Dr. Fauci Has This Warning for All Americans
Despite increased vaccination efforts, the country is currently in the midst of yet another COVID surge. During an interview with Now This, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the President and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, issued a warning to Americans. Read on for 7 key takeaways from Dr. Fauci—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss this urgent news: Here's How You Can Catch COVID Even If You're Vaccinated.
"If Left to Its Own Devices" the Virus "Will Continue to Spread," Warns Fauci
Dr. Fauci revealed that "one of the real frustrations" is that the virus is continuing to surge despite vaccination efforts. "It really is a race between getting as many people vaccinated as we possibly can," he revealed. "And the virus, which if left to its own devices will continue to spread if you give it the opportunity to spread."
The Country Is Reopening Too Soon, Warns Fauci
While Fauci understands why people have "COVID-19 fatigue" he is worried that premature reopening is making the pandemic worse than it has to be. "You see certain states and cities pulling back on the guidelines and the mandates saying, 'let's open the bars, open the restaurants, let's walk around without masks,' now is not the time to prematurely declare victory," he stated.
"Hang On Just a Little Bit Longer," Fauci Says
Dr. Fauci points out that we are close to the finish line—if everyone does their part. "Everybody wants to get back to normal. Everybody wants to get back to the normal life. But if we can hang on just a bit longer, until we get more and more people vaccinated—we're averaging between three and 4 million people who have vaccinated every day. So every single day, we get three to 4 million people closer to getting the majority of the population vaccinated. When we do, you're going to start to see that level of infection go down." He added that "it's kind of like a tension between people wanting to get out there and be normal and not wait for the vaccine to be the ally of keeping things under control. It's an understandable urge, but it is ill-advised to just lay caution to the wind right now, we need to hang in there a bit longer."
Michigan Needs to Shut Down "A Bit More"
When asked about the situation in Michigan—cases are rising bigtime—and whether he agreed with Dr. Rochelle Walensky's suggestion that the state should think about pulling back on reopening, Dr. Fauci maintained that he agrees to an extent. "I think that Michigan is doing it as best as they possibly can. It should be a combination of shutting down a bit more at the same time, as you make sure that the vaccines that you have are expeditiously administered to people and you don't have vaccines that are hanging around," he said. "In other words, if there are vaccines there that are not going into people's arms, get them into people's arms as quickly as you possibly can at the same time."
"Shut Down" Doesn't Mean What It Did in 2020
Dr. Fauci also emphasized that "shut down" isn't as drastic as it was last year and is much more temporary. "When people hear the word shut down, what they think about is the year long or deal that we've had, where the economy has gotten into a lot of trouble where people have not been allowed to do the things they want to do," he said. "We're not talking about that now because we have something now that we didn't have last spring and last summer. We have a highly effective vaccine that every single day that goes by, we get more and more people protected. That's a big difference between now and last spring."
Another Virus is Inevitable, Says Fauci
According to Dr. Fauci, "we've gotta be prepared for the next pandemic outbreak." He explains that while he can't predict when it will happen, "I will guarantee you that we will have another emergence of a brand new infectious disease, very likely jumping species from an animal reservoir to a human. It's happened multiple times, usually of no great consequence. But people ask me all the time, 'Prior to COVID-19, what is your worst nightmare, Dr. Fauci?'" He revealed that COVID-19 is basically it, a virus that "is highly adaptable and transmissible from human to human," and "has the capability of a high degree of morbidity and mortality."
Keep Doing Your Part to End the Pandemic
So follow Fauci's fundamentals and help end this pandemic, no matter where you live—wear a face mask that fits snugly and is double layered, don't travel, 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.
