Covid 19 coronavirus: Dr. Anthony Fauci on NZ plan, herd immunity and confidence in the vaccine

By RNZ

The United States’ top health advisor and leading immunologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is known worldwide as one of the most trusted authorities on Covid-19.

Fauci, who helped turn the tide in the fight against HIV / AIDS in the 1990s, is director of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and has advised six American presidents on both sides of the political divide. He’s about to add a seventh to the roster – he’s serving as chief medical adviser to President-elect Joe Biden.

To date, Covid-19 infections in the US have exceeded 17 million in total, with a record of 308,719 deaths, the highest figures of any country in the world.

More than 3,600 people died in the United States yesterday alone, and there are fears that the worst is yet to come after Christmas gatherings and trips.

Fauci, who turns 80 this week, tells RNZ Nine to Noon Kathryn Ryan that the US will have to prioritize who gets vaccinated first.

“The supply is such that there is not enough quantity for everyone at the same time exactly. We give priority to healthcare workers and then those in nursing homes because we have been particularly affected, a significant part of mortality, at least early in the outbreak, he was among the occupants of our nursing homes and care facilities.

“We hope that if we can protect them, that would cover a significant part of the people who made up mortality.

“However, once we get enough doses, we hope to be able to vaccinate such a large proportion of the population that we can get, over a period of several months, what we call herd immunity. So we have a protective blanket over the country. “

In New Zealand, the Government announced yesterday that it had reached agreements to purchase vaccines from two more companies, bringing the total to four, and what the Government believes will be sufficient courses to inoculate the entire country and Pacific countries.

Vaccination of the general population will not begin until the second half of next year and could last until 2022.

Fauci says that he would hope that New Zealand is a small enough country that we can achieve the same in a short period of time.

“I think it is well positioned to end this outbreak, in a very forceful way, through vaccination.”

In the US, it is estimated that herd immunity can be achieved by vaccinating between 70 and 85 percent of the population.

“We think that if we can get that level of vaccination, we could get a blanket of immunity over the population that would essentially give the virus no place to go.”

With the arrival of the holiday season, Fauci says experts predict an increase in cases after Thanksgiving and Christmas and is emphasizing to the American population that they should continue to follow strict public health measures, such as wearing masks and not congregate in large groups.

“Nothing is going to change until we manage to vaccinate such a proportion of the population that it would have an impact on the dynamics of the outbreak, but we are not close to that yet.”

Fauci says it will be up to richer nations to figure out how to help poorer and developing nations get vaccinated if we want to see the end of Covid-19.

“This is a global pandemic and requires a global response. Countries like the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the European Union will likely have the resources to be able to vaccinate the overwhelming proportion of their population.”

“But we have to make sure that in those areas of the world where they don’t have the resources, we can also vaccinate their population.

“That is the reason we have eradicated smallpox, the reason we have essentially eliminated polio from most of the world and made a breakthrough so that most of the developed world is measles free.”

Trust in vaccines among the population will also be essential for widespread acceptance, and Fauci says that from what he has seen, vaccine manufacturers have been transparent and are peer reviewing the data.

Another concern is that the Covid-19 virus will mutate enough to prevent a vaccine, but Fauci says the data so far shows that it does not mutate to the extent of other viruses like influenza.

“What we have seen so far is that it is an RNA virus, so it mutates, however, the mutations do not seem to interfere with the part of the virus that is being blocked by the antibodies introduced by this vaccine.”

Fauci has been a senior adviser to President Donald Trump. He had to deal with incorrect or misinformed factual statements from the president about the virus he was tasked with fighting.

Different positions between the couple on the domestic response to the pandemic were frequent, and Trump, who contracted Covid-19 himself and hosted a rose garden event where several attendees subsequently tested positive for Covid-19, often alternated between praising and rejecting Fauci’s abilities.

Fauci says he will not comment on the details of working with the Trump Administration to fight the virus, but says it is the worst respiratory virus the world has seen since the 1918 Spanish flu.

“Having this degree of outbreak explosion in less than a year is unprecedented.

“I would have to say, in all my experience, even though we have had serious deaths and morbidity from HIV, given that this has occurred in the limits of less than a year, it is the most dramatic and shocking public health crisis that we have. faced in more than a century “.

Given that US states have their own degree of independence from each other and from the federal government, Fauci says it has been a great challenge to have a consistent response to the virus.

“When it comes to a pandemic that doesn’t know the boundaries between one state and another, not having a uniform response is something that was a problem for us, and we probably could have done better if we had a more consistent response between states.”

Added to that, there has been division in the United States compounded by conspiracy theories about the virus and mistrust of institutions. Fauci says that even wearing a mask or not has become a political statement in the United States.

“It is really unfortunate because public health measures should never be politicized.”

– RNZ