WASHINGTON, DC (WCBS 880) — Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday noted a steep decline in nationwide new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations but warned that without better vaccination rates another surge could be possible.
"We certainly are turning the corner on this particular surge, Jon," the nation's top infectious disease expert said on ABC. "But we have experienced over now close to 20 months surges that go up and then come down, and then go back up again. The way to keep it down, to make that turnaround continue to go down, is to do what we mentioned: Get people vaccinated."
The number of daily new cases has dropped nearly 38% between Sept. 1 and Oct. 1, from 191,655 cases to 118,845 cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At the same time, the numbers of new deaths and hospitalizations are also on the decline.
But Fauci warned that only 64.7% of the American population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, creating the opportunity for new variants and surges in the future. The U.S. is grappling with the highest reported coronavirus death toll in the world, with more than 700,000 people dying from the virus.
"When you have 70 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated, who are not yet vaccinated, that's the danger zone right there," Fauci said. "So it's within our capability to make sure that that turnaround that we’re seeing — that very favorable and optimistic turnaround — continues to go down and doesn't do what we've seen multiple times before, where it goes down and then it comes back up."
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