Dr. Ashish Jha told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday that American states could start making decisions about opening businesses and savings ahead of schedule, if enough people were vaccinated.
“My relatively optimistic view is that we don’t have to wait until late summer or even early summer, that in late spring, if enough people have been vaccinated, you will start to see case numbers really drop a lot” , said Jha, who is dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, “This will allow us to start opening up the economy much more, so that we don’t have to wait, and we just have to make sure that infections – the highs levels of infection that we have now, that get better. “
President Joe Biden has set a critical benchmark in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. He promised to deliver enough vaccine doses to nearly all Americans by the end of the summer. Biden said he will have the government for another 200 million doses of the vaccine – half from Pfizer and half from Moderna. The agreement would increase the country’s vaccine supply to 600 million vaccines.
“This vaccine is sufficient to fully vaccinate 300 [million] Americans by the end of summer, the beginning of fall, “said Biden at the White House on Tuesday.
To vaccinate 300 million people by September 22, the last day of summer, the country will need 600 million doses at a rate of about 2.4 million vaccines per day. This assuming that it is beyond the 23 million already mentioned. Biden said the government will begin sending states 10 million doses a week for the next three weeks. This is an increase of almost 20% compared to what is currently being delivered.
Johnson & Johnson is waiting results in your Covid vaccine early next week. According to Meg Tirrell of CNBC, the company has tested on three continents, including South Africa and Brazil, where new highly transmissible variants have been identified. This means that Johnson & Johnson’s results may reveal important information about how vaccines designed around the original Covid strain work against emerging ones.
Dr. Bruce Becker, associate professor of behavioral medicine and social sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health, told The News with Shepard Smith that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one injection and therefore immunity is achieved in 14 to 21 days.
“The J&J vaccine can vaccinate twice as many patients for each vaccine supply – twice the coverage and immunity in less than half the time,” said Becker. “This is much more efficient in blocking the spread of Covid.”
Jha told presenter Shepard Smith that a single dose would help “a lot” in the vaccination effort, but questioned the company’s production capacity.
“I think one of the questions that is less clear is how much stock of the J&J vaccine do we have?” asked Jha. “There are some reports that it didn’t go so well, the production didn’t go so well, but either way, a dose like a vaccine is much easier to administer.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study on Tuesday that said the spread of Covid in schools is very low with the correct precautions in place. Jha explained that the United States can open schools across the country, but “we have to do that” with preventive measures that include masks and effective ventilation.
Becker highlighted the importance of preventive measures and also said that non-compliant students should be banned from school.
“Masking works, works of social distance and the deadly misinformation that was propagated by the previous government and their voices led to our current dilemma,” said Becker. “Schools can be opened if the rules are followed to the letter.”
Biden said on Tuesday that “it will be months before we can vaccinate most Americans” and that “masks, not vaccines” are the best defense against Covid while Americans wait for the vaccine.