The last quarter of the year always ends up with more hangouts and gatherings as each of the last three months have back-to-back festivals including Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas respectively. This year however, the festivities loom with a larger threat of a US Covid surge, with cases already nearing 100,000 a day.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and chief medical adviser at the White House, Dr Anthony Fauci warned authorities and people around the country regarding the increasing cases. Even though the US has been ahead of many countries in the vaccination procedure to avoid a case of US Covid surge, the increased outdoors and public activity, with the mild growth in vaccinated individuals has resulted in this scenario. Fauci advised people to take heed of the matter and get booster shots for adults, and vaccination for the kids.
“We still have about 60 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not been, and that results in the dynamic of virus in the community that not only is dangerous and makes people who are unvaccinated vulnerable, but it also spills over into the vaccinated people” said Fauci.
The White House has been promoting and encouraging vaccination among adults as well as children. This particular US Covid surge is coming after weeks and weeks of controlled spread, where the cases were much below the previous country average. However, in the last 14 days, the cases have risen by 29%. He added, “We have a lot of viruses circulating around. You can’t walk away from the data, and the data show that the cases are starting to go up, which is not unexpected when you get into a winter season. People start to go indoors more and we know that immunity does wane over time. The bottom line is get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated, and boostered if you have been vaccinated. Since we can vaccinate children from five to 11, you start vaccinating them now [and] they will be fully vaccinated by the time we get to the Christmas holidays.” Officials might work together towards getting an early solution to the on-coming surge.
