Former FDA Head: New Variant ‘Could Be More Contagious,’ But Unlikely To ‘Change Overall Trajectory’

On Sunday, former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan to discuss the latest on the new COVID-19 variant, as well as vaccination efforts.

“So, we’re headed into respiratory virus season. Is this new version, this new Delta variant, something that has you concerned? What is the direction we’re headed in?” Brennan asked.

Gottlieb replied by noting that he doesn’t believe the latest strain of the coronavirus, known by some as “Delta Plus,” will “really change the trajectory” in which the county is moving despite it possibly being “more contagious.”

“I don’t think this is enough to really change the trajectory, the direction we’re heading in. We’re much closer to the end of this Delta wave than we are to the beginning,” Gottlieb said.

After discussing how the virus is affecting different parts of the country, the former FDA commissioner talked about the United States’ ability to figure out the nuances of the new strain:

This new variant, we think it could be more contagious. I don’t think it’s enough to change the overall trajectory. My lament is that we’re not better at figuring out these questions. I mean, we should have an answer to the question of just what the characteristics of this new variant are and what kind of risk it poses…

We don’t really have a coordinated system globally. We parcel this out to certain academic groups where we’re dependent upon certain academic researchers to do this kind of analysis. The U.K. is very good at identifying these new variants. They have better sequencing in place than we do, but we don’t have good follow up in terms of the epidemiological work to try to figure out whether or not these new variants are spreading more aggressively. This one, if it is more contagious, it appears to be perhaps slightly more contagious, again, the vaccine should be protective, and certainly people who are infected with Delta will be protected, probably against this new variant.

Gottlieb added that he thinks the vaccines may eventually be formulated with Delta specifically in mind “because what we’re seeing is the new mutations are occurring within that Delta lineage.”

As for the new variant, CNBC details: “U.K. government health officials have said it’s too early to tell whether the mutation poses a greater risk to public health than the delta variant, which itself is significantly more infectious than