The United States' top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned Americans that it was still too early to go back to sports stadiums, which have been attended by many maskless fans amid a rampaging Delta variant outbreak.
Despite data showing that COVID-19 vaccinations protect against serious infections of the disease, the medical expert said that "it's not smart" to go back to large gatherings. "Outdoors is always better than indoors, but even when you have such a congregate setting of people close together," Fauci added.
Going Back to Sports Stadiums 'Not Smart'
Sports fans have gathered in large numbers inside stadiums despite the country recording roughly 136,000 new coronavirus cases every day across all states in the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed its data for the latest seven-day average in the U.S.
Statistics revealed that the majority of residents who are contracting serious cases of the coronavirus infection or those who are dying are those who have not yet been vaccinated. About 99% of hospital admissions between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30 were found to be unvaccinated, which the CDC defines as two weeks after the second dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two weeks after Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine, the New York Post reported.
The situation comes after the CDC published a study on Friday that found unvaccinated residents were 11 times more likely to die from the coronavirus and 10 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital. The study observed 600,000 cases of the coronavirus across 13 states from April to mid-July.
On Friday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted that the bottom line was that the United States has the scientific capabilities to fight against the coronavirus. The medical expert noted that vaccination provided strong protection against the virus and helped prevent severe complications of the coronavirus, CNN reported.
The Benefits of Getting Vaccinated
Walensky cited the study and said that unvaccinated residents were four and a half times more likely to contract the infection. Hospitals across many states are overwhelmed and fear potentially growing cases as 75 million Americans have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19.
During an interview on Thursday, Fauci noted that 160,000 daily cases were not the situation that anyone wanted right now. However, the medical expert said that was what the country was experiencing due to the lack of vaccinated residents.
The medical expert also said that while young children cannot be vaccinated under current vaccine authorizations, families are responsible for keeping their kids safe from the virus. "The way you protect children who, because of their age, cannot get vaccinated yet is to surround the children, be it friends, family, schoolteachers, personnel in the school, surround the children with vaccinated people.
States with low vaccination rates had recorded more children getting infected with the coronavirus and being admitted into hospitals, a recent study from the CDC showed. Officials are also urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) to authorize the use of the coronavirus vaccines on children under 12 years old to better protect them from the infection, Deseret News reported.
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