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Dr Scott Gottlieb said on Wednesday he expects the “pandemic phase” of the coronavirus to be over in the United States once vaccines are available for children and Merck’s antiviral pill is approved by the public. regulators.
The other crucial development is that the highly transmissible delta variant of Covid has “circulated across the country,” which will likely end around Thanksgiving, Gottlieb told CNBC’s David Faber in a Summit’s Squawk on the Street interview. from 13D Monitor’s active-passive investors in New York City.
“At the end of the day we will hopefully have a vaccine available for children and at some point before the end of the year we will likely have Merck’s oral drug available if things go well. and that is under favorable review, ”said Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who now sits on the board of directors of vaccine maker Covid Pfizer, which is also working on an antiviral pill.
“I think those two things are going to be the bookend of the pandemic phase of this virus and we’re going to go into the most endemic phase, when it becomes a pervasive risk but doesn’t represent the extreme risk that it just now poses. “said Gottlieb.
Seasonal influenza is an example of an endemic virus.
Gottlieb previously told CNBC that the United States is unlikely to completely eradicate Covid like other diseases such as polio and smallpox.
An FDA advisory group is due to meet on October 26 to determine whether the use of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine should be extended to children aged 5 to 11. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech submitted their initial test data focused on this age cohort to the regulatory agency last week. The FDA has previously cleared the companies’ vaccine for people aged 12 and older, including full approval for people aged 16 and older.
Merck said on Friday that its antiviral pill, developed alongside Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by about 50% in trial participants who had mild to moderate cases of Covid. The companies have said they plan to file an emergency use authorization application with the FDA “as soon as possible.”
Gottlieb said he believed that children becoming eligible for the vaccine and those vaccinated with the option of taking an antiviral pill if they had a breakthrough infection will be “two very important psychological events”, particularly with regard to the disease. resumption of activities such as returning to the office.
“Many vaccinated people who fear going back to the office recognize that the risk to them is low. They are vaccinated. They are unlikely to have a very bad Covid result,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration. “What worries them is bringing a mild or asymptomatic infection back to their home where they might have young children or an older parent.”
Currently, 76% of eligible Americans – those aged 12 and older – have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 66% are fully vaccinated.
The total number of new daily coronavirus infections in the United States has declined in recent days, after the delta variant sparked a new wave of cases that hit parts of the country at different times. It began this summer, first crossing the southern United States before expanding to more states in the West and Midwest.
The seven-day average of new daily Covid cases in the United States is around 103,000, according to CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s an 11% drop from a week ago, but still significantly above infection levels in early summer. In June, the weekly average of new cases per day was less than 15,000.
– CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and serves on the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion, and biotech company Illumina. He is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings‘ and Royal Caribbean‘s “Healthy sail panel.”
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