But some experts say there is hope.
Vaccines, spring weather and, surprisingly, the high number of infections offer reason for optimism, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the US Food and Drug Agency, Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, said Wednesday.
In addition, there is an expectation that the new Biden administration will handle things better than the Trump administration.
Although the “dire” numbers are expected to worsen in the coming months, Offit believes the United States could stop the virus from spreading until June.
Offit believes that things “will soon be dramatically better”.
Vaccines
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, agrees. “We can see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, adding that vaccines “show us a way to go.”
States are still struggling to put vaccines in people’s arms. Only about 35% of vaccines distributed to states were given to people, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And the US government’s Operation Warp Speed managed to send only about 10 million doses to state and local governments – half of what it promised to have been distributed and administered by the end of 2020.
“It still doesn’t exist at all. There is still a lot of work to be done to get the vaccination program up and running,” said Benjamin.
But there is a steady increase in the number of people vaccinated. The states approved 500,000 vaccinations a day on average – something that gives Benjamin the confidence that the country can reach one million a day, if not more.
The new administration
Offit is also hopeful about the next Biden administration, noting that President-elect Joe Biden’s team “is not in this denial cult” that surrounded the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus and “would face this problem head-on”.
Benjamin believes that Biden’s team will make more use of the Defense Production Act to ensure that there is a stable and reliable supply of vaccine. He is also looking forward to a better coordinated response from the entire government.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Infectious Disease Physician, praised the Biden government’s plans to increase the availability of home tests, rejoin the World Health Organization and restore the National Security Council pandemic team .
He is also hopeful that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will operate independently under the Biden administration. “The fact that we were unable to really control this pandemic was because the CDC was not able to act the way it usually does during emergencies from infectious diseases,” said Adalja.
Warmer weather
“The weather will get hotter when the weather gets hotter, which makes it much more difficult for this virus,” said Offit. When it is hot and humid, the virus, which spreads through small droplets, should spread less easily, he said.
Benjamin also pointed out that people can spend more time outdoors when the weather warms up in the United States. People can be further apart when they are outside and do not share the same air – so the virus has less opportunity to pass from one person to another.
“The virus will have a harder time moving from one person to another, especially when people are doing outdoor activities in the summer,” said Adalja.
“We didn’t really see seasonality this summer because there were a lot of people who were not immune to the virus,” he added. “Even in the summer weather, (the virus) still found it very easy to find new people to infect.”
Increasing herd immunity
Another reason for optimism is the large number of Americans who were probably infected and now have some immunity to the virus, said Offit.
Although 23 million have been diagnosed and reported, this number is underestimated. Many people have had asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic infection and have never been tested. The number of people infected is probably close to 65 or 70 million, said Offit.
“There are 20% of the population that, when re-exposed to the virus, will not be sick,” he said. It is unclear how long immunity lasts after infection, but studies indicate that it is at least eight or nine months and maybe more.
If another 55 to 60% of the population can be vaccinated – something that Offit said can be done from one million to one and a half million doses a day – “then I really think that in June we can stop the spread of this virus.”
Benjamin agreed.
“History tells us that these things are going away. And you have to do something to make them go away, ”said Benjamin. “Even in 1918, 1919, people were infected and tragically the world had to go through this. We achieved some kind of balance, we got herd immunity and it was over.”
Cautionary notes
“I think there is enormous potential for this pandemic to end in 2021, before the end of the year, for sure, maybe even before the fall,” said Dr. Aaron Glatt, spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America and president of the department of medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau.
“But it certainly won’t get to that point if the vaccine is not distributed, or God forbid, the vaccine doesn’t work in the future, it doesn’t work as well.”
Dr. Sunny Jha, an anesthesiologist at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, is also cautious.
“If we can increase the numbers, if we can get rid of hesitation, if we can eliminate misinformation, disinformation, I think I would be much more optimistic,” said Jha.
“But if you’re asking me today if I feel like we’re on our way to summer, based on what I’m seeing now, I don’t think we’ll be there.”
“I am cautiously optimistic, I think,” he said. “I think we have the right mindset. I think if we eliminate hesitation, we will be in better shape.”