Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is confident that the global pandemic is almost over, but not because of President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate, which he believes is counterproductive in building public confidence in the vaccines.
In fact, he believes that private businesses should be able to decide on their own what type of COVID mandates they'll implement as compared to Biden's vaccine mandate that has been met with mounting pressure from several lawsuits.
Gottlieb, who served as the Food and Drug Administration commissioner under the Trump administration, said that businesses that were considering mandates are waiting on the federal government's guidelines, CBN News reported. He said, "It's going to take the federal government months to implement this mandate if they're ever able to, and so they might have actually slowed down the rate of decision-making in the private community."
When it comes to COVID vaccines for children aged five to eleven, Gottlieb said he was confident that the FDA will give approval before Thanksgiving, explaining that it's "basically the same formulation as the current vaccine just in a lower dose." He added that an even lower dosage may be available for kids aged four and below by the beginning of the New Year. But aside from getting vaccinated, the former FDA commissioner highlighted the effectiveness and importance of natural immunity gained from a previous COVID infection.
"We need to recognize that people who have immunity that's acquired through infection, that immunity is durable, and it appears it is quite robust," Gottlieb argued. "I think the question from a clinical standpoint is how long it's going to last."
Meanwhile, Gottlieb declared that the Delta variant of COVID may be the last surge the U.S. may experience, the Daily Mail reported. He said that in the event that no other new variant emerges, COVID will then become an endemic disease, which means it will be around, but being circulated at a much lowe rate.
Gottlieb explained that "this Delta wave may be the last major wave of infection, assuming nothing unexpected happens," such as another deadly variant. He added that unless other variants surface, "this will be the last major wave of infection, and this becomes a more persistent, endemic risk."
In the U.S., the rate of increase of new COVID vases has significantly slowed down before it began declining last week. In fact, there was a 14% decrease in the rolling average of new COVID cases. A new model has even predicted that COVID cases and deaths will go even lower to a level that was last seen in late March 2020 when the coronavirus first hit the U.S.
Meanwhile, President Biden continues to push for vaccine mandates, even televising his third inoculation of the Pfizer jab, a booster shot given to those 65 and older and at least six months following their first series of shots as per the CDC, ABC News reported. The Democratic leader took his third shot on Monday, saying, "Boosters are important, but the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated."
