Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is discussing the possibility of the new strain of COVID-19 found in the U.K. already being in the U.S.
Fauci spoke on “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning where he touched on the new COVID-19 variant reported in the U.K. He was asked if it could be in the U.S. already, to which he said, “That’s certainly possible.”
He continued, “When you have this amount of spread within a place like the U.K. that you really need to assume that it’s here already.”
After noting it is not the dominant strain, Fauci said, “I would not be surprised at all if it is already here.”
Watch Fauci’s interview below:
Dr. Anthony Fauci says it’s “certainly possible” that the new, virulent COVID strain in the U.K. is already in the United States — “you really need to assume it’s here already.” https://t.co/W39hzNlWx1 pic.twitter.com/tiz3xfhzRm
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 22, 2020
Fauci urged the U.S. to “keep an eye on” the new variant found but to not “overreact,” he told CNN on Monday. He also advised that the U.S. not take the step yet to ban travel from the U.K., like some other countries have done so already.
He said during Tuesday’s interview that it is under consideration that there should be testing required for individuals before boarding a plane to the U.S.
Asked again about suspended travel from the U.K. to the U.S., Fauci said that it is important to “do surveillance here and find out, it might already here.”
White House coronavirus testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir told CNN during an interview on “New Day” Monday, “We have every reason to believe that the vaccine will be effective against any variant that we’ve seen, including the new variant in the U.K.”
“It is not any more lethal or any more dangerous than the normal coronavirus, no evidence to suggest that, no reason to believe it,” Giroir, the assistant secretary for Health, also said. Additionally, viruses do mutate regularly.