Vaccines should cause COVID rates to drop in nursing homes as soon as next week, Gottlieb says

Nursing homes likely should begin to see COVID-19 infection rates drop in coming days, the former Former Food and Drug Administration chief said Sunday.

"We will begin to see some indication that the vaccines are probably having an effect maybe as early as this week, because we know that immunity does begin to kick in about a week after vaccination," Scott Gottlieb said while appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Vaccines normally offer immunity about a week after being administered, Gottlieb said. According to that standard, he said, death rates in American nursing homes should soon go down.

"That will start to have an impact on the mortality trends with COVID, but it's coming late in the season," he said.

"Vaccinations will take about three weeks to get through all of the nursing homes,"Gottlieb said.