Dr. Fauci Just Predicted This Will Happen Next
Coronavirus cases are going up in a vertical line, at rates we've never seen before—and just in time for a new post-holidays surge, as kids go back to school. How can you stay safe given all of these factors, and with so much airborne virus swarming the globe? Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the President and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on the PIX11 Morning News and spoke with anchor Dan Mannarino. Read on for 7 essential pieces of life-saving advice—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID.
Dr. Fauci Says This is What "Worse" Looks Like
How could things get worse? "Worse is what we're gonna be seeing over the next couple of weeks," said Dr. Fauci. "Continually we're seeing, and it was in many respects, predictable based on what we've seen in South Africa and in the UK, that if you have almost a vertical spike of the cases going up, they're not going up gradually, they're going straight up. You know, we're now averaging about close to 400,000 cases per day. It is gonna go higher than that. I can't give you an exact number, but it will continue to go up at least a few hundred thousand per day. More. What we hope will happen is what we've seen in South Africa. And that is you reach a point where you peak and turn around and the cases come down rather quickly. So we've gotta do our very best over the next few weeks and even beyond to abide by the public health principles. And that means obviously if you are not vaccinated, you know, almost pleading, please get vaccinated," said Dr. Fauci. "That's most vulnerable group. And if you are vaccinated, get boosted because we know now that the boosters reconstitute that diminished immune protection that you get."
Dr. Fauci Said Here's What Else You Need to Do to Stay Safe
How else to stay safe, besides getting vaccinated and boosted? "Make sure you avoid crowded places, wear a mask in all indoor settings when you don't know the vaccination status of people, those are the things that we can do." And if you want to be "optimally protected"? "If you want to be optimally protected, you need to be boosted…. The relevant scientific issue is that it is overwhelmingly clear that in the current status where we are right now, vaccinated people should get boosted."
Dr. Fauci Says This is What "Worse" Looks Like
Dr. Fauci was asked if the shortening of the recommended quarantine for those who got COVID means we're basically admitted we have to "live with COVID." Fauci said, to a certain degree, yes. "The CDC is a very difficult position. They're abiding by public health principles, but they realize that you have a situation where if you have such a high percentage of people who are out because they're infected or exposed, even though the infected people might be asymptomatic—if you look at the numbers of people that would be out of action, particularly those with critical jobs—I know in New York City, a really substantial proportion of the population of firefighters and of police are out because they're either infected or exposed. So you gotta make sure that society remains functional for the health of society. And you try and strike a balance of protecting people from being infected but yet allowing people to return sooner, namely after five days, as opposed to 10 days."
Dr. Fauci Said It's Possible Omicron Will Build Community Protection
Could the Omicron spread actually get us closer to the end of the pandemic? "There are two aspects that go into that," said Dr. Fauci. "I think if you combine people who have been exposed, infected and recovered will certainly have a degree, a protective immunity and might lessen with different variants, but there will be some degree there. And you superimpose that upon people who have been vaccinated and boosted, we would hope there'd be enough background protection at a population level that when you do get new variants, you won't have these massive spikes and serve is that it will reach the point that you're referring to. You know, herd immunity gets confusing when you use it as a terminology. What we're saying is there's enough underlying and background protection in the community that it no longer disrupts our lives, our function, our economy, our to go about our lives without being dominated by the thought of this virus. Yeah. That's what we mean by getting it to a level that's low enough that we can move on with our lives."
Dr. Fauci Warned More Kids Will Get Sick and Hospitalized
"How is a new variant affecting kids? And is it more or less contagious among little ones as the previous variants?" asked Mannarino.
"Well, we know one thing for sure, that Omicron is substantially more transmissible than Delta. Children were getting infected with Delta. The fact that Omicron is substantially more transmissible, without a doubt, more children are going to be infected with Omicron nearly because of the nature of the virus being more transmissible, no doubt about that. And more children that were gonna get infected. You're gonna see more children being hospitalized, even though the likelihood of getting hospitalized for a child is considerably less than for an adult. Nonetheless, when you get so many children infected because of the high degree of transmissibility of the virus, you're going to see more hospitalizations. And that's exactly what we are seeing."
Dr. Fauci Said Mandates Work
"Mandates work, we know that we know that when companies, large companies like airlines, large companies like Tyson's Foods, large groups, when they do mandates, they work, you get over 90 plus percent of people complying with the mandate," said Dr. Fauci. "You don't like to mandate people to do things, but sometimes you have to sacrifice people's individual feeling of somebody telling them what they need to do when you have the communal and public health of the entire nation at stake."
Dr. Fauci Said This is the Promising News You Can Take Into 2022
"The promising news is that we have the tools to do something about this," said Dr. Fauci. "And if people comply by the recommendations, we will get out of it sooner rather than later. And you know what I'm talking about? If you're vaccinated, get boosted, if you're not vaccinated, get vaccinated and wear a mask and indoor congregate settings, avoid large crowded indoor places. And we will get through this much better than if we don't abide by those public health recommendations." So follow that sage advice, 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.
