New CDC director says new strains of COVID-19 show ‘possible resistance’ to antibodies

The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that at least one new strain of COVID-19 has shown resistance to antibodies, but assured that the vaccines are still effective against the new variants.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, who was nominated by President-elect Joe Biden to be the next CDC chief, made the comments during an interview on Sunday on CBS “ Face the Nation. ”

In a bleaker prognosis, Walensky said she expected the United States to reach a staggering 500,000 virus-related deaths by mid-February and warned of “ weeks dark to come. ” Currently, the nation’s total stands at just under 398,000 people.

A number of new strains of coronavirus have emerged in recent weeks, including in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and even the US.

Concerns subsequently raised that current treatments and vaccines might be ineffective in treating the newer strains, but Walensky said such fears are currently unfounded.

“We have known for a long time that viruses mutate, not just coronavirus, but any virus,” she said. “ So far that from the UK seems more transmissible.

“We have no information that it escapes our vaccines,” Walensky continued. “We have indications that this is probably not the case.

The expert promised that “further studies” are underway to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine on the new strains.

Walensky also spoke in reference to a report claiming the new South African strain of COVID-19 was resistant to antibody therapies.

The doctor confirmed to Fox that she had “ heard similar things ” about antibodies used in treatments such as Regeneron therapy which was used to treat President Trump.

“I think not only are the South African and Brazilian strains concerned, but also that other future strains may have resistance to these antibodies,” Walensky said. “Do not take away all efficiency, but reduce efficiency.”

Walensky said she believes the best way to deal with any potential issues with mutations is to identify them as early as possible. She also called on Biden to make sure public health systems have the resources to be properly prepared.

The main concern, she said, would be that a lack of investment and preparation for such a development could significantly delay the reopening of public schools – one of the mayor of Biden’s goals for his first months in office. .

The new British variant of the virus has been shown to be much more transmissible than the original strain.

CDC experts have warned that the “ super-COVID ” strain could become dominant in the United States by March, causing massive outbreaks of coronavirus cases.

Already, at least 96 people in 16 states have detected cases of the highly contagious B117 variant, according to the DailyMail.com tracking.

The CDC declined to predict how many more cases and deaths the variant would cause in the United States.

But it is believed to be up to twice as infectious, and “ a higher rate of transmission will lead to more cases, increasing the number of people overall who need clinical care, exacerbating the burden of an already strained health system, no more deaths, ”they wrote in a report on Friday.

The United States now also has three local variants.

All three are believed to be more infectious than the more common variants currently, and one is virtually identical to the UK variant.

Utah and Illinois each reported their first cases of the British variant on Friday.

California, meanwhile, has become a cluster for the UK variant, with a total of 34 cases. Florida also has at least 22 cases of the mutant strain.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the United States has recorded more than 23.93 million cases of coronavirus and 397,574 deaths.

Walensky also offered a grim prediction on Sunday that the United States would hit 500,000 dead by mid-February.

She noted that the country has reached nearly 4,000 deaths per day and nearly 400,000 deaths from coronavirus in total.

“As of mid-February, we predict half a million deaths in this country,” she said.

Walensky stressed that these numbers do not represent the “ tens of thousands ” of people who have recovered from COVID-19 but are suffering from an “ uncharacterized syndrome ”.

She also said the United States had yet to see “ the ramifications of what happened with the vacation trip, ” which the new director said will result in “ high rates of hospitalizations and death thereafter ”.

“I think we still have dark weeks to come,” she said.