Hawaii infectious disease expert warns pandemic could last at least 2 more years

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A respected infectious disease expert from Hawaii warns we could be in this pandemic for at least two more years.

His predictions and advice are hard to take, but he says it’s an unvarnished look at science and the contagious variant of the Delta.

“I’m going to end by telling you something you don’t want to hear,” said Dr. Tim Brown, senior researcher at the East-West Center and expert in infectious diseases, at the end of his Zoom presentation last week. .

“When will this pandemic be over? It won’t be at the end of this year. It probably won’t be at the end of next year. Honestly, we are in the long run with COVID. You are probably still looking at two to three years to fix this problem, ”he said during his presentation.

This week, HNN sat down with Brown in a one-on-one interview.

“I’m not going to make a prediction with exactly how long. I will say it will almost certainly be with us until at least 2023, ”Brown said.

He says the delta variant has been a game-changer, with variants emerging every six months and only 28% of the world vaccinated. Hawaii and the rest of the United States are not immune.

“People want to coat things and oh yeah, it’ll be better in two months, in three months. It is not, ”said Brown.

“We’re probably going to be in the delta wave for another two to three months and after that we are probably going to go into the Thanksgiving and Christmas wave,” he added.

He says contact tracing studies in Singapore have shown super-spread events with vaccinated people infecting other vaccinated people.

“You can see that many of the infections in this outbreak have occurred in people who have been vaccinated,” said during his presentation.

“And to make matters worse, those red dots mean it was asymptomatic transmission,” he added.

He explains revolutionary infections.

“During the first four to five days after being infected, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated have almost the same viral load,” he said.

He says people who are vaccinated recover faster and are much less likely to get seriously ill. The vast majority in hospitals are not vaccinated.

While Hawaii’s rulers have said all restrictions will drop to the 70% vaccination threshold, the governor is reconsidering it.

“We will assess the appropriate vaccination rate that would be necessary for us to reduce all restrictions,” Governor David Ige said on Tuesday.

Brown says the new target should be 100% to stop death and serious illness and while he doesn’t support a full lockdown, he believes the new restrictions don’t go far enough.

“I think restricting 10 people on indoor groups without commenting on keeping groups of the same household or a bubble of close friends is probably not very effective,” Brown said.

Brown says continuous vaccination, masking and distancing are essential and he believes Hawaii’s Safe Travels program should re-impose testing on everyone.

During this pandemic, Brown says he is not getting on a plane or eating at a restaurant.

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