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Dr Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday that he believes the wave of Covid driven by the delta variant that slammed the southern United States has peaked.
“I thought there was an indication that the South was peaking, and I think it’s pretty clear right now that the South is peaking,” said the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner. . “It doesn’t look like this because we still have a lot of new infections day to day, and hospitals still have very difficult weeks ahead,” he admitted. “They are always going to reach their maximum as the infections start to decrease.”
Gottlieb’s comments on “Squawk Box” came as the seven-day national average of new daily coronavirus infections in the United States stood at around 147,300, according to a CNBC analysis of data from the United States. Johns Hopkins University. This is 13% more than a week ago.
Many southern states, especially in areas with lower Covid vaccination rates, such as parts of Louisiana and Arkansas, were among the first places in the United States to experience a sharp increase in infections. coronavirus related to the highly transmissible delta variant. Signs that the current wave of infection is continuing in the South may provide insight into the experiences of other parts of the United States that were affected by the delta variant a few weeks later.
“You look at states like Arkansas and Louisiana, you see the cases go down,” said Gottlieb, who sits on the board of directors of vaccine maker Covid Pfizer. The company’s vaccine received full FDA approval on Monday morning.
According to CNBC’s analysis of Hopkins data, the seven-day average of new daily Covid infections in Arkansas is down 0.5% from a week ago, meaning it’s more or less less stable. In Louisiana, new daily coronavirus cases are down 14% from a week ago, based on a seven-day average, according to CNBC analysis.
Other metrics inform Gottlieb’s view of the South. The former FDA chief, who led the drug regulator from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration, also highlighted estimated transmission rates in southern states which are calculated by the covidestim.org website.
Led by public health researchers at Harvard and Yale universities, the project provides real-time estimates on an epidemiological concept known as R0 or R zero. When the R nil is equal to 1, it means that the average person infected with the coronavirus will pass it on to another person. When the value is less than 1 for a particular location, it indicates a decrease in the transmission of a disease.
“The rate of expansion of this epidemic is below 1 in most countries of the South,” including Florida, said Gottlieb, “which shows an epidemic in contraction”.
Florida set a series of new records for daily coronavirus infections in its delta-triggered wave, and state hospitals have been pushed to the limit. At one point in early August, Florida accounted for around 20% of new Covid cases reported in the United States. CNBC’s analysis of Hopkins’ data shows the seven-day average of new coronavirus infections in Florida is more or less stable, down 0.67% from a week since.
“If you look at the data in Florida, the cases are decreasing day by day for every age group except children under 18 because you are now seeing outbreaks in schools that are causing the infection, ”Gottlieb said. “If schools weren’t open in Florida… and you hadn’t seen this epidemic in children, Florida would be coming very clearly in terms of daily cases.”
In late July, Gottlieb told CNBC he believed the whole of the United States would begin to see a plateau from his delta-driven wave from mid-August to the end. This does not happen.
More recently, on August 13, he said, “you’re going to see the delta wave probably unfold between late September and October.” Also during this interview, he added: “I hope we will be on the other side or come to the other side in November, and we will not see a big wave of infection after that from there. ‘other side of that delta wave. “
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and serves on the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotech company Illumina. He is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line‘sand Royal Caribbean‘s “Healthy sail panel.”
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