Anthony Stephen Fauci

“ DR. WALENSKY: Thank you so much, Andy. I’m so glad to be back and joining you today. Today, I’m going to give you a brief update on the pandemic. As I mentioned on Friday, despite trends moving in the right direction, we remain in a very serious situation. COVID-19 continues to affect too many people, as we continue to mourn all of those lives that have been lost. ”

“ Now, this is a great representation of the American spirit of generosity and American selflessness because our ability to vaccinate millions of the elderly, seniors, and healthcare workers is a testament to a society that has put our parents and grandparents, those who have served us, and those who continue to sacrifice for us on the frontlines of the healthcare system first. ”

“ Now, we’ve been battling this pandemic for the better part of a year. More than 450,000 Americans’ lives have been taken, we’ve been separated from our friends and family, thousands of schools and businesses have been sitting empty, and Americans have had their lives turned upside down by the pandemic.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans are doing everything in their power to put the country and the world back on the right course. Millions of you are wearing masks, and the evidence Dr. Walensky has discussed here demonstrates that in communities where that happens, lives are being saved. ”

“ The data from schools suggests that there’s very little transmission that is happening within the schools, especially when there’s masking and distancing occurring, and that when there are transmissions in the schools, it is because they brought — been brought in from the community and because there are breaches in masking and distancing.
So, if we want to get our schools open and our schools open safely and well, the best way to do that is to decrease the community spread. So I would say we need to keep up our social distancing and our masking and all of our other mitigation measures. ”

“ Over 83,000 Americans are hospitalized right now with COVID-19 — much higher than the summer and fall.
Today, we are reporting that COVID-19 deaths increased 2.4 percent to an average of 3,221 deaths per day from January 31st to February 6th. As I mentioned on Friday, sometimes delays in reporting can lead to fluctuations in the data. This is the case for the average number of deaths reported today, which includes a delayed report of 1,570 confirmed deaths from one state. ”

“ A virus is transmissible and is virulent, and the degree of transmissibility and the degree of virulence can actually overlap and result — because you’ve heard us say on our briefings that a virus that has a greater degree of transmissibility will be making more people sick. ”

“ We are taking a collaborative approach as much as possible, sharing with them the data, helping them understand — as we’ve covered on this call — why we’re in such a critical period to combating the virus, and hope to continue to work to persuade and partner with states and localities to continue to follow sensible public health measures until such time as we’re in a situation where the case rates are down — are down lower. We think that’s wise.We think that the — that the voice of the CDC is preeminent here. They look at all of the data. They’re clear in communicating with the public. ”

“ Now, at the same time, we need to step up efforts to increase vaccinations of racial and ethnic communities that have suffered disproportionately. Health equity is a cornerstone of all of our work, and we’ll be talking more about progress there in upcoming briefings. ”

“ And in skilled nursing facilities that have had at least one vaccination clinic, an estimated median of almost 80 percent of residents have received at least one dose of vaccine.
As vaccinations at these facilities are completed, that will mean many more lives saved, many more vaccines that can be moved into the inventory for the next priority groups. And in total, of the over 40 million doses that have been administered, over 17 million doses have been administered to people 65 or older. ”

“ The more people that get sick, the more people that will be hospitalized. And the more people that are hospitalized, you’ll likely get more deaths.But on a one-to-one basis, whether or not it is truly more virulent: Right now, we don’t have any indication that that’s the case here, and we’ll just have to continue to observe, which we do. You know, the vaccine trials, they ended and came up with an efficacy of 94 to 95 percent, but the trials go on for two years. ”

“ So, for that reason, we have continued to go by the fact that we feel the optimum approach would be to continue with getting as many people on their first dose as possible, but also making sure that people, on time, get their second dose. ”

“ But each day, we are putting forth efforts to increase vaccine supply, including by use of the Defense Production Act; to create more places to get vaccinated, including new large community vaccination centers and retail pharmacies ”