First up: Dr. Michael Osterholm, from the University of Minnesota, now a member of the Biden COVID Advisory Board. He told Chuck Todd on MTP that, at least for the next three weeks, the numbers are going to continue going way up because there are people "in the pipeline, meaning they're already infected." Still, he said, "our future's in our hands."
Right now, he said, the goal is to try and get through to summer when we'll have the vaccines and that we need to "focus on what's going to make that difference" to allow us to get there. And that's going to take a different approach - a national one, to help the state and local officials.
You see the governors struggling right now. They want help. I have actually talked to five governors in the last two days, all of whom said, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all at least be on the same page? But right now, you've got -- my state is surrounded by four other states and they all have different recommendations.” That, by itself, is what we're talking about -- standardizing how we're all going to approach this. This virus doesn't care what party you are. It doesn't care where you live. We have to understand that that's what we have to work on right now.
As to how close we are to the breaking point of our health care system, he said his worst fear is we end up like other countries,
People literally were dying in the waiting room of emergency rooms after spending ten hours just waiting to be seen. That's going to start happening. The media will start reporting it and we will see the breadth and the depth of this tragedy. That, I hope, will not be the way that we finally decide to reduce our risk, this idea of swapping air. We've got to stop doing that. And so, I think it is the health care system’s breaking, literally breaking, that will unfortunately bring us to a sense of reality of what we must do in the short term.
If we have a few more weeks of our current level of activity, that will happen here, he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci talked with Jake Tapper on CNN's SOTU; he hoped that we would double down on wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and avoiding crowds, knowing that we've got good news on vaccines but it will take a little time to get them. And, he agreed, it's possible we could see another 200,000 deaths in the next four months.
He also said that additional lockdowns "will likely happen" but not a national lockdown.
...I think what we are going to start seeing in the local levels, be they governors or mayors or people at the local level, will do, as you said, very surgical-type of restrictions, which are the function equivalent of a local lockdown. But we're not going to have a national lockdown. But if things really get bad, and you put your foot on the pedal, and yet still you have the surge, you may need to take the extra step that you're talking about.
Having effective vaccines on the horizon - Pfizer is likely asking the FDA for an Emergency Use Authorization, and the Moderna vaccine may be even more effective than Pfizer's - is great, but Fauci pointed out,
...we have to get people to take the vaccine. So, if we get the overwhelming majority of people taking the vaccine, and you have, on the one hand, an effective vaccine, on the other hand, a high degree of uptake of the vaccine, we could start getting things back to relative normal as we get into the second and third quarter of the year, where people can start thinking about doing things that were too dangerous just months ago.
But, he cautioned, just wishing those things were so isn't enough. We have to make it happen, and he emphasized, again, we have to do the "fundamental public health things" to get us where we want to be.
And, on the lack of cooperation with President-elect Biden's team, Fauci was clear.
... it's very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time period of measured in several weeks to months, is really important in a smooth handing over of the information, as well as -- it's almost like passing a baton in a race -- you don't want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep going. And that is what transition is. So, it certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do that.
As a public health measure, it's "obvious" that it would be better for the American people if the teams worked together.
Martha Raddatz had Adm. Brett Giroir of the current administration's Coronavirus Task Force, and Dr. Atul Gawande of the incoming administration's Covid-19 Advisory Board in the classroom at This Week.
Giroir was first, and he too expressed optimism about the Pfizer vaccine, saying it "is a game-changer. It will bring an end game to the pandemic," but also noted cases are up, hospitalizations are up, and mortality is up.
We know what to do, he said: physically distance, wear a mask, and said
We're going to have to do things like limit attendance or close bars, close indoor restaurants, because that's very important. If we do these things, combined with the testing that we have, we can flatten the curve. If we do not do these things, the cases will continue to go up.
He also said "we could have 20 million doses" of the vaccine by the end of this month, and a similar number by the end of December.
Raddatz asked him about getting people to do things we need to do, and he said "we all have to communicate very clearly that the science is clear, the evidence is overwhelming, whether you want to look at microbiological data or you want to look at epidemiology, city by city, state by state, country by country, that masks do work."
So, across the board, whether these are local mandates, whether these are voluntary, whether these are public service messages, we have to have the American people wear a mask when you can't physically distance.
Raddatz noted there's one person who's not shouting that message, but Giroir wasn't concerned about that, because Pence and other Cabinet members are engaged. And on the transition, specifically on the head of Operation Warp Speed asking to be allowed to contact the Biden team, the only thing that was missing was the chicken to go with his waffles.
I can say, from my point of view, that the GSA controls the transition process. My team, all the docs that work for us, we want to be extremely transparent. We are extremely transparent with the media, with outside experts, with public health experts, some of which are actually on team Biden advisers.
Asked for a simple yes or no, "is it important to be able to talk to the Biden team at this point?"
Look. I want to be as transparent as possible with everybody. This is not a political issue. This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. And I think there's nothing more important than that.
So, sorta kinda "yes," but definitely not, "Yes, it's critical and I'm going to press the White House to let us do exactly that." Got it.
Moving to Dr. Gawande, Raddatz started by asking what he thought of Giroir's comments on the transition. He said he could hear in Giroir's voice that he wants to share the info.
Look, working with the (Biden) transition team, they are...ready to go, and are getting all of the information they can. But it's in the nation's interest that the Transition Team get the threat assessments that the team knows about... understand the vaccine distribution plan, need to know where the stockpiles are, what the status of masks and gloves. There's a lot of information that needs to be transmitted. It can't wait until the last minute.
On stopping the surge, Gawande says first we need "a clear voice from the top backing the national comprehensive plan. And we've lacked that." We'll have that going forward. Second? Wear a mask. And, about the 'freedom' argument?
What I would say and I want to say to those citizens (who oppose masks) is simply that when a person goes into a store and does not wear a mask, when they go to a public gathering and they're not wearing a mask, they're hurting everyone's freedom. They are putting people in danger. Moreover, they are turning people away from shops and stores and that's hurting jobs. That is the critical mix of things. Opposing masks is like opposing washing hands, it's not political. We can pull together. We can do this.
She asked him to clarify whether or not there'll be a nationwide lockdown (which Dr. Osterholm mentioned last week). He said they're not supportive of it and there's not a scenario that would make that necessary, "because we can get this under control."
The critical parts are understanding what we've learned since we did a nationwide lockdown in early April. And that is, that you can have targeted measures building on mask-wearing to include widespread testing, to include dialing up and dialing down capacity restrictions, and those measures need to happen on a more localized basis.
He pointed to NY's zip code-by-zip code restrictions, which is "quite effective. We do not need to go to a nationwide shelter-in-place shutdown."
So, when you hear the president say it's definitely going to happen, tell him to put it in his pipe and smoke it. And remind your friends that it was the Trump Administration that put in place the nationwide lockdown that we had earlier this year. If you do that, I'll give you even more extra credit.
See you around campus - mask on, of course.
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