Italy is imposing new restrictions to help stop the spread of COVID-19 as the country heads toward a third wave of the virus.
That has some wondering if the U.S. should prepare for another lockdown, even as President Joe Biden says every adult should be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of May.
The former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb, was asked during an appearance on CBS’ “Face The Nation” if he believes the country will need to lockdown again.
“Through this whole pandemic, we’ve been about maybe three, four weeks behind Europe, so we’ve used Europe as a barometer of what’s going to happen in the United States,” Gottlieb said. “I think the tables have turned, and I think we’re ahead of Europe because we’re vaccinating so much more aggressively. Eastern Europe looks very bad right now. Italy looks bad.”
He continued, “But I think the U.S. is in a much different situation, through a combination of the fact that we have a lot of prior infection — so there’s immunity in the population from prior infection — and we’ve now vaccinated 25% of adults.”
Watch the video below:
Should the US anticipate a similar lockdown as Europe's?
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 14, 2021
“I think the tables have turned and I think we're ahead of Europe because we're vaccinating so much more aggressively,” @ScottGottliebMD tells @margbrennan.
"Eastern Europe looks very bad right now. Italy looks bad.” pic.twitter.com/M4b4n3EB64
Gottlieb noted that the country is administrating about 2.5 million doses of the vaccine per day.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 63% of Americans over the age of 65 have received at least one vaccine dose.
The agency reports that 21% of the total population of the U.S. has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and over 11% of Americans have been fully vaccinated.
On Jan. 8, the U.S. recorded over 300,000 new coronavirus infections — a record high for daily infections. However, the number of new cases has steadily declined. The country is now recording an average of 55,215 new cases per day.
Gottlieb reiterated, “I think we’re in a different situation than Europe because of the vaccine-induced immunity that we’re getting into the population.”
