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      Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count

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      Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count But government’s top medical adviser warns public not to be fooled by data suggesting variant lacks severity of earlier variants The US government’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has joined a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.Teens and young adults driving record Covid cases in US, health officials sayRead moreReferring to the Omicron surge in the US as a “tsunami”, Fauci also cautioned the public not to be fooled by preliminary data suggesting the variant lacks the severity of earlier Covid-19 variants, such as Delta.“You have a virus that looks like it might be less severe, at least from data we’ve gathered from South Africa, the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the US,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.“It’s a very interesting, somewhat complicated issue … so many people are getting infected that the net amount, the total amount of people that will require hospitalisation, might be up. We can’t be complacent in these reports. We’re still going to get a lot of hospitalisations.”On ABC’s This Week, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked if it was time to focus less on just the case count, which has soared close to 500,000 reported new daily infections. A number of experts have questioned if such reports cause unnecessary worry, and suggest deaths and hospitalisation data should better inform mitigation efforts.“The answer is, overall, yes,” Fauci said. “This is particularly relevant if you’re having an infection that is much, much more asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic, particularly in people who are vaccinated and boosted. “The real bottom line that you want to be concerned about is, are we getting protected by the vaccines from severe disease leading to hospitalisation?”The Biden administration has made improving vaccination rates a priority but concedes progress is slower than it would like. Fewer than 25% of US children are vaccinated, pediatric hospital admissions are surging and nationally only 62% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated with barely a third receiving a booster. “I’m still very concerned about the tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated at all because even though many of them are going to get asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic, a fair number of them are going to get severe disease,” Fauci said.Surging infection rates, Fauci told CNN, will likely cause disruption to everyday life, already evidenced in pressure on healthcare in several states and in other areas such as education and public transport. A number of universities and school districts will begin 2022 online and in New York City several subway lines have been suspended through staff shortages.Fauci said those concerns contributed to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week to reduce the recommended isolation period for those who have tested positive but are asymptomatic from 10 days to five.“You’re certainly gonna see stresses on the system, the system being people with any kind of jobs, particularly with critical jobs, to keep society functioning normally. We already know there are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities, that sometimes 30% of the people are ill.“The CDC is trying to get a position where people without symptoms who are infected, that you can get them back to work a little bit earlier if they remain without symptoms.”But he rejected criticism that the change was sparked by economic pressure rather than science. “In the second half of a 10-day period, which would normally be a 10-day isolation period, the likelihood of transmissibility is considerably lower,” he said. “For that reason, the CDC made the judgement that it would be relatively low risk to get people out.“You’re right [that] people are concerned about, ‘Why not test people at that time?’ I myself feel that that’s a reasonable thing to do. I believe that the CDC soon will be coming out with more clarification of that since it obviously has generated a number of questions about that five-day period.”The new mayor of New York, Eric Adams, said he thought the city was doing “an amazing job” of reacting to the shifting challenges of the pandemic, including transportation issues and having one-fifth of police out sick.US experts question whether counting Covid cases is still the right approachRead more“We are pivoting based on where the urgency is located. We’re not taking it one-size-fits-all, we’re thinking about it and making the right moves and decisions,” he told ABC.“I was with my police commissioner. We have a 20% sick rate but now we have officers coming back after the five days.“But we can’t live through variants. We spent $11tn on Covid and we don’t have another $11tn, so our lives can’t be based on what’s the new variant. No. We have to figure out, how do we adjust?“I say to those who are not vaccinated, ‘Stop it. It’s time to get vaccinated. It’s time to have the booster shots. You’re endangering yourself and you’re endangering the public and your family as well.’”TopicsBiden administrationAnthony FauciJoe BidenUS politicsOmicron variantCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent

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      Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent
      Biden medical adviser: US has to ‘do better’ on access to testing
      Fauci welcomes Donald Trump’s support for Covid vaccines
      Guilt and frustration of breakthrough Covid
