Fauci warns about potential vaccine-resistant strain if vaccination rates don’t increase

• Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that unless vaccination rates increase, a vaccine-resistant COVID-19 strain “worse” than the Delta variant could emerge.
• Fauci emphasized the importance of increasing vaccination rates to ensure control over the virus spread.
• He explained that the virus will only continue to mutate into more dangerous variants as long as it’s still circulating.

A vaccine-resistant COVID-19 strain “worse” than the Delta variant could emerge unless vaccination rates increase, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned.

During Thursday’s Good Morning America interview with ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos, Fauci, chief medical adviser and longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), warned that vaccine-resistant variants could continue to emerge unless vaccination rates increase.

Fauci stressed the importance of getting the vaccination rates up to “get good control over the community spread.”

“People who say, ‘I don’t want to get vaccinated because it’s me and I’ll worry about me, I’m not having any impact on anybody else,’ that’s just not the case. Because when people don’t get vaccinated it allows the virus to circulate through the community,” he pointed out.

Fauci explained that the virus has “ample opportunity to mutate” for as long as it’s still circulating.

“You may, sooner or later, get another variant. And it is possible that that variant might be in some respects worse than the already very difficult variant we’re dealing with now,” he warned.

More and more cases have been reported amid the spread of the Delta variant, which has proven to be more transmissible and more resistant to vaccines compared to past strains.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported an increase in the average number of daily cases from around 9,000 new cases in mid-June to about 90,000 new cases currently. During the last two weeks of July, the Delta variant accounted for over 93 percent of all COVID-19 cases.

Despite rare breakthrough cases that still affect vaccinated individuals, the current vaccines still offer sufficient protection against serious illness or death.

Currently, only about 50 percent of the total U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 58 percent have received at least one dose.

New cases will only double over the next four weeks, the CDC forecasted. Weekly deaths, which were overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated, are also estimated to increase.

Back in mid-January when there was only a low vaccination rate, weekly new cases reached a peak of over 1.7 million, while weekly deaths hit a peak of over 24,800. The CDC predicts that this time, weekly new cases could reach over one million, and weekly deaths could reach 4,300.

Source: MSN