White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that vaccine is not enough to eradicate the coronavirus.
“I think the opposite. ... I really do” Dr. Fauci said. “The cavalry is coming but don’t put your weapons down, you better keep fighting because they are not here yet. Help is on the way, but it isn’t here yet.”
“So to me, that is more of an incentive of, ‘Please don’t give up. Don’t despair, the end is in sight,’ as opposed to: ‘Hey, we are good to go, don’t worry about anything.’ We are not good to go. We have got to continue to double down on public health measures,” he added about vaccine being not enough in terms of controlling the outbreaks.
Dr. Fauci’s statements came three days after Pfizer and BioNTech announced that early results revealed their vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective in addressing Covid infections.
The rate of efficacy of Pfizer's vaccine was higher than scientists had been hoping for. Dr. Fauci had previously explained that a vaccine that is 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable.
“I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla said during an interview on CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on “Squawk Box.” “I believe this is likely the most significant medical advance in the last 100 years, if you count the impact this will have in public health, global economy.”
The U.S. has reported all-time highs of well over 100,000 cases per day, with more than 1 million new infections recorded throughout the country in just the first 10 days of November.
Meanwhile, 65,368 people are hospitalized with Covid-19 in the U.S., according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Vaccine is not enough
“What needs to happen is a new way of communication that people can understand,” Dr. David Heymann, who led the World Health Organization’s infectious disease unit during the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, said during the same online session.
“Political leaders have political ambitions and the public health leaders and the technical leaders have ambitions on stopping the outbreak, and the two of those have to be reconciled in some way,” he continued.
“The public doesn’t understand all about vaccines … including that this disease may, even with vaccines, become endemic.”
When Dr. Fauci was asked about his time guiding the country through the pandemic, the 79-year-old recalled his 36 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“We’ve been through a lot of things through that institute,” he said, citing its response to HIV, the 2001 anthrax attacks, Ebola, Zika virus, and pandemic flu, among others.
“I see my future as doing the same thing as we get our arms around this outbreak. We essentially put it to rest but, as David said, putting it to rest doesn’t mean eradicating it,” Fauci said, referring to Heymann’s comments.
“I doubt we are going to eradicate this. I think we need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic, that we have to just be careful about,” he continued.
“Certainly, it is not going to be a pandemic for a lot longer because I believe the vaccines are going to turn that around.”
