I think that's a model number 1 #2.
That model appears to be appropriate
#3 it duplicates what we saw
in the UK with this variant,
so I'm not surprised at all and
this is what a virus when it is
in an exponential phase does,
so seeing doubling every 10 days
is concerning, but likely real.
And my concern for America.
Is that we've just come through
all the post holiday highs and we
had some really high levels of
hospitilization cases and deaths.
Now they've dipped back down.
People are weary of covid an they're
likely to start skimping on wearing a mask,
or distancing and not getting
together in groups.
And if they do that in the
face of these new variants,
the UK is just one of 'em.
There's a South African and.
Million variant,
as you know,
it's likely to cause another spike
back up in hospitalizations and deaths,
unfortunately.
Yeah, I know there's been
kind of conflicting reports.
I know the UK one they've
suggested it may be more deadly,
but do we have more evidence involving? If
it is likely more deadly or not?
So in the UK the best estimate is that it
was somewhere around 28 to 38% more deadly,
so those are those are hard numbers to tease
apart because the larger number of deaths
are due to increased transmissibility.
In other words, if you hold
the death rate constant,
but you increase transmissibility by 50%,
you get many more deaths than if
you hold transmissibility, the same,
but increase lethality by 50%.
It's a hard concept for people to understand,
but it's the transmissibility of a
otherwise lethal virus that really
accelerates the number of cases,
hospitalizations, and deaths.
OK, so it's not necessarily causing
more severe disease in people don't
have good evidence yet to suggest that.
However, I am suspicious it does
because the best guess, as I say,
is that the lethality rate is increased.
Number one and #2 that the viral loads
in these individuals may be higher.
Both of those would be markers
of more severe disease.
I know CDC is there Modelings predicting
that this could be the predominant strain
in the US by March. You agree with
that estimate. I do it,
maybe it won't be the only one.
And of course anything
could happen between then.
This virus is going to find people who
are not vaccinated who don't wear masks
and who don't maintain social distancing.
That virus will find people
when you realize that.
So far in America.
One out of every twelve people
have been infected and one out
of every it's just under 700.
Americans have died as a
result of this infection.
This is what this virus does,
and I think we're going to see
just what they saw in the UK. Now.
The question is, will it be outcompeted?
For example by the South African variant
or the Brazilian Barrett variant,
or a variant that has yet to arise?
This, this virus doesn't stay the same,
it just keeps mutating.
I
know Doctor Fouchy was saying that it
seems like the vaccines that are approved
in the US are effective against at least
the UK strain. So yeah, it depends on
what we mean by effective and let me
let me just take you through that data.
So if we look at the Nova VAX study,
OK, the results just came out
the end of this past week.
If you look at the original strain
that the vaccine was based on,
it was about 95% effective.
If you look at the UK strain.
That effectiveness dropped to about 85%.
If you look at the South African strain,
depending on whether you were
HIV positive or negative,
it dropped to 50 to 60%.
OK, what about the M RNA vaccines?
Well, all we can tell at this point
and more studies need to be done is
that the neutralizing ability of
serum taken from people who received
those vaccines is reduced about 6
fold or more against these variants.
However, in the clinical studies,
because these vaccines raised such
a high in good immune response,
it appears that people still are
protected against severe disease and death,
but not mild or maybe even moderate disease.
Now,
you might say who cares about mild disease?
Almost,
regardless of symptoms that you have,
this virus can lead to long term symptoms
and complications in some people.
So it turns out to be important.
The second reason it's important is
if it doesn't completely protect you,
then you might not have severe
disease or death,
but you could spread it to
somebody else who might.
OK, last question for you. Thank you.
This has been very helpful.
Doctor Fouchy was saying not
to delay the second dose.
I know Doctor Osterholm,
we've kind of heard potentially different.
Where do you kind of fall when it
comes to that? Well,
the best data showed that if we follow,
it was done in clinical studies.
We don't go wrong.
However, for practical reasons,
many of us believe we should give as
many people the first dose as we can.
And then worry about
getting a second dose in.
This is a race and America
needs to understand this.
We are living through a race between virus
and vaccine between time and opportunity.
So I believe we should give as many
doses as we can as quickly as we can.
There are no examples where spreading
out the interval doesn't benefit
the immune response, it does.
We don't have data specifically on Covid,
except for the Astra Zeneca vaccine,
and indeed a longer interval
leads to a better immune response.
The flip side of that coin is
that until you get 2 doses,
you may not be protected.