COVID-19 Task Force discusses social relaxing during pandemic
The June 1 Pine Island COVID-19 Task Force meeting opened with Dr. Jim Koopman reporting that the group he works with recently applied for a grant in choosing the correct vaccine for COVID-19. He said he continues to struggle with the way the virus has been handled.
“One of the worst things done,” said Koopman, “was the FDA approving any and all antibody tests. Most of them are junk. Some of them are great, but everybody’s using everything and there’s so much junk information coming out. That was a tremendously bad decision on the part of the FDA and now it’s hard to straighten it all out.”
Koopman, an epidemiologist, said if there is data that’s useless, he’s not certain how one might go about rectifying it.
Former local TV news anchorman Jim McLaughlin, another member of the task force, reported to the group that there had been 97 new cases of COVID-19 in Southwest Florida as of June 1.
Koopman announced that there seems to have been a drop in the number of deaths, although the number of cases has remained steady. He said it’s possible case detection is simply going up as a result of more testing becoming available.
Koopman said he feels the best way to jump-start our economy would be taking the right measures, such as the utilization of proper PPE, such as face masks.
Task Force member Pastor Eric McCrea said he’d spoken with Face Mask Crew member Nancy Cote at the Flash Your Badge Event held in the parking lot of his church, who told him although they had originally intended to hand out the masks to medical personnel in need, they had several people asking for the masks, which encouraged them to expand their efforts to include anyone from the general community that wanted one.
McCrea said although they were supposed to be done by noon that day, they were still there handing out masks when he came out to lock up for the day. Koopman agreed that the effort to make and distribute PPE should include everyone for the overall welfare of public health and safety.
McCrea admitted other than continuous communication by updating everyone on the Pine Island Pandemic Community Action Facebook page, he isn’t sure what more the group should be doing as the public begins to return to normal societal behavior.
Koopman said as the number of cases falls, people tend to think they can relax, although he said if that’s the case, the numbers will come right back up.
“There are now good scientific studies that show the seasonal pattern that the endemic coronavirus has is effecting the pattern of the pandemic coronavirus. The big difference between the endemic and pandemic is that every year the endemic saturates above the herd immunity levels, so that they go even lower at the low season, then the next season it comes back, so that amplifies the seasonality of the endemic virus. But with the pandemic the population is probably still more than 95% susceptible.”
Koopman said because of this susceptibility, the country could potentially end up with a large rebound. He said the seriousness of this message is getting lost and suggested to the group that the need is really to improve the message.
McCrea asked whether or not there are definitive findings on someone being able to re-contract the virus once they’ve had it.
Koopman admitted the question cannot be answered satisfactorily at this time. McCrea pointed out that this will determine how effective vaccines will be in their role.
Koopman talked about the level of science now existent in the world of vaccines, emphasizing the difference in just a few years ago until now. He said it is likely there will be some very good vaccines eventually, adding that the question of which vaccines will be long lasting is the important one, with much work still to be done there.
“The criteria for accepting vaccines now is that you can get them fast,” said Koopman. “They’re likely to be less enduring, and then we’ll figure out how to get the more enduring ones into the population.”