- The World Health Organization warned on Monday that any coronavirus vaccine is probably not “perfect”, in part because not “everyone will have access” to it right away.
- The WHO emphasized that other time-tested public health measures – handwashing, social distancing, quarantine, and wearing masks in public – can help reduce the spread of the virus in the meantime.
- “Turn around and face the problem and accept that it will take time,” said WHO’s Mike Ryan. “It is going to take a huge commitment from the government and people in various countries to change this.”
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There are still many months to go before a coronavirus vaccine, but leading infectious disease experts are already warning that any eventual inoculation will not be a one-size-fits-all solution to this pandemic, and that instead we will have to learn to live with the looming threat of more. coronavirus infections for months, if not years to come.
“Expecting us to eradicate or eliminate this virus in the coming months is not realistic,” Mike Ryan, executive director of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, said during a press conference broadcast from Geneva on Monday.
“And also, believing that we will magically get a perfect vaccine that everyone will have access to, is also not realistic.”
Ryan’s cautionary notes on eradication of the new coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, come as the respiratory virus continues to rapidly circle the world, infecting tens of thousands of new people in the United States. United every day. On Sunday, Florida reported more than 15,000 new cases of COVID-19 in a single day, a new record for any U.S. state.
Studies of some of the millions of people around the world who have already had the coronavirus and have recovered are also beginning to suggest that catching the disease once is not some kind of iron-coated protection.
Relying on collective immunity to protect people from the virus, whether through widespread vaccination or previous infections, may not be a good strategy for this pandemic. We will likely have to continue to adhere to more basic public health and hygiene measures for many, many months to come.
“We can and will develop a vaccine,” said Ryan. “The question mark is: ‘how effective will that vaccine be?’ And, what is more important and more worrying: “Who will receive that vaccine?” And: “Will this distribution be fair and equitable?”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, told Dean Lloyd Minor of Stanford Medicine in a virtual conversation on Monday that he “would like to make a reasonable assumption that sometime in early 2021 We have a couple of vaccines that are safe and effective. “
But Fauci, like Ryan, is concerned about an equitable distribution of any possible coronavirus vaccine.
“Obviously ultimately you want to vaccinate everyone, but as the doses come online, you will have to prioritize,” he said.
We are going to live with this virus for a while
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson boards an ambulance during a visit to the headquarters of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust in London on Monday 13 July 2020.
Ben Stansall / pool via AP
Coronavirus is still spreading rapidly in several states in the US, as well as in other large countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India, and now South Africa.
Ryan said there may still be a role for some “limited or geo-focused locks” in such places “where the transmission is, frankly, out of control,” not to mention any specific location by name.
There are some simple, low-tech strategies for fighting disease that can work to keep the spread of the virus very low, as many European and Asian countries have shown. Handwashing, social distancing, wearing masks, and isolating confirmed cases of coronavirus can play an important role.
“If people continue to frequent crowded places without taking the necessary precautions, if people do not practice physical distancing, if people do not practice hygiene, if people do not wear masks in the right settings, the disease will continue to spread,” Ryan said.
White House coronavirus testing czar Admiral Brett Giroir said Sunday that “everything should be on the table” at this time to contain the spread of the virus, especially in the worst-affected places.
“Those things, as simple as they are, can change it,” Fauci said Monday.
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams also reiterated over the weekend that the US can “turn this around in two to three weeks if we can get a critical mass of people to cover their faces , practice at least 6 feet of social distance, doing the things that we know to be effective. ”
United States President Donald Trump wore a face mask for the first time in public on Saturday, after more than three months of refusing to follow his own administration’s public health recommendations.
“Clear” and “consistent” messages from leaders who “turn around and face fire” can help beat the virus
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is credited with zeroing coronavirus transmission in his country.
Getty
A clear strategy to fight the pandemic at all levels is also key, starting with clear communication from senior government officials, to every citizen who chooses when and how to be in public as safely as possible.
“We need clear and strong government leadership,” said Ryan, “that’s even more important in countries that are now experiencing very exponential transmission, which is very, very worrying.”
“Turn and face the fire. Turn and face the problem and accept that it will take time,” Ryan said. “It is going to take a huge commitment from the government and people in various countries to change this.”
