Scott Gottlieb predicted Friday that northeastern states, including New York and Connecticut, will experience another leap in Covid cases linked to the highly transmissible delta variant.
“I think there’s a kind of perception that we’re going through this delta wave here in the Northeast because we’ve seen delta cases go up and down in places like the New York metropolitan area. We’re also seeing [test] the positive is shrinking, ”the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner told CNBC’s“ Squawk Box ”.
“I don’t think this was the real delta wave. I think it was a delta warning. I think our real delta wave will start building after Labor Day here in the northeast and the northern part of the country,” he said. add Gottlieb, who is now on the board of Covid vaccine maker Pfizer.
The Covid Delta variant affected South America earlier than other parts of the country, and now the rise in summer infection has peaked, Gottlieb said. But in the Northeast, Gottlieb said he believes Labor Day weekend meetings and children returning to school will serve as “incubators for dissemination.”
“Now, if we see a wave of infection as dense and severe as the south, I don’t think it’s because we have a much bigger vaccination; we’ve had a lot of previous infection, which we also know is protective,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 to the Trump administration. “But we’ll probably see an accumulation in cases here in the Northeast. I don’t think we’re done with that.”
Schools
Gottlieb said his advice to schools that have brought children back to face-to-face learning, or that they will soon do so, is to increase the frequency of coronavirus testing, in addition to other protective measures, such as masks and improve ventilation.
“We’ve seen a lot of studies right now that if you do routine tests in schools once a week (and preferably twice a week), you’re going to detect the infection before it becomes dense epidemics in this school environment,” Gottlieb said. .
“There are things that schools can do, but schools are a risk factor for spreading to schools and they also become sources of community transmission,” Gottlieb added, noting the rise in coronavirus-related cases. school that Michigan experienced in March and April as the state faced a major Covid outbreak.
At the time, the Covid alpha contagious variant, which was first discovered in the UK, was partly responsible for the infection in Michigan schools, Gottlieb said. “The risk is that the same thing happens with this delta variant,” which according to the World Health Organization is 55% more transmissible than alpha.
“So I think schools need to go towards the year keeping in mind that they need to implement mitigation that will hopefully control the spread,” Gottlieb said.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and board member of Pfizer, of the start of Tempus genetic testing, of healthcare technology company Aetion Inc. and biotechnology. Illuminate. He is also co – chair of Norwegian Cruise Linei Royal Caribbean ‘s “Healthy Sailing Panel”.