National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead” that any further coronavirus deaths in America are a painful tragedy because if people get vaccinated, dying from any coronavirus variant is avoidable.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “So you also said today that the Delta variant is the greatest threat to progress against COVID-19? So if convincing folks to get vaccinated doesn’t work, is there any chance that we’re going to be able to eliminate this threat?”
Fauci said, “Well, certainly, if you have the substantial proportion of people not vaccinated and you have a variant like the Delta variant, which now clearly has been shown to spread more efficiently and to cause more serious disease. We absolutely know that from other countries. Then those people who are not vaccinated will be at risk, and there will be more infections the way we’re seeing, and with that will come serious disease and hospitalization.”
He continued, “That’s the reason why we’re pulling out all the stops, Jake, about getting people —you know, going with local type of trusted messengers even in those recalcitrant pockets of people who don’t seem to want to get vaccinated.”
Tapper said, “Is it fair to say that the people who are still dying of coronavirus or in serious medical conditions, are they almost entirely if not entirely unvaccinated Americans?”
Fauci said, “Yes, overwhelmingly so. That’s the thing that’s so painful, Jake, as a physician, a scientist, and a public health person that I am, is that that’s entirely avoidable. That’s really the tragedy when people don’t want to get vaccinated for reasons that they can’t even explain. They just don’t want to get vaccinated. For those who don’t want to get vaccinated because they need more information, it’s on us to get that information to them. That’s what we’re trying to do. But it’s always, every death from COVID-19 is avoidable. It’s a tragedy when it happens.”
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