The return of coronavirus. Carelessness, ideology and hope for the vaccine

How to explain the record jump in the number of infected Covid-19 in the United States? Is the situation comparable in the USA and Europe? Did authoritarianism help in the fight against the epidemic? Is it far to the vaccine from coronavirus? How did coronavirus become a factor in the ideological struggle?

We discuss these and other issues with a biophysicist, an honorary professor at the University of Boston, Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky and Radio observer, Liberty Efim Fishtein .

On July 1, 52 thousand infected with coronavirus were identified in the United States. In two weeks, the number of infected ones was three times and significantly exceeded the previous peak of the epidemic, reached at the end of April. The rapid spread of the virus in three dozen states, who lasted for four months on the side of the epidemic, scared many governors who announced the return to quarantine measures that they began to cancel about a month ago. The country's chief immunologist Anthony Fauchi, in his statements, suddenly switched from a restrained optimism to pessimism uncharacteristic for him, announcing that the number of infected people could jump up to 100 thousand.

A clear retreat in the fight against coronavirus was followed by the political conclusions of the opponents of Donald Trump. "America is too stained to fight the coronavirus," the newspaper New York Times proclaimed.

-Professor Frank-Kamenetsky, what is behind the explosive growth of infection?

Resuscitation department for patients with Covid-19 in the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, June 29, 2020

“These bursts are really very unpleasant,” says Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky . - They occur mainly in the southern and western states: Florida, Arizona and Texas. These states began to open businesses, despite the fact that those numbers that they had by infected did not satisfy the criteria that were developed by doctors. This discovery was supposed to take place in stages when each phase was supposed to satisfy certain requirements. They ignored it. No one could predict, of course, the consequences of such a decision. For example, they did not have a surge of large infections initially. They said that we were special, we can’t have anything like that. No one could firmly tell them: no, you will have a surge. In some of these states, such a surge turned out. In some, by the way, it did not work out. For example, the state of Georgia, who began to open very early, which everyone said - no, no, no, in no case do this, he has an upsurge, but this is not such a stormy outbuilding as, say, in Arizona, Texas or Florida. Therefore, each governor in each of the states chooses his own path. Some governors who have chosen this path of not such a responsible opening of the economy and businesses were wrong.

- That is, you are convinced that a sharp increase in infection in the United States is the result of a change in people's behavior, and not, say, changes in the properties of the virus?

If you have more than 5 percent in your country or state, you should not start opening the economy

- Undoubtedly. After all, there is a very clear recommendation of the World Health Organization: if you have more than 5 percent in the country or state, you should not start opening the economy. In Arizona, now, for example, 25 percent of positive tests. I did not see how much this surge began before they started, but it is obvious that there were more than 5 percent.

- Can we conclude that if less than five percent of the population is infected, then the threat of the spread of the virus is already small - of course, subject to safety measures?

- There is no figure of certain, the less, the better, but the WHO installed such a threshold that if it is less than 5 percent, then you can start open. Another thing is that you also need to open extremely carefully. It is necessary to open some of the businesses of the least vulnerable - this is the first phase. Watch for two weeks, what happens. This is exactly what the Governor of New York Kuomo did and continues to do. After the first mistakes that he is now recalling, he began to do everything in a scientific one. He divided his staff into several regions, in each of these regions he allowed to move on to the first phase and the next phases only after they satisfied certain quantitative criteria. The last thing I read today was that he canceled the opening of restaurants. On Monday, restaurants were supposed to open according to the plan, more precisely, it was allowed to visit visitors to sit at the tables in the room (now visitors are planted at tables on the street), he canceled this. Not even because he saw the growth of infection in the state of New York, but because he saw what was happening in other states, he realized that there was a danger that the infection would be made in New York. In New York, the situation is very favorable now, there are less than 1 percent of positive tests. Therefore, the answer to your question is when the degree of infection is so low, you can really do different things, gather for picnics and, perhaps, even without masks. Because there is another circumstance of the extremely important that I want to emphasize is the identification of infected and identifying all contacts. In this regard, different states are also in a very different position. In the state of New York, the army of such people, "tracers", they are specially hired, they are quickly trained, naturally online, how to do it, their number of about 35 per hundred thousand inhabitants, and in Florida or Texas there are some of them somewhere. This is completely not enough to track all new outbreaks, first small, which arise in order to extinguish them in time.

