Fauci on COVID Uptick: ‘People Are No Longer Wearing Masks in Indoor Settings’

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that one of the contributing factors to an uptick in COVID cases is “many people are no longer wearing masks in indoor settings.”

Fauci said, “We have now, as you mentioned correctly, for a couple of days in a row have been over 100,000 cases. Not as high as it was at the very peak that we had several months ago, but we have to be very careful. One of the things we keep emphasizing, as you know, we have reached a terrible landmark in this outbreak of a million deaths, which is so tragic. Many of those could have been avoided if we had had people who have gotten vaccinated who did not get vaccinated.”

He continued, “The best way to blunt that is to get people vaccinated who are not vaccinated. Because of the waning immunity, over time the protection diminishes over time to make sure that people who have been vaccinated with the initial vaccine regimen get their booster shot when it becomes due for them. That’s really very important. The difference in severity of disease and the need for hospitalization between unvaccinated people and people who are vaccinated and particularly those vaccinated and boosted, is a major, major difference. We can avoid morbidity avoid severe disease. We certainly can avoid many more deaths by getting people vaccinated.”

Fauci added, “When you get a more transmissible virus like what we are experiencing now in different parts of the country, that’s the reason you are going to see increases in cases. As you know, we pulled back on many of the issues that would prevent infection. For example, many people are no longer wearing masks in indoor settings. Particularly when you have crowded indoor settings, that leads to an increased risk of infection, all of those things coming together are explaining why we are seeing this uptick in infections over the last several weeks.”

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