      Cases of Covid-19 will continue to surge worldwide due to the Omicron variant, the US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday, warning Americans not to get complacent amid reports that the variant is less harmful than others.Hundreds more US flights canceled for third day amid surging Covid casesRead more“If you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity,” Fauci told ABC’s This Week, “that might kind of neutralise the positive effect of having less severity.“We’re particularly worried about those who are in that unvaccinated class … those are the most vulnerable ones when you have a virus that is extraordinarily effective in getting to people.”Fauci also welcomed Donald Trump’s endorsement of Covid-19 vaccines and boosters, saying: “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Trump prompted rebarbative anger among supporters and amid a huge case surge, with knock-on effects feared for the economy and schools, Fauci also admitted the US had “to do better” on providing access to testing.Speaking to Axios, Fauci said it was “conceivable that sooner or later everybody will have been infected and/or vaccinated or boosted”.“When you get to that point,” he said, “unless you have a very bizarre variant come in that evades all protection – which would be unusual – then I think you could get to that point where you have this at a steady level.”But he also suggested fourth shots might yet be needed. On ABC, he was asked why “we still don’t have affordable tests widely available to anybody who needs it”.“If you look at the beginning of the [Biden] administration,” Fauci said, “… there were essentially no rapid point-of-care home tests available. Now, there are over nine of them and more coming. Production has been rapidly upscaled.“… But the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, Omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as [a] run on tests during the holiday season – we’ve obviously got to do better.“I think things will improve greatly as we get into January, but that doesn’t help us today and tomorrow. So you’re right, [access to testing] is of concern.”Another leading public health expert said he did not think the case for possible fourth vaccine shots needed to be made right now.“If we need it I think our health system is prepared,” Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Fox News Sunday. “But let’s actually talk about whether we need it or not. And at this moment, based on the data I’ve seen, I’m pretty skeptical that we’re gonna need a fourth shot.“Part of the question is that we have to ask ourselves what are we trying to do? Are we trying to block every single infection? Maybe that’s our goal. If that’s our goal then yes, maybe we need a fourth shot. Or are we just trying to prevent serious illness and death? Which, of course, I think should be our primary goal.“So I’m pretty unconvinced at this moment that we need a fourth shot … let’s get a lot more data before we even really start seriously thinking about it.”Jha also said school closures – feared by many parents – should not be increasing.“We know how to keep schools open,” he said, “we know how to keep them safe. This really shouldn’t even be on the table. I’m disappointed to see this happening.“We know that for kids being in school is the right thing for them, for their mental health, for their education. And we have all sorts of tools to keep schools open so I don’t really understand why school districts are [closing schools].“… There could be times when you have such severe short staffing shortages that it may be hard to keep schools going. That really should be the only context I think at this point.”More than 816,000 have died from Covid in the US but resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures remains strongest in states and counties which voted for Trump. On ABC, Fauci was asked if he thought the former president’s supporters would listen to his support for vaccines.“Well, I certainly hope so,” he said. “We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated.”But Fauci also said he was “dismayed” when Trump followers in Dallas booed him for supporting vaccines.“I was stunned by that,” he said. “I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group, that they would boo him … tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what they should do.“I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind is a good thing. I hope he keeps it up.”Trump also backed vaccines in an interview with the conservative commentator Candace Owens, saying: “The vaccines work … the ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine … and if you take the vaccine, you’re protected.”Omicron: bleak New Year or beginning of the end for the pandemic?Read moreOn Instagram, Owens said Trump was backing vaccines because he was “old” and “came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct … independent research”.Last week, after Biden recognised his predecessor’s efforts to develop vaccines, Trump said he was “appreciative” . Biden also commended Trump for receiving a booster, saying it “may be one of the few things he and I agree on”.On Sunday, Vice-President Kamala Harris was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if the unvaccinated were to blame for the Omicron surge.“I don’t think this is a moment to talk about fault,” Harris said.But she added: “It is clear that everyone has the ability to make a choice to save their lives and to prevent hospitalisation if they get vaccinated and if they get the booster. And so I urge people to do that.”TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationJoe BidenDonald TrumpOmicron variantUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases Covid risks

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      Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases Covid risks
      Chief White House medical adviser: breakthroughs will happen
      22,000 new cases but New York says hospitals can cope
      Harris: White House did not see Omicron coming
