If this is how the pandemic ends, it would be the worst case scenario! Dr. Fauci just described the “worst case” scenario!
That the pandemic will eventually be over and defeated is clear and will happen that way, but – what if it ends in disaster? Dr. Fauci has just laid out the worst case scenario for the end of the pandemic
It would be a “terrible tragedy” to let things continue as they are, the COVID expert said.
When exactly will the pandemic be over? That question has plagued us since cases began piling up in March 2020, and now, 20 months later, we still don’t have an exact answer. Certainly, things have improved considerably. The surge in delta variant, which brought the numbers back to catastrophic levels this summer, seems to have abated, and the approval of vaccines for children means that more and more people will soon be fully vaccinated against COVID. Despite the light at the end of the tunnel, however, some experts warn that we’re not out of the woods yet – and as White House COVID advisor Anthony Fauci, MD, recently explained, there is a worst-case scenario for the end of this pandemic.
In a November 12 interview on The New York Times podcast The Daily, Fauci spoke with host Michael Barbaro about the current state of COVID in the U.S. and what happens next as we head into winter, a time when the virus tends to surge. According to Fauci, the COVID situation is a “mixed bag” right now, with the country heading in the right direction but also showing some clear signs of trouble.
Numbers could look better!
Even though the number of delta waves has declined, the numbers aren’t quite where Fauci and other health officials would like to see them. “What’s somewhat sobering is that the curve is starting to flatten out,” he told Barbaro.
It’s not the first time the infectious disease expert has made that assessment. In a Nov. 8 interview, Fauci told NPR that case numbers aren’t declining as quickly as they were a week ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of new COVID cases dropped 1 percent in the week of Nov. 5, compared with 7 percent the week before.
Can the pandemic flare up again?
“If it stops going up so steeply and reaches a plateau, you could get into the uncomfortable situation of being at the plateau that we’re at right now, which is about 70 to 73 thousand cases per day, which is obviously not optimal, but is also the condition for a resurgence at this very high baseline,” Fauci told The Daily.
If the country is indeed headed for another surge, it’s hard to have hope that the pandemic could ever be over. But the COVID adviser put it clearly in his conversation with Barbaro: It won’t go on forever. “Eventually, all pandemics burn themselves out,” Fauci said.
We can’t sit back!
However, that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and let it happen. Fauci pointed out that the worst-case scenario would be to simply let COVID continue to infect and kill without public health intervention, because the pandemic would eventually end on its own, but at a huge cost. “We have a historic pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 100 years, and we have highly effective, safe tools to end it,” he told The Daily. “I think it would be a terrible tragedy if we allow more Americans and more people around the world – because I think we have to pay attention to what’s happening in the rest of the world – if we allow more people to die and more people to get very, very sick because we don’t use the tools that we’re fortunate to have.”
Those remedies are the COVID vaccines, which are now approved for children as young as five, and the booster shots, to which many people are now entitled. While Fauci acknowledged in The Daily that the vaccines’ immunity is wearing off, he also said that we will eventually realize that “the booster is going to be an absolutely essential part of our response, not a bonus, not a luxury, but an absolutely essential part of the program.” Overall, however, Fauci is confident that vaccination is the way to end the pandemic without adding a huge number of new deaths to the already staggering numbers.
“We’ve lost 750,000 Americans so far, we have 46 million infections, probably more as many go undetected, and we know what we can do,” he told Barbaro.
As for the immediate future, Fauci said there could be a spike in the winter as holiday travel and indoor gatherings increase the chances of spread. At the same time, he stressed that those who have been vaccinated (and especially those who are vaccinated) should be able to travel and spend time with vaccinated family members and friends. Beyond that, how long the pandemic drags on and how many more casualties we face will depend on our ability to make the right decisions – even if the pandemic eventually subsides anyway.
“In the modern age of biomedical research and public health measures, the negative impact of outbreaks can be mitigated,” Fauci affirmed. “In 1918, we had a flu pandemic that eventually wiped itself out, so you have a choice. Do you want it to burn itself out and kill more people and make more people sick, or do you want to do something about it to prevent more deaths and illness? Eventually, it’s going to end up either way. If you think about it for just a moment, it’s better to do everything we can to minimize the suffering and death. And it is within our power to do so. If we don’t use it, then bad things will happen.”