The United States' top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has warned that the country may soon experience another COVID-19 surge amid what he called a "blip" in the UK.
The health professionals said that he expects an increase in the number of infections over the next few weeks, attributing the situation to the BA.2 coronavirus variant. However, he noted that the situation may not lead to a surge in hospitalizations or deaths of infected individuals.
Fauci on COVID-19
In an interview, Fauci said that he would not be surprised if, in the next few weeks, the United States sees either a flattening of the diminution or an increase. The infectious disease expert's remarks are based on conversations with colleagues in the UK, who are seeing a blip in cases. Often, the U.S. has followed the UK's pandemic trajectory by roughly three weeks.
Fauci noted that the UK's intensive care bed usage was not going up, which could mean that they were not seeing a blip of severe coronavirus cases. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that the BA.2 variant, which is a more transmissible strain of the Omicron variant, now represents roughly 23% of all cases in the U.S., as per ABC News.
Furthermore, while the infectious disease expert predicted that the BA.2 variant will overtake the Omicron variant as the dominant strain in the future, it is not yet clear how severe it could be. Fauci said that whether or not the variant would cause a surge, a mini-surge, or a moderate surge, there are still many other things that are going on right now.
Over the last two months, coronavirus infections in the United States have decreased dramatically with the average number of new cases having totaled just over 30,000. After two years of the health crisis, the U.S. has begun easing COVID-19 restrictions, including masking and social distancing.
According to The Hill, all of the states in the country have chosen to remove their mask mandates as the CDC said that the majority of regions in the U.S. no longer need to mandate masks whenever people are indoors.
Cases in the U.S.
During the interview with Judy Woodruff, Fauci said that the United States, as a country, was heading down the right path with regards to the coronavirus pandemic. The White House chief medical adviser said that the combination of vaccination immunity and immunity associated with prior infection could stave off severe diseases.
Fauci noted that there were roughly 67% of the total population of the U.S. have been fully vaccinated with about 70% of the adults. He added that only about 50% of the citizens who are eligible for a booster shot have gotten their boosters.
The infectious disease expert said that as the country is "tiptoeing back to normality" people need to prevent doing the kinds of things that will set the nation back. He noted that psychologically the nation was not ready to go back to normal, but he stressed that the vaccination and boosters could help ease the transition, PBS News Hour reported.
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