Immunity and return to normal ?: The American doctor’s preferred prognosis

From a hazy front to a clearer horizon. Despite being one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the coronavirus pandemic, The United States is anticipating what control might be to bring the worst health crisis in history to an end.

After months of crossed leadership and the absence of a clear national strategy under the leadership of former President Donald Trump, the new President Joe Biden has landed in the White House to launch his offensive against the coronavirus.

With glimpses of hope, the goal of controlling viruses seems clearer, but no less difficult. The United States succumbed before the virus: almost 10% of its population has tested positive and some 480,000 people have died in the fight against the disease.

In dialogue with THE NATION and a handful of other international media, Anthony Fauci, The leading American expert in epidemiology and Biden’s choice to be the White House’s “essential voice” on health, He detailed how the coming months will be, implemented plans to fight the pandemic and predicted a possible normal date.

“Now that the United States is back from the World Health Organization (WHO) and onto the global stage in the fight against the pandemic, President [Joe Biden] he decided to adopt policies and recommendations based on what science dictates, ”Fauci said.

Last Thursday, the United States announced the signing of agreements that represent 200 million additional doses of coronavirus vaccine. Thus, the North American country has achieved a 50% increase in its stock with the illusion of controlling the pandemic.

In this scenario and according to the projections revealed by Fauci during the virtual conference, thanks to a mass vaccination campaign, the United States would obtain the so-called herd immunity – immunity of 80% of its population – from the beginning of the boreal fall (September 2021). The data, while optimistic, is no guarantee of a return to life as it was called before the pandemic, according to Fauci.

“It will never come back to normal completely, but it will probably come close to it”, argued the doctor. Likewise, Fauci raised the possibility that some countries may not see this in the short term because of what the different speeds of coronavirus vaccination campaigns represent.

In this sense, the health expert Americans trust the most – according to a YouGov survey – stressed the importance of global cooperation to arrive at a panorama that means global control of the virus. “What I hope is that we have enough global cooperation and that in a period of a year or two or more we can vaccinate virtually everyone, that we don’t have a cycle in which every season has another version of this virus, which requires [nueva] vaccination”, Fauci pointed out.

And he pointed out: “It is conceivable that this will happen. I hope not, but I believe that by vaccinating as many people as possible around the world, we would prevent that from happening. “

Fauci’s message matches a request from the UN Secretary General, António Guterres days ago, who called for a campaign that after noticing that although 70 million vaccines had been administered, less than 20,000 of those vaccines were on the African continent. On his Twitter account, the Portuguese said: “A global immunity deficit puts everyone at risk. We need a global immunization campaign that reaches everyone, everywhere “.

Andy Slavitt, White House adviser on the fight against Covid-19, also attended the meeting with reporters, and said: “We have a tough battle with monumental work to do, but we are very determined to move forward. every day, to put us on a par with the public and ultimately we believe we will be successful because of our focus on science and our commitment to getting a response from across government. “

Yesterday, from the headquarters of the National Institute of Health (NIH, for its acronym in English), President Biden said that thanks to the agreement reached with the Moderna and Pfizer laboratories, the United States would have enough supply to vaccinate 300 million Americans in July.

It is estimated that after allocating the next few weeks for the vaccination of priority groups classified by essential jobs and age, from April – Fauci estimated – the vaccination process open to all US citizens without age discrimination or original will begin.

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