Disease experts warn: ‘The world needs a reality check’
Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization epidemiologist, was in her Geneva office last weekend preparing for a keynote address when a simple phrase came to mind. She had been pondering the dismaying rise in coronavirus infections globally during the previous three weeks, reversing promising trends of late spring. The surge came as people across much of the Northern Hemisphere were moving around again in a suddenly freewheeling summer — as if the pandemic wereover.
She wrote in her notebook: “The world needs a realitycheck.”
Ms. Van Kerkhove’s subsequent comments on Twitter pointing out the lack of social distancing drew predictable flak from the social media trolls, something she has gotten used to in the past year and a half. But she is not an outlier. Around the world, scientists and public health officials fear that the world’s protracted battle against the coronavirus is at a delicate and dangerous moment.
Reality checks abound. Coronavirus infections are surging in places with low vaccination rates. SARSCoV-2 is continuing to mutate. Researchers have confirmed the delta variant is far more transmissible than earlier strains. Although the vaccines remain remarkably effective, the virus has bountiful opportunities to find new ways to evade immunity. Most of the world remainsunvaccinated.
And so the end of the pandemic remains somewhere overthe horizon.
“We’re getting further away from the end than we should be. We’re in a bad place right now globally,” Ms.Van Kerkhove said.
Similarly dismayed is Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Last summer, he watched cases in the United States spike, particularly in the Sun Belt, after what he felt was a premature end to spring restrictions. He is not surprised by the rise in infections across a country where many people haven’t gotten their shots and have returned to pre-pandemic behavior.
“It’s like we’ve been to this movie several times in the last year and half, and it doesn’t end well. Somehow, we’re running the tape again. It’s all predictable,” Mr.Collins said.
Coronavirus infections in theUnited States rose nearly 70% in a single week, officials reported, and hospitalizationsand deaths rose 36% and 26%, respectively. Almost every state has experienced a rise in cases. Florida, populous and not highly vaccinated, is seeing a surge in cases. In hot spots such as Arkansas and Missouri, COVID-19 wards are openingup again in hospitals.
Los Angeles County announced that it had to reinstate indoor mask requirements for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. Breakthrough infections among vaccinated people provide another reality check. Thursday’s baseball gamebetween the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox was postponed when six Yankees players — most of them vaccinated — tested positive.
The vaccines, though marvels of basic and applied science, do not form an impenetrable shield against SARS-CoV-2. They work as advertised, meaning they usually prevent severe illness and death, but they do notdeliver what is known as “sterilizingimmunity.”
The CDC issued a statement Friday saying the agency has multiple programs, working with state and local partners, to track vaccineeffectiveness.
“COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to help bring the pandemic under control. However, no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people. There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, be hospitalized, or die from COVID-19. As with other vaccines,this is expected. As the number of people who are vaccinated goes up, the number of breakthrough cases is also expected to increase,”the CDC said.