White House chief epidemiologist Anthony Fauci acknowledged Tuesday that the pandemic is out of control in the United States, which is recording record hospitalizations.
“We’re in a rebound, as we call it, Jim, who is, you know, out of control in a lot of ways,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN.
“If you look at the evolution since the end of winter-early spring 2020, we had a peak in late winter-early spring,” he continued, “another rise in early summer, and right now we are at a peak, the worsening, the inflection is very sharp. “
He added that the US is in a “very difficult” situation as it has never been with a low benchmark, in terms of contagion, “where community expansion can be controlled through identification, isolation and contact tracking “.
For this reason, he expressed concern that there will be an increase in cases in January, which could be worse than in December, when the country has experienced unprecedented daily increases in cases.
“I think we have to assume it’s going to get worse, you know, we’re between 100,000-200,000 infections a day. There was a period in the worst part of December, when it was above 200,000, which I hope doesn’t. we get it again because it shakes us: you have cases, you have hospitalizations and, as a result, deaths, “he said.
Faced with this scenario, Fauci, who has been elected by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, to be his chief medical adviser, recommended continuing to practice the “simple things” that have been done.
“This season, apart from travel, which is now too late, because we’re in the middle of the Christmas holidays, New Year’s Eve, people are going to travel or have already traveled. We’re trying to get people to travel less, and for those who have already done so, what needs to be done is not to get together in large groups of people, just the immediate family, ”he said.
And he warned that when you have a large group of people for dinner under the roof and little ventilation, “that’s when one gets into trouble.”
The US is the world country most affected by the pandemic with more than 19.3 million detected cases of covid-19 and more than 335,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
According to the Covid Tracking Project, the US on Monday set the record for hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic, with 121,235 patients admitted for the disease, of whom 22,592 are in intensive care units.