Washington – Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said Sunday that the United States is facing a “painful month,” as coronavirus infections continue to grow along the east and west coasts.
“We have a painful month ahead of us,” Gottlieb said in an interview with “Face the Nation.” “We have a very difficult month ahead. Right now, the cases are led by the coasts.”
The number of coronavirus cases in the United States is close to 19 million, while the death toll from the pandemic exceeded 332,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. Infections are intensifying in California, Massachusetts, New York and Florida, as they begin to decline in the Midwest and Great Lakes region.
Meanwhile, public health officials warn that the country should prepare for the toughest days of the pandemic, even when two coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are administered to health workers and residents of Pfizer. long-term care facilities.
Gottlieb said there are indications that the number of new cases daily is starting to be very high, although he attributed it to the holidays, when there is little information. In addition, he said the nation is unlikely to see hospital loads begin to decline and deaths to be reduced by the end of January.
“I don’t think any part of the country has been particularly good with COVID,” Gottlieb said. “All states have faced this and therefore I would not try to make comparisons between different states in terms of how they have approached it. All states have had to approach it differently because everyone has had different challenges “.
As of Saturday, more than 9.5 million doses of vaccines developed by Pfizer, in collaboration with Germany’s BioNTech and Moderna, have been distributed, and more than 1.9 million people have received the first of the two doses of the two vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease. Control and Prevention (CDC).
Gottlieb said he believes the number of people who have received his first shots is likely to be higher than currently reported, but said the pace is “slower” than publicly committed. Federal officials intended to produce enough doses of coronavirus vaccines to inoculate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s initiative to accelerate vaccine development and distribution.
“The idea that we will get 20 million vaccines by the end of the year is probably not realistic at this time,” Gottlieb said.
Although health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities were among the first to receive vaccines, a CDC advisory group recommended that adults 75 years of age or older and essential workers front-line were in the next group to receive their vaccines.
Gottlieb said as more doses are manufactured and distributed, officials “will get better systems to distribute vaccines more efficiently” and will be helped by companies like CVS and Walgreens.
But he warned that trying to vaccinate the hardest-to-reach populations will present its own challenges.
“It will be much harder to get these vaccines out, so the fact that we have fought to vaccinate health care workers and patients in nursing homes shows that we need to invest more in these efforts,” he said.