- The situation in the United States now looks worse than in Europe. In your opinion, Europeans have reason to say: we cope with the problem better than America?

I think that the deep difference between these successful and less successful, as we now believe, states or countries consists in relation to science

- Yes, of course, they have grounds for this. What I said, say, about the state of New York, is fully applied to almost all European countries. I would say that we see in America the same difference between the States as between some states of the European Union. I think that the deep difference between these successful and less successful, as we now believe, states or countries consists in relation to science. Europe, as we know, is much more educated and much less religious than America in general. In America, there is a huge difference between the southern states and the northeastern states, in which the degree of education is much higher, and the degree of religiosity is much lower. This plays, in my opinion, a radical role - cultural factors.

- But at least we can say that now it is clear how to hold the spread of the virus under control? To limit its distribution without dragon measures, not keeping entire cities under the castle, as the Chinese did?

- There are tools for this. The main tool is a test. There is a wonderful test that is based on the huge achievements of molecular biology, which was invented back in the mid-80s, the Nobel Prize was given for it, it allows you to test the virus with great sensitivity. This is a giant tool that allows when establishing the appropriate mechanisms to eliminate all such microchigs before they flare up into the flame. This was done in Europe, it was done in the state of New York, it was done exactly in Massachusetts, where I live, but this was not done in Florida, this was not done in Arizona, in Texas. Until we have a vaccine, until we have a herd immunity, or because 80 percent of the population will be ill with coronavirus or, which is much more favorable, there will be a vaccine and the same percentage of the population will be vaccinated, before that there are no other ways to open businesses and so on, except to conduct tests, there can be no and cannot be.

- Is it clear how much we advanced to create a vaccine? On Wednesday, the shares of the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer jumped after information about the good results of preliminary tests of one of the vaccines. At the same time, the chief immunologist of the United States Anthony Fauchi does not expect the appearance of the vaccine before the beginning of the next year.

Pfizer laboratory, where work is being carried out on the vaccine in the city of Perl River in the state of New York

- In my opinion, this does not change anything, there is progress, tests of various vaccines are carried out. Somewhere, we hope that by the end of the summer there will already be the results of large research on tens of thousands of people, checking the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. All this happens according to a very accelerated graphics. There are no grounds for pessimism now. We are waiting for the vaccine, nothing has changed in this sense, as everything was, it is. There are two fundamentally important vaccines, each of these types of vaccines is developed by a number of different companies. One type is based on MRNA, and the second type is adenovirus. This vaccine is developed primarily by the Oxford group at the Jenner Institute, in Russia such a vaccine is also tested. MRNC-vaccines are tested and developed by Modern, Pfizer develops the same vaccine. Let's see what will come of it, the tests are in full swing. Raw intermediate announcements, of course, bring money, raise the shares of these companies, but they talk little about.

- What do you think about the situation in Russia? Is there an infection under control? Are they close to the creation of a vaccine? Russian officials have repeatedly said that the vaccine will appear by the end of July.

- Such modes are not clear what you can believe. Firstly, the information is very fragmentary, and secondly, it is not clear how trusting it deserves. If in America a lot is considered in America through the prism of politics, then everything is completely politicized there. Therefore, I do not know what you can believe. Yes, there the vaccine is being developed. To develop a vaccine is quickly, testing it is very expensive and difficult. Such a vaccine has already been made at the Hamalea Institute, a really good institution with a very long tradition, but how they will experience it, I do not know how reliable these tests will be reliable. Because they still experience them either on their employees or for the military. This is absolutely not the contingent. The whole idea of testing the vaccine is that you create a huge cohort of people of different profiles, there should be elderly, young, and different ethnic groups, everything should be carefully thought out. Can it be carried out in Russia reliably in Russia, I just don’t know, ”says Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky.

- Efim Fishtein, in the USA we received a new wave of coronavirus, even the republican governors of the southern states were alarmed, who still did not require their citizens to wear masks. Political opponents, Democrats commentators accuse them of neglecting the health of people.

