Alliance for Health Policy https://allhealthpolicy.org CEO and President Sarah J. Dash and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) https://www.niaid.gov conducted a virtual session with reporters to discuss timely topics especially relevant to COVID-19. Dr. Fauci spoke in detail about the nature of the disease, the need to effectively handle at-risk groups, ways to prevent the virus, and the goals and promise for a vaccine to come in the near future.
Dr. Fauci discussed the status of the pandemic, how it affects various populations and parts of the country and highlighted the progress toward successful treatments and vaccines. He started his talk by saying the U.S was hit hard with 4.8 million cases and mentioned that some of the hardest hits occurred not only in New York but progressed later on in the South and West.
As he explained, 40-50% of the people infected can be without symptoms but yet spread the infection, 80% can have moderate symptoms, 20% can be infected with severe symptoms, but unfortunately 5% can be critical cases. However, considering the entire population, the fatality rating is relatively low.
A reporter asked if the virus would ever be totally eradicated? Dr Fauci told the group of reporters that only one virus was ever eradicated and that was smallpox. The way to control viruses is by taking effective public health measures while developing a vaccine which we hope will effectively serve the population.
He talked about “herd immunity” which results when a certain percentage of people are protected either by recovering from the virus and/or have had the vaccine. If this happens, many more people in the population would be protected from contacting the virus.
A reporter asked about the distribution plan for the coming vaccine. Dr. Fauci is cautiously optimistic the development of the vaccine will happen by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. Right now, CDC and the National Academy of Medicine are involved in discussions on immunization priorities.
He talked about the fact that some people infected with the virus do not always make a complete recovery with such factors as their energy level may be low and they may not feel normal in other ways. However, the majority of the population does well in recovery.
He summed up by saying, “It is up to us to deal with the situation today. If we pull together with no weak links in the chain and follow the guidelines, we can control the virus at an acceptable level. At that point, we can open the country and get back to some form of normality.”
The Alliance for Health Policy https://www.allhealthpolicy.org wants to thank APCO Worldwide https://apcoworldwide.com an advisory and advocacy communications consultancy firm, for making this event possible through their Brazda Breakfast Series which reports on the future of healthcare.