The United States is unlikely to be sent back into lockdown despite a surge in Covid-19 cases stemming from the Delta variant, top US scientist Anthony Fauci said
America is in for"some pain and suffering in the future" but enough people have now been vaccinated to prevent a repeat of last winter's deadly surge, the infectious disease expert who advises President Joe Biden told ABC's"This Week."
Elsewhere in the world countries including China and Australia have in fact put some of their people back under lockdown as the highly contagious variant spreads, not long after it seemed life was beginning to return to normal. The top US health authority says the Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and -- critically -- that breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals, though still rare, may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases.
Fauci tempered this on Sunday by reiterating that people who are vaccinated run a very low risk of infection, and even lower of hospitalization or death if they do get sick.Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday he was worried that some people might take the mask policy shift to indicate vaccines are not effective,"which would be absolutely wrong."
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