Fauci warns: Don’t ‘pooh-pooh’ COVID because of low hospitalizations, as new daily cases and deaths extend increases

A new rise in COVID-19 cases may have already begun, and, while U.S. officials have expressed concern about the potential for another surge, they’ve stopped short of recommending new public health protocols and restrictions, at least for now.

Hospitalizations remain at the lowest levels since around the time the pandemic began, suggesting the severity of cases has been reduced as more people get vaccinated, the daily average for deaths has ticked higher for a second straight day.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and tapped last year by President Biden as chief White Houses medical adviser, said over the weekend on ABC’s “This Week” that COVID-19 is not going to be eradicated, so Americans will have to live with some degree of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes it, in the community.

But he warned people not to just accept the fact they will contract the virus because although data suggest the currently dominant and “highly transmissible” omicron subvariant BA.2 appears to be less severe, especially for those who are vaccinated, as it can still cause significant illness and lead to long COVID, whose ramifications are largely unknown.