— if distancing / masking worked, it would have stopped it the first time.

“Currently, there is no known difference in clinical outcomes associated with the described SARS-CoV-2 variants; however, a higher rate of transmission will lead to more cases, increasing the number of persons overall who need clinical care … and resulting in more deaths,” the CDC said.

Stepping up social distancing efforts would buy the U.S. the necessary time to boost lagging vaccination rates, the best possible chance at preventing steep transmission increases, the agency said. Scientists maintain that vaccines currently in distribution across the U.S. will offer people the same protection against this new strain as they do the current dominant strain. Still, the federal government will have to ramp up production and boost the very limited supply of available doses.