The nation’s leading infectious disease experts worry about more deadly COVID variants If more people do not get vaccinated, it may happen.
Dr. Anthony Fauci The warning was shared in the interview on Wednesday McClatchy, Where he expressed his concern about the “dramatic” increase Delta variant The number of cases, he expects to double in the next few weeks, reaching 200,000 cases per day.
He told the news media that the United States may be “in trouble” as it enters the fall, unless there is a large part of it Unvaccinated Americans Decided to get their shots.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases continued: “What we are seeing is because of the increase in infectiousness, and because in this country we have about 93 million people who are eligible to be vaccinated but not vaccinated. Vaccination— You have a large number of disadvantaged groups.
“So when you look at the acceleration curve of the average number of cases per day for 7 days, it rises in a very steep way.”
At the height of the pandemic, the United States reported 295,880 positive cases Coronavirus According to McClatchy, it was one day on January 7th. By June 14, this number had dropped to 8,069.As of August 2, the 7-day rolling average of daily positive COVID-19 cases was 84,389, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fauci is also President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. He insists that although the Delta variant is highly contagious, the virus may get worse, citing his fears of evading the more deadly COVID-19 vaccine.
“If we do not control the epidemic to the extent that the vast majority of the population is vaccinated, what will happen is that the virus will continue to smolder throughout the fall and into the winter, so that there will be enough opportunities to obtain a variant. It, frankly In other words, we are fortunate that the vaccines we now have are effective against these variants-especially for serious diseases,” Fauci said. “We are lucky that this is the case. There may be a variant that lingers there that can push Delta aside.
“If there is another virus with the same high transmission capacity but a more serious virus, then we are really in trouble,” he said. “People who haven’t been vaccinated mistakenly think it’s just about them. But that’s not the case. It’s also related to other people.”
Others also responded to Fauci’s warnings for people who were not vaccinated.
Said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota CNN“This virus is very contagious. If you decide to try to end the game, please don’t try to do so. This virus will find you, and it will eventually infect you.
“If this is not enough to motivate people to get vaccinated, then I think our only other requirement is,’If you are going to work here or go here…you must be vaccinated.'”
Osterholm added that unvaccinated people not only put themselves at risk because they did not get the COVID-19 vaccine, but also put everyone around them at risk.
“If you are a case and you become contagious, you will do two things: one is that you pose a risk to other people including your own relatives, but the other is that you are also using hospital resources now. Under circumstances, these resources are very, very short,” he told CNN.
According to the CDC, More than 165 million people Fully vaccinated against COVID-19, accounting for 49.8% of the U.S. population. CNN said that more than 90 million eligible Americans are still not vaccinated.
Photo: Getty Images North America/Jeenah Moon
