Doctors in eight states will soon be forced to choose which patients get ICU beds amidst the growing number of hospitals. Dr. Fauci has warned.
Warning comes as ICU beds in hospitals alabama, georgia, texas, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada and Kentucky reached 90 percent capacity on Sunday.
Fauci said the number of hospitalizations continues to rise, so doctors are “dangerously close” to making “some very difficult decisions.”
According to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 79 percent of ICU beds across the US are currently in use, with a third being filled by Covid-19 patients.
Fauci told CNN Urging people to ‘remove all restrictions on everything we can do to prevent new infections’, including encouraging more people to get vaccinated.
‘Vaccination is number one’, said the chief medical adviser to the president.
Doctors in eight states will soon be forced to choose which patients get ICU beds amid a growing number of hospitalizations, the president’s chief medical adviser Dr Fauci has warned.
Fauci (left) told CNN that people should “put a hold on everything we can to prevent new infections,” including encouraging more people to get vaccinated.
Fauci warned as hospitals in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada and Kentucky reached 90 percent capacity on Sunday
Fauci told host Jim Acosta: ‘What we really need to do, and I hope we’re doing this, is to reduce the number of people who are getting infected and need hospitalization and ICU beds. Whatever you can do, do it.
‘We’re dangerously close … being in some areas of the country, coming so close to having full occupancy that you’re going to be in a position where you’re going to have to make some very tough choices.
‘The thing to do right now is to remove all the stops on what we can to prevent new infections that will eventually lead to hospitalization. Vaccination is number one.
The chief medical adviser said vaccine mandates were important ‘at a local level’ and asked for mask mandates ‘because we know masks work’.
Asked how children who are very young should avoid Covid-19, Fauci asked parents to surround ‘vaccinated people’.
‘In the school system, therefore the CDC recommends the use of masks in the school system, even though many people are getting vaccinated.
He said, ‘We have to do everything possible to prevent them from getting infected, and as I mentioned that people around them are being vaccinated and wearing masks.
According to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 79 percent of ICU beds across the US are currently in use, with a third filled by Covid-19 patients.
Fauci said on Sunday that officials are likely to receive regulatory approval soon to administer the COVID-19 vaccine booster shots made by Pfizer.
When asked about CBS’s “Face the Nation,” President Joe Biden’s goal of giving a booster shot from September 20, Fauci said that “in some cases” that plan remained.
But he said that while Pfizer-BioNtech has submitted the necessary data on booster shots to the FDA, Moderna has yet to complete the process.
Fauci said he hopes to have both vaccines when the booster doses begin, but if Moderna doesn’t complete the process before September 20, Moderna boosters will be given later.
Moderna and the FDA did not immediately return emails seeking comment. In a statement released Wednesday, Moderna said it has begun ‘submissions’ of booster data to the FDA.
How – or even how – to administer the booster has emerged as a thorny issue as COVID-19 continues to kill unvaccinated people around the world.
Last month the Biden administration announced it would begin offering the booster to Americans by September 20, leaving the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention usually deciding on such issues.
Scientists are still debating how much the additional immunity boosters provide and whether all Americans should get another shot instead of those at higher risk of serious disease.
Speaking on Sunday, Fauci stressed that both boosters were deemed safe, but that the FDA and other officials would study the data to be sure.
“When you’re dealing with allowing the American public to receive intervention, you want to make sure you’re absolutely certain,” he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said the Mondarna booster shot won’t be ready until the target date of September 20 — but Pfizer should be ready to administer by then.
The goal was that both boosters would be ready for administration by September 20 as the delta version grows and more successful cases of COVID-19 emerge.
On Thursday, Fauci said health officials were keeping a ‘very close eye’ on the MU variant, but it was ‘not an immediate threat’ despite being added to the WHO’s ‘Types of Interest’ list on August 30.
According to the weekly pandemic bulletin published by the WHO, the mu variant, also known as B.1.621, contains a group of mutations that indicate a potential for immune evasion.
‘Yes, we are definitely aware of the mu variant. Fauci said on Thursday, ‘We are watching this very closely.
He said the mu variant is ‘not even close to being dominant’ as the delta variant maintains its 99 per cent dominance among coronavirus infections.
Fauci said, “Even though it doesn’t hold up here in a nutshell — to any degree, we always note — all the time — variants.”
“This variant has a constellation of mutations that suggest it will escape certain antibodies, not just monoclonal antibodies, but vaccine and healthy serum-induced antibodies,” Fauci said.
‘But there isn’t a lot of clinical data to suggest this. This is mostly laboratory, in-vitro data. Not to belittle it, we take it very seriously.’
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