When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted that at least 60 to 70 percent of the American population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Then he increased the percent to 75. In a recent interview with CNBC, Fauci increased his prediction again to 75-80 percent. In a CNN interview, host Dana Bash accused Fauci of constantly moving the goal post and asked why he hasn’t been honest with his predictions from the start.
“I don’t think it can be interpreted as being straight or not… We have to realize that we have to be humble and realize what we don’t know. These are pure estimates and the calculations that I made, 70, 75 percent, it’s a range. The range is going to be somewhere between 70 and 85 percent,” he reiterated on the program.
The current prediction is based on results from the measles vaccination. Senator Marco Rubio accused Fauci of distorting the level of vaccination needed for herd immunity. Fauci is presently advising both Trump and Biden on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stay safe and strengthen your immunity to disease
Roughly 1.28 million people flew on airlines on Dec. 27. This is the highest number of passengers since the pandemic began in March. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had previously warned Americans to avoid domestic travel as much as possible. Citizens were told to to stay at home to prevent the viral outbreak from worsening. Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, believes that it is too early to determine whether the holiday travel will result in a spike in COVID-19 infections.
“We know the actual physical act of traveling in airplanes, for example, can be quite safe because of the air purification systems… What we really worry about is the mingling of different bubbles once you get to your destination. Over Thanksgiving, we saw a mixed picture. In the Midwest and in the northern Plains, cases continued to go down despite the travel… I really encourage people to follow the CDC guidelines, make your family gatherings small, safe, protect the elderly and we can get through this,” he told Fox News.
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Giroir also denounced rumors that kids need to be vaccinated to safely return to school. He said that it is critical to get children back to school even if they are not vaccinated. He cited a recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showing that schools are not a major transmission point of the CCP Virus. However, he noted that the Pfizer vaccine that is currently approved in the U.S. might not be safe for children under 16 years old since there is a lack of data. For the Moderna vaccine, it’s not clear whether children below 18 can be administered with it. Giroir believes that conclusive data will soon be available.
As of now, there have been 19,819,857 coronavirus cases in the country. The death toll is at 343,851. California is one of the most infected states. The widespread infection has taken place despite California having some of the most stringent restrictions. In November, the state had declared a month-long curfew between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in most of the counties. On Dec. 21, state officials signed the “Supplement to the Limited Stay Home Order,” which mandates all nonessential retailers to close their business operations between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
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