Dr. Fine Warns “It Is Going to Take a Couple of Years and Vaccinations 2-3 a Year to Beat Virus”
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Dr. Michael Fine, the former Rhode Island Director of Health, is warning that the new coronavirus variants coupled with the high level of disease are going to make the battle against the virus more complicated and take longer.
“It’s going to take a couple of years of doing it. It's going to be vaccinations two or three times a year,” said Fine on GoLocal LIVE.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“I would be surprised if we don't end up with a regular vaccination process with most people needing vaccine vaccination or boosters two or three times a year responding to, at least in the beginning, to different variants as they emerge," he said.
"What we're going to need is COVID-19 vaccinations two or three times a year, including different variants as we go and doing that for a couple of years, with 80 to 90% vaccination rates in order to get rid of this thing -- we're never going to get rid of it [but control it]," he said.
“What we've got to do is suppress this disease down to next to nothing, so variants don't emerge so often. And the way to do that is to be aggressive about vaccination," said Fine. Presently, public health experts are concerned about three variants that have all been detected in the United States -- the UK, South African and Brazilian.
Johnson & Johnson "Disappointing"
“The Johnson & Johnson results which are being portrayed nationally as a good thing and I suppose they are, are still a big disappointment,” said Fine.
Johnson & Johnson was found to be 66% effective against the virus — both Modern and Pfizer are between 90% and 95%.
“You know we were really hoping for it to be a one-dose vaccine and it just doesn't seem to me to be powerful enough to count as a single dose so I'm guessing what will happen is that it will get emergency use authorization,” added Fine.
Johnson & Johnson is expected to seek Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA this week.
“it will be used in low-risk populations not in high-risk populations and then they will test a two or three-dose version which may be what's necessary to get it to boost its effectiveness up to the level of the other two released vaccines [Pfizer and Modern].
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