Dr. Fauci Says Stop Going Here Right Now
It's New Year's resolution time, and while that's usually an inward-looking process—how can you better yourself, you might ask—this year, it's important to think of others. The coronavirus is not stopping—and is, in fact, infecting us faster, due to the discovery of a new, "more contagious" mutation. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hopes your New Year's resolution would be to follow his public health fundamentals, including "the thing to do now." He spoke with New Day on CNN; read on—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had Coronavirus.
So What's One Thing You Should Really Stop Doing Now?
"The thing to do now is to try not to congregate with large numbers of people in social settings, like dinners, try to keep it restricted to the immediate family and the immediate household," says Fauci. "Because once you get to large numbers of people at a dinner inside, poor air ventilation and circulation, that's when you get in trouble. And that's what we're concerned about. That in addition to the surge, we're going to have an increase superimposed upon that surge, which could make January even worse than December. I hope not. I hope that doesn't happen, but it certainly is possible a reliable fact of this pandemic, which you know, all too well is post holiday because of travel because of people getting together, we see the numbers get worse."
"There are different models that tell you different things," he said, "I think we just have to assume that it's going to get worse."
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How to Survive This Pandemic
"When he gets to the numbers that we're in right now, it really is very, very difficult to do effective identification, isolation, and contact tracing," advises Fauci. "Some areas are doing it, but for the most part, as a whole, as a country, it really is sticking to the health, the public health guidelines that I've been talking about…the simple things we've got to keep doing it, they are most important." Also "we try to get people to just tone down the travel."
As for yourself, follow Fauci's fundamentals and help end this surge, no matter where you live—wear a face mask, social distance, avoid large crowds, don't go indoors with people you're not sheltering with (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, get vaccinated when it becomes available to you, and to protect your life and the lives of others, don't visit any of these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.
