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But some experts say there is hope.
Vaccines, spring weather conditions and, surprisingly, the high number of infections all provide cause for optimism, said Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the US. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee said Wednesday.
Moreover, the incoming Biden administration is expected to handle things better than the Trump administration.
While the “awful” numbers are likely to worsen in the coming months, Offit believes the United States could stop the spread of the virus by June.
Offit believes that things “will improve considerably soon”.
Vaccines
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, agrees. “We can see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, adding that vaccines “show us a way forward.”
States are still struggling to get vaccines into people’s arms. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 35% of vaccines distributed in states have been released. And the US government’s Operation Warp Speed only managed to ship around 10 million doses to states and local governments – half of what it had promised to have been distributed and administered by here. the end of 2020.
“It’s still not there. There is still a lot of work to be done to get the immunization program up and running,” Benjamin said.
But there is a constant increase in the number of people vaccinated. States have spent 500,000 vaccinations per day on average – giving Benjamin confidence that the country can reach a million per day, if not more.
Incoming administration
Offit is also optimistic about the new Biden administration, noting that President-elect Joe Biden’s team “is not in this cult of denial” that has surrounded the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus and “would take this issue off. forehead”.
Benjamin believes Biden’s team will make more use of the Defense Production Act to ensure a steady and reliable supply of vaccines. He also looks forward to a more coordinated whole-of-government response.
Dr Amesh Adalja, principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and infectious disease physician, praised the Biden administration’s plans to increase the availability of home tests, join the World Health Organization and to restore national security personnel in the event of a pandemic. Advice.
He also hopes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will operate independently under the Biden administration. “The fact that we have been unable to truly bring this pandemic under control is due to the fact that the CDC has not been able to act as it usually does during infectious disease emergencies,” Adalja said.
Warmer weather
“The weather will get warmer, when the weather warms up, which makes it much more difficult for this virus,” Offit said. When the weather is hot and humid, the virus, which spreads in small droplets, is expected to spread less easily, he said.
Benjamin also pointed out that people can spend more time outdoors when the weather warms in the United States. People can stay further away when they’re outside and don’t share the same air – so the virus is less likely to pass from person to person.
“The virus will have a harder time moving from person to person, especially when people are doing outdoor activities in the summer,” Adalja said.
“We didn’t really see the seasonality this summer because there were so many people who weren’t immune to the virus,” he added. “Even in the summer weather, (the virus) still found it fairly easy to find new people to infect.”
Growing herd immunity
Another reason for optimism is the large number of Americans who have likely been infected and are now immune to the virus, Offit said.
While 23 million have been diagnosed and reported, that number is underestimated. Many people have had an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infection and have never been tested. The number of people infected is probably closer to 65 or 70 million, Offit said.
“It is 20% of the population who, when they are re-exposed to this virus, will not get sick,” he said. It is not known how long the immunity lasts after infection, but studies indicate that it lasts at least eight or nine months and possibly longer.
If an additional 55 to 60% of the population can be vaccinated – something that Offit says can be done at a million to a million and a half doses per day – “then I really think that by June we can stop the spread of this virus. ”
Benjamin agreed.
“History has told us that these things go away. And you have to do something to make them go away,” Benjamin said. “Even in 1918, 1919 people were infected and tragically the world had to go through it. We hit a kind of balance, got flock immunity, and it ended.
Notes of caution
“I think there is huge potential for this pandemic to end in 2021, before the end of the year for sure, maybe even before the fall,” said Dr Aaron Glatt, spokesperson. speech of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau.
“But it certainly won’t happen if the vaccine isn’t distributed, or God forbid, the vaccine doesn’t work in the future, doesn’t work as well.”
Dr. Sunny Jha, an anesthesiologist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, is also cautious.
“If we can increase the numbers, if we can get rid of the hesitation, if we can eliminate the misinformation, the misinformation, I think I would be a lot more optimistic,” Jha said.
“But if you ask me today if I feel like we’re on track for the summer, from what I see now, I don’t think we’ll be there.”
“I’m cautiously optimistic, I guess,” he said. “I think we’ve got the right frame of mind. I think if we take the hesitation away, we’ll be in better shape.”
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