Americans should prepare for another spike in COVID-19 cases.
Now that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is beginning to be administered, there have been questions regarding if one should prioritize getting one company’s vaccine over another’s. Fauci reiterated that all three of the vaccines are efficacious at “preventing severe disease, and particularly, hospitalizations and deaths, and have a “very good safety profile.”
Fauci also noted that there is actually no way to directly compare the vaccines to each other without a clinical trial where the vaccines have “head-to-head comparison,” which was not done.
“I would take the first available vaccine because the most important things to do is get vaccinated and not try to figure out what one may be or may not be better than the other,” said Fauci.
Rise in cases
In Friday morning’s press briefing the COVID response team warned that despite the recent decline and plateau in COVID cases nationally, Americans should be prepared for another spike.
When looking at the data, the plateau that the United States is currently in consists of 60,000 to 70,000 cases a day, which is high and indicative of an impending rise in cases.
“When you have that much viral activity in a plateau, it almost inevitably means that you are at risk for another spike,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci
Fauci referenced a Washington Post report that found that many countries in Europe, similar to the United States, had seen a decrease in cases over a six week period, a plateau, but then an increase in cases by 9% over the past week. This is something the United States wants to avoid, especially with the threat of COVID variants.
To address the number of viral variants, Fauci first stressed the importance of wearing masks, avoiding congregate settings, washing hands, and getting vaccinated if eligible. Along with this, there has been a discussion of administering booster shots to protect against this “wild type” variant, as is planned with the Moderna vaccine.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan
Earlier this week, it was reported that Mayor Duggan of Detroit said that he is declining the initial allotment of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in part because he believes that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are better.
The COVID response team, however, mentioned that they had been in recent communications with Mayor Dugan, who claims that this is not what he said and that he is in fact “very eager for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”
People delaying receiving a vaccination due to questioning the effectiveness of one over another is a real issue that needs to be resolved.