Transcript: Scott Gottlieb on “Face the Nation” July 18, 2021

The following is a transcript of an interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb aired Sunday, July 18, 2021 on “Face the Nation”.

JOHN DICKERSON: And now we go to the former commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on the Pfizer board of directors and joins us from Westport, Connecticut. Hello, Dr Gottlieb.

DOCTOR SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Hello.

JOHN DICKERSON: So the director of the CDC said this week that the – there’s an unvaccinated epidemic. What’s your reaction to this?

DR. GOTTLIEB: When you look at people who have been hospitalized, 97% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated people, and most of the deaths that are happening right now are unvaccinated people. The bottom line is that many people are no longer more than 50% susceptible to COVID, around 50% of the population has been fully vaccinated. Probably another third of the American population has already been infected with this virus. So many people are not susceptible to the virus. But if 25% of the population remains sensitive to the virus in absolute terms, that is still a lot of people. And this virus is so contagious, this variant is so contagious that it will infect the majority that most people will get vaccinated or have already been infected or they will get this Delta variant. And for most people who get this Delta variant, it will be the most serious virus they will catch in their lifetime in terms of their risk of putting them in the hospital.

JOHN DICKERSON: We just spoke to the mayor of Springfield, Missouri, who said he sent a message to other communities. It happens. Do we – it just reminds me of the early days of this pandemic where the numbers kind of caught up with reality, do we really get a handle on the Delta variant and how it spreads and how many there are in the world? community.

DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, we’re seeing a decoupling between cases and hospitalizations and deaths, and I think it’s probably going to persist, England is seeing that as well, and they’re – they’re further ahead than us in terms of Delta epidemic. And that’s because more of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated. I think at this point we’re probably underestimating the number of infections in the United States right now, because as a lot of infections occur in younger, healthier people who could get disease. benign, they are not – probably not showing up for testing. And since there are breakthrough cases either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases and those that have been vaccinated, they don’t show up for testing because if you have been vaccinated you don’t think you have the coronavirus. even if you develop a mild illness. And we don’t do a lot of routine screening right now, unless you’re working for the New York Yankees, you’re not getting tested on a regular basis. So, I think this Delta wave could be much more advanced than what we are detecting right now in our determination. The number of cases we actually pick up might be less than the peak of the epidemic in winter, we were probably returning one in three or one in four infections. During the summer wave last summer, we probably got more than 1 in 10 infections. We may get something in the range of 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 infections right now because that more of these infections occur in people who will not manifest or are mild infections and they resolve on their own. So, the people who tend to get tested right now are people who get very sick or people who develop telltale symptoms of COVID like loss of taste or smell. And it’s only about 15 or 20 percent of people who will be infected.

JOHN DICKERSON: So if there’s any faint certainty, if we don’t really know as much about the community as it really is. And you live in a low-immunized community that doesn’t yet have the headlines about filling hospitals, is it a good expectation that you’re going to start seeing those headlines in a number of days?

DR. GOTTLIEB: It depends on where you live, I think if you live in states like I am now, the vaccination rates are very high and there has been a lot of past spread. There is a wall of immunity. And I think it will be a safety net against the Delta spread. If you are in parts of the country where vaccination rates are low and there haven’t been a lot of viruses that have spread and that’s a lot of rural areas in the south, I think it’s a lot. more vulnerable. I think the people who live in these communities, especially if you live in communities where the prevalence is already high, I think it is safe to take precautions if you are a vulnerable person. And Delta is so contagious that when we talk about masks, I don’t think we should be just talking about masks. I think we should be talking about high quality mask. The quality of the mask is going to make a difference with a variant that spreads more aggressively like Delta is doing, where people are more contagious and give off more viruses and try to get N95 masks into the hands of vulnerable people in places where it is most likely. ‘is really epidemic, I think it’s going to be important, even in cases where they are vaccinated, if they want to add another layer of protection. There is a supply of N95 masks at the moment, there is no shortage. There are a lot of masks available for healthcare workers. So we could start talking about putting better quality masks in people’s hands, because I think it’s going to be difficult to impose these things right now. But we can certainly provide them so that people can use them on a voluntary basis to try to protect themselves.

JOHN DICKERSON: Let me point that out briefly, because one of the things that we’ve seen is in people who don’t want to be vaccinated, they say, well, I’m going to wear a mask. But what you mean is if you are wearing a mask, no old piece of cloth will do. You have to have an N95 or something really sturdy.

DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, remember, the initial discussion around masks was that if we put masks on everyone, people who were asymptomatic and likely to transmit the infection would be less likely to transmit the infection if they wore a face mask. tissue or even a procedural mask at. And there is data to suggest that there is data on the flu and now it’s about data and COVID. But if you really want to derive protection from the mask, you want to protect yourself from others who pass the virus on to you. Mask quality is important and a high quality N95 mask will give you a much better level of protection, especially if you fit and wear it correctly. Thus, the quality of the mask is important. And I think if you are a vulnerable person who wants to use this mask to protect yourself and not just use this mask to reduce the risk that you could be a super spreader, you could pass the virus on to others then you have to look a high quality mask. They are available. Remember, originally during the outbreak, people were reluctant to recommend masks because there was a shortage of healthcare workers. There are now plenty of masks. The administration has done a good job of bringing masks to market so that you can get them from reputable suppliers like 3M right now.

JOHN DICKERSON: Let me ask you a question about disinformation from a medical perspective. What are the one or two things that are the biggest sources of misinformation, in your opinion?

DR. GOTTLIEB: Probably the most common is that the vaccine itself will have an impact on fertility. I think that discourages a lot of young women from getting vaccinated. I think the exact opposite is true. What we have seen is that COVID infection during pregnancy can be very dangerous. I think every pregnant woman or mother-to-be should talk to her doctor about getting the vaccine. The CDC has now launched a registry called V-Safe. You can go on and watch now with 133,000 women who signed up for this registry and got pregnant after being vaccinated – they got vaccinated while they were pregnant. So they are prospectively collecting data on the safety of the vaccine during pregnancy, and that looks very encouraging. Pfizer, the company of which I am a member, is also conducting a study on the vaccine during pregnancy. So I think this is the biggest misinformation out there to discourage the use of the vaccine. The other is that it’s sort of a DNA vaccine. It will integrate into your genome. This is not the case. This is an mRNA vaccine. And what it really does is provide a genetic sequence of spike protein mRNA. So basically the sequence that codes for the production of the spike protein, which is a protein on the surface of the virus that we want to develop antibodies against. And when the body sees this mRNA, it does one of two things. Either it destroys it or translates it into protein, and then your body develops antibodies against that protein. All vaccines work on the same basic principle and they try to deliver a protein to the surface of the virus, which you are trying to stimulate the immune system to develop antibodies against in this case, instead of delivering that protein directly. What you are delivering is a genetic sequence for that protein.

JOHN DICKERSON: Alright, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, thank you very much, as always. See you next week. FACE THE NATION will be back in a minute. Stay with us.