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Dr. Anthony Fauci urged Americans not to let their guard down against the coronavirus pandemic. While case numbers have been trending lower over the summer, Dr. Fauci warned that another, more dangerous variant could emerge this winter during an event hosted by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, CNBC reported.
"It looks like we're going in the right direction," he said. "However, I think it would be a bit cavalier to all of a sudden say, 'We're completely through with [the pandemic].'"
"We should anticipate that we very well may get another variant that would emerge, that would elude the immune response that we've gotten from infection and/or from vaccination," Fauci added.
Dr. Fauci's comments come as the number of COVID cases and hospitalizations are rising in the United Kingdom. According to The Guardian, health officials in the U.K. are monitoring two new subvariants, BA.2.75.2 and BQ1.1, which have shown the ability to evade immunity provided by the vaccines. Currently, there is no evidence that either variant causes a more severe infection than the other, more prevalent strains of COVID-19.
Dr. Fauci said that the best way to ensure you are protected against a severe COVID infection is to get vaccinated. Last month, the FDA authorized updated bivalent vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna that offer protection against the BA.5 variant, which is the most common strain in the U.S.
"We're encouraging people, particularly as we're now in the fall season, to get that particular updated vaccine, which fortunately for us is directed at the major circulating variant," Fauci said.