Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week that Americans should assume that the new coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom is likely in the United States already.
What’s going on?
Fauci said on “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning that it’s “certainly possible” that the strain has hit the U.S. already.
- “When you have this amount of spread within a place like the U.K., you really need to assume that it’s here already … it certainly is not the dominant strain but I would certainly not be surprised at all if it is already here.”
However, Fauci warned against “overreacting” to the new strain. Fauci said he would advise against a travel ban, according to The Hill.
- “I think one of the important things we need to do is to actually do surveillance here and find out. It might actually be here. I doubt that it’s the prevalent strain but as (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo) said, it is entirely conceivable that it’s already here.”
Context:
A new strain of COVID-19 has begun to run rampant through the United Kingdom, officials said over the weekend. The new variant has forced a massive lockdown for the area and widespread panic about what this means for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Experts seemed to suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine will still block the new variant. The coronavirus has been mutating since it began to hit the world in January.