Potential 'fourth surge' of coronavirus possible soon, CDC chief warns

The coronavirus vaccines were being hailed as lifesaver and people had assumed that the inoculation drives will bring immediate relief in the pandemic struggles. 

However, as per a recent warning by the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a "fourth surge" can occur before the whole population of the US is vaccinated.

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"At this level of cases, with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained," Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing.

Walensky urged people to not put down their guards. She asked people to not relax and keep following the coronavirus restrictions imposed by the medical experts.

"Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know can stop the spread of Covid-19 in our communities, not when we are so close. We have the ability to stop a potential fourth surge of cases in this country," she said.

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This can, however, be helped by the recently approved single-shot coronavirus vaccine of Johnson & Johnson.

Jeff Zients, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus response team, reported that the single-shot vaccine's delivery will start "as early as tomorrow".

The pharmaceutical company has a ready plan to distribute nearly 3.9 million doses of the vaccine in the upcoming days. This will add to the already-existing stockpile of Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines in the US. 

However, he also added that "J&J has indicated that the supply will be limited for the next couple of weeks".

The approval of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, however, is being predicted to be a great help in ramping up the immunisation process in the country which has lost more than 500,000 people to this deadly virus, as this vaccine only requires a single dose, as compared to the other two which are two-dose vaccines.