“We don’t want to frighten people, but that’s just the reality,” Fauci said.
November 29, 2020, 2:38 PM
4 min read
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he can’t see how the current restrictions and recommendations around Thanksgiving would be relaxed by Christmas.
“When you have the kind of inflection that we have, it doesn’t all of a sudden turn around like that,” Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week.
“So clearly in the next few weeks, we’re gonna have the same sort of thing. And perhaps even two or three weeks down the line, Martha, we may see a surge upon a surge,” he told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“We don’t want to frighten people, but that’s just the reality” Fauci added. “We said that these things would happen, as we got into the cold weather and as we began traveling, and they’ve happened. It’s going to happen again. So I cannot see all of a sudden, a relaxation of the kinds of recommendations or restrictions because we’re getting into colder weather, and in, in an even larger holiday season as people travel to come back and forth for Christmas.”
He also urged Americans to be “really careful” as they return from their Thanksgiving holiday travel.
“You’ve really got to understand the importance of trying to prevent further spread and further surge, that may be when you go back where you came from,” Fauci said.
The U.S. surpassed 13 million COVID-19 cases on Friday, an increase of more than a million cases in six days, according to data from John Hopkins University. More than 265,000 people have died.
Experts have warned against reading too much into numbers from this week, as states have paused updates due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Despite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warnings and increasing case counts, millions traveled for Thanksgiving. The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 8 million people between Nov. 20 and Saturday.
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
