Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning Americans the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the United States could double by the time fall comes around.
Fauci told McClatchy in an interview that cases driven by the delta variant are rising in a “very steep fashion.” He also suggested the United States could be “in trouble” coming into the fall unless a large portion of unvaccinated Americans gets vaccinated.
“What we’re seeing, because of this increase in transmissibility, and because we have about 93 million people in this country who are eligible to get vaccinated who don’t get vaccinated — that you have a significant pool of vulnerable people,” Fauci said.
He continued, “And so when you look at the curve of acceleration of 7-day averages of cases per day, it is going up in a very steep fashion.”
The chief medical advisor to the president recalled, “Just a couple of months ago, we were having about 10,000 cases a day.”
He added, “I think you’re likely going to wind up somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 cases.”
Fauci went on to argue the country needs to “crush the outbreak to the point of getting the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated” or else “the virus will continue to smolder through the fall into the winter, giving it ample chance to get a variant which, quite frankly, we’re very lucky that the vaccines that we have now do very well against the variants — particularly against severe illness.”
He went on, “We’re very fortunate that that’s the case. There could be a variant that’s lingering out there that can push aside delta.”
The leading health expert stressed getting vaccinated is not only about the person getting the shot, “It’s about everybody else, also.”
The Biden administration has characterized the outbreak as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”