A year after the first COVID-19 case in the region, Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke with WTOP about what was learned, the prospects for the country, vaccines, how the virus surprised him and more.
Friday is the anniversary of the first COVID-19 case in the DC area, with one case arising in Maryland (with DC and Virginia reporting its first cases two days later).
It was a year of blockages, diseases and deaths, and Dr. Anthony Fauci talked to WTOP about what was learned, the perspectives for the country, vaccines, how the virus surprised him and more.
Asked what he wanted to ensure that Americans knew about the state of the battle with the virus a year later, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said: “I want them to know know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, mainly that we have several highly effective vaccines. “
The most important recent development, of course, is the introduction of three COVID-19 vaccines in the USA, from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Fauci said that you should get any vaccine you can.
“The important thing is to get vaccinated and protect yourself,” Fauci told WTOP. “Don’t wait to find out which one is better than the other; just get vaccinated as soon as possible. … Frankly, they are safe vaccines. “
While some people worry about which one has the highest efficacy rating, all have been shown to be almost 100% effective in preventing serious illness and death, which is the most important. Fauci said that all vaccines are safe.
Fauci added that the number of vaccine doses available to people would explode soon: in addition to the introduction of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the federal government contracted another 100 million doses each, from both Pfizer and Moderna.
“So, now, this totality, with Moderna and Pfizer alone, is 600 million doses for 300 million people. Not to mention J&J and the possibility of other vaccines coming online. “
There are many doses.
“We did this deliberately to have some redundancy, in case something went wrong,” said Fauci. “And if it doesn’t, you will have more than you need. And then we will decide what we want to do with it. “
Even with the vaccines, Fauci warned that “Now is not the time to back off on public health measures. It is perfectly understandable – I feel it myself: you want to go back to some form of normality; this will come relatively soon. … But the better we suppress the virus, the faster we will get back to normal. What we don’t want is to rush into it prematurely and abandon all public health measures ”.
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After a vaccine
After you are vaccinated, Fauci said, you should continue with safe practices to protect others – the vaccine may be preventing you from getting sick, but it is believed that you can still pass the virus on to others. (More studies are being done to confirm this, he said.)
But if you want to have a meeting with some people who have also been vaccinated, “You can feel comfortable meeting in a home environment – you know, a small reception, a small dinner or some social event, where you” are at House. “
He said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have official and broader guidance on this in a few days.
It is not yet known, said Fauci, whether COVID-19 would be an annual event even with the flu-like vaccine.
“First of all, you want to make sure that you are going to vaccinate the vast majority of the population,” and that will require communication about vaccines to overcome hesitation, said Fauci.
The other issue is the number and strength of variants that are emerging around the world. The best solution to the second problem, he said, is to be vaccinated as soon as possible, “because viruses don’t mutate if they don’t replicate.”
A year of pandemic
Although the first cases in the region occurred a year ago, a few days later the main warning signs began.
There were “many signs from China” at the beginning of last year about the severity of the virus, said Fauci, “but it was difficult to find out what was happening because they closed completely” and it was difficult to obtain information.
When it spread across Europe, it was easier to see the “destructiveness” of the virus. “I believe it was on March 11, if I’m not mistaken, that it became clear that we were really in trouble,” said Fauci.
From there, the virus spread everywhere, and quickly.
“First, in the northeastern part of the country dominated by the New York metropolitan area; then, when we tried to open the economy, namely to open some parts of the country, we did not have a good adherence to public health measures and we had another major outbreak, especially in the southern states. Then he went inland and went northwest. And then we realized that no part of the country was safe. “
And the political climate has not helped, he said, citing many people’s resistance to simple measures like wearing masks – “some people call it false news and farce, when in fact it is killing half a million people. (…) We have a common enemy; we will all unite against this common enemy, instead of pushing against each other. “
Now that the vaccines have arrived, some appearance of normal life is not so far away, said Fauci, and added that he was more optimistic than most about when that day would come.
‘It was a moving target’
As schools begin to reopen for face-to-face classes, Fauci said that he and many experts were surprised to learn that dissemination in schools is not as bad as he feared, especially among younger children. He credits “the efforts of school systems, teachers and educational staff, as well as children – wearing masks and understanding the seriousness of it, and not meeting in areas where they usually do it”.
Vaccines and school practices bode well for autumn, he said: “When we get to autumn, we expect to have a very large proportion of the population already vaccinated.”
As for what went wrong with the school forecast, Fauci said: “Well, it was a moving target; it’s not like we know everything about transmissibility at school ”, especially at a time of great diffusion in the community.
‘Ya-ya land’
“In January (2020), when we started working on the vaccine, and people asked me when I thought we would have a vaccine, I said it would be – I don’t know, somewhere between 12 and 18 months. People thought I was somewhere on earth ya-ya, thinking that you would do that in less than a few years. And it ended up being even better than my prediction. We put the vaccine against the virus in people’s arms in 11 months. “
He said it happened for a few reasons, one of which was dismal: “Not only the extraordinary nature of scientific advances, but the fact that we have so much infection in the community that we were able to get the test result very quickly, instead of taking years of illness latent to get an answer. “
Mike Murillo of WTOP contributed to this report.