Washington – The former commissioner for food and drug administration, dr. Scott Gottlieb, predicted on Sunday that the new variant of the coronavirus discovered in the UK will be the dominant strain in the US within a few weeks.
In an interview with “Face the Nation”, Gottlieb said the new variant is about 0.5% of all infections nationwide, but said it is likely to double every week.
“This is the experience from other countries and this is the experience we have seen so far in the United States,” he told Face the Nation. “So it’s now 1%. It’s going to be 2%, then 4%, then 8%, then 16%, then 32%. So it’s going to start taking over in about five weeks.”
The new strain, known as B.1.1.7, was detected in the United Kingdom in December and has since spread to more than 30 countries and at least ten states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report on Friday that the variant discovered in the UK, which is believed to be more transmissible, would be the dominant strain by March. Another variant, known as B.1.351, also originated in South Africa.
While B.1.351 has not yet been detected in the US, Gottlieb said “the bottom line is that these tribes are already here.”
“It really changes the equation, and I think it’s a relentless strike of this virus in the spring, while infections would really start to decline in the spring,” he said. “We would have had a quiet spring. We could have persistently high infection levels in the spring until we finally vaccinated enough people.”
There have been more than 23.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US, and the death toll is 400,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. But Gottlieb agrees with the prediction of dr. Rochelle Walensky, the elected president, Joe Biden, to lead the CDC, that the country is likely to see 500,000 deaths in the coronavirus by mid-February.
“I think tragically, that’s right. What we’ll probably see is that infection is starting to decrease. I think we’re seeing that at the moment. We’re seeing a peak in the short term in terms of the number of new daily cases,” he said. he said. “Unfortunately, deaths and hospitalizations will continue to increase over the next two or three weeks because it is a backward indicator. But we are seeing a steady decline for about four weeks, maybe five weeks until this new variant starts to take over.”
Gottlieb said the new strains and the growing death toll underscore the need to speed up the administration of the coronavirus vaccines.
The incoming administration of Biden has a goal of 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days of Mr.
“I think the plan before the new government makes a lot of sense,” he said. ‘This is a kind of approach, which we talked about, to try to push it through different channels, like the big box stores, like pharmacies, to set up more federally chartered websites in collaboration with the states. . “
According to the CDC, more than 31.1 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been distributed and more than 12.2 million have been administered.