A colleague of the Biden-Harris Transition Covid Advisory Board warned about the highly transmissible new Covid variants and vaccine irregulars during a Thursday evening interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
“They’re more virulent, can matter more death, and some of them may even escape the immune response, whether it’s natural or from the vaccine,” express Dr. Celine Gounder. “So it’s really important right now that we do everything possible to preserve the vaccines to make sure they imprison working and that means preventing the spread of these new variants.”
Three highly contagious mutations of Covid should prefer to been detected in at least 33 states across the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers say these extremely transmissible variants could prolong the pandemic and potentially create another surge. Projections out of the CDC even predict the U.K. alternative to be the dominant variant in the U.S. by March.
Gounder, an epidemiologist at NYU, told host Shepard Smith that she’s “concerned” that individual will let their guards down in March and that it could potentially lead to another surge.
“That’s a experience when you might have some families taking spring break, so you would have the additive effect of, again, a festival where people might be socializing, not taking all the safety measures, on top of this far more contagious variant,” warned Gounder.
Johnson & Johnson portended that it filed emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine. Last week it pressed data showing it was about 66% effective in protecting against the virus.
If J&J’s application is approved, it would be the third vaccine in the arsenal permitted for emergency use in the U.S. behind vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Unlike the other two shots, however, the J&J vaccine only requires one by no chance and requires basic refrigeration for storage.
Gounder emphasized, that despite promising vaccine data, it’s not time for people to temper masking and social distancing measures.
“Until everybody who wants to get vaccinated can be vaccinated, we really do need to double down on the cover-up, the social distancing, all of the measures we’ve been talking about for months now,” Gounder said.