From coast to coast, American society continues to battle a spike in COVID-19 infections. On Saturday, the United States recorded 100,000 COVID-19 cases in 24 hours for the first time since the winter surge of late 2020 and early 2021. White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci recently discussed America’s grim future if cases continue to rise at this rate.
“Remember, just a couple of months ago, we were having about 10,000 cases a day,” Fauci said.
“I think you’re likely going to wind up somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 cases.”
Health officials warn that daily COVID-19 reports will continue to rise at this rate if more Americans do not get vaccinated. Thus far, 70% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 50% have been fully vaccinated. While higher than the global average, the CDC says that it is not enough.
“Our models show that if we don’t (vaccinate people), we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said.
“If we don’t crush the outbreak to the point of getting the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated, then what will happen is the virus will continue to smolder through the fall into the winter, giving it ample chance to get a variant which, quite frankly, we’re very lucky that the vaccines that we have now do very well against the variants — particularly against severe illness,” Fauci added.
