Washington Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), warned that worryingly coronavirus variant could trigger new outbreaks in New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in the early days of the pandemic.
“You see a lot of infections taking off in parts of New York City. What we don’t understand with 1,526 is whether people are getting re-infected with it and whether people who may have been vaccinated are now getting infected with it,” Gottlieb said on ‘Face Sunday. the Nation ‘, referring to B.1.526, the scientific name for the variant first discovered in New York.
Gottlieb said the B.1.526 variant is of concern because it carries a mutation found in another variant first discovered in South Africa, B.1.351, which allows it to re-infect those who previously had COVID-19 contracted or have since been vaccinated against the virus.
“The question is whether 1,526 is responsible for some of the increases we’re seeing in New York right now and whether this is the start of a new outbreak in the city,” said Gottlieb.
In New York, Gottlieb said virus variants are responsible for 50% of new infections, with B.1.526 being the most common strain. He urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to step in and help the city’s health officials sequence virus samples to gain a better understanding of how the variant spreads.
“We’re just not very good at collecting the cases and linking it back to clinical experience at this point. have already been vaccinated. COVID, “said the former FDA commissioner.
Gottlieb said the CDC should encourage doctors to come forward and report possible cases of patients who had previously had COVID-19 who became reinfected.
“We don’t know that’s happening. But anecdotally, some doctors are reporting that now and that might explain why you’re seeing an increase in the number of cases,” he said. “It could just be that, you know, 1.526 and B.1.1.7 are becoming more common, and that’s responsible in itself. But you want to make sure it doesn’t re-infect people.”
According to John Hopkins University, the test positivity rate in New York State for the past month was 3.3%, although Gottlieb noted that testing has slowed and positivity rates in certain areas of New York City are as high as 15%. The state has had an average of 6,337 new daily infections in the past week.
New York State has administered more than 7.4 million doses of coronavirus vaccine. According to Johns Hopkins, about 2.4 million people are fully vaccinated, representing about 12.6% of the state’s population.
Across the country, Gottlieb said the growing number of vaccinations, as well as immunity among those who have had COVID-19, should be enough to prevent a “fourth wave” of infections.
“I think the fact that we’ve had so much previous infection, 120 million Americans have been infected with this virus, the fact that we’ve now been vaccinated, we’ve had one shot in at least 70 million Americans, even if you take it into account. The fact that maybe about 30% of vaccinated people had COVID before, we are talking about some form of protective immunity in about 55% of the population, ”said Gottlieb. “So there’s enough of a backstop here that I don’t think you’re going to see a fourth wave.”