MOSCOW – Top American infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci expects the number of coronavirus fatalities to go down during the cold season, Sputnik reported.
“I strongly suspect that you're going to start seeing the deaths go down similar to the hospitalisations; how quickly they go down and how thoroughly they go down are going to depend a lot on a number of circumstances, which will be influenced by things like the colder weather, people doing things indoors, and how well they go by the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines,” Fauci said in an interview with Greta Van Susteren, as quoted by The Hill.
Dr Fauci, who is the chief medical adviser to the US president, advised people to wear masks during outside gatherings regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not since there are communities with a high Covid-19 prevalence.
“Fortunately over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a turnaround in the slope and it is going down in both cases and hospitalisations. Deaths are still up, but it's really flattening, so it's a lagging indicator," Dr Fauci said in the interview to be aired today.
Last month, the infectious disease expert warned that the Delta variant remained the primary concern in the US. The number of cases in the country with the variant increased to 98% from 13.5% in June.
The US has the largest total number of confirmed coronavirus cases and the greatest Covid-19 death toll in the world.
According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, the country has registered over 44.3 million cases since the start of the pandemic and the number of fatalities has surpassed 712,000.
At the start of this month, when the total Covid-19 death toll in the US surpassed 700,000, President Joe Biden said the fact that the US death toll is increasing means that more people in the country need to get vaccinated. – Bernama, October 10, 2021