gather – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday that most Americans should be comfortable gathering together safely on Independence Day weekend, citing high Covid vaccination rates and low virus infection rates in many parts of the country.

However, the former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration said there are certain places where people should be more careful.

“There is a very low prevalence across the country. You have to be based on where you are, ”said Gottlieb in“ Squawk Box ”. He noted that in his home state of Connecticut, new daily cases are small, “so it’s a pretty safe environment to get together right now.”

“In some parts of the country where prevalence is increasing – Missouri, parts of Nevada, Arkansas, Oklahoma – I think people should exercise more caution,” added Gottlieb, who sits on the board of directors at Covid vaccine maker Pfizer.

Gottlieb’s comments come before the July 4th weekend as U.S. health officials closely monitor the Covid Delta variant, which is believed to be significantly more transmissible than dominant strains earlier in the pandemic.

Coronavirus cases in the country are dramatically lower than their peak in January when the country recorded over 300,000 new infections in a single day, but has been trending upward in recent days, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

The US recorded an average of about 12,700 new Covid cases per day in the past week, the analysis showed. That’s 9% more than a week ago.

“We don’t want to worry people, but we’re following these numbers very, very carefully,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky NBC News after a White House briefing Thursday.

The number of deaths continues to decline. The seven-day average of new Covid deaths is 249, according to CNBC analysis, a 19% decrease from a week earlier.

“There are kind of isolated parts of the country where the number of infections is increasing. The rest of the country looks very good,” said Gottlieb. “I think what you are seeing is a decoupling between places with high vaccination rates and places with low vaccination rates. You also see, frankly, a decoupling between the cases and extreme death and the disease that caused this virus.”

In countries with high vaccination rates, but also increasing cases due to the Delta variant, such as Great Britain and Israel, “hospitals and deaths are no longer increasing” as they did earlier in the global health crisis, said Gottlieb.

“For a while, we thought it was just the delayed effect where hospital admissions weren’t seen until three or four weeks after the number of cases rose, just like deaths,” said Gottlieb, who headed the FDA from 2017 to 2017 2019 in the Trump administration.

“But at this point we have enough trending to suggest that now you will only see decoupling and not see the extreme results of the virus in parts of the world where vaccination rates are high. and that includes the United States. “

Because of this, Gottlieb said, it’s important to make sure more Americans get a coronavirus vaccine, which will reduce both the spread of the virus and the risk of getting seriously ill or dying from the disease.

Nearly 156 million Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Just over 181 million people have received at least one dose; Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two vaccines while Johnson & Johnson’s are a single dose.

However, there are geographical gaps in vaccination coverage. CDC’s Walensky said Thursday that fewer than 30% of residents are vaccinated in about 1,000 U.S. counties, most of which are in the Southeast and Midwest.

Overall, 47% of the US population is fully vaccinated.

“Preliminary data for the past six months suggests that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the US have occurred in unvaccinated people … the suffering and loss we see now are almost entirely preventable,” Walensky said .

Gottlieb said despite being fully vaccinated, he is still looking for ways to be cautious as the pandemic is not completely lagging behind the country.

“For example, if I am going to a restaurant and there is an opportunity to sit outside, I will eat outside. I think where you can be a kind of nervous Bayesian and lower your statistical probability of coming into contact with the virus, why not? ”Said Gottlieb. “But I wouldn’t hold back from meeting friends and family on this holiday because the virus is spreading in very small numbers in certain parts of the country.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Friday he thinks many Americans will hold group meetings long before President Joe Biden’s goal of celebrating Independence Day.

In an interview on Squawk Box, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said he believed the schedule Biden set out in his prime-time speech on Thursday is too conservative compared to how people actually behaved.

“I think the majority of Americans will meet long before July,” said Gottlieb, who headed the FDA during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019. He is now a member of the board of directors of Pfizer, which makes one of three Covid vaccines approved for emergency use in the United States

Biden’s speech on Thursday evening on the pandemic aimed to highlight the collective toll Covid has suffered over the past year while also pointing out two forward-looking public health goals. The first: instructing states to qualify all adults for coronavirus vaccines by May 1. The second: A destination for Americans to safely gather together in small groups with friends and loved ones to celebrate July Fourth.

“I think we should give public health advice that is appropriate to where people are,” Gottlieb said. “”[When] People feel that the risk is reduced because they have been vaccinated, because they see infection rates falling in many parts of the country. They will be willing to take more risks because they feel their vulnerability is decreasing. And you know what? You’re right. “He predicted,” People will be out this summer and they will be out well before July. “

In response to Gottlieb’s remarks, the White House told CNBC that the timing of the meetings was a matter for health and medical experts at the CDC.

Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines that allow fully vaccinated individuals to safely congregate indoors with other fully vaccinated individuals – and certain unvaccinated individuals – without masks or social distance.

The guidelines came as states in the US lifted pandemic restrictions in recent weeks as vaccinations rolled out and daily coronavirus infections fell well below their January high. However, senior health officials in the Biden administration have warned that the decline in cases is gradually easing. The competing states should be more careful about lifting capacity restrictions for companies and masking mandates.

Last Friday, Gottlieb said mask mandates should be the final guidelines states and localities repeal after Texas and Mississippi announced the end of their face-covering rules.

According to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data, the US has recorded an average of 53,798 new cases per day for the past seven days. That’s 15% less than a week ago. The number of new U.S. cases on Thursday stood at 49,356, a decrease of nearly 84% from the record high on Jan. 2.

A key factor helping to slow the spread of the virus is the increasing immunity of the US population, Gottlieb said. He estimated that around half of the US population has some form of protective immunity against the coronavirus, taking into account both diagnosed and undiagnosed infections along with those who have been vaccinated.

Approximately 64 million Americans have received at least one dose of Covid vaccine, which is roughly 19% of the US population of 330 million people, according to the CDC. One in ten Americans is fully vaccinated.

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which Americans have been receiving since December, require two shots to provide full protection against the development of Covid. However, studies suggest that there is some immunity after the initial dose. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, the youngest entrant in the US market, is just a single shot.

The US has approximately 29.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins. The real number is higher, said Gottlieb, repeating a position he has held since the beginning of the pandemic. He explains that not every infected person has been tested and their positive result recorded.

“We’re probably diagnosing one in four infections, maybe a bit better than now,” said Gottlieb, who previously estimated that about a third of Americans could have got Covid. “So we are over 50%” of the population with some form of immunity, he added.

“At this level, you won’t spread the infections as quickly. It’s not quite herd immunity, but you will get immunity in the population,” he said.

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, healthcare technology company Aetion, and Illumina biotech. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.