Earlier this week, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky went off-script during a White House briefing and shared that she has a sense of “impending doom” about the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to her statements on Thursday, saying in an appearance on CBS “This Morning” that while Walensky made a valid point, “I don’t know if I would use the word ‘impending doom.’”
Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, continued, noting that “we're seeing the cases that have plateaued over the last couple of weeks and now they're starting to inch up.”
“The point that she was making was very valid. Please be careful. Don't declare victory prematurely,” shared Fauci.
On Monday, Walensky warned of what she called a "worrying trajectory" of cases and deaths from the virus.
"Right now, I'm scared ... I so badly want to be done, I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just almost there, but not quite yet, and so I'm asking you to just hold on a little longer."
Fauci indicated on “This Morning” that over 50 million Americans have been fully inoculated against COVID-19, and with around 3 million people getting vaccinated daily, the country is getting “more and more protected” every day.
However, he stressed that mitigation efforts need to continue to be put in place. “Don’t pull back prematurely,” he noted, sharing that “we are going to be able to pull back, we don’t want people to believe that we are going to be in this situation forever. We’re not.”
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