Dr. Michael Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He was also a member of Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory committee during the time since Biden was elected president and invested.
Earlier, Osterholm supported sending children to school. He said the virus was not a major threat to children. Now, the situation has changed.
“Please understand that this B.1.1.7 variant is a completely new ball game,” Osterholm told NBC’s Meet the Press. “It infects children very easily. Unlike previous strains of the virus, we didn’t see children under the eighth grade get infected often or were often not very sick, nor did they transmit them to the rest of the community.”
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Variant B.1.1.7 was first identified in the United Kingdom. It is now tearing up parts of the country.
In Minnesota, Osterholm said more than 740 schools reported cases of the variant. In Michigan, younger people have ended up in hospitals battling more severe symptoms than were previously seen in children with COVID-19.
This is similar to what health officials have seen in other countries.
The British Medical Journal wrote two months ago that “emerging evidence from Israel and Italy (shows) that there are more young children infected with new variants of COVID-19.”
Seeing this happen in his own garden, Osterholm questions his own previous advice.
“Everywhere you look where you see this emerging, you see kids playing a huge role in conveying this,” Osterholm said. “All the things we had planned about school children with this virus are no longer applicable. We need to completely review this issue.”
Vaccines are expected to help combat variant B.1.1.7. Still, Osterholm said there just isn’t enough time to rely on vaccines alone.
“We will not have almost enough (vaccine dose) in the next 6 to 8 weeks to overcome this wave and we will have to look at other ways to do it just like all other countries in the world who have had an increase of B.1.1.7 has had to do “.
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Younger infected, hospitalized
The difference between previous rises and another possible climb now is that “the people most affected now are the youngest people,” Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, told CNN on Sunday.
Larger populations have been prioritized nationwide for Covid-19 vaccines. More than 54% of Americans age 65 and older have been completely vaccinated, according to the CDC, while more than 75% of that same age group have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
But while this age group is now relatively well protected, Wen said, younger groups are still vulnerable as variant B.1.1.7 circulates. The variant is more contagious and can cause more serious illnesses, experts have said. Research suggests it may also be more deadly.
“We’re seeing in places like Michigan that the people who are now hospitalized for a large number are people in their 30s and 40s,” Wen said. “And now we even see children getting infected in greater numbers.”
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It’s not just Michigan.
“What we are seeing are bags of infection across the country, especially in younger people who have not been vaccinated and also in school-age children,” Drs. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” ” Sunday.
“If you look at what’s happening in Michigan, in Minnesota, in Massachusetts, for example, you see outbreaks in schools and infections in social cohorts that hadn’t been exposed to the virus before.”
“The infection is changing its contours in terms of who is being affected by it right now,” she added.
In Orange County, Florida, officials reported late last month an increase in Covid-19 cases in the 18-25 age group.
And a third of all county Covid-19 hospitalizations were people under the age of 45, according to Dr. Raul Pino, director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.
New Jersey officials said last week that variants, including strain B.1.1.7, contributed to an increase in cases and hospitalizations, including younger age groups.
Between the first and last week of March, there was a 31% and 48% increase in the number of hospitalizations between the 20-29 and 40-49 age groups, respectively, he said Wednesday. state health commissioner Judy Persichilli.
Meanwhile, senior residents only saw the single-digit percentage increase, he added.
How can we slow down another wave of infections
Despite the alarming warning signs, the United States is not powerless, experts have stressed.
Doubling safety measures (masking, social distancing, avoiding crowds) along with fast, efficient vaccines can help curb another wave of Covid-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Saturday.
“We say it over and over again and we need local people, we need governors, mayors and others to be able to say we haven’t gotten out of it yet,” Fauci said.
“People say, ‘Well, you just want to confine us forever.’ No, that won’t last forever because every day that four million, three million people are vaccinated, it’s getting closer to control. ‘
Hotez estimated on Sunday that Americans should hold out “four or six more weeks, and then we’ll be on the other side.”
“All vaccines seem to work just as well against this UK variant, B.1.1.7 … so that’s good news,” he said. “I’m very confident we’ll be in a really good place over the summer.”
“But if you’re not vaccinated, you have to behave like you’re very vulnerable to this virus, it’s not the time to get sick,” Hotez added.
The-CNN-Wire & 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia company, contributed to this report.
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