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CapitalPress.com
Friday, May 7, 2021
Q&A: WSU infectious disease expert discusses COVID-19
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
PULLMAN, Wash. —
As a college student, Guy
Palmer was fascinated by
how infectious diseases
work — how they emerge
and spread.
His primary interest is in
public health, but he wanted
to understand diseases in
different species and how
they can spread to humans.
“Knowledge is power
and understanding how dis-
ease is transmitted provides
confidence that it can be pre-
vented,” Palmer said. “Since
I started working with rabies
virus, which is 100% fatal, I
learned early the importance
of vaccination and proper
procedures when handling
infected tissues.”
As regents professor of
pathology and infectious
diseases in Washington State
University’s Allen School
for Global Animal Health,
most of Palmer’s cur-
rent work is on the human
side, especially during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
He’s most interested in
the interface between ani-
mals, humans and the envi-
ronment. He points to the
Rabies Free Africa pro-
gram, a campaign to elim-
inate human deaths due to
rabies by 2030. Currently,
about 30,000 people die of
rabies each year on the con-
tinent. Consistent vaccina-
tion of the dog population is
key, he said.
Palmer spoke with the
Capital Press by phone April
15, with follow-up ques-
tions. The interview has
been edited for length and
clarity.
Capital Press: As an
expert, what are your
thoughts on COVID-19
and how does it compare to
other infectious diseases?
Palmer: Well, certainly,
every infectious disease is
a little bit different. ... This
one, we’ve had to be learn-
ing on the fly from, ‘Yes, it
looks like something iso-
lated to China, looks like it’s
spreading,’ and now obvi-
ously it’s a very entrenched
pandemic.
We really have to go back
to 1918, what was called the
Spanish Flu, to find a pan-
demic that really, truly hit
all the world.
The other difference that
makes this unique is the
global economic impacts
have been probably more
pronounced
than
any
prior pandemic, and that’s
because we’re much more
globally connected than we
were 100 years ago. I think
a year, 18 months ago, peo-
ple would have said a pan-
demic, ‘Oh, it’s something
that has to do with infec-
tious diseases,’ and wouldn’t
really relate it to their per-
sonal lives. Today, we real-
ize it’s mental health, K-12
education, our small busi-
nesses, global supply chains.
CP: What are the big-
gest questions we have
about COVID-19 now?
Palmer: Can we vacci-
nate enough individuals and
get this under control with-
out variants that can get
around or escape the immu-
nity produced by the current
vaccines?
The evidence is the vac-
cines are still working
against all the variants. They
may not work as well as they
initially did, but they still
certainly meet any reason-
able threshold for ability to
protect individuals.
CP: A recent “60 Min-
utes” report called for a
more in-depth investiga-
tion of the origins of the
disease in China. Your
thoughts?
Palmer: The most likely
scenario is emergence from
a bat, possibly transiting
through some kind of cap-
tive animal. That could be
a wild animal market, or
a domestic animal mar-
ket, and then spread into
humans. That is the most
likely scenario. We know
that because that’s how the
original SARS developed
... that’s how the first coro-
navirus initially detected in
WSU
Guy Palmer is regents professor of pathology and in-
fectious diseases at Washington State University, and
senior director of global health at WSU’s Paul G. Allen
School for Global Animal Health.
Saudi Arabia, bat to camel
to human, occurred. That is
the most likely.
The really hard question
to ask is was that virus per-
haps already in a laboratory,
did it escape from a labora-
tory? There’s two parts to
that. One is, could the Chi-
nese in this case or anyone
else create a virus intention-
ally as a bioweapon? Just
the ability to do that and
know that it would spread
is extraordinarily unlikely,
maybe to the point of being
impossible.
The other question
is, could they have iso-
lated the virus from a bat
or another animal, had it
in the laboratory and had
it escape from the labora-
tory? That’s a very hard
question to answer. The
(World Health Organiza-
tion) essentially ... ruled
that out. That’s what’s
actually been kind of the
flashpoint, people saying,
“How can you be sure?”
