The White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Facui warned on Sunday that all Americans should get COVID-19 booster shots in order to prevent a “dangerous” new surge in infections during the holidays.
Cases are rising across the U.S. with the latest surge hitting Minnesota and the midwest. Fauci and other experts are now fearing that with Americans celebrating Thanksgiving indoors this week, will fuel another surge nationwide.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday Fauci said that those who are vaccinated will be okay to go maskless at holiday celebrations this year. He also shared that the definition of “fully vaccinated” has not changed despite the recent approval of booster doses for Americans.
"Two shots for a time frame means you are fully vaccinated, but the thing you want to get the people and the viewers to understand, it isn't the effectiveness of the vaccine -- it's quite effective -- it's how long it lasts," Fauci said to CNN.
Facui also warned that it was not too late to avoid a resurgence in COVID-19 rates as Christmas and the New Year gets closer.
“We still have about 60 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not been, and that results in the dynamic of virus in the community that not only is dangerous and makes people who are unvaccinated vulnerable, but it also spills over into the vaccinated people,” Fauci said in his interview with CNN.
Related
Facui called attention to the recent approval of booster shots for all Americans who received the Pfizer or Moderna version of the COVID-19 vaccine more than six months ago. He shared that he supports the efforts to get boosted if you qualify.
“The bottom line is get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated, and boostered if you have been vaccinated. Since we can vaccinate children from five to 11, you start vaccinating them now [and] they will be fully vaccinated by the time we get to the Christmas holidays,” Fauci said.
Experts have been warning for months now that the Delta variant has caused a resurgence in the pandemic that looked to be close to an end over the summer. Fauci noted that the data shows the pandemic is still very much an issue and getting vaccinated or a booster shot is the solution.
“We have a lot of virus circulating around,” Facui said. “You can’t walk away from the data, and the data show that the cases are starting to go up, which is not unexpected when you get into a winter season. People start to go indoors more and we know that immunity does wane over time.”
