But some experts believe there is hope.
Vaccinations, spring weather and, surprisingly, the large number of infections all offer optimism, said dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, and a member of the U.S. Vaccine for Food and Drug Administration’s vaccines and related biologics. Products Advisory Committee, said Wednesday.
There is also an expectation that the incoming Biden administration will handle things better than the Trump administration has.
While the “awful” numbers are likely to worsen over the next few months, Offit believes the U.S. could stop the spread of the virus by June.
Offit believes things “will improve dramatically soon.”
Vaccines
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, agrees. “We can see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, adding that vaccines show us a way forward.
States are still struggling to get vaccinations into people’s arms. Only about 35% of the vaccines distributed to states were given to humans, according to people’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the US government’s Operation Warp Speed has only managed to send about 10 million doses to state and local governments – half of what it promised to be distributed and administered by the end of 2020.
“It’s still not there at all. There’s still a lot of work to get the vaccination program up and running,” Benjamin said.
But there is a constant increase in the number of people being vaccinated. States have passed an average of 500,000 vaccinations a day – something that gives Benjamin the confidence that the country can reach a million a day, if not more.
The incoming administration
Offit is also hopeful about the incoming Biden administration and notes that President-elect Joe Biden’s team ‘is not engaged in this cult of denial’ that surrounded the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, and ‘this problem on the neck ‘.
Benjamin believes the Biden team will make more use of the Defense Production Act to ensure that there is a steady, reliable supply of vaccine. He is also looking forward to a better coordinated, government response.
Dr Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety and an Infectious Diseases Physician, praised the Biden government’s plans to increase the availability of home tests, rejoin the World Health Organization and pandemic staff at the To restore National Security. Council.
He is also hopeful that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will operate independently under Biden’s government. “The fact that we could not really cope with this pandemic was because the CDC could not act as usual during emergencies for infectious diseases,” Adalja said.
Warmer weather
“The weather will get warmer, when the weather gets warmer, which makes it much harder for this virus,” Offit said. If it is hot and humid, the virus, which is spread by tiny droplets, should spread less easily, he said.
Benjamin also pointed out that people can spend more time outdoors when the weather in the US gets hot. People can stay further apart when they are outside and do not share the same air – so the virus is less likely to spread from one person to another.
“The virus will find it harder to move around from person to person, especially when people are outdoors outside in the summer,” Adalja said.
“We did not really see the season this summer because there were so many people who were not immune to the virus,” he added. “Even in the weather conditions of summer, (the virus) found it quite easy to find new people to infect.”
Growing herd immunity
Another reason for optimism is that a large number of Americans are likely to be infected and now have some immunity to the virus, Offit said.
Although 23 million have been diagnosed and reported, it is an underestimation. Many people have had asymptomatic or mild symptomatic infection and have never been tested. The number of people infected is likely closer to 65 or 70 million, Offit said.
“It’s 20% of the population who, when exposed to this virus again, are not going to get sick,” he said. It is not clear how long immunity lasts after infection, but studies indicate that it is at least eight or nine months and maybe longer.
If another 55 to 60% of the population can be vaccinated – something which, according to Offit, can be done at a million to a million and a half doses a day – then I really think we should have the spread of this virus by June. ”
Benjamin agrees.
“History has told us that these things disappear. And you have to do something to make them disappear,” Benjamin said. “Even in 1918, 1919, people became infected, and tragically the world had to go through it. We reached a kind of equilibrium, reached the herd immunity and it ended.”
Notes of warning
“I think there is a huge potential that this pandemic will end in 2021, before the end of the year, maybe even before the fall,” says Dr. Aaron Glatt, spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America and chairman of the Department of Medicine on Mount Sinai-South Nassau.
“But it will certainly not work out if the vaccine is not distributed, or heaven forbid, the vaccine does not work in the future, does not work as well.”
Dr. Sunny Jha, an anesthetist at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, is also cautious.
“If we can scale up the numbers, if we can get rid of the hesitation, if we can eliminate the disinformation, misinformation, I think I will be much more optimistic,” Jha said.
“But if you ask me today if I feel we’re on our way to summer, based on what I see now, I do not think we will be there.
“I’m cautiously optimistic, I think,” he said. “I think we have the right attitude. I think if we remove the hesitation, we will be in a better position.”