Fauci says he ‘strongly suspects’ COVID-19 deaths will decrease in winter

Best expert in infectious diseases Antoine FauciAnthony Fauci It’s time for Biden to eliminate one of Trump’s worst immigration policies Foreign disinformation about COVID helps fuel public health skepticism Watch live: COVID-19 response team the White House holds a PLUS briefing said he “strongly suspects” that deaths from COVID-19 would decrease in winter.

In an interview with Greta Van Susteren which will air on Sunday, Fauci was asked if he expected a new wave of coronavirus cases due to the delta variant or other variants such as mu this winter.

He replied that it would depend on the ability of the United States to immunize the millions of Americans who have yet to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus.

“Fortunately, right now, over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a downturn in cases and hospitalizations. Deaths are still on the rise, but they’re really flattening, so that’s a lagging indicator, ”Fauci told Van Susteren.

“I strongly suspect that you will start to see deaths decrease in the same way as hospitalizations; how fast they go down and how far down they go will depend a lot on a number of circumstances, which will be influenced by things like colder weather, people doing things indoors, how hard they go through the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines of, when you have a lot of infection in the community, even if you are vaccinated, when you are not at home but outside of public gathering places, wearing masks, I think that would be very careful “, he added.

Experts are divided on whether this latest wave of COVID-19 cases will be the last.

Data from the CDC indicates that COVID-19 cases nationwide are generally starting to decline, but only about 56% of the country’s total population has been fully vaccinated. Colder weather, with more people indoors, could make it difficult to predict how well COVID-19 cases will be brought under control later in the fall and next winter, given this environment allowed the virus to spread before.

Leana Wen, professor of public health at George Washington University and emergency doctor, told The Hill some states are still struggling with the last delta wave.

“I’m very worried that people are getting complacent because they think the delta wave is overtaking us,” Wen said. “We’ve seen this happen before, where there is an increase in the number of cases, then a decrease, and then people let their guard down. And as a result, we place at a very high level of cases. This is unacceptable.