Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House health adviser, recently told CNN the United States has two tools to help defeat the COVID-19 variants.
Fauci told CNN the United States can stick to public health measures to stop the virus:
- “The two ways that we can counter that is one, continue to do the kinds of public health interventions that we talk about all the time.” This includes washing your hands, social distancing, avoiding large crowds and wearing masks.
Fauci told CNN the other major way to stop the variants is to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.
- “But also, as the weeks and months go by, as you vaccinate more and more people, you have a vaccine that works against this variant,” Fauci said in reference to the South African variant. “So if we roll out the vaccine ... and get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can while we maintain the public health measures, we should be in good stead.”
Worries over variants
Researchers continue to worry about the South African variant of the novel coronavirus. As Reuters reported, the South African variant may reduce protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by two-thirds, a sign that the vaccine might not fully protect people from the variant, according to Reuters.
Pfizer and Moderna have reportedly begun creating a third shot of their vaccine, which would upgrade the vaccine to help protect against the variants, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.