Fauci: After Delta, Even More Dangerous Variant Could Come

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The pandemic must be brought under control, the prominent immunologist and presidential advisor warned. The best way to do that, he said, is vaccination.

U.S. health expert Anthony Fauci is warning of the development of a new, even more dangerous variant of the coronavirus if the spread of the highly contagious delta variant is not contained. Fauci told NBC on Sunday, “If you allow the virus to circulate freely and don’t try to stop it, sooner or later there’s a chance you’re going to get another variant (…) that could be even more problematic than Delta.”

If the virus is allowed to continue to spread and change, he said, there is a risk that a variant will eventually develop against which current vaccines – unlike Delta – offer no protection.

The pandemic must be brought under control, the prominent immunologist and presidential advisor warned. The best way to do that, he said, is vaccination. Vaccination requirements at the local level would be helpful.

The director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health research agency, Francis Collins, also urged that mandatory vaccinations could make a difference. He told ABC on Sunday that the country is now paying the “terrible price” for having so many people unvaccinated. Consideration of making vaccinations mandatory on a larger scale has been the subject of fierce political debate in the United States.

As a result of the spread of the delta variant, the number of new Corona infections in the U.S. has risen sharply again – to about 100,000 cases in a seven-day period. The situation is particularly tense in states with low vaccination rates. In the second half of June, the seven-day average was still around 11 000 new cases per day. A level averaging 100,000 new infections per day was last reported in the U.S. in February.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), just over half of the entire population is now fully vaccinated. Just under 59 percent of all citizens have received at least one vaccination dose. After an initial rapid pace, the vaccination campaign is now making only slow progress in view of widespread skepticism among the population. U.S. President Joe Biden and high-ranking government officials are increasingly desperate to call on the population to get vaccinated.