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The United States and other parts of the world are in the midst of a new wave of COVID-19. Infections and hospitalizations are on the rise this winter, and a new variant is to blame for the peak of those cases. John Yang analyzed the existing trends and whether the technique to the virus wishes to replace with Dr. Eric Topol.
Note: Transcripts are both machine-generated and human-generated and edited for accuracy. They would possibly involve mistakes.
Geoff Bennett:
The United States and other parts of the world are in the midst of a new wave of COVID-19. Infections and hospitalizations are on the rise this winter. And a new variant is to blame for most of those cases.
John Yang presents the latest data and examines how we want to replace our strategy against the virus.
Jean Yang:
Geoff, the World Health Organization said yesterday that, in December, nearly 10,000 COVID deaths were reported in Europe and the Americas. In the United States, hospital admissions are on the rise, up 56 percent last week from the month before. But they’re still far lower than they were in previous years.
In Europe and the Americas, ICU admissions were up 62% compared to last month. The WHO director-general said public health officials will need to be vigilant.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
Although COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the virus continues to circulate, modify and kill. Data from a variety of resources implies an accumulation of transmission in December, driven by holiday gatherings and the JN. 1 variant. , which is now the most reported variant worldwide.
Jean Yang:
So what do those trends mean?
Dr. Eric Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. It warns about the emergence of this new variant.
Dr. Topol, how concerned are you about this current uptick?
Dr. Eric Topol, Scripps Translational Research Institute:
Well, it’s smart to be with you, John.
I think the bottom line is that we’re seeing a large number of infections, the highest time in the entire pandemic after Omicron. So even though hospitalizations are so severe and the number of deaths has already been talked about, it’s reassuring because of some of the immunity that we’ve developed.
But this virus has evolved, and it’s markedly different than previous versions we have seen, and that’s a challenge for the spread and for the infections and the potential of long COVID in many of those people as well.
Jean Yang:
Talk about that evolution.
Is this new variant, JN. 1, more dangerous?What, we about it.
Dr. Éric Topol:
Right.
So in the current pandemic, at the beginning of our fifth year here, there have only been two times that a variant has given the impression of having more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein. Usually a variant has a few, but here we call it the Omicron event because it’s the first time we’ve noticed one.
And then, of course, in the fall, we’ll see the emergence of the JN. 1 precursor with more than 30 other mutations in the spike protein. So, in the face of so many new mutations, the virus has necessarily figured out a way to evade our overall immune response.
And so it gets to be very infectious, easily getting people who have already been infected, no less those who have not had COVID before. So it’s good that we have four years of built-up exposures and vaccinations and boosters, but it’s bad that this virus is relentless in finding ways to basically reinvent itself and to get into our upper airway and then all the other potential things that can happen after that.
Jean Yang:
You talked about long COVID. You’ve talked a lot about the need to perceive long COVID, to perceive who’s at risk of having long COVID.
Explain your concerns and also whether or not repeated infections play any role.
Dr. Eric Topol:
Not bad.
Well, there’s no doubt that repeated infections introduce a greater threat of long COVID. And the problem, John, with long COVID, is we don’t know who’s going to get this. Over time, since the start of the pandemic, it seems that the incidence has decreased somewhat. And that’s partly due to the fact that vaccines are protective, reducing long-term COVID cases by 40 to 50%, just like with booster doses.
But the problem is, even with vaccinations or without, some people can have this terrible long-term problem of their immune system getting totally out of sorts and having self-directed antibodies and so many markers of inflammation across the body, throughout every organ system, no less a disabling set of symptoms.
So even though it’s only a small percentage of the other people affected by this existing wave, this huge global increase, it still represents a giant number of other people that we’ve added to the tens of millions of other people who are already suffering from a long-term illness. COVID in the world and we have no remedy for it. We know of some things that can save you, but we don’t yet have anything proven to treat long COVID.
Jean Yang:
He published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times last week.
In it, you wrote, “These are now White House crickets on COVID, with no message on how to get the updated booster or mask-wearing. The Biden administration has done very little to push studies on effective remedies for long COVID. “
What would you like to see the administration do?
Dr. Eric Topol:
Well, more than it does.
In the first year of the pandemic, we saw Operation Warp Speed, we took this virus as an existential risk and we did everything we could.
But, right now, John, we need oral or nasal vaccines to stop infections, to stop spread, to be variant-proof, whatever this virus mutates to in the times ahead. And we have a small amount of funding towards that end, but not enough.
And the message was poor. In other words, even among those most at risk, about 35% of them have received the updated booster, which has been available since September. These are the seniors most at risk. We’ve had 90, 95 percent of the same high-risk people who got the first round of vaccines.
So we’re not doing enough. We knew it was coming. We’ve noticed countries in Europe where virus levels in tea water were unprecedented, even surpassing Omicron. And it’s not that they’re staying: the virus will stay there. We knew this would happen as early as September and October, and it’s only in the last few weeks that fitness systems have started to adopt a masking policy.
We’re just not doing enough to prepare or manage this big surge.
John Yang:
Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, thank you very much.
Dr. Éric Topol:
Thanks, Jean.
John Yang is the anchor of PBS News Weekend and a correspondent for PBS NewsHour. He covered the first year of the Trump administration and lately reports on key domestic issues in Washington, D. C. and across the country.
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