Dr. Fauci: ‘For the first time in more than 30 years, I’m not spending the Christmas holidays with my daughters’
Dr. Fauci warned Monday that Christmas could create another COVID-19 surge.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the past three decades, told CBS News during the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit that people should avoid travel this month.
As hospitals await an increase in cases after Thanksgiving, he said, “For the first time in more than 30 years, I’m not spending the Christmas holidays with my daughters.” That post-Thanksgiving increase is expected to happen right before “the Christmas, Hanukkah potential surge,” he said.
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‘We could start to see things start to get really bad in the middle of January, not only for New York state but for any state or city.’
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Speaking to CNN on Monday, Fauci warned that Americans are facing a “critical time” and the next potential surge over the holidays could lead to a dark January, “This may be even more compounded because it’s a longer holiday,” he said.
Fauci also issued a stark warning to Americans in a video stream with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (N.Y., D.) on Monday, and said 10 people indoors during the holidays is likely too many: “We could start to see things start to get really bad in the middle of January, not only for New York state but for any state or city,” he said. That, he added, “could be a really dark time for us.”
The U.S. set a record for COVID-19-related hospitalizations this month with more than 100,000 patients, and the number of people with the virus in intensive-care units surpassed 20,000. Dr. Thomas Russo, the chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo, told WGRZ 2 Television over the weekend an increase in “bad outcomes” takes four to six weeks.
Here is advice for those who wish to travel
Risk factors to consider before attending a gathering include whether there is community spread of COVID-19; exposure during travel; the location and duration of the gathering, and whether it’s indoors; the number of attendees and capacity for physical distancing; and attendees’ preventive behaviors before and during the gathering, such as mask wearing.
As of Tuesday, 67.7 million people worldwide had contracted COVID-19 and 1.5 million people had died. The U.S. had 14.9 million cases and 283,874 fatalities, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
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BioNTech SE
BNTX,
and Pfizer
PFE,
said a final analysis of their vaccine candidate showed 95% rather than 90% efficacy. Meanwhile, Moderna
MRNA,
said its own vaccine candidate was 94.5% effective. Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
; Merck & Co.
MERK,
; GlaxoSmithKline
GSK,
; and Sanofi
SAN,
are also working on fast-track coronavirus vaccines.
Another vaccine is being developed by AstraZeneca
AZN,
and the University of Oxford. They said last month that their coronavirus vaccine is up to 90% effective when administered as a half dose, and then a full dose one month later. Effectiveness, however, falls to 62% when two full doses are given one month apart.
It was later revealed that the initial half-dose, deemed as the more effective option by the company than two full doses, was given accidentally to participants. They were also 55 or under. That age group was not initially disclosed when AstraZeneca said the half and full dosage was more effective. The firm defended these errors and apparent lack of transparency.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
and the S&P 500 Index
SPX,
closed lower Monday, while the Nasdaq Composite
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closed marginally higher, buoyed by reports of a possible compromise between lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle on a new COVID-19-related stimulus bill, and progress with vaccines.
