COVID-19: Easier to spread indoors than outdoors; winter perfect set-up for contagion: Dr Vivek Murthy

It is easier for coronavirus to spre indoors than outdoors as people stay inside ir homes during winter which is a perfect set-up for contagion, according to Dr Vivek Murthy, top Indian-American visor to President-elect Joe Biden on COVID-19.

43-year-old former US surgeon general, who co-chairs COVID-19 visory board of Biden, told Fox News on Sunday that people are tired from pandemic fatigue.

“What's happening w, in particular, is that with winter, as people move indoors, this is actually perfect set up for virus because we kw it's easier to spre indoors than outdoors,” Murthy said.

re is one last component, which is really important, is pandemic fatigue, he said.

“We've been at this pandemic w for many months and I get that. A part of that fatigue means that people are letting ors into ir bubble, y're getting toger for in-person dinner parties, game nights and public health departments are w tracing more and more cases back to se kinds of garings,” Murthy, who vises Biden on COVID-19, said.

All this put toger has resulted in recent explosion in COVID-19 cases in US, he said.

US is worst affected country with over 11 million cases and 246,000 deaths.

Murthy, who was asked to resign as US surgeon general during early part of Trump ministration, is speculated to get a prominent position in next Biden-Harris ministration.

He said that one of most immediate things to do is to reduce spre.

“It actually lies in our behaviour and choices we make. It turns out that wearing masks, keeping our distance from ors, washing our hands, se seem almost too simple but very powerful in actually reducing spre,” Murthy said.

Biden has talked about expanding testing capacity and also increasing contact tracing so that infection could be contained, he said.

“He wants to increase production of personnel protective equipment so that all our healthcare workers have masks and gloves. And he wants to really put clear guidance toger, evidence-based guidance so that schools and businesses, but also state organisations, huge sports leagues and families kw how to operate safely,” he said.

ne of this is going to be possible if public trust is t gained, Murthy said.

“ way you do that is by communicating honestly, by leing with science and scientists in face of this pandemic and ultimately by delivering results,” Murthy observed.

Responding to a question, he said that that national lockdown is a last resort. country has learnt a lot more about w than it was in spring early this year.

“If we just lock down entire country without targeting our efforts, n we are going to exacerbate pandemic fatigue people are feeling, you're going to hurt jobs and ecomy, you're going to shut down schools and hurt education of our children. So, we go to approach this with a precision of a scalpel rar than blunt force of an axe,” he said.

Delivering vaccine, Murthy said, is most challenging part of this pandemic response.

“We vaccinated Americans for many years in our country, but campaign we're going to have to build to vaccinate eugh people, to create herd immunity in America will be most ambitious vaccination campaign I believe in our country's history. And being that requires people to trust that vaccine is safe and that it's effective.

“Unfortunately, we kw from recent polls that a significant number of people are worried that process of developing vaccine, approving it may have been politicised. So, w, onus is on us to be as transparent as possible and helping m understand what scientists say, having experts review data, making that data reily so that even people outside government can review it,” Murthy said.

“That's what we're going to have to do, and ultimately, way we allocate this vaccine has to be determined based on needs… We can't afford to let politics creep into decisions we make around vaccine, because orwise, we're going to put lives at stake,” he ded.

According to Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, coronavirus has so far infected more than 54 million people and killed over 1.3 million ors globally.