Increased cases put US in ‘wrong direction’ of pandemic, says Anthony Fauci

7 hours ago

The US is heading in the “wrong direction” of the pandemic, said the head of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, at a time when Kovid-19 cases are increasing among the unconnected population of the country.

Fauci said in an interview with CNN this Sunday (25/7) that “an epidemic is brewing in America among unconnected people”.

“I am very disappointed,” Fauci said, after a CNN presenter presented data from an opinion poll suggesting that 80% of Americans who have been vaccinated so far will probably or definitely not accept vaccination.

The doctor added, “I don’t like to blame people as it takes them further back. But I want to encourage more (politicians) leaders of less vaccinated areas to get people vaccinated.” “We need to do better. People are putting themselves in unnecessary trouble because of the high risk of contracting COVID-19 and health complications,” he said.

The moving average of cases in the past seven days was 53% higher in the US than in the previous week, and 80% of cases are from the delta variant, which is more contagious. According to Reuters, some hospitals in the United States are once again reaching their capacity limits.

So far, more than 162.7 million people – or 49% of the US population – have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to official figures. The US led the pace of global vaccination until April, when vaccination rates began to slow down.

Vaccination rates are particularly low in the country’s southern states, where less than half the population received the first dose.

The sharpest increases in the number of cases have also occurred in southern or midwestern states such as Florida, Texas and Missouri.

Earlier last week, expert Vivek Murthy had said that 99.5% of Covid-19 deaths in the country were occurring in unrelated clusters.

According to Anthony Fauci – White House adviser in the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden – health officials are considering the possibility of revising the permission for vaccinated people to stop wearing masks. This would be an attempt to control the height even more intense in cases.

For now, the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control) guidance is that fully vaccinated people “can resume their activities as before the pandemic without wearing a mask”.

Fauci said, however, that governors can issue their own guidelines based on local realities.