U.S. health officials believe the coronavirus mutation that triggers alarms in parts of Britain is no more apt to cause serious illness or be resistant to vaccines than the strain it suffers in the United States.
WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials believe the coronavirus mutation that triggers alarms in some areas of Britain is no better suited to cause serious illness or be resistant to vaccines than the strain that affects people in the United States, but it still has to be taken “very seriously,” the government’s top infectious disease expert said Sunday.
Dr Anthony Fauci supported the decision by US officials to require negative testing for COVID-19 before allowing people from Britain to enter the US. He declined to analyze whether this step should be taken sooner. He said the variant variety is something “to be followed very carefully” and “now we are looking at it very intensely”.
He said, “Does it make anyone sicker? Is it a more serious virus in the sense of virulence? And the answer is that it doesn’t seem to be like that. ” British officials tell their American colleagues that it looks like the vaccines that will be deployed will be strong enough to cope with the new variant, but, according to Fauci, “we will do the studies ourselves.”
Fauci said the United States is in a critical phase of the pandemic, with the worst probably still ahead. He predicted that the general population would be widely immunized in late March or early April, beyond front-line workers, the elderly, and some other segments of the public with priority for vaccines.
Fauci spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union.”