[ad_1]
Dr Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday that the current rise in Covid infections caused by the most contagious delta variant could be the “latest wave” of the virus in the United States.
“I don’t think Covid is going to be epidemic throughout fall and winter. I think it’s the last wave, the final act, assuming we don’t have an emerging variant that pierces the immunity offered by a previous infection or vaccination, “the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on” Squawk Box. ” “It will probably be the wave of infection that will eventually affect people who refuse to be vaccinated.”
Gottlieb said Americans have a few months left to take pandemic-related precautions, especially in the northern states of the United States as cases begin to peak in the south, until the wave of infections start to decrease again.
“I think it’s going to be a tough time right now,” he said. However, Gottlieb said the contagious nature of the delta variant and increasing vaccination rates could alter the trajectory of future infections.
“We are going to reach a certain level of exposure of the population to this virus, either by vaccination or by a previous infection which will stop circulating at that level, at this rate,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA. from 2017 to 2019 under the administration of Donald Trump.
The seven-day average of daily new coronavirus cases in the United States is 108,624, according to CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. This is 36% more than a week ago. The highly transmissible delta variant, first identified in India, accounts for 83% of all sequenced Covid cases in the country, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With the spike in infections coinciding with plans to reopen schools in the fall, Gottlieb warned that schools may have to start the year with heavier mitigation measures in place like wearing masks, testing, l physical remoteness and collection through pods.
“The goal has to be to open schools and keep them open, and we can’t expect to change all the behaviors in terms of what we do in mitigation in schools and get the same. result, especially with this new delta variant which is more contagious and which will inevitably be difficult to control in schools, ”said Gottlieb, who sits on the board of directors of vaccine maker Covid Pfizer.
Large amounts of vaccinated people can still congregate in one place if there is a “semblance of a bubble” around it, he said. Vaccinated people who are infected likely get the virus from unvaccinated people and then pass it on to close contacts after being contagious for a brief period of time, the former FDA chief said.
Gottlieb said wearing a better quality mask, like the KN95 mask, is more important now because the virus is known to spread through aerosols, not droplets. A high-quality cloth mask only offers 20% transmission protection, and most people don’t wear them well, he said.
“We are adopting a kind of alpha mindset in a delta world, and that won’t work,” said Gottlieb, referring to the variant of the alpha coronavirus first detected in the UK last year. “We will see that this delta variant is more difficult to control,” he said.
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 the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.
[ad_2]
Source link