"It's so subjective and situational," says May Chu, a clinical professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, who led the research on masks and respirators for the World Health Organization. "It's easier to think it through if you know what the risks are that you need to evaluate."
Campbell oversaw two major clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and on the Anschutz Medical Campus. He says while the vaccines available are up to 94% effective, people with compromised immune systems are less responsive to the shot, and their effectiveness drops between 50 and 40%.
Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, said she hopes enough people will get vaccinated to start bending the curve of new infections, but right now, the “rapid” growth in the numbers doesn’t offer much cause for optimism. “Things look like it’s getting worse,” she said.
“We really have never seen anything like this rapid growth in kids presenting with mental health problems and the severity of those problems. I’ve never seen this in my entire career,” said Jenna Glover, the director of psychology training at Children's Hospital Colorado [and associate professor of psychiatry at CU School of Medicine].
Children under 12 are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, which both leaves them vulnerable to the virus and means there still will be outbreaks this upcoming school year, said Beth Carlton, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health. Since it is possible the virus will be circulating in schools, other measures to reduce transmission — masking, physical distancing and adequate ventilation — will likely still be needed, she said.
“Right now there doesn’t seem a reason to need a booster,” said Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado [School of Medicine]. “There are legitimate concerns about the motivations about Pfizer’s statement, given it’s in their financial interest to promote this concept. That doesn’t mean to say they’re wrong, but we need to follow the science.”
All this portends a more uneven pandemic, says Dr. Fernando Holguin, a pulmonologist and critical care doctor at the Latino Research and Policy Center at the Colorado School of Public Health. He worries cases, hospitalizations and deaths will keep flaring up in less-vaccinated communities, especially predominantly Hispanic communities in parts of Colorado or other states where overall vaccination rates are poor. "They're at risk, especially moving into the fall of seeing increasing waves of infections. I think it is really critical that people really become vaccinated," Holguin said.
“There’s nothing about enteroviruses that makes them love even years—they don’t have a lucky number,” says Kevin Messacar, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado and Children's Hospital Colorado who was a coauthor on that March analysis. “The model for this whole family of viruses, which is well-described, would not predict that we would wait until 2022 for an outbreak because we missed a cycle. It would say we are continually growing the pool of susceptibles who haven’t seen that virus.”
