Washington – Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), warned on Sunday that a new strain of the coronavirus discovered in Europe that led to severe restrictions in parts of the UK appears to be more contagious than existing variants, but probably is no more lethal.
“ There’s a new variety, and there’s the question of whether or not it became the predominant species in London because of what we call the founder effect – it just got to London and experienced some early super-spreading events – whether or not it was the The The result of what we call selective pressure is that it is selected because it has properties that allow it to spread faster, “Gottlieb said in an interview on Face the Nation.” Increasingly, it appears to be the latter. It seems this new strain is more contagious. “
But Gottlieb said “it probably isn’t more deadly,” although he noted that public health authorities “don’t yet fully understand its outline.”
“It doesn’t appear to be more virulent or dangerous than everyday COVID,” he said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed new, tougher restrictions in London and parts of southern England amid the rapid increase in coronavirus infections, which appears to be caused by a new strain of the coronavirus that is more than 70% more transmissible than existing ones variants. The UK has notified the World Health Organization of the new species, and several European countries have halted flights from the UK in response.
Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams reiterated Gottlieb’s assessment of the new species, telling “Face the Nation” earlier Sunday that officials “have no evidence that it will harm our ability to continue vaccinating humans or that it is more dangerous or deadly than the species used. currently out there and what we know about. “
Gottlieb said the next question is whether people who have already had COVID-19 can be infected by the new variant and whether the new strain rules out vaccines.
“The answer probably isn’t,” he said. “This virus mutates like all viruses. Flu mutates the most. And what viruses do is they change their surface proteins. And once they do, the antibodies we developed against those surface proteins stop working. Now flu mutates very fast, changes the surface proteins very quickly. So we constantly need to get another flu shot. Some viruses like measles don’t change their surface proteins. And so the measles shot we got 20 years ago still works. Coronavirus seems somewhere in the middle. It will mutate and change its surface proteins, but probably slow enough to develop new vaccines. “
According to the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine For emergencies on Dec. 11, health workers and top elected officials, including members of Congress, began receiving their first doses of the coronavirus vaccine last week. Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams vaccinated on live television Friday, and President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will receive their first recordings on Monday.
The FDA has issued an emergency use permit for a second coronavirus vaccine, developed by Moderna, on Friday and shipments began to roll out Sunday.
While the approval of the vaccines marked a new, welcome phase of the coronavirus pandemic, cases in the US continue to increase and the death toll continues to rise. There have been more than 17.6 million infections and more than 316,000 deaths from COVID-19, and Gottlieb predicted that infections will peak around the first week of January.
“Healthcare will continue to see a burden well beyond the peak in infections due to the delay in time to hospitalization and also a delay in time to death from COVID,” he said. “So after the peak of those infections, we’ll see the death toll increase for another three weeks.”
Gottlieb said the nation is “currently at the height of this pandemic,” and said it is critical that doses of the vaccines are delivered as quickly as possible.
“A vaccine delivered next week is likely to have a greater impact on public health than a vaccine delivered in five weeks,” he said. “So we have to lean forward and try to get as much of the vaccine out as possible.”