Anthony Fauci passed a few days, but he spoke to WTOP about the changes in the US approach to global health, as well as the latest developments in the fight against COVID-19.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a few days had passed since President Joe Biden took office on Wednesday and began making major changes to the country’s approach to global health.
Fauci spoke to WTOP about the changes, as well as COVID-19 variants, the vaccines developed for the ongoing battle and the way vaccines have been distributed so far.
Back to WHO
In the first 48 hours of Biden, the US rejoined the World Health Organization, which left former President Donald Trump, blaming it for spreading the COVID-19 pandemic (without ever giving the reasoning behind its assumption declare). When Biden made the announcement, he asked Fauci to become the head of the US delegation to the WTO executive council.
Fauci told WTOP he is very privileged to be asked and honored to accept it.
“President Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris have made one of the most important issues on their agenda to return to a kind of normalization with the WHO,” Fauci said. ‘If you’re having a global pandemic – which by definition is a pandemic – you need to respond globally. It was therefore untenable that we would not be closely linked to the WHO. ”
Fauci added that the U.S. would resume its financial contributions to the organization, and agreed to join COVAX, a consortium of countries aimed at getting vaccines to developing countries.
The US also repealed the “Mexico City policy”, whereby any group related to abortion could not receive US funding
“So, this is where we are,” Fauci said. “We are on the international scene again, while we withdrew before.”
COVID-19 variant
RNA viruses such as SARS-COV-2 ‘have a tendency to mutate’, Fauci said, and the development of new variants, such as those recently discovered in the UK, is not such a surprise.
The good news about the new variant, which according to Fauci dominates the cases in the UK, is that it is not in itself more deadly. But it is more transmissible and under real circumstances: “If you have an increase in transmissibility, you will send more people to the hospital, and eventually more people will die,” he said.
The big question with the new variant, Fauci added, is what impact it will have on the effectiveness of vaccines, as well as the monoclonal antibodies used in some cases as treatments.
In the US, Fauci said: “It does not appear to have a significant impact on the efficacy of the vaccine, although it may reduce it a bit.”
However, variations on the virus cause major problems in Brazil and especially South Africa, Fauci said: “not enough to take [treatments and vaccines] outside the graph … but enough to make us say, ‘You really have to keep an eye on it.’ ‘
And while this is not yet a major problem in the U.S., the possibility of virus variations means authorities need to be ‘smart’ about the possibility of ‘changing the vaccine’, Fauci said.
He quickly pointed out that it only makes it even more important to be vaccinated: ‘Because if you prevent a virus from repeating easily … then you prevent it from mutating. So if you do not want to see a virus takeover in this country, you have to suppress all the virus that is here. ‘
‘We look at it closely; it does not seem to have a significant impact on what we do, but we want to be ready to be vigilant and make changes if we have to, “Fauci said.
As for the further travel restrictions, the doctor said: ‘Nothing final, nothing definite has been decided on it. But it is definitely being considered. ”
Vaccination of vaccines
Speaking of which, the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines in the US has had problems, but Fauci said he is confident that problems can be solved. “We need to do better – I mean, of course.”
That said, he added: ‘Some states, some cities, have done really well with the initial implementation. Every time you start implementing a very complicated situation, such as vaccinating a country of 330 million people in the midst of an outbreak, there will be bumps in the road and there will be hiccups. ‘
He said about 16 million Americans were vaccinated, while a little over 30 million doses were distributed.
“We would like to see the gap narrow a bit. Now, of course, there is a delay in reporting. They were thus most likely vaccinated more than 16, 17 million people; “they just haven’t been vaccinated yet that they have been vaccinated,” Fauci said.
The ideal is a “steady flow … when the vaccine enters, it goes into humans,” without vaccines disappearing into freezers and without people waiting in line for a vaccine that is not there yet.
“So we can do better. I mean, you have to admit it – and that’s what we’re trying to do. ”
Fauci said it is still important for people who got their first blows to get their second. ‘What we know from experience with these and other viruses and other vaccines is that at the end of the primary phase, you get some protection – not optimal – before you get the second dose. We do not know what the durability of the protection is. ”
‘At the moment, the protection after one dose is not optimal, but there are some that can be sure. But we do not know the durability, and that is why the clinical trial with a data guide us, that we need two doses to be optimally protected with the mRNA vaccines and that you are optimally protected after the second dose, he added.
After you have been vaccinated
And if you do get vaccinated, Fauci said, you should continue to wear a face mask and continue with the social distance and other steps that help slow the spread of COVID-19.
If you are vaccinated, you can still carry the virus, Fauci explained. “It is possible that you become infected, you do not know it, that you do not get sick, you are doing well – but you shed enough virus that you can be a threat to other people.”
Even though everyone in your household has been vaccinated, Fauci said, “Herd immunity in the home is different from herd immunity in the population.”
It’s still a way to go: ‘We’ll probably need to vaccinate about 70% to 85% of the population before you get herd immunity. When we get to that point, you can talk about easing some of the restrictions on public health – not completely, but not the strictness we need now. ”
Health differences
Fauci reiterates the additional problems that black and Latino communities face due to inequalities that have existed in American society for much longer than the virus.
‘Firstly, they are more likely to become infected in the first place because of the work that many of them do, that is outside the community and with people in essential jobs. Next, when they do become infected, they have a greater incidence and incidence of the comorbidities which makes it more likely that you will have a serious outcome if you become infected. And these are things like high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease.
‘The social determinants of health are of such a nature that the people, simply on a demographic basis, have a higher incidence. These are not races, these are the things they unfortunately experienced without their own guilt, literally from birth – you know, wrong diet, economic situations, lack of access to health care, things like that.
‘I would therefore hope that we have a commitment to remove if anything comes out of our experience here [them]. And it will take decades to do that, ”Fauci said.
The conclusion
“I think things will probably get worse before it gets better,” Fauci said.
He said that the number of cases is starting to decrease, which means that hospitalizations and deaths should eventually decrease due to the ‘strange’ statistics from a month ago, when there were 300,000 to 400,000 cases and 4,000 deaths per day.
“Although there are difficult times ahead, I think that things – if we stay on track, will continue to implement social measures – hopefully we will get better and better when we come in February and March,” Fauci said.
WTOP’s Mike Murillo contributed to this report.
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