Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House medical adviser on the novel coronavirus pandemic, recently tried to temper fears of a new COVID-19 spike in the United States.
What Fauci said about COVID-19 surge
Fauci told MSNBC on Tuesday that the United States’ vaccine rollout means an “explosion” of COVID-19 cases will be unlikely.
- “As long as we keep vaccinating people efficiently and effectively, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Fauci told MSNBC. “That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to still see an increase in cases.”
Fauci said it’s still unclear if the recent uptick in cases — which has caused fears of a fourth wave — will be just be a jump in cases or a deadly surge, according to The Hill.
- “I think that the vaccine is gonna prevent that from happening,” 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 variants may change how the new wave of cases hits the United States.
- “We have to think about the B.1.1.7 variant as almost a brand-new virus,” he told CNN. “It’s acting differently from anything we’ve seen before, in terms of transmissibility, in terms of affecting young people, so we have to take this very seriously.”
Similarly, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that younger people will be hit more from the fourth wave, which may limit hospitalizations and deaths. And it’s hitting groups that may not have been hit before.
- “If you look what’s happening in Michigan, in Minnesota, in Massachusetts, for example, you’re seeing outbreaks in schools and infections in social cohorts that haven’t been exposed to the virus before.”