Fauci says the US is out of the ‘full-blown’ pandemic phase. But experts warn that the virus may still have tricks up its sleeve. – The Boston Globe


Some experts warned Wednesday that the unpredictable virus that causes COVID-19 still poses a threat, after recent comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, that the United States is “out of the explosive and full-fledged pandemic. .”

Andrew Lover, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, said, “The SARS-CoV-2 virus has surprised us time and time again… We must be careful to declare victory too soon. .”

More than two years after the deadly virus arrived, and with the official US death toll approaching 1 million, Fauci he said Tuesday on PBS NewsHour, “Certainly we are right now in this country outside the pandemic phase. I mean, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We’re.”

Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser, said he did not believe the virus could be eradicated, but officials hoped levels could be kept “very low” with “intermittent vaccinations.”

Fauci clarified his views on Wednesday. in an interview with The Washington Post. “Right now we are at a low enough level to believe that we are in transition towards endemicity… We are not in the explosive and full-fledged pandemic phase. That is not to say that the pandemic is over,” she said.

“The world is still in a pandemic,” he said. “No doubt about that”. But he also said: “In our country, we are in transition towards a more controlled endemicity.”

Lover warned that a resurgence of the pandemic could catch the country off guard.

“The [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has switched to pandemic metrics that focus solely on hospitalizations; and in this regard, most of the US is getting the virus under control pretty well. However, as home testing has become more routine and many states switch to irregular reporting schedules, our transmission barometer is becoming less reliable,” he said in an email.

“Hospitalizations are always being delayed and we may be setting ourselves up for serious situations as many public health interventions relax and protection against reinforcements begins to wane,” he said.

Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist and dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, said in an email that the situation had eased, but “the question is whether we are entering an endemic phase, where we are at a transmission level that we manage on a regular basis. I’m not sure we’re there yet as our familiarity with virus transmission patterns evolves.”

Dr. Peter J. Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, he said in a tweet on Wednesday that he was concerned about a possible wave of COVID-19 in the South this summer.

“I feel like it’s still possible that we could see a new variant of concern in Texas and the southern US states this summer, just like we did in 2020 and 2021,” he said.

“The pandemic continues, and the policies to address it must continue,” Julia Raifman, assistant professor of health law, policy, and management at Boston University School of Public Health, he said in a tweetnoting the recent rise in hospitalizations in Massachusetts, the spread of new variants, and possible “harmful seasonal surges” in the future.

Cases and hospitalizations are rising again in the country, although they are still far from the heights of the beginning of the pandemic. Restrictions are being eased as many Americans appear to be putting the pandemic behind them. Mask-wearing requirements have been lifted in most parts of the country, with officials stopping enforcing a federal mask-wearing mandate in transportation settings after a judge struck down the requirement.

In a reminder that the coronavirus is still far from being eradicated, Fauci himself said Tuesday that he would not attend the White House Correspondents Association dinner “because of my individual assessment of my personal risk,” and Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted Tuesday afternoon that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the global public health program at Boston College, said he agreed with Fauci’s assessment in the Post article that the pandemic is in a “decelerating” phase transitioning into a “decelerating” phase. control phase. Unless a new variant emerges, there is reason for optimism, he said.

“The infection is still with us. It’s probably going to be with us for a long time,” she said. “But it is not causing the high number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths” that it was causing before.

He said vaccinations had been key in preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

“The vaccine doesn’t necessarily protect you against an upper respiratory infection,” he said. “But it certainly keeps you out of the hospital and it keeps you alive.” A recent study estimated that vaccinations by the end of last month had prevented more than 2.2 million deaths in the US.

Matthew Fox, a professor of epidemiology and global health at the Boston University School of Public Health, said he believed the United States is probably past the phase where “we will see (barring a new elusive variant) large-scale waves of hospitalizations and deceased. That’s partly because we have a lot of previous infections that lead to immunity and also because we have a lot of vaccines that make people less susceptible and much less likely to have a serious infection.”

But he said surveillance was still necessary. “We still have to be careful to protect the vulnerable,” she said in an email. “Watching infection rates rise will allow us to take action when the risk increases and hopefully bring things down reasonably quickly.”

Material from Globe Wire Services was used in this report.


Martin Finucane can be reached at [email protected].




Reference-www.bostonglobe.com

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