Fauci is alerting Americans not to let their expectations down as there's always a "risk of an uptick" in the winter

October 11, 2022:- Dr. Anthony Fauci gently alerted all Americans that it shouldn’t be amazed if a recent, more severe Covid variant occurs this winter.

“We should anticipate that we may bring one more variant that would emerge, that would elude the response that we have gotten from infection and vaccination,” Fauci also said at an event with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.

Statistically, pandemic trends such as hospitalizations and deaths are currently down nationwide; the seven-day moving average of recent Covid deaths in the U.S. is 323 as of Wednesday, for instance. That’s much more than the country’s 1,000 to 2,500 in February and March.

But Fauci is urging Americans not to let their guard down as there’s always a “risk of an uptick” in the winter months. “It looks like we’re going in the right direction,” he added.

“I think it would be cavalier to say, ‘We’re completely through with the coronavirus all of a sudden.”

Fauci said that by the summer of 2021 when the U.S. saw similarly low pandemic trends, the omicron variant would emerge and cause a record-breaking surge in cases in the previous winter. Since then, multiple subvariants of omicron have spread and are becoming dominant in the U.S.

According to CDC data, that includes BA.5, which currently makes up 81.3% of all cases. Research suggests that BA.5 and its predecessor, BA.4, are three times less sensitive to antibodies from the original Covid vaccines than the original omicron strain.

“We shouldn’t be surprised” if another recent, more transmissible variant emerges this winter, Fauci said. Emerging research suggests that some of the recent subvariants, including one called BA.4.6, appear to evade immunity more effectively than BA.5. However, it’s unclear whether any of them is overtaking BA.5 as the country’s dominant Covid strain.

Fauci noted that getting the belatedly omicron-specific Covid booster is all the more crucial. All Americans aged 12 and older are active for one if they’ve finished their primary Covid vaccine series. Roughly a third of U.S. adults advise they’ve gotten a recent booster or intend to possible,” according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in the previous week.

“We’re encouraging people, particularly as we’re in the fall season, to get that updated vaccine, which for us is directed at the major circulating variant,” Fauci added.