Fauci Expresses Concern About States With Low Vaccination Rates

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Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:31 pm

Speaking on CNN, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said he is concerned about states with low vaccination rates.

“What my concern is, is in those states in which you have relatively few, compared to others, people vaccinated, when you’re below 50 percent of the people being vaccinated, that’s when you’re going to have a problem,” he noted during his appearance on “New Day,” adding that “the one thing we want to make sure is that we don’t declare victory prematurely and feel that because things are going in the right direction that we don’t have to keep vaccinating people.”

Fauci noted that the majority of all adults in the country are now vaccinated and that he feels “fairly certain you’re not going to see the kind of surges we’ve seen in the past.” Even so, he expects an uptick of cases over the summer.

Fauci also praised the Biden administration’s efforts to vaccinate as many adults as possible; President Joe Biden has made clear the administration would like to vaccinate 70% of all United States adults by July 4, in time for Independence Day festivities.

“That’s the reason why you see what the president is doing, and all of us are doing in leadership is to get people as vaccinated as quickly as possible as many as possible, whatever it takes,” Fauci said. “Make it extremely easy for people to get vaccinated, give incentives, do whatever you can to get people to get vaccinated.”

You can watch his interview below.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he is "fairly certain" that the country as a whole will not see "the kind of surges we've seen in the past" given that a large percentage of the country is vaccinated.

"What I am concerned about [is] those states in which the level of vaccination is low." pic.twitter.com/9MIAvpAbKg

— CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) June 3, 2021