AUSTIN, Texas — As Texas continues to see a surge in new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths, one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s medical advisers says it’s time for the state to enact more restrictions.

“This is going to be the worst surge of the entire pandemic. We’ve known this is coming for a while,” Dr. Mark McClellan, who’s also a former FDA Commissioner, said during an interview on Capital Tonight.  “It’s winter. People are tired of it. This is going to be a tough couple of months ahead and we need to be thinking about some further steps.”

Gov. Abbott recently said there would not be any new lockdowns. But McClellan said it doesn’t have to be everywhere and encouraged a regional approach. He also says he thinks the shutdown order in hard-hit El Paso should be in place.

“More focused efforts in local areas can help bring down the rates in those places and still have flexibility to have a bit more openings in areas where the cases aren’t quite so dangerous.”

The shutdown order in El Paso is currently halted. A state appeals court stopped the order late last week after Attorney General Ken Paxton and a group of business owners sued.

McClellan also spoke about the promising news on vaccines. Two different vaccines have now shown they’re more than 90 percent effective.

“Tens of millions of Americans could start getting vaccinated into January, February, March,” he said.

Both vaccines require people to get two shots, several weeks apart. 

“So we’re still looking at a few months before we notice the effect of vaccines on starting to slow down the rate of spread of the virus,” McClellan said.

He added because of that and the current coronavirus surge across the country, it’s best to spend the upcoming holidays apart.

“We’re not at a time in this country where we can afford even more spikes in covid cases.”