Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci advised that, in general, the United States is “doing very, very well” in combatting the coronavirus pandemic.
Fauci attributed the nation’s success to more than 50% of adults having been vaccinated. He warned the “Delta variant” of the virus leaves unvaccinated people “at considerable risk.”
“In general, Joe, we’re doing very, very well,” Fauci told host Joe Scarborough. “I mean, if you look at the implementation of the vaccine program, more than 50% of the adults in the country are fully vaccinated. About 66-67% of adults have at least one dose, and importantly, among the elderly, the most vulnerable, more than 80% have received at least one dose. The cases themselves, the hospitalizations, the deaths as the country on a whole is doing extremely well. So, we’re really very fortunate that we have vaccines that not only in the clinical trials, Joe but actually in the real-world setting have been shown to be highly effective and safe even against this very troublesome Delta variant.”
He continued, “Now, since this is a big country with a lot of states, as you know, there are several states, particularly some … concentrated in the southern areas that are under-vaccinated. Instead of having 70% or more of the adults vaccinated, they’re down to 35% or so. That’s the problem. So, you’re going to see really doing very, very well in those areas that are vaccinated well, and we are doing extremely well, but there are certain pockets of under-vaccinated areas of the country where we could see a threat with this variant which has the capability of spreading quite efficiently from person to person. So, if you’re not vaccinated, you’re at considerable risk. If you are vaccinated, you’re in rather good shape.”
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