Optimism About Case Rates, Vaccines, And Future Of The Pandemic

Consider This from NPR

NPR

News, Society & Culture, Daily News, News Commentary

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After more than 500,000 deaths and nearly a full year, experts say there are a growing number of reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the pandemic. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have all fallen dramatically in recent weeks.

Among those falling numbers, a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson that may be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration this week. Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University explains why the shot is just as desirable as already-authorized vaccines from Pzifer and Moderna.

Here's NPR's tool for how to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccination in your state.

The Biden administration has promised to ramp up vaccination efforts even more as soon as Congress authorizes more money to do so. NPR congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell has an update on the $1.9 trillion rescue package speeding through the House.

Additional reporting on the drop in COVID-19 case rates in this episode came from NPR's Allison Aubrey and Will Stone.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Across the country, COVID-19 case rates are falling faster than almost anyone expected.
0:06.6	The question is why?
0:08.8	Look, this has taken a tragic toll on the United States, but we should be optimistic, in my view.
0:13.6	That's former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on CBS this week.
0:18.2	In the U.S., the number of new daily cases has fallen more than 40 percent over the last
0:23.8	two weeks, and hospitalizations are down 30 percent.
0:27.6	But the rate of decline varies a lot, depending on where you are.
0:31.4	I think we're going to continue to see infection rates decline into the spring and the summer.
0:35.8	Right now, they're falling quite dramatically.
0:37.6	Experts say a few different things are going on.
0:40.4	Vaccination, especially in long-term care facilities, may be starting to show in the data.
0:46.5	Our winter surge led to more masking and social distancing as Americans watched the dire
0:51.4	situation in hospitals around the country.
0:55.0	Stress on hospitals means better outcomes for individual patients.
0:59.2	And in some parts of the country, Scott Gottlieb said, enough people have already been infected
1:04.3	to give the local population a kind of partial immunity.
1:07.6	You don't have herd immunity, meaning that this won't transfer at all.
1:10.7	It will continue to transfer, but it will transfer to a much slower rate.
1:13.7	And that's what we have right now around the country.
1:17.4	Consider this, after nearly one year and half a million Americans dead, there are a growing
1:23.3	number of reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the pandemic.
1:29.2	More of those reasons coming up.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.