Fauci warns Thanksgiving travel could worsen current Covid surge

WASHINGTON – Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease specialist, has warned that the travel-heavy Thanksgiving holiday could worsen the current spike in Covid-19 cases as the country heads into December.

Appearing on NBC News “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Fauci said public health officials “tried to get the word out for people, no matter how difficult, not to really hold large gatherings” during the holiday amid fears the celebrations could worsen the spread of the coronavirus.

“What we unfortunately expect over the next two weeks in December is that we could see a surge superimposed on the push we’re already in,” he said.

“I don’t want to scare people off except to say it’s not at all too late for us to act on this,” he added, urging Americans to be careful when they get home. them and upon arrival, and to take proven measures like social distancing and wearing masks.

It can sometimes take two weeks for infected people to develop symptoms, and asymptomatic people can spread the virus without knowing they have it. So, Fauci said the “dynamics of an epidemic” show a three to five week lag between serious mitigation efforts and actual reduction in infection rates.

While the first wave of vaccinations could begin in America within a few weeks, Fauci said that, for now, “we’re going to have to make decisions as the nation, state, city and family that we go through in a period of time. very difficult, and we’re going to have to do the kinds of restrictions of things that we would have liked to do, especially this holiday season, because we’re getting into a really tough situation.

Covid-19 cases and deaths in the United States have accelerated in recent weeks. There have been more than 4 million cases and 35,000 deaths attributed to the virus in the month of November alone. Overall, America has recorded 13.3 million cases of the coronavirus and 267,000 deaths from the virus, according to an NBC News analysis.

Despite a warning in mid-November from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging Americans not to travel during Thanksgiving, air travel has broken pandemic records, with 6.8 million people traveling through airports within seven days before the holidays.

The already accelerating number of cases, combined with the possibility of a further increase in cases, comes as hospitals across the country sound the alarm over system capacity overload.

Fauci said he was concerned about hospitals across the country, noting that he received calls last night from colleagues across the country “asking for advice” amid “significant pressures on hospital and healthcare systems “.

Although he has explicitly said he is not calling for a national lockdown, Fauci said that at the local level, Americans could “mitigate” the effects of the outbreak on the hospital system by taking mitigating measures. “Unless you lock so as not to precipitate the need for locking. “

The spike in cases comes amid promising news about a coronavirus vaccine, with public health officials and the federal government planning to start the first wave of vaccinations in December. Fauci said that while the “exact” recommendations for scheduling groups to receive the vaccinations have not been finalized, “health workers are going to be among” those who are the first to receive the vaccines.

He highlighted the country’s success in distributing annual influenza vaccines as “the reason we should feel more confident” about the ability to send the needed vaccine across America.

“The part of about 300 million doses shipped will be taken care of by people who know how to do this,” he said. “The distal part, namely, putting it in people’s arms, is going to be more difficult than a regular flu season, it would be foolish to deny that. But I think it’s going to be able to be done because the local people l ‘have done in the past. Hopefully they will get the resources to help them do that. “