The dreaded ‘fourth wave’ of the US coronavirus will never come, predicts a former US chief regulator.
“There is enough immunity in the population that you don’t see a true fourth wave of infection,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told CBS Face the Nation.
The United States is now seeing a seven-day average of 63,282 new coronavirus cases per day, up from 54,507 three weeks earlier.
But the trend is primarily driven by a handful of states and certain lower-risk demographics that are not yet vaccinated, says Dr. Gottlieb.
In fact, young people are driving the latest spike in COVID-19 cases, as the rising rate of vaccination in older Americans is preventing the most severe cases among older people, the director of the Centers for Disease Control said Monday. Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky. .
“Cases are increasing nationally and we are seeing this occur predominantly in younger adults,” he said.
She cites the increasing spread of variants, but also an increase in youth sports and extracurricular activities contributing to the steady increase in cases over the past four weeks.
However, the good news is that these young adults are unlikely to die if they come into contact with COVID-19.
As a result, the average number of daily deaths has remained below 1,000 for the past five days. As of Sunday, 797 Americans were dying each day, including 222 that day, and the death toll has now surpassed 555,000.
Hundreds of deaths a day are nothing to rule out, but the United States recorded fewer than half the deaths yesterday than the previous Sunday.
Half of the US states, including Michigan, Nebraska, and Vermont, have seen an increase in infection rates in the past two weeks, which experts say was almost inevitable as governors begin to reopen their jurisdictions.
But the United States is now administering more than three million Covid vaccines a day, a clip that Dr. Gottlieb is confident will outpace the spread of the virus, even with the increasing prevalence of variants.
Experts don’t know what to make of the rising infection rates – some, like Gottlieb, argue it’s an expected fluctuation in the tide of the pandemic, and others argue they’re worrying signs that the pandemic will drag on.
“ There is enough immunity in the population that you don’t see a true fourth wave of infection, ” Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.
The seven-day moving average of new infections is now above 63,000 per day, but fewer than 1,000 Americans die from COVID-19 every 24 hours.
“What we’re seeing are pockets of infection across the country, particularly in younger people who haven’t been vaccinated and also in school-age children,” said Dr. Gottlieb, who now sits on the Pfizer board of directors.
During the week ending March 25, the US recorded more than 64,000 new pediatric infections, the second consecutive week of increases among children.
Children accounted for 19.2 percent of new cases that week. That’s more than 13 percent of the cases they have accounted for during the pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made it safe for schools to reopen because infection rates among children are very low and children rarely die from COVID-19.
However, as children return to face-to-face classes, an increase in infections among children who have spent much of the last year at home comes as no surprise.
It’s also not surprising that as states allow more people to dine indoors and resume somewhat normal activities with just a third of American adults vaccinated against COVID-19, adult cases are on the rise.
These increases have been seen in at least 25 states in the past two weeks.
All eyes have turned to Michigan, which saw more than 5,600 new cases yesterday.
That’s nearly four times as many new infections as were reported in the state a month earlier.
It follows Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to allow restaurants to expand the indoor dining room to 50 percent of its standard capacity.
Whitmer stood his ground and refused to back down to reopen.
Instead, he blamed the high prevalence of Covid variants in his state and the fact that residents did not follow state policies to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Michigan is not the only state that has seen a rebound.
Michigan is experiencing four times more daily infections than a month ago, including 5,600 on Sunday
New infections rose to nearly 11,000 a day in New York last week, but have started to trend down again. In New Jersey, more than 4,500 people test positive each day, up from 3,200 the previous month.
Florida is now seeing a steady increase in cases, with more than 6,000 confirmed on Sunday, a one-third increase since mid-March. Spring Breakers descended on the state, sparking violent clashes as law enforcement tried to prevent them from partying without a mask.
Puerto Rico, Nebraska and Vermont have now overtaken Michigan for the largest increases in new infections in the past 14 days, according to DataUSA.io.
Nebraska has seen new infections rise 77 percent in the past two weeks, and Vermont’s cases have increased nearly 36 percent.
The number of new cases in Puerto Rico is now nearly double what it was 14 days ago, increasing 88 percent since mid-March.
And there has been a worldwide spike in new cases.
Together, these trends have some experts concerned, especially those who are working closely with the Biden administration, that a fourth increase will kill more Americans and prolong the pandemic.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and an adviser to President Biden, warned that the United States is “just at the beginning of this increase,” in an interview with Sunday Meet the Press.
He predicted that the next two weeks will see a record number of new COVID-19 cases around the world.
“ And now we are, I think, in that cycle where the upper Midwest is just now starting to start this fourth surge, ” he said of the US.
Experts are divided, some betting on the virus and others predicting that vaccines advance.
Dr. Gottlieb, who served as FDA commissioner under former President Trump, believes the latter.
With one-third of the U.S. adult population vaccinated and more than three million gunshots per day, the nation is on track to achieve herd immunity with 75 percent of Americans vaccinated in July, according to the Bloomberg tracking.