CSU schools want in-person learning next fall. Here’s what Dr. Fauci says about that
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the California State University could hold mostly in-person courses in fall 2021 — if enough people get vaccinated.
On Friday, CSU Chancellor Timothy White hosted a virtual Q&A session with Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci spoke about the future of COVID-19 and colleges.
“If we get, I would say, a range from 70 to 85% of the population vaccinated, we will create an umbrella or a blanket of herd immunity over the population, to the point that the virus is not gonna have any place to go in us,” he said. “We could essentially end this outbreak in this country as we know it and put it in the rearview mirror.”
“By the time we get to April, May, June, July, August,” Fauci continued, “we can get the overwhelming majority of the people in this country vaccinated so that by the time we get to the 2021-2022 term, I think we could be in good shape.”
“So I am cautiously optimistic that we can do that and get back to some form of normality.”
People in the medical field, the elderly, and the most vulnerable are beginning to get vaccinated first. But Fauci said that beginning in March or April, those who don’t have underlying conditions or “any particular reason to get vaccinated” will be able to.
“It would be tragic, I think, (if) now that we have in our hands vaccines that are 94 to 95% effective, that we don’t get as many people as we possibly can to utilize that.”
Despite a current surge of coronavirus cases, the 23-campus California State University system plans to teach most courses in-person in the fall, White announced earlier in December.
Fauci addresses some public distrust in the vaccine
White said he and other leaders were concerned with how the pandemic has affected people of color at the universities and asked Fauci whether representation was considered in the vaccine trials.
Fauci said there are hurdles to getting Black and Latino populations vaccinated because there is a deep distrust due to medical abuse and racism. But he said the first clinical vaccination trials were largely successful in mirroring the current U.S. population.
About 11% of people in the Moderna trials were Black, which falls just short of the 13% they represent in the general population, he said. U.S. Latino population is about 18%, and the trial population was 21%.
“In the next couple of months, we’re going to have even more candidate vaccines that will have shown safety and efficacy,” he said. “(I want) to make sure we encourage people of all demographic groups to step forward and get vaccinated.”
In the meantime, intermittent testing of students can prevent the spread of infection at colleges, he advised university presidents.
Fauci said when he assumes his role in January as President-elect Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, his top priorities will be getting vaccines to K-12 teachers and tracking the virus in schools.
“It’s extremely important to get children back into school and kept in school,” he said. “The idea of vaccinating teachers is very high up in the priorities, as well as doing surveillance in the schools, so that you can get a good feel for the penetration of infection, which hopefully will continue to be low and (they will) not have to shut down every time you get a student that’s infected.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 4:29 PM.