Fauci recommends wearing two masks against the new Covid variant

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said that this is not the time to be complacent, urged Americans to maintain safety measures, and wear double masks.
• Fauci advises the waning cases are not due to injections but a normal process during vaccinations.
• The expert said Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will still be effective against both the new strains from South Africa and the U.K.

While the rate of coronavirus in the U.S has finally dropped for the first time in months, Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned Americans to stay alert and to maintain safety measures. The advice is also following the spread of a new strain that has already reached the country.

After almost three succeeding months of above the roof cases, new infections have gone down by 33% in the past two weeks bringing the average as of Jan. 24 to 170,559. However, that figure has still exceeded two-folds in the total of cases from the earlier spike in summer, and five times more than the primary rise in infections in March of last year.

Guesting on Today’s Monday edition, Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ head and chief medical consultant to President Joe Biden, said that the trend is “just a natural peaking and then plateauing and coming down” following the holidays.

Fauci also explained that the drop in the number of new cases is unconnected to the country’s vaccine distribution.

“The number of vaccines that we’ve gotten into the arms of people is a good start — we want to keep going, get a lot of people vaccinated — but I don’t think the dynamics of what we’re seeing now with the plateauing is significantly influenced, yet — it will be soon — but yet by the vaccine,” Fauci describes to Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of Today. 

The expert also made clear that the recent developments in cases are not enough grounds to relax on safety measures and urged the public to keep wearing masks, remain at home, and observe social distancing. 

Fauci added that the new COVID-19 B.1.1.7 strain from the U.K. has been seen in more than 20 states at the moment that resulted in 195 new cases in the country U.S. as of Jan. 22.

“That is a variant that has a better capability of being transmitted more efficiently from person to person,” as further noted by the expert.

In the same interview, Fauci also talked about another highly-infectious strain from South Africa, which is disturbing health experts and made Biden decide on Monday to restrict travel from there to the U.S.

He further explained that while they’re alarmed about the strain from South Africa,  both FDA-authorized vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer will still be effective to counter the two variants.

The New York Times reported that the U.S  had exceeded 25,177,500 COVID-19 cases as of Jan. 24, with no less than 419,207 casualties.

Source: People