      The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has “extraordinary spreading capabilities”, the top US infectious diseases expert said on Sunday, and promises to bring a bleak winter as it continues “raging through the world”.Doug Ericksen, state senator who fought vaccine mandates, dies at 52Read moreDr Anthony Fauci’s warning came ahead of the busy holiday travel period, which he said would elevate the risk of infection even in vaccinated people.In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to get booster shots and wear masks.He also appeared to attempt damage control over Vice-President Kamala Harris’s contention that the Biden administration “didn’t see” the Omicron or Delta variants coming.Harris’s comments on Friday were “taken out of context”, Fauci insisted, and referred to the “extraordinary number of mutations” of Covid-19 rather than any lack of readiness.“We were well prepared and expected that we were going to see variants,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”Fauci looked ahead to a scheduled national address by Biden on Tuesday, in which he said the president would “upscale” elements of the White House Covid winter plan.“He’s going to stress several things,” Fauci said. “… Getting people boosted who are vaccinated, getting children vaccinated, making testing more available, having surge teams out, because we know we’re going to need them because there will be an increased demand on hospitalisation.”The White House reset comes at the end of a week in which the US surpassed 800,000 deaths from coronavirus and saw a 17% surge in cases and a 9% rise in deaths.Medical experts have warned of an Omicron-fueled “viral blizzard” sweeping the country. Biden has spoken of a “winter of severe illness and death” among the unvaccinated.Fauci repeated such dire predictions on CNN’s State of the Union.“One thing that’s clear is [Omicron’s] extraordinary capability of spreading, its transmissibility capability,” he said. “It is just raging through the world.“This virus is extraordinary. It has a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days in certain regions of the country, which means it’s going to take over. If you look at what it’s done in South Africa, what it’s doing in the UK, and what it’s starting to do right now, the president is correct.“It is going to be tough. We can’t walk away from that because with the Omicron that we’re dealing with it is going to be a tough few weeks to months as we get deeper into the winter. We are going to see significant stress in some regions of the country, on the hospital system, particularly in those areas where you have a low level of vaccination.”Many cases of Omicron are so-called “breakthrough” infections. Florida, one of the hardest-hit states throughout the pandemic, reported on Sunday that about 30% of new infections were in people vaccinated but yet to receive a booster.Fauci and other experts have said immunisations alone will not prevent the spread of Omicron, but are confident that the risk of serious disease or death is vastly reduced in those who are vaccinated.Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CBS’s Face the Nation he was concerned about the effects of Omicron on those who are not vaccinated.New York reports 22,000 new Covid cases – but hospitals say they can copeRead more“It’s a brand new version and so different that it has the properties to potentially be evasive of the vaccines and other measures that we’ve taken,” he said.“The big message for today is if you’ve had vaccines and a booster you’re very well protected against Omicron causing you severe disease. Anybody who’s in that 60% of Americans who are eligible for a booster but haven’t yet gotten one, this is the week to do it. Do not wait.”In New York, authorities said 22,000 people tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, eclipsing the previous record since testing became widely available.Meanwhile, a study in South Africa this week suggested that the Pfizer vaccine has a weaker efficacy against Omicron in patients who have received two doses than it does against the Delta variant.The research by Discovery Health, the country’s largest medical insurance administrator, calculated a 70% protection from hospitalization compared with the unvaccinated, and 33% protection against infection.The group said that represented a drop from 93% hospitalization protection and 80% infection prevention for Delta.TopicsCoronavirusBiden administrationAnthony FauciUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci urges Americans to get Covid booster as US nears 800,000 deaths

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      Fauci urges Americans to get Covid booster as US nears 800,000 deathsLeading infectious diseases official warns Omicron variant appears to be able to ‘evade’ protection of two initial doses The US government’s leading infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, on Sunday stepped up calls for Americans to get a Covid-19 booster shot, as the US is approaching 800,000 lives lost to coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.Fauci warned that the Omicron variant appeared to be able to “evade” the protection of two initial doses of the mRNA-type Covid vaccines – Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s – as well as post-infection therapies such as monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma.Omicron is spurring new fears as US infections begin to surge again, with infections currently still led by the highly-transmissable Delta variant that has dominated since the summer.Fauci said an extra vaccine shot provides “optimal” protection against Omicron, even though the government’s official designation of “fully vaccinated” remained at two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, or one of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which was developed by another method.“Preliminary data show that when you get a booster, for example a third shot of an mRNA, it raises the level of protection high enough that it then does do well against the Omicron,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to the president, said on ABC.It was, he said: “Another reason to encourage people who are not vaccinated to get vaccinated, but particularly those who are vaccinated to get boosted because that diminution in protection seems to go way back up again. If you want to be optimally protected, you really should get a booster.”Although vaccination rates, particularly boosters, have picked up significantly in recent weeks, about 40% of eligible adults in the US are still not fully protected, and the take-up rate for children ages five to 11, who are newly eligible, remains below 20%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.