- With the COVID-19 infection rate dropping, Fauci recently urged Americans not to get complacent when it comes to following coronavirus safety guidelines.
- Fauci stressed that even people who have been vaccinated should wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.
- Fauci also wants people to avoid indoor gatherings, whether it be at a bar, restaurant, the gym, or even a dinner party with friends.
It’s easy to get encouraged when looking at the latest data on COVID-19 infection rates. After all, the infection rate has dropped by a whopping 40% over the last two weeks alone. Coupled with an increasingly aggressive vaccine rollout, some experts are of the opinion that we’ll finally be able to put the pandemic behind us sometime before summer.
That said, Dr. Fauci recently stressed the importance of remaining vigilant about COVID safety measures even as the infection rate continues to fall. Adhering to coronavirus safety measures, Fauci explained, is all the more important these days in light of more contagious COVID strains from the UK and South Africa. The South Africa strain in particular has been found to more resistant to existing COVID vaccines, a fact which understandably has health experts concerned.
During a recent talk at the College of William and Mary, Fauci reminded those in attendance that the coronavirus remains the leading cause of death in the United States. So while the latest COVID data is promising, additional outbreaks are possible if people start taking safety guidelines less seriously.
“Fortunately, now we have a dramatic diminution going down,” Fauci said this week. “But we can’t be complacent about that because there are variants, namely mutations, that could, in fact, turn it around again.”
So what does Fauci advise?
Well, Fauci is urging people to follow social distancing guidelines and to still wear masks at all times when out in public. Notably, even people who have been vaccinated should still wear a mask, according to Fauci.
Beyond that, Fauci has — for months at this point — urged everyone to avoid indoor gatherings whenever possible. This means that Fauci wants people to avoid bars, gyms, or any other type of venue where masses of people congregate.
Research has shown that indoor gatherings — where air circulation is often subpar — have been responsible for a disproportionate number of coronavirus outbreaks over the past few months. In fact, a contact tracing study in New York late last year found that people are 10 times more likely to contract the coronavirus at household gatherings than anywhere else.
Travel, coupled with indoor gatherings, can be especially problematic. Fauci, for this very reason, desperately pleaded with people to avoid traveling home for Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, a plea that unfortunately fell on deaf ears and quickly caused an unprecedented surge of COVID infections.
“Ten [people] may even be a bit too much,” Fauci has said of indoor gatherings. “It’s not only the number, it’s the people who might be coming in from out of town. You want to make sure you don’t have people who just got off a plane or a train. That’s even more risky than the absolute number.”
“You get indoors and you take your mask off because you’re eating and drinking and you don’t realize that there may be somebody that you know that you love who is perfectly well with no symptoms and yet they got infected into the community,” Fauci later added.
Beyond the aforementioned safety measures, Fauci encourages anyone eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine to get one as soon as possible. Despite an avalanche of fake news surrounding the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, the reality is that there has not been one single death linked to either Pfizer or Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.
On the vaccine front, both Pfizer and Moderna have promised to significantly increase their vaccine supply by mid-March. Over the next five weeks alone, the two companies will ship an estimated 140 million doses to the US. If the shipments increase as planned, the vaccination rate in the US could theoretically increase to more than 2.5 million doses per day.
