National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that new variants of COVID could cause America to reinstitute some restrictions.
Discussing the new BA.2 variant of COVID, Fauci said, “It has a degree of transmission advantage over the original Omicron. Not a multi-fold advantage. It’s about 50 to 60% or so more transmissible. It means over time. It might take over as the dominant variant. Throughout the world, it’s about 80 plus percent, 85% of the isolate. In the United States, it’s still around 30%.”
Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “We’ve seen the relaxation of restrictions across the country. Any reason to reverse that?”
Fauci said, “I don’t think so, George, not right now. I don’t see us going back into any very strict kind of restrictions. You have to have the flexibility. Remember when the CDC came out with the modification of their metrics which led to the guidelines of what regions or counties in the country should have masking indoor, they made it clear as you pull back on restrictions if we do see a significant surge, particularly one that might result in increased hospitalizations, we have to be prepared to pivot and perhaps reinstitute some of those restrictions.”
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