“Follow the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines, that when you are in an indoor congregate setting and you don’t know the vaccination status of the people around you, wear a mask. Masking is not going to be forever but it can get us out of the very difficult situation we’re in now,” Fauci said.Experts are still discovering the characteristics of Omicron. CDC director Rochelle Walensky last week said that very preliminary data so far showed Omicron was comparatively mild.Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, meanwhile, defended his new vaccine mandate for private employees.“Omicron is here, it’s all over the country, this variant moves fast,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union show.“We have to move faster. What I hear from our business community, their greatest fear is shutdowns, going back to where we were in 2020, to restrictions, to people losing their livelihood.“The greatest threat to employment is that Omicron and the cold winter months are going to supercharge Covid and take us backwards. Since I put mandates in place starting in August, we have seen over a million more doses, 71% of our people fully vaccinated. A lot of those people made the decision because the mandate was there,” he said.A federal judge is set to rule on Tuesday on a challenge to De Blasio’s vaccine mandate for the city’s 160,000 public sector employees, including police, firefighters and sanitation workers.TopicsAnthony FauciCoronavirusInfectious diseasesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The latest challenge to Joe Biden’s presidency: the Omicron variant

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      The latest challenge to Joe Biden’s presidency: the Omicron variantAnalysis: after he promised to crush the coronavirus, the rise of a new strain could be a blow to perceptions of his competency Joe Biden looked out at an audience of government scientists last week and recognized a mask-wearing Anthony Fauci, his top adviser on the coronavirus. “I’ve seen more of Dr Fauci than my wife,” he joked. “Who’s president? Fauci!”The US president was visiting the frontline of the Covid-19 struggle, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where he unveiled a winter plan that includes a drive for vaccine boosters, free at-home testing and fresh requirements for international travelers.Easy access to tests could play a key role in fighting the Omicron variantRead moreBut even as Biden preached to the converted on Thursday, he faced a new political threat. The Omicron variant was spreading rapidly from state to state, trailing uncertainty in its wake. “We’re going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion,” he promised, “just like we beat back Covid-19 in the spring and more powerful Delta variant in the summer and fall.”Yet the Delta variant itself is far from beaten, underlining the perils of what may prove the defining issue of Biden’s presidency and the measure of its success or failure. He came into office promising to crush the coronavirus but, after at least one false dawn, that goal remains frustratingly elusive – and now Omicron could deliver another hammer blow.Indeed, Biden’s aura of competence took a hit over the summer, partly because of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, partly because the Delta variant appeared to catch him by surprise. Its persistence has made a mockery of his July declaration that Americans could soon declare independence from the virus.Laurie Garrett, an award-winning science writer, said: “I don’t think that anybody in the spring in the United States was operating with the correct level of alarm about the Delta variant.“I would forgive many leaders for having an inability to read the situation adequately and recognise how dangerous it was but, once it was clear that the Delta variant was far more contagious, everybody should have gone into high gear and I do think there was a slowness in response.”Biden’s swift travel bans on southern African countries in response to Omicron suggested a resolve to learn lessons from Delta; to some it looked like overcorrection. But the challenge this time is compounded by new extremes in the Republican party and rightwing media’s politicization of the pandemic.On Thursday, the president acknowledged: “It’s become a political issue, which is a sad, sad commentary. It shouldn’t be, but it has been.”His stated hope that the nation could now come together around his new plan will have struck some as optimistic to the point of naivety. Democrats accuse Biden’s opponents of weaponizing the virus and its variants against him with the long-term objective of denying him a second term.Eric Schultz, a communications strategist who worked in the Obama administration, told the Associated Press: “It’s clear that Republicans have decided that the fate of the Biden presidency is tied to Covid. And Republicans have chosen to be on the side of the virus.”Some Republicans have all but entrenched an anti-vaccination culture. Senators this week briefly threatened a government shutdown over mandates. Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have extended benefits to workers who are fired or resigned over their employers’ vaccine requirements.Leslie Dach, chair ofProtect Our Care, a healthcare pressure group, said: “They’re literally sacrificing the lives of their own voters on the altar of their personal politics. That’s just incontrovertibly true when you know that the death rate is 15 times higher and you see who is choosing not to be vaccinated in America. They’re basically meting out a death sentence for people.”It seems to be getting worse. A day after news broke about the Omicron variant, Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman from Texas and former doctor to Donald Trump, floated a groundless conspiracy theory. He tweeted: “Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant. They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election – but we’re not going to let them!”Meanwhile, Lara Logan, a Fox News anchor, compared Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death for the experiments he carried out on prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp. Michael Bornstein, a survivor of Auschwitz, described the comments as “disgusting”.But Logan was not sanctioned by Fox News and, with Holocaust comparisons proliferating on rightwing social media, including even in merchandise, there are fears that America’s hyperpartisan atmosphere may have passed a point of no return, paralysing its Omicron response.Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, warned: “There is no possibility of working together. If you were going to write a scenario that was perfect for a virus to spread rampantly, having the humans at the edge of civil war every five minutes would be a perfect scenario.”Despite these forces, the White House points to dramatic progress over the past year. Last Christmas less than 1% of adults were fully vaccinated; this Christmas that share will be 72%, including more than 86% of elderly people. More than 20 million children have been vaccinated – though under-fives still await approval – and 99% of schools are open.But the pandemic has proved a tenacious foe with renewed surges in Michigan and other midwestern states threatening to overwhelm hospitals. About 40 million adults refuse to get vaccinated. Take-up of boosters – more essential than ever due to Omicron – has been sluggish: more than 100 million eligible people have not yet received the shot. Masks, empty offices and unpredictability persist.The conflicting picture has left the president to juggle duelling messages, one encouraging a return to life as normal, the other urging continued precautions. There seems little prospect of a definitive ending or declaration of victory. Roughly 47% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the pandemic while 49% disapprove, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.Biden announces plan to get booster shots to 100m Americans amid Omicron arrival in USRead moreMichael Steele, former chairman of the RNC, said he would award the president about five marks out of 10 so far. “Given the success they had early on in getting the vaccine programme put in place, shots in arms and all that, when the [Delta] variant hit it caught them flat-footed and took them by surprise.“The administration lost a lot of the gains it had made coming in the door because it shattered people’s confidence in their ability to not only handle what was going on but to actually know what was going on.”Steele, a longtime critic of Trump, noted that calculated attacks and obstruction from the right present a further obstacle to the nation’s recovery from the pandemic. “Biden doesn’t want to further politicize Covid and yet you have Republicans and that’s all they know how to do.”The situation, he added, is reminiscent of Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans spent years trying to repeal without offering a replacement.Bill Galston, a senior fellow at former policy adviser to Bill Clinton, awards Biden a more generous eight of out of 10 for his coronavirus approach to date. “The reason that’s two clicks short of 10 is that I think the White House really went astray in early July when it did everything but hang a mission accomplished banner over the subject.“As I recall, the president announced a summer of freedom. One of the things they have surely learned is that they’re at the mercy of events that they can neither foresee nor control in advance and so creating hopes that are then extinguished by events is really counterproductive.”More than 780,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19. This week, at a White House press briefing, the Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked: “Whatever happened to President Biden’s promise to shut down the virus?”The press secretary, Jen Psaki, replied: “We’re working on it.”TopicsJoe BidenCoronavirusUS politicsBiden administrationVaccines and immunisationAnthony FaucianalysisReuse this content More

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      Fauci: US could face ‘fifth wave’ of Covid as Omicron variant nears

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      Fauci: US could face ‘fifth wave’ of Covid as Omicron variant nears
      Collins and Fauci emphasise need for vaccines and boosters
      Warning that variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility
      Coronavirus: live coverage
      Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections amid rising cases and stagnating vaccination rates. He also warned that the newly discovered Omicron variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility.Biden and Harris briefed as US braces for arrival of Omicron Covid variantRead moreAs Fauci toured the US political talkshows, countries around the world including the US scrambled to guard against Omicron, which has stoked fears of vaccine resistance.A White House official told reporters Joe Biden would meet members of his Covid-19 response team, including Fauci, regarding the Omicron variant.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Fauci discussed why Omicron has raised such alarm.“Right now we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant,” he said, “and they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus.“In other words, the profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it’s going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from the monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies.