The White House COVID-19 Response Team held a briefing on Tuesday (Aug. 31) and covered a wide range of topics.
They discussed the importance of being vaccinated during pregnancy, recommendations for a safe Labor Day weekend, and getting back to school. It appears more people are getting the message about the importance of vaccines.
The pace of vaccinations across the country has picked up. There has been an 80% increase in the number of doses being given every day since last month. There has also been an increase in the number of people getting their first shots, encouraging news as the delta variant continues to surge.
Increased transmission across the country before Labor Day weekend travel prompted a warning from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
“Given where we are with disease transmission right now we would say that people need to take these risks into their own consideration as they think about traveling. First and foremost, if you’re unvaccinated we would recommend not traveling,” Walensky said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci emphasized the need for pregnant women to get vaccinated. Fauci also highlighted a New England Journal of Medicine study that looked at more than 35,000 participants in the V-Safe Database who identified as pregnant and found no obvious safety signals among pregnant individuals receiving the mRNA COVID vaccines.
There wasn’t any concern about women who are breastfeeding. There was a bonus effect of vaccination in that neutralizing antibodies were also found in the breastmilk.
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