the U. S. Is on the verge of reaching a grim milest
one million covid deaths. The CDC says it's a number
we're likely to hit in the next few weeks johns Hopkin
University reports more than 988,000 deaths in the US
are linked to covid right now, the Center for Disease
Control predicts another 11,000 people are likely to
die within four weeks And cases are beginning to tick
back up fueled by that Sub variant that's already
caused surges in other parts of the world. The latest
data from Johns Hopkins University shows were still
well below previous peaks that are now averaging nearly
40,000 confirmed cases per day. We were in the high
20,000 at the beginning of the month. Still, U. S.
Hospitalizations remain down th seven day average of
hospitalizations remains just below 15,000, which is
actually a fraction of what they were during the height
of the omicron surge earlier this year. Joining us now
is dr Ramon Lorenzo Redondo, assistant professor of
medicine in the division of infectious diseases at
Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern Univer
Dr Redondo, glad to have you here again, philadelph
became the first major U. S. City to reinstate indoor
mask mandates as cases began to tick up. Do you think
this is a case of being extremely cautious or do
think more cities and states should or will follow in
philadelphia's footsteps. Well, if the cases follow
the trend that some european countries have already
observed and then um some of the data that we are
obtaining, for example for what from wastewater
surveillance that goes maybe a little bit ahead of the
cases and the cases that are still uh that are starting
to grow especially in some of the most densely
populated areas. It might not be overly cautious,
especially thinking that um um these measures are not
very very restrictive is just uh a caution that
probably doesn't cause that matters much for. So I
think it's not a bad idea also taking into account t
now we are dealing with an extremely uh contagious
variant of the virus that especially uh it's very
contagious indoors. Uh it might be a bad idea to uh
in state these uh these policies especially uh when we
can be more preventive then reactive to the cases. So
um we could by doing these type of measures maybe
prevent an outbreak or prevent an increase the sudden
increase in cases. So I don't think it's a bad idea.
And then once especially these all these policies need
to follow data need to follow the trend. They have to
have objective reasons. And the once you see that the
trend uh is under control again then you uh very easily
can remove them again. So I think it's not a bad idea.
And maybe if the trends of some other countries are
followed here and still is yet to be seen but we know
that b A to the sub lineage of is now the most
predominant. This is highly contagious. So it wouldn't
be rare to see that we are observed increasing case
Sure as you said, preventive over reactive is a good
way to look at it. So congress did adjourn for spr
recess this week before being able to pass a
supplemental COVID funding reli package. So what kind
of negative impact could a lack of funding right now
have on the pandemic Yeah, so um it's still yet to be
seen but it's there's some confusion right now about
the funding and the specific funding for for resear
or or studies in in SARS-CoV-2 COVID to um the main
thing is that we have seen that the investment in thi
in this type of research or uh AIDS in in uh in uh
investigation um have a big return. So we have to
understand that we need to invest more. We have
developed very good tools but it's not enough
especially if new waves and new variants keep being
developed. And another area that is also very important
is global health. So we need still even if we cover
ourselves and we have enough supply we need to probably
for our own sake to help other countries with less
resources, especially in africa nations or in south
America or central american nations where where
vaccination treatments are not still available or
available in big proportions. So a combination of all
of these uh we need to think about it, we need to
probably invest more in new vaccines or new delegates
of the vaccines is so successfully have been deplo
We need to invest more in research in treatment. And
also we need to understand the virus and the
characteristics of the virus even better because so far
there's a lot of unknowns. So all of this comes from
this money and this funding. So I think it could have
some consequences. So hopefully they solve these
problems and and start the funding against all right,
Dr Ramon Lorenzo Redondo as always, thank you for being
here. Thank you very much.