“So it’s not necessarily that that’s going to happen, but it’s a strong indication that we really need to be prepared for that.”Fauci also pointed to how Covid case numbers shifted dramatically in South Africa, where Omicron was discovered, over a short period.“You were having a low level of infection, and then all of a sudden, there was this big spike … and when the South Africans looked at it, they said, ‘Oh my goodness. This is a different virus than we’ve been dealing with.’“So it clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That’s the thing that’s causing us now to be concerned, but also to put the pressure on ourselves now to do something about our presentation for this.”The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said no Omicron cases have been discovered in the US.Fauci told NBC: “As we all know, when you have a virus that has already gone to multiple countries, inevitably, it will be here.”On CBS, Fauci said any fifth wave of cases “will really be dependent upon what we do in the next few weeks to a couple of months”.“We have now about 62 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated,” he added, “who have not yet gotten vaccinated.“Superimpose upon that the fact that, unquestionably, the people who got vaccinated six, seven, eight, nine, 10 months ago, we’re starting to see an understandable diminution in the level of immunity. It’s called waning immunity, and it was seen more emphatically in other countries before we saw it here.”Fauci said an increase in immunization rates and booster shots might prevent another surge – but the US had to act fast.“So if we now do what I’m talking about in an intense way, we may be able to blunt that,” Fauci said. “If we don’t do it successfully, it is certainly conceivable and maybe likely that we will see another bit of a surge. How bad it gets is dependent upon us and how we mitigate.”Politically charged resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health measures would seem to make a rapid increase in US vaccination rates unlikely.While more than 70% of US adults are fully vaccinated, the most recent CDC data indicated that cases had increased 16% over the prior week’s seven-day average. By Sunday there had been 48,202,506 cases in the US with 776, 537 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.Another senior US government scientist, the National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, discussed the Omicron variant on Sunday.“I think the main thing that has us focused on this,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, “and it’s caused a lot of us to be sort of 24/7 on Zoom calls in the last four days, is that it has so many mutations”.Collins also said there were “good reasons to think it will probably be OK but we need to know the real answers to that and that’s going to take two or three weeks”.On Friday, Biden said the US would follow much of the rest of the world and impose restrictions on travel from South Africa and seven other countries. The restrictions, which Biden called “as a precautionary measure until we have more information”, will go into effect on Monday.Collins told CNN: “I know, America, you’re really tired of hearing these things, but the virus is not tired of us and it’s shape-shifting itself. If you imagine we’re on a racetrack here … it’s trying to catch up with us, and we have to use every kind of tool in our toolbox to keep that from getting into a situation that makes this worse.“We can do this but we have to do it all together.”Boris Johnson ‘ignored’ my plan to tackle deadly Covid variants – senior officialRead moreOn CBS, Fauci was also asked about Republican attacks on his reputation, over federal research prior to the coronavirus pandemic and about his role in the response under the Trump administration.“Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this,” he said. “They’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me.”Asked if he thought attacks were meant to scapegoat him and deflect attention from Donald Trump’s failures, Fauci said: “You have to be asleep not to figure that one out.”“I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying,” he said.TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Former Trump adviser claims to ‘expose unvarnished truth’ of Covid in new book

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      Former Trump adviser claims to ‘expose unvarnished truth’ of Covid in new bookScott Atlas resigned after four months but blames Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx for ‘headline-dominating debacles’ In a new book, former Trump adviser Scott Atlas blames Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci for “headline-dominating debacles” about quack cures for Covid-19 – but omits to mention the chief proponent of snake-oil treatments, including hydroxychloroquine and disinfectant, was the US president he loyally served.US hospitals prepare for influx of Covid patients as millions travel for ThanksgivingRead moreAtlas, a radiologist, is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California, specializing in healthcare policy. He became a special adviser to Donald Trump in August 2020, five months into the pandemic, but resigned less than four months later after a controversial spell in the role.His book, A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop Covid from Destroying America, will be published on 7 December. Its publisher is Bombardier Books, an imprint of PostHill Press, a conservative outlet that will also publish a memoir by Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s fourth press secretary.Speaking to Fox News, Atlas promised to “expose the unvarnished truth” about Trump’s Covid taskforce, including “a shocking lack of critical thinking about the science … a reckless abuse of public health and a moral failure in what should be expected from public health leaders”.Birx, an army physician, is a longtime leader in the fight against Aids. Fauci has served seven presidents as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Both were senior members of Trump’s Covid taskforce. Atlas’s book is replete with attacks on both.Describing the fight against Covid before he came to the White House, Atlas accidentally sideswipes Trump when he writes: “Birx and Fauci stood alongside the president during headline-dominating debacles in the Brady Press Room about using hydroxychloroquine, drinking disinfectant, ingesting bleach and using UV light to cure the virus. They were there as the sole medical input into the taskforce, generating the entire advisory output to the states.”Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, was touted as a Covid treatment by non-governmental voices including two billionaires, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.Fauci said repeatedly such claims should be treated with caution. But Trump himself proved an enthusiastic advocate, disagreeing with his senior scientist and asking the public: “What do you have to lose?”Trump even took the drug himself, before the Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency use authorization, citing concerns about side effects including “serious heart rhythm problems” and death.Atlas’s reference to “drinking disinfectant, ingesting bleach and using UV light” is to the events of a memorable White House briefing when again it was Trump’s pronouncements that went wildly awry – not those of his officials.On Thursday 23 April 2020, William Bryan, undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, discussed a study of effects on the coronavirus from sun exposure and cleaning agents – as applied to surfaces, not the human body.Trump said: “And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.“So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”As the Guardian reported, Birx “remained silent. But social media erupted in outrage.”Trump asked if sunlight might work, saying: “Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?”Birx said: “Not as a treatment. I mean, certainly fever is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But, I’ve not seen heat or light as a –”Trump interrupted: “I think that’s a great thing to look at. OK?”The president subsequently claimed to have been “sarcastic”.01:58In his book, Atlas treats Birx and Fauci’s work for a taskforce he says Trump “never once” met or spoke to with sarcasm, criticism and disdain.Seven doctors contract Covid after attending Florida anti-vaccine summitRead moreHe accuses Birx of “volatile behavior” and “interrupting all who challenged her” but says vice-president Mike Pence decided removing her was “simply not worth the risk to the upcoming election”.Among criticisms of Fauci, Atlas echoes Trump in complaining about his profile.“Dr Fauci kept on interviewing, of course,” Atlas writes, “positing the ever-present, potentially negative turn of events that never happened.”A year after Atlas’s resignation, more than 772,000 Americans have died of Covid-19.TopicsCoronavirusDonald TrumpAnthony FauciUS politicsPolitics booksRepublicansTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci predicts Covid shots for kids five to 11 will be available by early November

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      Anthony FauciFauci predicts Covid shots for kids five to 11 will be available by early November Government’s chief medical adviser makes prediction after FDA review panel finds that benefits for group outweighs risks Richard Luscombe@richluscSun 24 Oct 2021 16.16 EDTLast modified on Sun 24 Oct 2021 16.17 EDTVaccines to protect children ages five to 11 from Covid-19 will be available in the US in early to mid-November, Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s chief medical adviser, predicted on Sunday.A review panel of the US food and drug administration (FDA) found last week that the benefits of Pfizer-BioNTech shots for the younger age group outweighed the risks, setting up an advisory meeting on Tuesday of outside FDA experts who are expected to recommend emergency use authorization.With final approval from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) likely to come the following week, Fauci said he believed pediatric vaccines would start going into arms in short order.“If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it’s entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from five to 11 within the first week or two of November,” Fauci told ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.“You never want to get ahead of the FDA in their regulatory decisions, nor the CDC and their advisers on what the recommendation would be, but if you look at the data that’s been made public, the data look good.”Pfizer has claimed its coronavirus vaccine is 91% effective in the five-11 age group. The extension of vaccine availability to those younger than 12 is seen as a key step in getting a pandemic that has killed more than 735,000 in the US under control.Despite polls showing that more parents than previously are willing to allow their children to be vaccinated, there remains significant hesitance. Only one third of parents with children ages five to 11 say they will vaccinate their child right away, according to Kaiser, while one in four say they will not allow it under any circumstances.“We know we have a lot of work to do,” Dr Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.“Those survey data look very much consistent with where we were with adults last December, when we rolled out vaccines for adults. We have done a huge amount of hard work over the last 10 months, education, communication, providing information, getting vaccines to really convenient places.”Walensky said vaccines for children would be available nationwide in tens of thousands of venues from pediatrician and primary care offices, children’s hospitals, pharmacies, school clinics and community health centers.“We’re doing absolutely all of that hard work now,” she said. “As soon as we have both the FDA authorization and the CDC recommendations there will be vaccine out there so children can start rolling up their sleeves.”TopicsAnthony FauciUS politicsCoronavirusInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationChildrennewsReuse this content More