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Key members of Biden’s COVID response team internally warn the United States may not achieve collective immunity until Thanksgiving or even the onset of winter – months later than initially expected – according to two senior administration officials.
In an interview with CBS News this week, President Joe Biden alluded to some of these concerns, saying that it would be “very difficult” to achieve collective immunity – resistance to the virus across the world. population – “well before the end of summer”. with the current daily rate of about 1.3 million doses of vaccine. Other senior officials working on the federal government’s response to COVID-19 say they are worried about the long-term vaccine supply and the impact on herd immunity, and have started exploring ways to expand US manufacturing capacity, potentially through new partnerships with outside pharmaceutical companies.
Beyond supply issues, however, key health officials say they are increasingly concerned about COVID-19 variants in the UK and South Africa, with the likelihood of more variants emerging in months to come and the possibility that these variants will escape vaccines. There is some evidence to suggest that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect against the UK’s B117 variant, although a recent study shows that a new mutation could make the vaccines less effective. Data collected from the clinical trials of Novavax and Johnson and Johnson in South Africa suggest their vaccines are less effective against the variant which is spreading rapidly in the country. And South Africa recently said it was halting the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout because evidence from clinical trials suggested the vaccine did not work well against the variant.
Together, the recent data has alarmed health officials in the Biden administration who are now raising questions about what more can be done to not only shorten the herd immunity timeline – not just bring Americans back to a sort of normalcy, but also to make sure the country does. not seeing another increase in hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19. Officials have spent the past few days discussing ways to increase genome sequencing to track variants and to get the message across that Americans need to follow public health guidelines more closely to reduce transmission as cases of B117 variants are starting to increase.
Dr Anthony Fauci, who previously calculated that about 75% of the US population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, said in an interview that he is still “cautiously optimistic” that the country can achieve this goal at the start of the fall.
“I still think it’s possible,” Fauci said. “As I said before, once we get into mass immunization, when the general public starts getting it by the end of spring – April, May, June… and we are past it. any hesitation about vaccines, we should be able to achieve that. 70 or 75 percent. We are heading in the right direction. Fauci cautioned about the prediction, pointing out that he has lingering concerns about new variants of COVID-19.
At a press conference on Monday, Fauci said the modeling indicates that the B117 variant “could become dominant by the end of March.” “It’s the news that is sobering,” he said. “The two things we can do is, A, make sure we adhere to public health measures … and, B, get as many people vaccinated as possible as quickly as possible.” Immunization rates have started to improve across the country in recent days. And the Biden administration continues to announce increase in the number of doses states receive each week.
Yet the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr Rochelle Walensky, said on Monday that the proliferation of variants “remains of great concern and poses a threat that could reverse recent positive trends we are seeing. As of this week, 699 cases of variants have been confirmed in 34 states, with 690 of those cases being the B117 variant, the variant first reported in the UK, Walensky said.
“The good news is that even with B117 as the dominant variant… cases dropped when people stopped having contact, when people wore masks… That’s the key. We need to give a viral enemy less chance to speak.“
– former CDC director Tom Frieden
“The virus will continue to mutate no matter what we do. The types of mutations we will see will change as more and more people become immune. And natural immunity will continue to exert an evolving pressure on the virus. So we will see different types of mutations that can help it escape vaccine protection or become more transmissible, ”said Rajeev Venkayya, president of vaccine business at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, who is not involved in the response. COVID. “I think the first thing that will affect the offer [and access], at the moment, has more vaccines, which shows evidence of efficacy and safety. And there, I think the story is very, very promising.
With the threats from the new variants becoming clearer, the message from Biden officials and health experts is clear: back to basics. Follow the public health guidelines recommended by the CDC over the past year – masks, social distancing, and limited interior contact.
“The more transmissible these virus strains, the more you need a higher threshold of herd immunity. The B117 variant… is of great concern, ”said Tom Frieden, former CDC director. “The good news is that even with B117 as the dominant variant in the UK and elsewhere… cases have dropped when people stop having contact, when people were wearing masks, when you have people who don’t share. indoor air with people not belonging to your household. This is the key. We need to give a viral enemy less chance to speak. “
Still, many cities across the country are moving in the opposite direction and are starting to ease restrictions. In New York and New Jersey, for example, authorities have started to allow increased indoor dining and other indoor events such as weddings. The governor of Iowa has just lifted the state’s mask mandate.
Walensky rejected the new guidelines on Monday, telling reporters she discouraged any moves to relax the masking guidelines. “We’re still at over 100,000 cases a day,” she says. “I think we haven’t got this pandemic under control yet. We still have this emerging threat of variants. And I would just discourage any of these activities. We really need to keep all of the mitigation in play here if we are to truly get this pandemic under control.
Atul Gawande, a former member of President Biden’s transitional COVID-19 advisory board, said in an interview that vaccination is not the only way to fight the new variants.
“We’re going to need more than vaccines when it comes to strains. We have a very high rate of viral circulation. So we will continue to generate new strains. The fact that we’ve already seen strains that have reduced efficacy for vaccines suggests where we might be facing, ”said Gawande. “We’re going to have a year where it’s going to take a long time, not just reaching people. We are going to have large pockets of the population who have not yet received the vaccine, either because they do not want it, or because they want it, or because they want to wait. We are going to have a large circulation. The variants increasingly beat monoclonal antibodies. “
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