“About the same commentators who are now accusing the government that it did not control the epidemic, the same commentators on January 30 of this year accused the same government of banning flights from China,” says Efim Fishtein . - The American government was already forbidden, in this case I am not talking about side arguments now, but mainly because the center of distribution of infection was then in China, the government forbade flights, closed the air border of the United States and was criticized for this, because it was declared racist in relation to the Chinese population and meaningless. Now literally by namely the same people say that it was necessary to take measures before. Although when before? Indeed, back in mid -January of this year, the World Health Organization announced that the virus is a form of influenza. Since then, the World Health Organization (WHO) is now there, because it is still behind the events for some time. Now the WHO itself says that the second wave of the virus is possible. Details of the existence of this virus, the speed of mutation, whether antibodies are produced or not produced, almost no one knows anything with certainty. There is no vaccine yet. In short, the situation is so complicated that how not to use it for political purposes. After all, you can say anything, you can refer to the example of Europe where you managed to cope. I am now repeating this thesis quite consciously: Europe coped, and the United States could not cope.

- That is how the situation looks in the presentation of the American press, which, in general, welcomes the strict quarantine measures of European countries, unlike a relaxed approach in most states. Do I hear skepticism in your voice? You live in Prague, what is noticeable to you?

- The first question that needs to be solved if we discuss this, what criteria we use, what we are talking about at all. We are talking about statistics, then, of course, 130 thousand who died in America is a colossal number. On the islands of the green cape, for example, almost no one died, maybe one or two people. I deliberately propose a meaningless comparison, because the small countries of Europe are completely different numbers, they have a completely different population. That is, you need to take some kind of criterion, some indicator is accurate, an indicator of, say, mortality towards the number of sick people, then it does not matter whether this Brazil or America. The number of cases will be anything, but mortality towards the number of cases is some kind of criterion. So, in the American press today, next to outraged articles about why the president did not save America from Koronavirus, they immediately place a mortality rate among the sick. In the United States in different states, this is from 3 Florida to 9 in New Jersey percent of those who died from the number of sick people. In Europe, the percentage at best from 12 to 18. 18, say, in the UK, 15–16 in France, in Italy, percent of deaths from the number of cases. That is, if compared, you need to find a general criterion, a general indicator. In small countries of Europe, this indicator is relatively low in relation to others. The situation in Germany is best considered. Why? Did anyone ask himself this question? After all, there are more cases there than in other countries, but because there is a mortality rate there. That is, they are better treated by the sick already, the sick people die less. That is, we need to talk about comparable indicators. According to this indicator, America still does not look so bad. I remind you to those who have already forgotten that the first data came from researchers from the so-called imperial college-this is the Imperial College in the UK, the most such, I would say, the Alarmist organization, but took its data, its indicators. What did he predict America? He predicted America 120 million sick and two million dead. And then President Trump said in response: and I think that there will be no more than 200 thousand dead. Now there are 130 of them, it still remains to wait for how to develop further, but it is unlikely that the dead will be two million, as the imperial college predicted.

- By the way, the average mortality rate in the United States is just below five percent. Almost the same as Germany, and more than two times lower than, say, in the Netherlands.

- That's right. Therefore, I say: the first thing is to find an indicator, the correct indicator, and not just screaming in a voice.

- But there is another criterion: the level of infection, which sharply went up in the United States. In the last ten days, a record number of infected ones has been revealed in the country - about 45 thousand per day, noticeably larger than in the previous peak of the epidemic in April.

The picket participants demand to open bars in Roopolis, Pennsylvania, July 2, 2020

- Explaining why so many infected are in America, you need to take the entire data complex. The fact is that the measures taken by Europeans and Americans to combat Covid are in principle very different. One of these explanations: almost all European countries went one way along - this is the path of the so -called Lokdown, this is the path of quarantine. Only at first, the UK resisted, then she also took the path of Locksu. And only Sweden remained. Therefore, it will be very interesting at the end of the season, when the epidemic comes to naught, compare the final indicators, because the thing is still in development. In all countries, there was a decline after the quarantine and measures were introduced, which in fact forced people to refuse to communicate with each other. These were serious measures, it was forbidden to even actually go out onto the streets, it was necessary to wear masks in public places, although the World Health Organization was distinguished there. When masks were introduced in the Czech Republic, for example, it was just a message that masks are harmful and can lead to excessive infection. That is, there is a great mess in this matter, because the phenomenon is new. No one knows at what stage we are now. This is the departure of the disease or the stage of some kind of mutation. That is, without serious studies, you cannot make some conclusion. In America, a complete locaun did not work. Firstly, in America, another system, there health care is under the jurisdiction of local authorities, while in Europe all regions, lands, and the province are subordinated to the Ministry of Health. Вместе с Министерством внутренних дел они и вводят подобные меры. В Европе были жесткие меры. Но вспомните ситуацию в Америке, разве кто-то, кто хотел зла, начал проводить демонстрации на улицах, которые вели к резкой вспышке эпидемии? Ведь близкое соприкосновение больших масс людей по всей Америке не могло не вести к этому. Это же противопоказано. Но кто, где, какой губернатор сказал: мы запрещаем демонстрации из-за излишней близости людей? Разве губернатор Нью-Йорка это сказал? Ничего подобного, то есть можно было ждать вспышки коронавируса из-за того, что какой-то один футбольный матч американского футбола разрешили или один политический митинг разрешили, как сетуют комментаторы-демократы. Сотни тысяч людей на улицах вместе, буквально вплотную и могли способствовать этой вспышке коронавируса, на мой взгляд.

