LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Leading American infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that he expects America to achieve enough collective COVID-19 immunity through vaccinations to regain “some semblance of normalcy” by the fall of 2021, despite early setbacks in the vaccine rollout.
Fauci made his comments during an online discussion about the pandemic with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who announced from the outset that a more contagious variant of coronavirus originally found in Britain had been discovered in his state a day after the first known US case was documented in Colorado.
Newsom said the coronavirus variant B.1.1.7 had been confirmed in a Southern California patient earlier in the day. He gave no further details. But the California Department of Public Health later said in a statement that the person, a patient in San Diego County, has no known travel history, suggesting the variant is spreading within the community.
Fauci said he was “not surprised,” adding that more cases of the variant are likely to emerge across the country and that the mutating nature of such viruses is normal.
“It appears that this particular mutation improves the transmission of the virus from one person to another,” he said. Individuals infected with previous forms of SARS-CoV-2 “do not appear to become reinfected as a result,” meaning that any immunity already acquired is “protective against this particular strain,” added Fauci.
He also emphasized that the so-called British variant is believed to be no more serious in the disease it causes, and that newly approved COVID-19 vaccines will be just as effective against it as against previously known forms of the virus.
The same is believed to be true for a second new variant, also more contagious and first reported in South Africa, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Still, the emergence of a more transmissible variant could make a rapid rollout of immunizations all the more critical.
President-elect Joe Biden warned Tuesday that it could take years to inoculate most Americans, given an initial vaccination distribution that falls short of the Trump administration’s promises. He called on Congress to approve more funding for the endeavor.
‘WE GO TO HOPE’
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that he was confident that early disruptions in the vaccine’s distribution will be corrected.
“As we move into January, the feeling is that we will gain momentum to catch up,” he told Newsom, saying he expected immunizations to become widely available to the general public by April.
Assuming the broad vaccination campaign is progressing properly through May, June and July, “By the time we reach early fall, we will have enough immunity to the herd to really get back to a strong semblance of normalcy – schools, theaters, sporting events, restaurants, ”said Fauci.
Nevertheless, the prospect of fighting a more contagious form of the virus comes as the pandemic has been largely out of control in much of the United States for weeks. California, the most populous state with 40 million, has become the newest focal point as hospitals in and around Los Angeles report that intensive care units are overcrowded.
Medical experts attribute a worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the fact that many Americans are not following public health warnings to avoid social gatherings and unnecessary travel during the end of the year holidays.
The result is an alarming spate of infections and hospitalizations that have pushed healthcare systems to their limits, and a steadily rising death toll in the US, which has lost more than 338,000 lives across the country to date.
The pandemic has not only turned daily social life in America upside down, but has also stifled the economy, leaving millions of workers sitting still on a number that has not been seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The first US case of the British variant was announced Tuesday by Colorado Governor Jared Polis. At a press conference on Wednesday, Polis described the patient infected as a National Guard soldier in his 20s assigned to help with a COVID outbreak at a nursing home in Simla, Colorado, on the outskirts of the metropolitan area from Denver.
The patient, who is isolating and recovering at home, has no recent travel history, which Dr. Henry Walke, incident manager for the CDC’s COVID response, is a sign of person-to-person transmission of the variant within the United States.
The director of Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment told reporters that a second member of the National Guard may also have contracted the British variant, although final lab confirmation was still pending.
The new variant has been detected in various European countries, but also in Canada, Australia, India, South Korea and Japan, among others.
On Monday, the US government began testing negative for COVID-19 of all air passengers arriving from Britain – including US citizens – within 72 hours of departure.
The government may extend coronavirus testing requirements for international air travelers outside Britain as early as next week, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Keith Coffman in Denver, and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool