Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday that he believes coronavirus cases in the United States will continue to decline during the spring and summer, allowing Americans to relax for now with some precautions against the pandemic.
However, in an interview with “Squawk Box,” the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration completely disagreed with the recent publication in The Wall Street Journal entitled “We will Heard Immunity for April.” It was written by Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and has sparked debates since it was published Thursday.
Covid cases in the United States have fallen by 77% in the last six weeks, Makary notes in the article, arguing that the decline is largely due to the fact that the level of natural immunity of the American population it is “almost certainly” superior to what antibody studies suggest. When it comes to the pace of vaccinations, Makary writes, “I hope Covid will disappear mostly in April, which will allow Americans to resume normal life.”
Gottlieb said he doesn’t “necessarily agree” with some of the numbers Makary used to submit his argument, but added, “I think the feeling is right.”
Makary writes that about 55% of the people in the country have natural immunity against a previous coronavirus infection. While agreeing that the confirmed total of 28.1 million U.S. cases in Johns Hopkins is insufficient, Gottlieb told CNBC he believes about 120 million people (or about 36% of the population). American population) have been infected with the coronavirus throughout the pandemic.
After taking vaccination data into account, Gottlieb estimated that approximately 40% of U.S. residents now have antibodies to previous infection or inoculation, a percentage that will increase as more people are vaccinated. According to the CDC, 43.6 million Americans have received at least one dose of the two-shot Covid vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer since they received FDA emergency clearance in December.
“When you reach 40% or 50% of the population with some kind of protective immunity, you don’t have herd immunity, but you have enough immunity in the population that this [virus] it just doesn’t transfer that easily, ”Gottlieb said.
“I think as we get into the warm climate, as we vaccinate more of the population and given that at least a third of Americans have had this, I think infection levels will go down drastically throughout spring and summer, ”Gottlieb said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, has previously said that 75% to 85% of the population would need to develop immunity to create a protective “umbrella”. CDC officials also recently said that 85% of people should be covered to achieve so-called herd immunity if a variant of the rapidly spreading virus, such as B117, was first reported in the UK. United, it became the dominant strain in the US
The presence of more contagious virus variants causes some parts of the United States to have higher infection rates this summer “than it otherwise would not have been,” Gottlieb added. “But I don’t think it will change the overall trajectory.”
If that trajectory is maintained and is a “low-prevalence environment” in the coming months, Gottlieb said he hopes children can safely attend summer camps, for example. “I think people will come out and do a lot of things this summer, a lot of accumulated consumer spending demand,” he said.
“I think in the autumn we will have to take certain precautions, but we will do things again. Then, as we enter the deep winter, as this circulates again … I think that December will come, we can start pulling back said Gottlieb. “It doesn’t mean we have to stop and we will do what we have done [past] December, but it means we may not have parties, board meetings in December may be Zoom instead of face-to-face meetings. “
Gottlieb stressed that he believes the U.S. recovery from the pandemic will not be a “linear progression,” where the risk of coronavirus steadily decreases month after month. He warned that the winter months can be more difficult because it is a respiratory pathogen. “Once it’s winter again in 2021, in 2022, we’re going to have to take certain precautions. I think if there’s going to be a normal schedule for the next twelve months, it’s likely to be this spring and summer.”
Outreach: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a member of Pfizer’s genetic testing start-up boards Tempus, Aetion healthcare technology company and biotechnology company Illuminate. He is also co – chair of Norway Cruise Line Holdings‘i Royal Caribbean“Healthy sailing panel.