Despite Delta’s surge, Fauci says US is not returning to lockdown

© J. Scott Applewhite
Dr.Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, answers questions from Senator Rand Paul during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Work and Pensions hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 20, 2021

The United States is unlikely to be returned to lockdown despite an increase in Covid-19 cases due to the Delta variant, US scientist Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.

America will experience “pain and suffering in the future,” but enough people have now been vaccinated to prevent a repeat of last winter’s deadly wave, the expert told ABC “This Week”. infectious diseases that advises President Joe Biden.

“I don’t think we’re going to see any blockages,” Fauci said, after Biden said this week that the United States is likely heading for further restrictions due to the push of the Delta variant.

Elsewhere in the world, countries like China and Australia have actually taken some of their residents back into custody as the highly contagious variant spreads, shortly after it looked like life was starting to return to life. normal.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed course this week and said fully vaccinated people should again mask indoors in high-risk areas across the country.

The highest U.S. health authority says the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and – critically – revolutionary cases in vaccinated individuals, while still rare, can be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases.

This change in mask policy, after Biden predicted a “summer of freedom” if enough Americans get vaccinated, has raised concerns that confidence in coronavirus vaccines may be shaken.

Fauci tempered that on Sunday by reiterating that those vaccinated have a very low risk of infection, and even lower risk of hospitalization or death if they become ill.

“We are seeing an epidemic of the unvaccinated,” he said.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on Sunday that he was concerned that some people would change the mask policy to indicate that vaccines are not effective, “which would be absolutely false.”

“If you are vaccinated right now, your likelihood of getting seriously ill is 25 times reduced,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

New cases of Covid have quadrupled in recent weeks, but vaccination rates have also risen sharply, Collins said.

“The good news is people are getting the message,” he said.

Just under 60% of the U.S. population over the age of 12 is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

But there are big disparities from one region to another as vaccination took on a political tinge under Donald Trump, with the liberal north and east being more open to being vaccinated and the conservative south more suspicious.

dw / ec