Fauci: We’re Certainly Still in a Pandemic
The nation must do a better job with boosters, he adds
The nation is very much still within the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a top infectious disease expert who guided two US presidents through the spread of the fatal illness.
The United States continues to see hundreds of COVID-related deaths every day — and the nation should be doing a better job on spreading the latest COVID vaccine booster, said Dr Anthony Fauci, in an on-camera TV appearance as he prepares to retire from his position in federal service dating back to the days when Ronald Reagan was president.
“Well, we certainly are still in it. I think you just need to look at the numbers. We're still having between 300 and 400 deaths per day. So I think the idea that, ‘Forget it, this is over,’ it isn't,” Fauci told NBC News host Chuck Todd. “We're going into the winter right now. We have the wherewithal to mitigate against another surge. It's up to us to make sure that doesn't happen.
“And that's the thing that's very frustrating, Chuck, among public health officials, including myself. We have an updated vaccine booster that we want to do, but the uptake of that is, you know, less than 15 percent. It's somewhere between 11 percent and 15 percent. We've got to do better than that,” said Fauci, whose science-based approach has been highly controversial among those on the political right.
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