Dr Anthony Fauci says life will return to normal by fall of 2021 if vaccines distribution speeds up – Daily Mail

The country’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr Anthony Fauci, says be believes there will be ‘some semblance of normality’ by the fall 2021 should vaccine distribution speed up and enough people decide to be vaccinated. 

Fauci’s remarks were made during an online discussion of the pandemic with California Governor Gavin Newsom.

‘Assuming that the broad vaccination campaign progresses as it should through May, June and July, by the time we get to the early fall, we will have enough good herd immunity to be able to really get back to some strong semblance of normality – schools, theaters, sports events, restaurants,’ Fauci said. 

It came on the same day America recorded its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic, with 3,903 deaths. It also hit record hospitalizations of more than 125,000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also warned that there could be 82,000 more fatalities in the next 24 days. 

Fauci also noted that a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus had been detected in Newsom’s state just a day after it was found in Colorado.  

Fauci explained that such variants are normal given that viruses mutate frequently. 

‘They make a living out of mutating. The more you mutate, the more you replicate,’ he said. ‘It appears that this particular mutation does make the virus better at transmitting from one person to another.

‘We likely will be seeing reports from other states – Colorado was the first place to do that and I think we will start seeing it as if you have that much of a prominence of this in the UK with all the travel not just directly to the United States but through other countries intermittently like when you go from the UK to France, France to the Unites States etc. then Canada has cases.

‘And so I don’t think the Californians should feel this is something odd. This is something that is expected,’ Fauci said. 

However, he noted that anyone infected with earlier forms of coronavirus during the pandemic do not appear to get re-infected by this particular strain. 

The variant which emanated from the UK is also not believed to be any more severe in the symptoms it causes. 

It has also been detected in several European countries including Canada, Australia, India, South Korea and Japan. 

The current strain of vaccines are also thought to be effective against the strain. 

Medical experts say that the colder weather coupled with the failure of many Americans to take public health warnings seriously or to avoid social gatherings and unnecessary travel over holidays is keeping the level of infections high. 

‘As we get into January, the feeling is that we’re going to gain momentum to be able to catch up,’ he told Newsom.

He also said that he believed the general public would be able to receive the vaccine by April. 

The US has only administered about 10 percent – less than 2.6million – of the 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccine it promised to give to Americans by the end of 2020, despite having distributed more than 12million doses to states and territories.

CDC data reveal that as of 9am on Wednesday morning fewer than 2.6million people had received their first doses of Moderna or Pfizer’s vaccines – both of which are difficult to ship and handle because they need to be stored at freezing temperatures.

The bottleneck is caused by officials on state and federal level who have failed to create plans to get those shots into the arms of Americans according to a former FDA official who told DailyMail.com that the failure is akin to dropping the baton on the last leg of the vaccine race. 

While Americans continue to wait to be vaccinated, the UK on Wednesday authorized a vaccine by AstraZeneca that will almost certainly accelerate vaccine distribution there because it is cheaper, far easier to ship, handle and store than the Pfizer and Moderna alternatives.

Yet US regulators have no intention of approving the more efficient shot until April – two months after AstraZeneca’s US trial will have enough data to prove to the FDA that it works.   

In the US, the federal government has left distribution plans almost entirely up to individual states, where health departments are already stretched thin by surging COVID-19 cases. 

So far, 341,000 have died from Covid-19 in the United States alone as the pandemic has raged largely out of control across much of the United States for weeks.

California, the country’s most populous state with 40 million, has become the latest flashpoint, as hospitals in and around Los Angeles report intensive care units filled to capacity.  

On Wednesday, the country hit a pandemic record of more than 3,900 deaths and 125,000 hospitalizations in a single day as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that there could be 82,000 more fatalities in the next 24 days.  

For the ninth day this month, deaths have exceeded 3,000. On Wednesday, the US reported 3,903 new deaths, bringing the country’s total to 341,505, according to The COVID Tracking Project. 

Hospitalizations increased again on Wednesday to 125,220. The US has recorded hospitalizations over 100,000 for the 29th consecutive day. New daily recorded infections hit 225,671. 

According to the CDC, the national ensemble forecast predicts that 12,400 to 24,300 new deaths will likely be reported in the week ending January 23, 2021. 

The national ensemble predicts that a total of 383,000 to 424,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date. On the high end of the model, that could mean that more than 82,000 people could die within the next month.