They don’t have the evi-
dence to be sure that could
not have happened. That
remains in some places
more of a political ques-
tion than an epidemiologi-
cal question at the moment.
It’s possible they could
dissect that, it depends on a
lot of questions, which that
task force didn’t ask, proba-
bly weren’t allowed to ask.
CP: We’re hearing
about COVID concerns in
rabbits and mink. What
are the next steps?
Palmer: Yeah, there’s
no question that the virus
can spread to mink, rabbits
and can infect cats. The con-
cern is in certain parts of
the world where mink are
raised commercially, they’re
kept in very confined quar-
ters. A virus loves con-
fined quarters, doesn’t mat-
ter if it’s people or animals.
It certainly can spread from
humans to mink. I think the
concern was there was some
evidence in the Netherlands
that it also can spread back
from mink to humans. There
was concern that, could a
mink farm or rabbit farm
serve as a long-term reser-
voir for the virus?
Probably not impossible,
there’s not a lot of evidence.
What’s occurring now is
human-to-human
spread.
While there are some con-
cerns about that, and cer-
tainly it would make sense
to do surveillance, which
can easily be done, and
obviously increasing the
personal protection of peo-
ple working with those ani-
mals is critical to avoid any
spread. But right now there’s
no strong evidence.
CP: Thoughts on how
the agriculture and ani-
mal agriculture industries
responded to COVID-19?
Palmer: Because it’s
really not involved animals
as a primary reservoir or
vector for transmission, the
direct impacts on spread to
humans have been pretty
minor.
I think one of the con-
cerns is some of the animal
processing, meat processing
plants had some high degree
of infection. That wasn’t
really related to the animals
themselves, it’s related to
the people working in close
proximity to one another.
I think it’s probably
increased the attention
needed to have better per-
sonal protective gear in
meat processing. It’s not
unique to anything in ani-
mal agriculture or agri-
culture in general. It’s a
little bit some of the con-
sequences of our produc-
tion systems and, here in
Washington, like the tree
fruit harvests, where you
have significant numbers of
people, about half of which
come from outside of the
region, and they’re mov-
ing as the harvest occurs. It
obviously creates an avenue
for possible transmission.
That’s been a challenge.
It’s getting the atten-
tion to personal protection.
At the point we are now,
the emphasis is on getting
those individuals vacci-
nated, which can be tricky
because you have a migra-
tory population. The Wash-
ington Department of Agri-
culture and Washington
Department of Health have
been working very closely
on that issue.
CP: What might we
expect now?
Palmer: We’re at an
inflection point between
three things: Increased trans-
mission, which is in part due
to the variants of the virus.
Behavior, we’re now 14
months into this pandemic.
People are tired, the weather
is getting warmer, they’re
dropping their guard. Those
two things are contributing
to increased spread. At the
same time, we have the vac-
cine rollout. We have three
things coming together all at
once. I think there’s a lot of
concern whether the vaccine
rollout is going to be quick
enough to really dampen
that wave, versus not. It’s
probably going to be a mat-
ter of weeks.
CP: Do you recommend
people get the vaccine?
What would you tell some-
one who’s reluctant?
Palmer: I absolutely rec-
ommend getting the vaccine.
It’s the only way we are going
to end the pandemic and
return to life as normal, K-12
schools open, going on vaca-
tions, visiting grandparents,
doing all the things that make
life enjoyable.
Basically, there is an
exceedingly low risk of com-
plications from the J&J vac-
cine, roughly 1 per million.
The guidance by the FDA and
CDC will be to inform physi-
cians regarding these compli-
cations, how to identify indi-
viduals most at risk, and the
treatment approach. However,
it is important to put this risk
in context of actual COVID-
19 infection: 1 in roughly
1,600 unvaccinated individu-
als will die and a much higher
percentage of those who are
hospitalized will die. We are
also now learning that a sig-
nificant percentage of individ-
uals recovered from COVID,
even those who were only
mildly ill, have symptoms
that last weeks to months. The
risk (versus) reward of vacci-
nation for yourself, your fam-
ily, friends, and community
is overwhelming in favor of
vaccination.
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