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Anthony Fauci predicts COVID cases to rise in US but says more lockdowns are unlikely
By Jesus Jiménez
New York: The nation’s top infectious disease expert on predicted that the number of cases and hospitalisations in the United States “will get worse” but that measures seen in the early days of the pandemic, such as closing businesses, were unlikely to return.
In an interview on Sunday (Monday AEST), Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the number of Americans who were already vaccinated was likely sufficient to prevent caseloads and hospitalisations on the scale seen by much of the country in the winter.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.Credit: Bloomberg
“I don’t think we’re going to see lockdowns,” he said. “I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country — not enough to crush the outbreak — but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter. But things are going to get worse.”
Over the past two weeks, new coronavirus infections have risen by 148 per cent in the United States, and hospitalisations have increased by 73 per cent, according to New York Times data. The surge of infections has been largely attributed to the highly contagious delta variant and to low vaccination rates in some states.
“We are seeing an outbreak of the unvaccinated,” Fauci said, noting that there are 100 million people in the United States who are eligible to get vaccinated but have not done so.
As of Sunday, 57 per cent of eligible Americans had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 49 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to Times data.
“We’re looking not, I believe, to lockdown, but we’re looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we’re seeing the cases go up,” Fauci said. “The solution to this is: Get vaccinated, and this would not be happening.”
The New York Times
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