
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams called on the American people to continue to take Covid-19 precautions as cases surge following the Thanksgiving holiday, and the impacts of travel over the Christmas holiday continue to unfold.
"I want people to know the projections are pretty scary, but they are projections. What we do now matters. If you gathered over the holidays outside of your household without a mask, there are still measures you can take right now," Adams told CNN's Jake Tapper.
"You still can self-quarantine. You can still get tested knowing that greater than 50% of the spread now among people who are asymptomatic. You can still wear a mask and wash your hands and watch your distance. If we do that we will be able to temper this surge," he continued.
At least 123,639 people nationwide were in the hospital with coronavirus on Saturday, marking 32 consecutive days that the number of hospitalizations has exceeded 100,000, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
"I want people to understand that if we get over this current surge, then things will start to get better but it depends on the actions that we all take right now," Adams said.
The official said that he's still optimistic amid the tragedy.
"Less than a year after getting this virus sequenced, we are going to have 20 million doses delivered within a month after actually getting the EUA (emergency use authorization)," he said.
The interview comes as the CDC says the US has administered more than 4 million vaccine doses, but is lagging behind some other countries as the number of cases continue to surge. The administered doses include both the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines.