Fauci: COVID Guidelines ‘May Need to Be More Restrictive’

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that COVID protocols may become “more restrictive” with the Omicron variant.

Host Andrew Ross Sorkin said, “As you know, we are in holiday season there are parties. You talked about getting together with your family during the holidays. You recommended testing and the like. At what point would you reassess that?”

Fauci said, “You’ve got to just take things one step at a time and take a look at how things evolve. I mean, obviously, if you are vaccinated, your family’s vaccinated, you have friends who are vaccinated, and hopefully also boosted, you can still enjoy a social gathering generally in a home. You’ve got to be careful when you go into large public indoor spaces where there are a lot of people there. And that’s the reason why you should be wearing a mask under those circumstances.”

He continued, “If the counts keep going up and the test positivity keeps going up, we may need to be more restrictive. But for right now, people who are vaccinated and boosted should feel reasonably comfortable. The risk was never zero. That is for sure.”

Fauci added, “I think you have to look at all the different factors. You have to look at people who are getting infected. You have to look at the seriousness of the infection, the rate of hospitalizations, all of those things you look at when you make a determination about how restrictive you are going to be.”

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