Washington – Dr Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), warned on Sunday that a new coronavirus strain discovered in Europe that caused strict restrictions in some parts of the UK appears to be more contagious than existing variants, but probably not more lethal.
“There is a new variant and it is questionable whether or not it has become the predominant strain in London due to what we call the effect of the founders (just entered London and participated in some first super informative events) or if it is or not the result of what we call selective pressure, it is being selected because it has qualities that make it more likely to spread, ”Gottlieb said in an interview with“ Face the Nation ”. “Increasingly, it looks like it’s the latter. It looks like this new strain is more contagious.”
But Gottlieb said it “probably won’t be more lethal,” though he noted that public health agencies “still don’t fully understand its contours.”
“It doesn’t seem to be more virulent, nor more dangerous than COVID,” he said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed stricter restrictions on London and southern England amid a rapid rise in coronavirus infections, which appears to be driven by a new coronavirus strain that is more than 70% more transmissible than existing variants. The UK has alerted the World Health Organization to the new strain and several European countries have stopped flights from the UK in response.
General Surgeon Dr. Jerome Adams echoed Gottlieb’s assessment of the new strain, telling “Face the Nation” on Sunday that officials “have no evidence that it harms our ability to continue vaccinating people or that it is more dangerous or deadly than the varieties that they are currently out there and we know that. “
Gottlieb said the next question is whether people who have already had COVID-19 can become infected with the new variant and whether the new strain excludes vaccines.
“The answer probably isn’t,” he said. “This virus mutates like all viruses. The flu mutates more. And what viruses do is they change surface proteins. And once they do, the antibodies we’ve developed against these surface proteins no longer work. Now, the flu mutates very quickly, it changes its surface proteins very quickly, so we constantly need a new flu vaccine.Some viruses like measles do not change their surface proteins.So the measles vaccine we have receiving 20 years ago still works. It will mutate and change its surface proteins, but probably slow enough to be able to develop new vaccines. “
After the FDA Pfizer vaccine authorization for emergency use on Dec. 11, last week health workers and senior elected officials, including members of Congress, began receiving the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine. Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence and General Surgeon Dr. Jerome Adams was vaccinated on live television On Friday, both President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will have to receive their first shots on Monday.
The FDA issued an emergency use permit for a second coronavirus vaccine, developed by Modern, Friday, and Shipments it began to unfold Sunday.
Although the approval of vaccines marked a new welcome phase of the coronavirus pandemic, cases in the United States continue to rise and the number of deaths 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 the number of infections will peak around the first week of January.
“The healthcare system will continue to see a much higher burden at the peak of infections due to the delay in time to hospitalization and also a delay in time to death by COVID,” he said. “So after this peak of infections, we will continue to see deaths continue to rise for another three weeks.”
Gottlieb said the nation “is at the height of this pandemic right now” and said it is crucial that vaccine doses be delivered as quickly as possible.
“A vaccine to be delivered next week is likely to have a greater impact on public health than a vaccine to be delivered in five weeks,” he said. “So we should be leaning forward and trying to get as many vaccines as possible.”