries

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