The COVID-19 variant grown in New York may be infecting people who have already had the virus – or even been vaccinated, said the former head of the Food and Drug Administration on Sunday.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb said it is not clear whether the COVID-19 variant, known as B.1.526, is causing viral outbreaks in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.
“What we don’t understand with 1,526 is whether or not people are being reinfected with it and whether people who could have been vaccinated are now being infected,” Gottlieb told CBS anchor Margaret Brennan in “Face the Nation”.
The New York variant contains a mutation similar to the South African variant B.1.351, which has been shown “in certain cases” to reinfect people who have already had the virus, Gottlieb said.
“The question is whether [B.1.526] it is responsible for some of the increases that we are seeing in New York now and if this is the beginning of a new outbreak within the city, ”he said.
Former Trump administration official said public health experts currently do not have enough data to draw clear conclusions.
He asked CDC to work with New York officials to identify potential coronavirus reinfections linked to B.1.526, which he warned are “probably more prevalent than what we are detecting.
“They need to do aggressive marketing to doctors, asking doctors to come forward and report cases when they are seeing situations in which people have already been infected with COVID can be reinfected,” he said of the federal agency.
“We don’t know what’s going on, but interestingly, some doctors are reporting it now, and that could explain why you are seeing an increase in cases.”
Gottlieb said the federal government’s vaccination effort should serve as a “backstop” against another wave of COVID-19 cases – but warned that pressures to reopen business by officials in New York and other states could result in an “increase” in cases. .
“We kind of took our foot off the brake a little early. March would always be a difficult month. People want to lean forward, but we really should have waited until April, ”he said.
“The fact that we have done this now probably means that we will probably go to the plateau, maybe we will see an increase in certain parts of the country.”
Variants of COVID-19, including B.1.526, account for more than half of New York City’s new coronavirus cases, city health officials said earlier this month.
On Saturday, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office announced the city’s first confirmed case of the Brazilian variant P.1, which, like the New York variant, could make vaccines less effective.
“While additional research is needed, researchers at the University of Oxford recently released unrevised peer data indicating that the P.1 variant may be less resistant to current vaccines than originally thought,” said the governor’s office.