Dr Anthony Fauci is again recommending that people don face masks as Covid cases rise.
The number of infections is increasing as part of another summer surge – even though hospitalizations and deaths from the virus remain at historic lows.
On Monday, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease said: ‘The message is that if you are in a risk category you have got to take this seriously.’
The 83-year-old told people with comorbidities and seniors ‘you should be wearing a mask’ in crowded places.
He also revealed he had contracted Covid about two weeks ago. It was his third Covid infection and he has been vaccinated and boosted a total of six times.
The above shows weekly Covid deaths (blue bars) and percent positivity of Covid tests (orange line)
The above shows the percent positivity of Covid tests in the past week by region in the US
According to the CDC, the weekly Covid test positivity for the week ending August 3 was nearly 18 percent, compared to 16 percent the prior week and 10 percent one month before that.
Test positivity is the share of Covid swabs taken that come back positive.
World Health Organization officials warn that if the virus continues to spread, it could lead to new mutations and severe infections that evade vaccine protection and therapeutics.
Deaths have been generally on the rise since May, but began declining the week ending July 20. They currently hover at around 500 per week, compared to more than 25,000 in the fall of 2020.
The elderly, people with compromised immune systems and those with comorbidities are more at risk of developing severe Covid, being hospitalized and have a higher risk of death from the virus.
Dr Fauci told MedPage Today Editor-in-Chief Dr Jeremy Faust: ‘You don’t have to immobilize what you do and cut yourself off from society, but regardless of what the current recommendations are, when you’re in a crowded closed space and you’re an 85-year-old person with chronic lung disease or a 55-year-old person who is morbidly obese with diabetes and hypertension, then you should be wearing a mask.
‘And you should be careful to avoid crowded places where you don’t know the status of other people and you should get vaccinated and boosted on a regular basis.’
Dr Fauci’s face mask guidelines have long been criticized as people claimed they did not work to prevent the spread of Covid.
The educational and social effects of face masks on children have been well documented, with one NIH study calling the impact of mask use on students’ literacy and learning ‘very negative.’
Another NIH study also found that social distancing caused ‘depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress and intrusive thoughts.’
And in testimony to Republicans in June, Dr Fauci admitted he didn’t remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.
When asked if masking kids was an effective way of preventing Covid transmission, he said: ‘I still think that’s up in the air.’
Despite the mixed guidance, experts are still concerned about the rapid spread.
Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health and former White House Covid response coordinator, told NBC: ‘If you just talk about infections, this is probably going to end up becoming the largest summer wave we’ve had. It’s still not as big as the winter waves, but it is starting to get close.’
Dr Anthony Fauci recommended that the elderly and people with comorbidities wear face masks to protect against Covid
Dr Jha said she expects this surge to peak in the next few weeks and subside in September, just as updated vaccines to target the KP.2 strain of Covid become available.
Additionally, in a briefing last week, World Health Organization officials said 84 countries are experiencing a rise in the percentage of positive Covid tests over the last several weeks.
WHO officials said: ‘Covid-19 infections are surging globally… and are unlikely to decline anytime soon. The UN health agency is also warning that more severe variants of the coronavirus may soon be on the horizon.’
And wastewater surveillance suggests the spread of the virus is two to 20 times higher than what is currently being reported.
WHO officials added that new waves of infection could spur mutations and more dangerous strains of the virus ‘that could potentially evade detection systems and be unresponsive to medical intervention.’
The health agency is urging countries to ramp up their vaccination efforts and promote yearly Covid vaccines for high-risk individuals.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist and lead of the COVID-19 response at WHO, said: ‘As individuals it is important to take measures to reduce risk of infection and severe disease, including ensuring that you have had a COVID-19 vaccination dose in the last 12 months, especially, if you are in an at-risk group.
‘I am concerned with such low coverage and with such large circulation, if we were to have a variant that would be more severe, then the susceptibility of the at-risk populations to develop severe disease is huge.’
