Fauci urges Americans to conduct ‘risk-benefit assessment’ ahead of vacation



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Top expert in infectious diseases Anthony FauciAnthony FauciSunday shows preview: Biden transition, COVID-19 peak in spotlight Pressure rises for rapid COVID-19 testing White House is largely silent on health precautions for Thanksgiving MORE urged Americans on Sunday to conduct a “risk-benefit assessment” before traveling for the holidays ahead of Thanksgiving this week.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told NBC News’ Meet the Press that families need to consider the risks of congregating indoors. He said families especially need to take into account whether their gatherings plan to include the elderly or underlying illnesses affecting their immune systems.

“I think the people of this country need to realistically carry out a risk-benefit assessment,” he said. “Every family is different. Everyone has a different level of risk that they want to tolerate. “

The director of NIAID acknowledged that holiday gatherings “have been such a joyous thing in the past”, but added “it is a very special situation”.

“So you don’t want to undo everything, but you at least want to tell yourself and your family the benefit of having considered the risk / benefit ratio of doing this rather than restricting what you are doing to the essentials. the people who live in your house, ”he said. “You just have to think about it and make your own decision.”

Fauci stressed that the almost exponentially increasing numbers in the country “don’t necessarily” have to continue.

“We are not going to eliminate it completely and overthrow it quickly and radically, but we can prevent it from increasing,” he said.

“We must not accept that we cannot do anything about it,” added the public health expert. “Putting vaccines aside for a while, which will be extremely helpful, if we implement the simple public health measures I was telling you about, we can mitigate this inflection. It doesn’t have to be that high.

The United States has taken the leap 250,000 deaths from COVID-19 last week, since the start of the pandemic this spring. The country documented one-day hospitalizations on Saturday with 83,227 currently hospitalized, according to the COVID monitoring project.

The United States on Friday confirmed a record high number of COVID-19 cases in a single day at 192,805 new cases.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against traveling on Thanksgiving amid the continuing surge in cases.



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