Fauci’s 2021 COVID-19 forecast: School reopenings, vaccines and some ‘normalcy’ by fall
It’s been a grim December, and January is looking to be just as bleak as the coronavirus continues to ravage both California and the nation.
In a conversation broadcast online Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious diseases expert, talked to Gov. Gavin Newsom about why the pandemic has been so hard to control in California and across the U.S.
But he also offered some hope about the future, outlining his latest estimate on when things might get back to a greater semblance of normality and whether schools can safely reopen.
Here are some of Fauci’s thoughts on what 2021 might look like:
– Schools can safely reopen, even when there’s substantial community transmission
Fauci said the coronavirus acts very differently from the flu when it comes to children.
With the coronavirus, children seem to have lower levels of infection than the broader community.
“That was almost counterintuitive, but it’s turning out to be that way,” Fauci said.
“What we should do is to do everything to support the maintenance of the children in school. ... If you really want to get society back to some form of normality, one of the first things we have to do is to get the children back in school.”
– Vaccines for broader public to be distributed in late spring, early summer
Initial distribution of the vaccine to the top priority group, including health care workers and people in nursing homes, has been slower than initially promised. But Fauci said there’s a sense that by January, there will be greater momentum, and the pace of inoculations will accelerate.
Before the general public gets the vaccine, though, there are other priority groups who are next in line. It will likely be the end of March or the beginning of April before the vaccine is available to everyone.
At that point, the race will be on to get as many people vaccinated through the spring and summer, with the goal to have everyone vaccinated by the time cooler weather arrives next fall.
– Stronger sense of normality could come by early autumn — if enough people get vaccinated
If the U.S. is diligent about getting many people vaccinated between April and July, “I believe ... 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. I believe if we do it correctly, we will be there by the early fall,” Fauci said.
No one really knows what percentage of the population needs to be immunized to interrupt the spread of the virus, Fauci said. He guessed it would be somewhere between 70% and 85%.
“If you have the opportunity to get vaccinated, please get vaccinated,” Fauci said.
“It’s a safe and it’s a highly efficacious vaccine that could save your life, the life of your family and the community.
“So I believe with those two things – adherence to the kind of things that you’ve been talking about in California, the public health measures, and as we gradually get more and more people vaccinated, we’re going to be looking at this thing in the rearview mirror,” Fauci told Newsom.
– Failure to contain coronavirus would be disastrous for economy
Some people think of the business restrictions implemented to control the pandemic as too high a price to pay. But Fauci said the pandemic needs to be controlled in order to allow the economy to get back to normal.
“We need to use public health measures – as a vehicle, a gateway, a tool – to get the economy back. It isn’t the economy versus public health. It’s public health bridging you to getting the economy back,” Fauci said.
The economy will reopen “when you get the level of infection down,” Fauci said. “And the only way you’re going to get the level of infection down before the vaccine kicks in is by the public health measures that you have been talking about.”
Fauci also looked back at the challenges of 2020. Here are some key points:
– Asymptomatic spread of the virus makes this pandemic far harder to control
The initial information coming out of China in late 2019 about the coronavirus was misleading, Fauci said.
Initially, the word was that the virus did not efficiently transmit between humans, which ended up being wrong. Then, the word was that it was mostly being transmitted by people who were visibly sick.
The sobering reality was that even people without visible symptoms were transmitting the virus.
“That, to me, is something that was the game-changer,” Fauci said. “Because you can’t just test people who are with symptoms, because you’re going to miss the asymptomatic people.”
Second, it meant that mask wearing became very important. “If you don’t know who’s infected, then everybody should be wearing a mask, which is the real fundamental rationale for saying we need universal and uniform wearing of masks,” Fauci said.
– Wide range of outcomes – from no symptoms to death – made it too easy to dismiss the virus
Fauci said he’s never seen a virus like this one, where 40% of those infected have no symptoms at all, while 20% to 25% get symptoms so severe they may need hospitalization or die.
“The mystery of how you can have so many people who have no symptoms, and so many people who get seriously impacted, is one of the reasons why we have a messaging difficulty,” Fauci said. “Because most of the people who do well are young people, and they say, ‘What do I got to worry about?’ ... So they say to themselves, ‘Why do I need to interrupt my life?’”
But that sentiment has had serious consequences and has been a factor in the worst death toll of any nation in the world – more than 335,000 deaths. And public health activities such as mask wearing became politicized.
In Los Angeles County, the cumulative COVID-19 death toll of more than 10,000 is now triple the cumulative death toll from the flu in the last flu season, which was 3,133.