Stop Doing This Immediately, Dr. Fauci Warns

There's a new COVID-19 mutation threatening to get Americans sicker, faster, and there is cause for alarm. "We gotta be careful," warns Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, "because the more cases you get, the more hospitalizations are going to happen. The more hospitalizations you have, the more deaths you're going to have." Read on to see what Dr. Fauci advises you to stop immediately to stay safe—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had Coronavirus. 

Many—even those who are pro-vaccine—have said they'd wait a bit to get their shot, to make sure it's safely tested on other people first. Dr. Fauci wants you to know that "I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine and I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country, that would end this pandemic," he said as he waited for his own shot.

Dr. Fauci begs us all to to wear our masks "universally," and agrees with President-elect Joe Biden that it's a good idea to wear one during the first 100 days of his presidency. "As tough as it is, and as much COVID fatigue that everyone has, we have to double down even more on the methods," Fauci said this week. "Everybody wear a mask." Per the CDC, choose masks that:

• "Have two or more layers of washable, breathable fabric
• Completely cover your nose and mouth
• Fit snugly against the sides of your face and don't have gaps"

Recent surges of hospitalizations and deaths can be directly tied to "people who have congregated at meals and had closed indoor settings," Dr. Fauci has said. He knows that big family dinners with people you're not sheltering with seem "innocent" but stresses you don't know who has the virus. You may appear healthy but actually be infected without any symptoms, and inadvertently infect your own mother, who may be at high-risk of death from COVID-19.

Dr. Fauci has also tied the recent surges to "people who are returning from having traveled and they're now coming back to our area"—he specifically meant over the holidays. But everytime you travel, you are exposing yourself and others to COVID-19, in the security line at the airport, in a public restroom at a rest stop, or on a cruise ship.

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"Close the bars and keep the schools open," Dr. Fauci has said. "Obviously, you don't have one size fits all" in every city, he said. "But as I said in the past, the default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school, or to get them back to school." As for bars—he feels they are responsible for spread, and that indoor restaurants are also dangerous. He orders takeout or delivery and feels the venues should be compensated by government funding. "So long as you subsidize and help the restaurateurs and the bar owners so that they don't go down and essentially crash because of the economic strain…" Fauci said. "If we can keep those things under control, subsidize those people, as well as keep the schools open, we'd be in good shape."

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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.