Dr Anthony Fauci said on Friday that new variants of the coronavirus were found that were initially found in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, and have since been found. identified in the United States – they are expected to persist and eventually overcome the cases of the previous strain of the virus.
“We will continue to see the evolution of the mutants,” Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said in a briefing on Friday.
He variant first identified in the UK it has now been found in 29 states in the United States, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Highly contagious variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil have also been found in the state.
Fauci said vaccinating “as many people as we can, as fast as we can” is the best defense against new variants. “The virus has a playing field to mutate,” he said, explaining that the virus cannot mutate if it is not given a chance to replicate.
“The virus will continue to mutate and mutate to its own selective advantage,” he said. If COVID-19 is common in a community, it is only a matter of time before the virus mutates, as it is given a wide “opportunity to adapt”.
A newly identified strain of the prevalent coronavirus in Southern California could be behind the drastic rise in cases in the region. A study published Jan. 18 found that more than a third of recent COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles were infected with the strain, according to a statement summarizing its findings.
“The fact is that when you have a virus that has the ability to be transmitted more efficiently than the wild type to the community, sooner or later by pure viral dynamics itself it will become more dominant than the wild type,” he said. Fauci.
According to Fauci, the variants are likely to affect other U.S. cities, however no sequencing efforts to identify them all. Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House COVID-19 response team, again asked Congress to approve President Biden American Rescue Plan so the federal government can expand sequencing along with other strategies to quell the pandemic.
“We should treat all cases as if it were a variant,” Walensky said, noting that “the moment someone has symptoms, a test is done, it has a positive result, and we get the sequence, our chance to do real case control and contact tracking is largely gone. “
Fauci said federal officials are concerned about a number of variants, in particular the mutation first identified in the UK, which has been shown to be more easily transmitted than the original COVID-19 strain. This feature, he said, means his dominance is inevitable. Current projections show that the variant “will become more dominant than the wild type” in March or April, he said.
“The fundamental principle of vaccinating people as quickly and efficiently as you can will always be the best way to prevent the subsequent evolution of any mutant. Because when you do that you prevent replication, and replication is essential for mutation.”
In addition to vaccinating as many people as possible with current Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Fauci said federal health officials and vaccine-developing companies will need to remain “agile” to produce variant-targeted versions.
“We, as a government, the companies, all of us involved, will have to be agile to easily adapt to make versions of the vaccine that are specifically targeted at any mutation that is really prevalent at any given time,” he said. . dit.
There has been concern in recent weeks that vaccines may be less effective against some variants, particularly the highly transmissible variant of South Africa.
U.S. biotechnology company Novavax said Thursday that its two-shot COVID-19 vaccine showed an overall efficacy of 89.3% in a major Phase 3 clinical trial in Britain. it continued to be very effective against a variant first identified there. Other results showed that it offered less protection against the variant identified in South Africa, but both the company and an external health expert were still optimistic about the level of protection provided against both new strains.
Fauci also discussed the new results on Friday Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Trials, which showed 66% overall effectiveness, and 72% in the United States. He acknowledged that the results might seem less impressive compared to the higher overall effectiveness of Pfizer and Moderna, but stressed that the vaccine has other advantages, namely its impact on serious diseases and the ease of administering its single dose.
“In the United States, South Africa and Brazil, the overall effectiveness of serious diseases was 85%. And in fact, in the study that included the South African isolate, there were virtually no hospitalizations. nor deaths in the vaccine group, while there was a placebo group, ”Fauci said. “So that really tells us that we now have an additional value-added candidate for the vaccine.”
“This has important potential and real implications nationally and globally because … this is one one-shot vaccine that you start to see effectiveness from 7 to 10 days after the first and only shot, “Fauci said. It can be stored in a normal refrigerator, it’s cheap and the company is able to dose in billions. “
The briefing came a day after Fauci said it may be President Joe Biden’s urge to reopen most schools within 100 days “In an interview with the American Federation of Teachers and ‘National Education Association on Thursday, Fauci expressed caution about Mr Biden’s goal.
“This may not happen because there may be mitigating circumstances,” Fauci said.
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday reiterated Biden’s support for approving a $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package to Congress and said the White House he was not interested in dividing the bill into smaller portions. Some Republicans have rejected the bill price and it is unclear whether he will be able to get votes from the Republican Party.
Psaki said Mr. Biden had contacted Republican and Democratic members of Congress to discuss coronavirus relief.