CDC Director Walensky: 'In Our Control' to Prevent Fall COVID Surge

There is still time to prevent another COVID-19 surge this fall, but people must "take the message and see that they don't want this to go on," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday. 

"That is in our control at this point," Walensky said on "CBS This Morning." "What we do know is these respiratory viruses tend to prefer the winter/fall weather, and they tend to circulate more indoors in the cooler weather. What I'm really hoping is as we're starting to see these cases that people will take the message, see that they don't want this to go on, and to really go and get vaccinated now so we could present what might happen in the fall."

Meanwhile, COVID cases are again on the rise, mainly because of the rapidly spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus, but the highest case rates are in parts of the United States where vaccination rates are low. 

Walensky said that trend was expected. 

"We anticipated that we would see many areas with high vaccination, low case rates, and now we see in areas of low vaccination very high case rates," she said. "You know, our vaccines are really quite good. They are safe. They are effective, and we're fortunate they're working now against the variants that we have circulating here in the United States including the delta variant. But we do worry about these cases that are occurring in unvaccinated communities."

Much of the spread is occurring in largely unvaccinated families, said Walensky, adding that "this can take off, as we are seeing, across these unvaccinated communities."

Nationally, statistics show that fewer than 30% of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 are fully vaccinated, and Walensky said she is worried about those numbers. 

"I'm worried about every demographic that has low vaccination rates," she said. "In many states, there are different policies for how the teens will get vaccinated. Some haven't prioritized it. Some don't have the information. Some parents want to have more information about the vaccine for younger kids."

Walensky pointed out that all three of her own children are vaccinated, and that the vaccines are safe for teens. 

"Importantly, as we vaccinate more and more people, it protects everyone. It protects them, and then it protects everyone around them," she said.

Tennessee this week stopped all of its vaccine outreach for minors, and Walensky said that is disturbing, not only for COVID but for all vaccine-preventable illnesses that the CDC doesn't want to surge while the pandemic continues.

"Other vaccine-preventable diseases, HPV, measles, mumps, rubella, these are all preventable, and we need all of our children to get vaccinated for all of these things," said Walensky. "We are in fact more than 12 million pediatric vaccinations behind from last year and so we really do need to get up to speed for all of our pediatric vaccinations."

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