Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House medical adviser on the new coronavirus pandemic, recently tried to quell fears of a new COVID-19 peak in the United States.
What Fauci said about COVID-19 boom
Fauci tell MSNBC Tuesday that the explosion of the vaccine by the United States means that an “explosion” of COVID-19 cases will be unlikely.
- “As long as we continue to vaccinate people effectively and efficiently, I do not think it will happen,” Fauci said. MSNBC. “It does not mean that we will continue to see an increase in business.”
Fauci said it is still unclear whether the recent increase in business – which has caused fears of a fourth wave – will just be a jump in cases or a deadly surge, according to The Hill.
- “I think the vaccine will prevent it,” he said.
Variants and a fourth COVID-19 wave
Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN the new COVID-19 variant could change how new wave cases hit the United States.
- “We need to think of the B.1.1.7 variant as a brand new virus,” he told CNN. “It behaves differently from what we have seen before, in terms of portability, as far as young people are concerned, so we have to take it very seriously.”
Similarly, the former commissioner for food and drug administration, dr. Scott Gottlieb, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that younger people will be hit harder from the fourth wave which could limit hospitalizations and deaths. And it hits groups that may not have been hit before.
- “If you look at what’s happening in Michigan, in Minnesota, in Massachusetts, for example, you see outbreaks in schools and infections in social groups that have not been exposed to the virus before.”