A top economist at USB said promising vaccine news this week has shifted the bank’s expectations for when it believes the United States could reach zero new coronavirus cases.
“We might get a situation where reported cases of COVID in the United States fall very close to zero in Q2 of next year,” chief U.S. economist Seth Carpenter told CNBC. “That six month difference, that two-quarter difference matters a lot, it means an extra 1 to 1.25 percentage point gain in GDP next year.”
Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Monday that an early analysis of its COVID-19 trial, conducted by an independent data-monitoring committee, is more than 90% effective at preventing COVID-19. Pfizer and BioNTech said they will seek an emergency use authorization, or an EUA, from the Food and Drug Administration after they report additional safety data from the second dose of the vaccination. They expect to have that data by the third week of November.
Carpenter said that the results were “very encouraging” and that the efficacy rate was far higher than analysts were predicting. The FDA previously said that it would accept a vaccine that was at least 50% effective at preventing COVID-19 or decreasing its severity.
UBS earlier projected that it could take until the end of 2021 before the U.S. sees zero new COVID-19 cases. But health experts are skeptical that the U.S., or anywhere, will ever reach zero cases, much like a flu vaccine has not eliminated influenza.
“I doubt we are going to eradicate this,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Thursday. “I think we need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic, that we have to just be careful about.”
The U.S. is currently experiencing its largest surge in coronavirus cases so far. At more than 150,000 cases reported on Thursday, the U.S. is reporting more than double the number of cases it reported during its July peak, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
At 10.5 million coronavirus cases reported since the pandemic began, the U.S. has reported nearly 2 million more cases than the second-worst hit country, India. While part of that dramatic increase in cases is due to significant increases in coronavirus testing across the country, the national positivity rate is more than 8% and trending up. States across the country are reimposing restrictions in an effort to curb the spread.
