KEY POINTS

  • Scott Gottlieb said the Delta variant could affect people who refuse to get vaccinated
  • An epidemiologist warned that COVID-19 could become a "forever virus"
  • COVID-19 cases involving children are also increasing in parts of the U.S.

The former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday said the surge of the Delta variant may be the “final wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

In an interview with CNBC, Dr. Scott Gottlieb said he believes the current surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly contagious Delta variant could be the last wave in the U.S. However, he noted that this could only be possible unless a new variant that is resistant to current vaccines pops up.

“I don’t think Covid is going to be epidemic all through the fall and the winter. I think that this is the final wave, the final act, assuming we don’t have a variant emerge that pierces the immunity offered by prior infection or vaccination,” he said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“This is probably going to be the wave of infection that ends up affecting the people who refuse to get vaccinated,” he added.

However, Dr. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was part of the World Health Organization’s team that eradicated smallpox, said the COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to end soon as only a small portion of the world’s population has been vaccinated against the virus.

“Unless we vaccinate everyone in 200 plus countries, there will still be new variants,” he told CNBC, noting that the novel coronavirus could become a “forever virus.”

On Saturday, the U.S. crossed the 100,000 average cases a day, reporting 107,143 new infections. The figure marked a drastic increase from the 11,000 cases a day reported in late June. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Delta variant is estimated to comprise 83% of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in the country.

On Friday, the seven-day average for daily coronavirus-related deaths also increased to nearly 500 a day from 270 deaths over the past two weeks, according to NPR’s analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

COVID-19 cases involving children are also increasing in parts of the U.S. On July 25, roughly 130 children were hospitalized with COVID-19. Between July 31 and Aug. 6, more than 210 children with coronavirus were admitted to hospitals.

“The number of positive Covid tests started to climb in early July. And then that’s when we really started to see the kids get sick,” Marcy Doderer, the president and chief executive of Arkansas Children’s Hospital, said, according to The New York Times.

Unlike during the first two waves of the pandemic, most of the coronavirus patients now at the hospital in a suburb of Mexico City are in their 20s and 30s
Unlike during the first two waves of the pandemic, most of the coronavirus patients now at the hospital in a suburb of Mexico City are in their 20s and 30s AFP / ALFREDO ESTRELLA
RELATED STORIES
Coronavirus