Fauci on Lockdowns to Fight Omicron Variant: U.S. Should Be ‘Prepared to Do Anything’

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the United States should “be prepared to do anything and everything,” including lockdowns, to fight the new Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus.

Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked, “Should we expect to be seeing more lockdowns again, new lockdowns, more mandates?”

Fauci said, “I don’t know, George, it’s really too early to say. We just really need to, as I said so often, prepare for the worst. It may not be we’ll have to go the route people are saying. We don’t know a lot about this virus. So we want to prepare as best we can, but it may turn out this preparation, although important, may not necessarily push us to the next level.”

He continued, “People talking about lockdowns, people talking about that, let’s see what the information we’re getting in real time tells us. We’ll make decisions based on the science and the evidence the way we always do. But you want to be prepared to do anything and everything. That’s the reason why we’re paying such close attention to this and why we’re all over it.”

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