Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday that the United States is unlikely to eradicate Covid as it has done with other diseases, such as polio and smallpox, unless Americans significantly change their attitudes toward vaccination.
“It is possible. It seems that we are not ready to do it and take the collective measures that it will require,” the former head of the Food and Drug Administration told Squawk Box.
“People who exercise a certain serious virtue will need to be vaccinated even if they feel individually that they have a low risk of infection, because even if they are a low-risk person, they can receive and transmit the infection and you cannot eradicate a disease in which you have a significant contingent of people who will continue to catch it and pass it on, “he said.
No cases of polio have occurred in the United States since 1979, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The first vaccine for the disease – which can cause paralysis – became available in the country in 1955.
More than 70 years have passed since the last outbreak of smallpox was recorded in the United States, according to the CDC. In 1980, after a long-running global public health campaign involving mass vaccinations, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization proclaimed the eradication of smallpox.
Routine vaccinations no longer occur for smallpox, according to the CDC. However, the agency still recommends that children be given four doses of polio vaccine at different ages.
“We are eradicating things where we have very high vaccination rates and where the vaccine is a unique vaccine and where it is fully protective for longevity and life,” said Gottlieb, who is on Pfizer’s board of directors. what makes one of the three Covid vaccines eliminated for emergency use in the Modern USA makes the other vaccine with two shots. The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has been discontinued by the FDA due to rare but severe cases of blood clotting.
“You look at measles, smallpox, polio, we vaccinate children. “It gives them a level of protection that lasts forever or into adulthood, and so we can eradicate – or largely eradicate – those diseases in societies where we have very high levels of vaccination,” Gottlieb said. “In the US, a large enough share of the adult population is resisting vaccination against Covid, and vaccines are not yet available for young children,” he said.
“When it becomes available to children, there is now a very healthy debate in this country over whether it will be mandated for children to return to school and it looks like the answer will be ‘no’ in the vast majority of states,” Gottlieb said. “This does not create a set-up for the eradication of this virus. This creates a set-up in which we can take this virus to low levels. But you will still have pockets to spread. If we want to eradicate it, we have to make different decisions as a society. “
However, many colleges and universities in the US require Covid vaccines for students returning for the fall semester.
Gottlieb’s comments on Friday came a day after comments were made public by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who said it was “likely” that people would need a third dose of the Covid vaccine during a year after complete vaccination.
The comments renewed the conversation about the duration of the coronavirus threat, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic 13 months ago.
In the US, about 24% of the population has been completely vaccinated against Covid, according to the CDC. President Joe Biden called on states to ensure that all adults are eligible to be shot in the coming days.
However, even though millions of Americans are vaccinated, coronavirus cases in the United States continue to rise. The seven-day average of new daily infections was 70,484, up 7% in the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. This exceeds their historical highs earlier this year, but in line with the levels observed during the summer growth.
Some people have suggested, including Bourla, that coronavirus vaccinations could become an annual event, similar to seasonal flu. Soon, Gottlieb said he expected it to be true.
“It is difficult to predict what things will look like in seven years from now, in 10 years with Covid and how much this infection is reduced from a social point of view, but at least for the foreseeable future, you could see that this is an annualization. “vaccination,” he said.
More than 31 million cases of coronavirus in the United States have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Hopkins, and at least 565,293 people in the country have died from the disease. Both cumulative cases and deaths in the US, the largest of all nations in the world, account for about 20% of global totals.