Top members of Biden’s COVID response team warn internally that the US may not achieve herd immunity until Thanksgiving or even at the beginning of winter – months later than originally planned – according to two senior government officials.
In an interview with CBS News this week, President Joe Biden expressed some of these concerns, saying it would be “very difficult” to achieve herd immunity – a widespread resistance to the virus – “long before the end” of summer “with the current daily rate of approximately 1.3 million doses of vaccination. Other top officials working on the federal government’s COVID-19 response say they are uncomfortable with the long-term supply of vaccines and their impact on herd immunity, and have begun exploring ways to test U.S. production capacity expand, possibly through new partnerships with pharmaceutical companies from outside.
In addition to the supply issues, top health officials say they are increasingly concerned about the varieties of the UK and the South African COVID-19, the likelihood that more varieties will appear in the coming months and the possibility that these varieties will be the vaccines. avoid. There is evidence to suggest that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines protect against the B117 UK variant, although a recent study shows that a new mutation may make the vaccines less effective. Data collected by the Novavax and Johnson and Johnson clinical trials in South Africa indicate that their vaccines are less effective against the variant that is spreading rapidly in the country. And South Africa recently said that the deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine is being halted because evidence from clinical trials indicates that the vaccine does not work well against the variant.
Collectively, the recent data has frightened health officials in the Biden government, now raising questions about what more can be done to not just shorten the timeline of herd immunity – not just to bring Americans back to a kind of norm but also to ensure that the country does not experience another increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Officials have spent the past few days discussing ways to sharpen genome sequences to detect variants and how to convey the message that Americans need to follow health guidelines more closely to reduce transmission as B117 cases begin to increase.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who previously calculated that about 75 percent of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, said in an interview that he remains “cautiously optimistic” that the country can achieve the goal at the beginning of the fall.
“I still think it’s possible,” Fauci said. ‘As I said before, if we only start against mass vaccination when the general public starts getting it by the end of spring – April, May, June … and we will pass any hesitation against vaccines, then we must can reach 70 or 75 percentage point. We are going in the right direction. Fauci underestimated this prediction by emphasizing that he is constantly concerned about the new COVID-19 variants.
At a news conference Monday, Fauci said the modeling suggests the B117 variant “could become dominant by the end of March.” “This is the sobering news,” he said. “The two things we can do are, A, make sure we comply with social health measures … and, B, get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.” Vaccination rates have begun to improve across the country in recent days. And the Biden administration continues announce increase in the number of doses received each week.
Nevertheless, dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control, said Monday that the spread of variants “remains worrying and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends we are seeing.” As of this week, 699 cases have been confirmed in 34 states, of which 690 are the B117 variant, which was first reported in the UK, Walensky said.
‘The good news is that even with B117 as a dominant variant … cases dropped when people no longer had contact, when people wore masks … that’s the key. We need to give a viral enemy less chance to speak.”
– former CDC director Tom Frieden
‘The virus is going to continue to change no matter what we do. The type of mutations we will see will change as more people are vaccinated. And natural immunity will continue to put evolutionary pressure on the virus. Thus, we will see different types of mutations that can help escape the protection of vaccines or become more transmissible, ”said Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda Pharmaceuticals,’s vaccination company, which is not involved in the COVID response. ‘I think the most important thing is going to affect the offer [and access], currently has more vaccines, which prove to be effective and safe. And there, I think, the story is very, very promising. ”
With the threat of new variants becoming clearer, the message among Biden officials and health experts is clear: return to basics. Follow the guidelines for public health that the CDC has recommended over the past year – masks, social distance and limited inside contact.
“The more transmissible virus strains, the higher the threshold value for herd immunity. The B117 variant … is very worrying, ”said Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC. ‘The good news is that even with B117 as a dominant variant in the UK and elsewhere … cases dropped when people no longer had contact, when people wore masks and when people people who do not share air indoors with people who are not in your household. That’s the key. We need to give a viral enemy less chance to speak. ‘
Yet many cities across the country are moving in the opposite direction and starting to reduce their restrictions. In New York and New Jersey, for example, officials have begun to provide for increases in indoor dining and other indoor events such as weddings. The governor of Iowa has just lifted the state’s mask mandate.
Walensky pushed back against the new guidelines on Monday and told reporters she had discouraged any attempt to loosen masking lead. “We still have more than 100,000 cases a day,” she said. “I think we still have to control this pandemic. We still have this emerging threat of variants. And I will simply discourage any of these activities. We really need to keep all the mitigation measures going on here if we are really going to get control of this pandemic. ”
Atul Gawande, a former member of President Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said in an interview that vaccination is not the only way to combat the new variant.
‘We need more than the vaccines when it comes to strains. We have a very high rate of virus circulation. So we are going to continue to generate new tribes. “The fact that we have already seen strains that reduce the effect of the vaccines indicates what we can take action against,” Gawande said. “We’re going to have a year where it’s going to take a long time to not just reach people. We are going to have significant pockets from the population that will not yet receive the vaccine, either because they do not want it, either they want it or they want to wait. We are going to have a significant circulation. The variants increasingly defeat the monoclonal antibodies. ”