Dr. Fauci Just Shared the Best News Yet
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Biden and the nation’s top infectious disease expert, shared seven insights regarding the COVID-19 situation in the United States (US).
In an interview with Yasmeen Abutaleb, a health policy reporter with The Washington Post, for a Washington Post Live event, the expert shared 7 insights that every American should read.
- Dr. Fauci Said He Predicts These Will Be No New Surge in the USA
When asked about “a concern about a resurgence in the latter part of the year as the weather gets colder? And how much of this hinges upon what our understanding is of how long these vaccines are effective,” Dr. Fauci said “Well, I don’t think we should be that concerned right now about how long they’re effective.”
He further went on by saying that “I think they will be effective long enough that we will get to the point where we are not going to be necessarily worrying about a surge. If we get to the president’s goal, which I believe we will attain, of getting 70 percent of the people getting at least one dose, adults, that is, by July 4th, there will be enough protection in the community that I really don’t foresee that there being the risk of a surge, provided we continue to get people vaccinated at the rate we have now.”
- But Dr. Fauci Warned We Don’t Declare Victory Just Yet
However, the chief medical advisor warned that people should not declare victory yet as ‘there are several things that are uncertain when you’re dealing with a pandemic’.
“One thing that is quite certain is that when you have a vaccine or a group of vaccines that are as highly effective in the real world—and those data were very clear—highly effective as these vaccines are and you get a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, the chances of there being a surge are extraordinarily low. I mean quite, quite low. You don’t want to declare victory prematurely, and it’s for that reason why we’re continuing to put the push on of getting as many people vaccinated as we possibly can,” Fauci said.
- Dr. Fauci Said the Vaccine May Not Be As Effective
“There are primary immunodeficiencies,” said Dr. Fauci, when asked for whom the vaccine might not offer adequate protection. “There are a number of individuals who, congenital or otherwise, have primary immunodeficiencies. There are a considerable number of people like that in the country, and those are the people you have to pay special attention and the kinds of recommendations that we’ve heard from the CDC about what people who are fully vaccinated can and cannot do might not apply directly to the people who are immunosuppressed.”
- Dr. Fauci Said the CDC’s New Mask Rules are Not One Size Fits All
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said if you’re vaccinated, it’s OK to go mask free indoors and outdoors. “There are caveats associated with that,” said Dr. Fauci. “Not everyone is equally protected when it comes to vaccines particularly individuals such as those who are immunosuppressed.”
- Dr. Fauci Shared This Important Info about the Vaccine Booster Shot
“We don’t really know when we may need a booster,” said Dr. Fauci. “I mean, we’re making extrapolations saying that if the level of protection at the correlative immunity starts to wane and come down to below or at a critical level and you may start to see more breakthrough infections, at that point, that would be the trigger. But I really don’t think it’s accurate to say that we will need boosters X number of months from now. We may not need it for quite a while. We are preparing for the eventuality that we might need boosters, but I think we better be careful not to let the people know that inevitably X number of months from now, everyone is going to need a booster. That’s just not the case.”
- Dr. Fauci Said Doctors Will Determine For How Long the Vaccine May Be Effective
Dr. Fauci does not think “doctors are going to come in and say, ‘Okay. I’m going to measure your antibody and tell you you’re okay,'” said Dr. Fauci about how long the vaccine lasts. “It’s going to be more as a cohort where it will be said, in general, people who have gotten this vaccine have a degree of protection that lasts X amount of time, and we don’t know what that is.”
- Dr. Fauci Said He Was Watching the COVID Variant from India But Did Not Seem Worried
The India coronavirus variant is spreading in the United Kingdom (UK), are our vaccines effective against it? “There have been a number of studies literally published over the last week or so which have looked at antibodies induced by several of the vaccines that we are currently using, particularly the Moderna mRNA and the Pfizer RNA, and as we had seen with the 351 variant in South Africa, that the efficacy of the vaccine-induced antibodies is diminished somewhat by a few fold but not enough to essentially obliterate the efficacy of the vaccine,” said Dr. Fauci.