– Ефим, давайте подождем с выводами, пока официальной оценки роли этого фактора в течении эпидемии нет.

Американцы не любят, когда им государство приказывает даже в интересах их здоровья проводить карантин полный

– Вопрос еще свободолюбия американцев. Американцы не любят, когда им государство приказывает даже в интересах их здоровья проводить карантин полный. Есть и сферы, где нельзя вообще погрузить всю нацию в изоляцию – это сферы жизнеобеспечивающего производства, там, где производят хотя бы лекарства, которыми лечиться надо, хотя бы скорые помощи, которым ездить надо. То есть это довольно сложная материя. Главное понять: в Европе она еще не решена, эпидемия пошла на убыль, но во многих местах вырывается, прорывается второй волной сейчас. То же самое мы видим в Израиле. Там приняли самые строгие меры карантина, когда эпидемия пошла на спад, локдаун отменили и снова началась вспышка эпидемии.

– Как вы считаете, что показал нам опыт борьбы с этой пандемией? Можно ли сказать, что авторитарный или, по словам одного из моих собеседников, китайский путь все-таки эффективнее в таких ситуациях пути демократического, когда нет единообразия, когда невозможно посадить всю страну под замок?

Сейчас европейская экономика начинает открываться не потому, что вирус кончился, а просто потому, что они понимают, что вступают в игру другие силы

– Нет, я не могу это сказать. Потому что когда мы сравниваем демократическое общество и недемократическое, то первое, что нужно принимать во внимание, – это то, что у нас нет никакой статистики по недемократическому обществу. Они вам напишут что угодно, как писали в России вначале, что коронавирус не затронет российское население, просто по идейным соображениям не затронет, испугается. Так вот, там мы не знаем, вообще говоря, о китайском пути, мы не знаем вообще, с чем мы имеем дело. То это было в Ухане, то сейчас открылся Пекин как главный очаг. Мы говорим пока о европейском опыте, где известно больше. Повторяю, единственно верный – показатель смертности. Он в европейских странах гораздо выше. В Европе, где живу я, многие специалисты были против строгих мер, потому что на одних весах лежит здоровье населения и эпидемия, о которой мы мало что пока понимаем, знаем и можем ее только сравнивать с прошлым, на других весах лежит экономика страны. И мы не знаем, от чего произойдет больше смертей – от остановки экономики, тем самым возникновения социальных беспорядков, голода или от болезни. Нельзя же погрузить экономику в локдаун более какого-то срока, допустим, три-четыре месяца. They have already passed. Сейчас европейская экономика начинает открываться не потому, что вирус кончился, а просто потому, что они понимают, что вступают в игру другие силы. Остановка промышленности, остановка экономики – это возможный голод, это возможная безработица, а с ней и социальные потрясения. То есть взвесить это не способен никто. Комсомольцы, которые говорят, что они бы просчитали, – это просто слушать даже смешно. Мы имеем дело с совершенно новым явлением.

– Очень интересно, что в Америке пандемия – это еще и поле идеологического противостояния. Дональд Трамп отказывается появляться на публике в маске и даже заявил в одном из интервью, что кое-кто носит маски, чтобы досадить ему. Демократы обвиняют "невежественных" республиканских лидеров и говорят, что этот кризис демонстрирует изъяны американской системы.

– Здесь много неясного пока еще. И делать из этого политику позорно по большому счету, потому что это рикошетом вернется. Это вернется при следующих президентах. И что они будут говорить? Наверняка то, что это печальное наследие предыдущих.