'Still in pandemic mode': COVID-19 nowhere near 'under control' in US, warns Anthony Fauci

COVID-19 is “nowhere near under control” in the United States and the cases have surged more than ten times higher than they need to be in order to end the pandemic, US top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday. His remarks follow the warnings about the upcoming coronavirus mutations that he stated could be even more contagious than the delta of the coronavirus lineage. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told Axios in an interview that the US has a mounting caseload of COVID-19 which is "not even modestly good control". "Until the cases dip to 10,000 a day, we are still in full ‘pandemic mode’," the infectious disease expert said. 

"The endgame is to suppress the virus. Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control ... which means it's a public health threat," Fauci told Axios. “In a country of our size, you can’t be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You’ve got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable,” he added.

'Can't have 100,000 infections a day,' warns Fauci 

Even as the 7-day average in the US declined to 140,000 cases,  Dr. Fauci stressed that the reported case numbers are low and the actual infections could be much higher. Rates this high make it impossible to return to some semblance of normal life, Fauci reportedly said. “In a country of our size, you can’t be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You’ve got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable,” said the NIAID chief. Although he added that the pandemic’s threat should lessen as the vaccination rate goes up. It is to be noted that America has a significantly higher percentage of the ‘vaccine hesitant’ population, not willing to get the shots citing the health reasons.

According to the US CDC data, as the COVID-19 cases dipped below 148,000, an approximately 5 percent decrease in the last 14-day period, the rate of hospitalisation driven by the delta variant has surged by 1 percent. In the US, thus far, 53 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated, and an estimated 63 percent has received at least 1 shot. Fauci emphasised the importance of vaccinations, saying "you'll still get some people getting infected, but you're not going to have it as a public health threat". Fauci had also earlier clarified on television that the vaccination is key to stopping the COVID-19 community spread.

He said, “You can get infected even if you get no symptoms or minimally symptomatic and then pass it on to someone who in fact might be very vulnerable ― an elderly person, a person with an underlying disease.” He continued, “So when you’re dealing with an outbreak of infectious disease, it isn’t only about you. There is a societal responsibility that we all have.”