The worst of the US coronavirus outbreak will end in January with a vaccine or because enough people in the country will have already been infected and have some immunity, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott said Thursday. Gottlieb.
The restrictions and guidance put in place to curb the spread of the virus will not last forever, he said, urging people to practice public health precautions until the United States can safely return to normal. He added that it is okay to socialize, but within reason and people should consider keeping “a small social circle.”
“This will end in January one way or another,” he said in “Squawk Box.” “Either we will get a vaccine or we will simply have spread enough, it is only going to stop spreading efficiently, so we have a short period of time to pass. We must do everything possible to preserve what we want from our way of life during that time period to get over it. “
Policymakers are betting on an effective vaccine or that a sufficient number of the population recover from the virus and achieve so-called collective immunity to curb the outbreak. However, there is still no clear evidence that the antibodies provide people with any protection against reinfection.
Gottlieb sits on the board of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which is one of more than 10 companies with a coronavirus vaccine that is currently in or is preparing to begin clinical trials. On Wednesday, Pfizer reported positive results from its early-stage human test, sending the stock up to more than 3% a day. The results have not yet been peer reviewed.
White House health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci previously said he is “cautiously optimistic,” a vaccine will be ready for distribution in the United States in early 2021. Several of the top companies with potential vaccines in development They have already started investing in increasing manufacturing of dosages in preparation to meet demand if vaccine candidates prove to be safe and effective in humans.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in testimony before Congress last month that he is hopeful that one of several vaccine candidates will be safe and effective, but cautioned that “there is never a guarantee.” Any coronavirus vaccine is also unlikely to provide lifelong immunity, but instead create some protection for a limited period of time, Fauci said.
“You can have everything you think is in place and it doesn’t induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and long-lasting,” Fauci said of a vaccine. “So one of the big unknowns is, will it be effective? Given the way the body responds to viruses of this type, I am cautiously optimistic that with one of the candidates we will receive a signal of effectiveness.”
Even without a vaccine, Gottlieb said there is a possibility that the virus will stop spreading efficiently in the US In January if enough people contract it and develop antibodies, which scientists believe offer some protection against infection. However, Fauci and other scientists have emphasized that researchers do not fully understand the role of antibodies in this virus.
The relationship between antibodies and immunity is one of the many questions that researchers are now seeking to answer about the coronavirus, which emerged just seven months ago. Whether the presence of certain types of antibody equals immunity against infection and how long that immunity can last are two key questions that remain unanswered.
A study published last month in the academic journal Nature Medicine found that antibodies to the coronavirus could last only two to three months after a person becomes infected. The researchers examined 37 asymptomatic people, those who never developed symptoms, in the Wanzhou district of China. They compared their antibody response to that of 37 people with symptoms.
Scientists conducting larger vaccine studies later this year hope to answer some of the remaining questions about Covid-19 antibodies.
Even if the antibodies confer immunity or some level of protection, the United States has a long way to go before there is enough protection to reduce the spread of the virus. Citing a study published earlier this week, Gottlieb said Tuesday that about 25% of residents of the New York City area have likely already been infected with the coronavirus.
The authors of the study they cited, however, said that 67% of the population needs to have been infected to achieve herd immunity, which is necessary to provide the general public with comprehensive protection against the virus.
– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a member of Pfizer’s boards, Genetic Testing Begins Tempus and the Illumina biotech company.
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