Washington – The former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, predicted on Sunday that the new variant of coronavirus discovered in the UK will be the dominant strain in the US in a matter of weeks.
In an interview with “Face the Nation,” Gottlieb said the new variant accounts for about 0.5% of all infections nationwide, but said it will likely double every week.
“This is the experience of other countries and this is the experience we have seen so far in the United States,” he told Face the Nation. “So it’s 1% now. It will be 2%, then 4%, then 8%, then 16% and then 32%. So in about five weeks this will start to take over.”
Known as B.1.1.7, the new strain was detected in the UK in December and has since spread to more than 30 countries and at least 10 states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report on Friday that the variant discovered in the UK, which is believed to be most transmissible, will be the dominant strain in March. Another variant, known as B.1.351, has also emerged in South Africa.
Although B.1.351 has not yet been detected in the U.S., Gottlieb said “the conclusion is that these strains are already here.”
“This really changes the equation and I think what we’re looking at is a relentless attack of this virus in the spring, while infections would have started to subside in the spring,” he said. “We would have had a quiet spring. We could have persistent, high levels of infection in the spring until enough people are finally vaccinated.”
There have been more than 23.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S., and the death toll is close to 400,000 according to Johns Hopkins University. But Gottlieb echoed Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s prediction, the election of President-elect Joe Biden to lead the CDC, that the nation will likely cause 500,000 coronavirus deaths by mid-February.
“I think it’s tragic, it’s true. What we’re likely to see is that the infection is starting to decrease. I think we’re seeing it now. We’re seeing a short-term peak in terms of the number of new cases daily,” he said. to say. “Now, unfortunately, deaths and hospitalizations will continue to grow over the next two to three weeks because they are a lagging indicator. But we will see continued declines probably for about four weeks, maybe five weeks until this new finished variant begins to take.”
Gottlieb said the new strains and the growing number of deaths underscore the need to accelerate the pace of coronavirus vaccine administration.
The Biden administration, which came in, has set a target of 100 million vaccinations during the first 100 days of Biden’s tenure, and Gottlieb said that goal can be achieved.
“I think the plan put forward by the new administration makes a lot of sense,” he said. “It’s kind of a general approach, of what we’ve been talking about, trying to drive it through different channels, such as department stores, like pharmacies, trying to create more federally contracted sites along with states.”
According to the CDC, there have been more than 31.1 million doses of coronavirus vaccine distributed and more than 12.2 million administered.