During an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Feb. 28, Fauci was asked about his concerns over the recent change in the trajectory of new COVID cases, after a weeks-long national decline was snapped last week. “It certainly could be that because we do have some worrisome variants in California and in New York,” he explained.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb He went on to call the sharp drop in cases over the past several weeks “encouraging,” but that “over the last several days, it’s kind of stopped at around 70,000 and lingered there for a day or two. That is concerning because the thing we don’t want is to have it plateau at 70,000 per day. That’s exactly the thing that happened during previous surges,” he warned. However, more recently, daily new COVID cases have come down once more to 50,000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. And for more advice from Fauci, check out Dr. Fauci Just Said When You Can See Other People After Being Vaccinated. Fauci previously expressed concern over the New York variant—officially known as B.1.526— during an appearance on CNN on Feb. 25. He warned host Chris Cuomo that the newly discovered strain had “some worrisome mutations in it” and that “it’s something you’ve really got to pay attention to.” But he wasn’t alone in his concerns over the new variant. Appearing after Fauci on Face the Nation, Scott Gottlieb, MD, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, echoed the warnings. “We’re more worried about the New York strain because it may pierce prior immunity, and vaccines may be less effective against that,” he said, before clarifying that the information was “still very speculative.” And for more on potential upcoming guideline changes, check out The CDC Is About to Relax These COVID Restrictions, Dr. Fauci Says. While California may finally be seeing cases drop after a devastating surge that made it the epicenter of the pandemic for a time, Fauci is still concerned that other issues could lie ahead. In a Feb. 23 interview with The Los Angeles Times, he warned that the U.K. variant—which has been reported in the state—could create a “survival-of-the-fittest contest” with other local California variants, allowing whichever strain is better at eluding vaccines to continue to spread. And for more COVID news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. But the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden remains optimistic that the challenges presented by the new variants don’t mean we should give up hope. “We don’t know if [the vaccines] work directly against it, but that’s the point you want to get across to people. Even though this vaccine is not directly matched to a variant that might occur … [with] the higher level of protection against the original one, there’s a spillover of protection against the variant,” Fauci told Cuomo. “Keep doing the public health measures and get as many people vaccinated as you possibly can,” he went on to advise. “Everything you throw at us about a mutant is going to be countered by getting people vaccinated.” And for more on when we may be able to put the coronavirus behind us, check out This Is When the COVID Pandemic Will Be Completely Over, Experts Say.
