A the lack of transparency on the part of Chinese officials – particularly regarding the transmission of the new coronavirus and the obstruction of a US scientist to investigate it – has played a significant role in allowing COVID-19 to spread outside China, said the NIAID director. Anthony Fauci, for Axios.
The whole picture: Axios first spoke to Fauci a year ago this week about “mysterious pneumonia” in Wuhan, China, which he suspected was a new coronavirus, but was reported by Chinese health officials as not so infectious.
- “At that time, the lack of full appreciation of the seriousness of what we were dealing with was [due to] a number of reasons, “says Fauci.” Some things were not known to anyone at all. And, some things were known to the Chinese and they weren’t very transparent about it, “he added, citing delayed reporting of person-to-person transmission and asymptomatic transmission of the virus.
- Many people outside China have been “fooled,” he says, because they did not know that the virus that causes the pandemic works differently from its cousin, SARS-CoV, where people with SARS have symptoms.
- If China had revealed the asymptomatic spread earlier, it would have “changed everything” for guidance around masks, social distancing and following contacts, he says.
China also refused to allow foreigner scientists to investigate the virus on he “for a considerable period,” limiting his ability to see how it is transmitted and to trace its origin, he says.
- When they finally allowed an international group led by the WHO, they blocked some of these scientists, including one from NIAID, from traveling to Wuhan in Beijing.
- And this week, China delayed travel permits for a group of international scientists led by the WHO who intend to investigate the origins of the virus.
Looking back on the previous year, Fauci and other public health experts say there are some lessons learned …
1) Communication is the key.
- “You don’t know everything you need to know on the first day” and as data accumulate, public health guidelines will evolve, says Fauci.
- Some public health experts say this process could have been explained to the public more clearly, especially as the guidelines have changed.
- “The key here is not that we didn’t know what to do, but there were barriers to it, whether political or otherwise,” said Tara Kirk Sell, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The CDC has this approach called Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication. It’s science-based and works well, but I didn’t [use] This one.”
2) Misinformation and misinformation are extremely harmful.
- They were “incredibly strong in this pandemic,” says Sell, adding that they can affect people’s health and national security. “We really need a national strategy to combat this.”
3) “Political division is a big obstacle to an adequate public health response, “says Fauci.
- “You get people to make decisions about their own behavior based on political considerations, as opposed to an objective assessment of the threat to public health,” Fauci adds.
- “Public health has always been political, but it has never been as partisan as this time. Public health partisanship has been truly incredibly dangerous in this pandemic,” said Carlos del Rio, a distinguished professor of medicine at the School. Emory University Medicine.
Science is advancing in vaccine technology are the biggest bright spot this year, says Fauci.
- The development and then administration of a safe and effective vaccine in 11 months is “a monumental achievement. It is only historic in its proportion,” says Fauci.
- “Rebuilding trust in science is a priority and I hope vaccines will do that.[cut: I think we need to continue to communicate what an incredible achievement that has been, and the fact that these vaccines did not come out of nowhere. Vaccines came from the years of research in mRNA technology and other things,]”It simply came to our notice then.
Bottom line: The pandemic has shown thatt “The unimaginable can happen,” says Fauci. But he hopes that “we will be back to normal in a year from now.”