On 'Your World' on Tuesday, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that COVID-19 vaccines do not "overly well" protect against infection.
The government's foremost authority on infectious diseases stated on Tuesday that while a new Omicron subvariant is on the increase, there is no need to panic.
White House Outlines Strategy To Combat New COVID-19 Subvariant
The majority of COVID-19 cases in the US currently belong to the subvariant known as BA.5. It has a greater capacity to evade the protection of vaccinations and previous infections and is even more highly contagious than earlier virus variants, as per The Hill.
However, health experts emphasized that vaccinations continue to offer significant protection against serious illness, particularly if patients keep up with their booster injections. Tuesday saw the issuance of an information sheet from the White House outlining its strategy for combating the subvariant, which was basically a repetition of steps the administration had previously stressed.
Health authorities emphasized that, even with the new subvariant, the country is in a far better position than it was earlier in the pandemic due to the availability of vaccines, booster doses, and treatments like Pfizer's Paxlovid pills. Officials did acknowledge that masking helps to slow the transmission of the illness, but there was little sign of a significant change in approach toward stressing limitations like mask regulations.
Fauci urged Americans to receive vaccine booster shots and noted that mask use in indoor group settings is once again being "recommended" by health experts. Following a protracted case of COVID-19 last month, Fauci, 81, had been staying quiet for a few weeks, but he now seems to have entirely healed.
He first appeared to get better after taking the antiviral medication Paxlovid on June 14, when he originally tested positive for the virus. Then, on June 28, he admitted that his symptoms had come back when presenting remotely at the Foreign Policy Global Health Forum. Up until this week, that was his final time appearing in public.
Fauci Urges Americans To Take Second Booster Shots
The CDC has cautioned that Paxlovid may be linked to "rebound" cases of COVID-19, in which symptoms reappear following an initial negative test. However, rebound cases are often described as mild, according to the CDC.
Fauci advised Americans to obtain a second booster injection during his public appearances on Tuesday in an effort to stop the spread of the BA.5 variety, an Omicron subvariant that appears to be resistant to the body's natural defenses against previous infections.
Per Daily Mail, Fauci batted down the idea that additional regulations or demands will be placed on Americans if cases rise once more, stating that vaccinations and boosters were the main tools in the battle against spreading illnesses.
Fauci also participated in a White House briefing where he advised Americans to take care indoors and to be ready for the developing BA.5 variant, even if they had recently recovered from COVID-19.
According to The Independent, Fauci and other medical professionals across the nation seem to believe that vaccinations and boosters will provide partial immunity and can still significantly protect against potentially more serious infections and help reduce the risk of hospitalization despite the apparent dire warnings about this most recent subvariant.
The number of cases in the US has stayed around 100,000 per day, but most medical professionals concur that this figure is vastly underreported because many states no longer offer public testing, and many persons who test positive today rely on at-home tests.
