Former head of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, said on Sunday that nursing homes against which vaccination for COVID-19 had begun were likely to see a decline in the number of new cases within days.
Gottlieb, who spoke to CBS’s “Face the Nation”, estimates that it takes about a week to activate vaccines and provide immunity to viruses, and that as a result many long-term care facilities for the elderly will see their numbers start to fall. soon.
“We will start to see an indication that the vaccines are likely to have an effect as early as this week, because we know that the immunity starts to kick in about a week after vaccination,” Gottlieb said. “It will therefore have an impact on the mortality trends with COVID, but it comes late in the season.”
# COVID-19 and old age homes: @ScottGottliebMD tell @margbrennan nursing homes can expect to see an “indication” of # vaccines an effect started “already in the week” as immunity.
“Vaccination will take about three weeks to get through all the nursing homes” pic.twitter.com/jEUcE97ADd
– Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) 27 December 2020
He noted that elderly patients have a more urgent need for a second dose of the vaccine to provide the virus with immunity, while younger people have shown stronger immunity after just one dose.
However, the pace of distribution of the first dose was slower than officials had hoped on Sunday, according to Gottlieb.
“The pace is slower than said. I think it’s probably realistic to think the pace is going to be a bit slower, especially if we try to move through difficult vaccinations next month,” he told host Margaret. Brennan.
“I suspect there are more than a million vaccinated. There is a delay in reporting. But the idea that we are going to get 20 million vaccinations, vaccinations by the end of the year, is probably unrealistic at this stage,” he said. Gottlieb continued.
Government officials, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Gretchen Whitmer Sunday shows preview: COVID-19 relief awaits Trump’s signature; the government continues to vaccinate Michigan to reopen high schools, indoor entertainment amid stabilizing coronavirus rates, Michigan reinstalls moratorium on water closure more (D), has been criticizing the federal government over the past few days over the distribution process for the COVID-19 vaccine, calls that led to the deployment of the top logistics official responsible for the deployment, General of the Army, Gustave Perna, apologized for a “wrong communication” he said led to states being told they would receive more doses of the vaccine than were actually available.
“I accept responsibility for the wrong communication,” Perna said last Saturday. “So to the governors and the staff of the governor; accept my personal apology. If it was disruptive in your decision-making and in your conversations with the people of your great state, I will work hard to rectify it.”