Dr. Peter Hotez with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston expects 400,000 Americans will have succumbed to the virus by February. The good news, of course, is vaccines are coming.
He says the difference between now and before word of vaccines is in the past, there was no end point. "I basically said we've got to social distance and wear masks and there was no bracket on the right hand side that said when we will reach a point where we don't have to do this in perpetuity anymore. Now we have that. Now we can just say get your family to the other end of this."
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are awaiting FDA approval and emergency use authorization. Other vaccines expected to come online in the coming weeks are from Astrazeneca and Johnson and Johnson. Hotez himself is working on a vaccine being developed in India.
Unfortunately there's a lot of time between now and when people can be inoculated. Hotez says none of those projected to die have to die. We can do our part by continuing to wear masks, social distancing and washing our hands frequently.
He fears most of the deaths will occur in the middle part of the country and the upper Midwest. Hotez, who is based in Houston says Texas is bad too. "El Paso is awful, the Panhandle is getting bad as is North Texas."
