Dr Anthony Fauci says he doesn’t want to cancel Christmas – he just wants people to ‘be more careful’

© ROBYN BECK / AFP / AFP via Getty Images
People wearing face masks line up to shop at Ikea in Carson, Calif. On July 4, 2020, the Independence Day holiday of the United States. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK / AFP via Getty Images)

The high number of vacationers during the pandemic worries the country’s top infectious disease specialist.

“I know everyone wants to go back to the days when Christmas was a situation where you could have very many guests inside, get together, have fun together”, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of longtime National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said Tuesday.

But “the situation is different now,” he said.

The Transportation Security Administration reports a record number of pandemic trips and said it had screened more than 4 million air travelers between Friday and Monday.

If Americans ignore the dire situation already unfolding and travel for the holidays anyway, Fauci warned that “it could be a very difficult January.”

“As you can imagine, this is quite worrying for me,” he said. “This type of travel is risky, especially if people start to congregate when they arrive at their destination in large crowds, in indoor environments. I’m afraid that if, in fact, we see this happening, we will have a push that overlaps. the predicament we already find ourselves in. So January could be very difficult if these things happen. “

Fauci said that whenever he spoke of being careful as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the country, he was accused of wanting to “cancel Christmas.”

“I don’t want to do this,” he said. “I want people to be more careful. I want them to limit travel as much as possible.”

Fauci also urged Americans to get vaccinated – he received his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from Moderna on Tuesday.

“I feel very confident in what we are doing and that is why I strongly recommend everyone to get vaccinated when the vaccine becomes available,” he said. “This is how we are going to put this pandemic behind us.”

Pfizer and Moderna are testing vaccines against a variant of the coronavirus

Pfizer and Moderna are testing their coronavirus vaccines to see if they work against the mutated version of the virus found in the UK and other countries, the companies said.

The variant has not been identified in the United States, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a Tuesday submission, but “given the small fraction of US infections sequenced, the variant may already be in the United States without being detected. “

Travel between the US and UK, as well as the high prevalence of the variant in UK infections, increases “the likelihood of importation,” the CDC said.

“We expect the Moderna vaccine-induced immunity to be protective against the variants recently described in the UK; we will be performing additional testing in the coming weeks,” Moderna said.

Pfizer “is generating data,” he said, on the ability of blood samples from immune people “to neutralize the new strain.”

Dr Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told CNN he expects both licensed vaccines to work against the new strain.

“We are starting to see data indicating that some of the monoclonal antibodies we have are continuing to work against this new strain. So I expect the vaccines to continue to be effective,” he said. “And if by some external chance that (they aren’t) … we can make changes to the vaccine.”

“But I don’t think it will be necessary. Certainly not in the short or medium term.”

The United States has not restricted British travelers

The new coronavirus has already mutated, and vaccines from both companies have worked against variations in the virus.

The significance of the shift is uncertain, experts say, but dozens of countries, including Canada, have imposed restrictions on British travelers. The United States has not, but the White House is considering requiring British travelers to show a negative coronavirus test before entering the United States, two administration officials told CNN .

The United States has failed to limit the spread of Covid-19. The country reported at least 181,000 new cases and 3,200 deaths on Tuesday, as more than 117,000 people were hospitalized – a record. The United States has recorded more than 18.2 million cases and 322,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Outbreaks are not confined to one region. As of Monday night, the states with the most new cases over the past week, adjusted for population, are Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, California and Rhode Island, according to CDC data.

More than 614,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered, according to the CDC. Tens of millions more are expected in the coming months.

However, the distribution of vaccines should not cause Americans to abandon their guard. Everyone should take precautions to limit exposure, as research published Tuesday in the journal Physics of Fluid warns that wearing a mask without social distancing may not be enough.

Researchers performed tests on well-fitting N95 masks, surgical masks, two-layer cloth masks, plain cloth and wet two-layer cloth masks, and only N95 prevented the droplets from escaping. when simulating coughing or sneezing, the newspaper reported.

States add health mandates

Across the country, some state leaders must impose tougher health orders as communities grapple with the latest increase in coronavirus cases.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday announced statewide restrictions on business capacity and lowered limits for indoor and outdoor gatherings.

Starting Saturday, companies in “most industries” will have to limit their capacity to 25%, Baker said, calling the decision to institute the measures “extremely difficult.”

Additionally, indoor gatherings are now limited to 10 people and outdoor gatherings to 25, Baker said.

Baker said the state had 3,760 new cases and 1,991 people hospitalized, putting facilities “under significant pressure.”

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed an executive order expanding the rules on face coverings. With the addition of 17 counties, all but four of the 82 counties are subject to the directive, which expires on January 15.

“We all need to be more aware,” Reeves said in a press release. “You know what to do! Protect yourself and your family.”

California, which divides the state into five regions, will likely extend its home orders which are expected to expire in two regions next week, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday.

Officials announced Tuesday that more than 32,000 Californians have been newly diagnosed, bringing the state’s total to more than 1.9 million. The death toll continues to climb, with the state adding 247 deaths on Tuesday for a total of 22,923.

The shortage of intensive care beds in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley continues to plague both regions, with capacity remaining at 0%. Nearly 19,000 patients with Covid-19 are hospitalized in California, including 3,861 in intensive care units.

“California is in crisis in its health systems,” Thomas McGinn, executive vice president of Dignity Health, said at a joint press conference. “We are breaking records that we don’t want to break. The number of admissions for COVID, the number of patients on ventilators, the number of patients in our ICUs and sadly, the number of deaths we are witnessing.”

But cases are on the decline in many states. On Monday, the governor of North Dakota announced the easing of orders for restaurant and bar opening hours. As of Tuesday, places that had been closed for in-person service between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. were allowed to return to normal hours, Governor Doug Burgum said.

“These businesses are an important part of our economy, and we are deeply grateful for their efforts and sacrifices to help slow the spread of Covid-19 and reduce active cases and hospitalizations,” he said.