White House infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has recently drawn criticism after suggesting that Americans may need to spend Christmas alone this 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
During an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) suggested that it's still "too soon to tell" whether the Americans could celebrate the Christmas holidays in groups this year.
Coronavirus Situation in Christmas
"We've just got to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we're going to do at a particular time," Fauci said. "Let's focus like a laser on continuing to get those cases down."
Fauci also noted that COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots remain the best weapons in curbing the spread of the virus.
His remarks were not well received by many critics, with one calling out Fauci for his lack of comments over indoor award events.
"Has Fauci weighed in at all on the indoor maskless award shows? If not, why not?" Stephen Miller, a contributing editor for The Spectator, wrote on his Twitter account.
Has Fauci weighed in at all on the indoor maskless award shows? If not why not? https://t.co/VESVyoabwj
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 3, 2021
Chuck Ross, a reporter for the Washington Free Beacon, also slammed Fauci's comments and questioned whether he had the authority to stop Americans from getting together for the holidays.
"It's bad enough that Fauci says these ridiculous things, but it's worse that journos keep framing questions to him as if he has any say over whether we get together for Christmas," Ross wrote.
COVID-19 hospitalizations and infections across the United States have seen a recent decline by more than 30% over the past month.
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Change in Number of Coronavirus Infections
As of Sept. 27, the seven-day moving average of new reported cases stood at 110,232, down by 30.9% from the 159,515 seven-day average reported on Aug. 27. During the same period, new coronavirus-related hospitalizations dropped to 8,507 from 12,330, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. also took nearly four months before it surpassed the 700,000 mark in COVID-19 deaths on Friday, a large majority of which occured in unvaccinated Americans. During the earlier outbreaks, the country reached the 500,000th death just 34 days after surpassing the 400,000 mark.
COVID-19 is now the deadliest pandemic in modern American history, surpassing the estimated 675,000 people who died of the Spanish influenza in 1918 and 1919.
The coronavirus-related deaths recorded in the last three months were mostly reported in the Southern states where vaccination rates are lagging, including Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.
The people who died in the past three months were also reported in every age group under 55, according to The New York Times.
As of Monday, health officials in the U.S. have reported 43,683,076 cases and 701,170 deaths, according to COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins University.
Of the total number of deaths, 5,226 occured in residents who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC's data on breakthrough cases.
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