Friday 7 October 2022 10:49 PM Covid doomster Anthony Fauci warns a dangerous new variant could cause a surge ... trends now
The US' top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that a new, more dangerous Covid variant could hit this winter.
Despite the steady decline of Covid viruses and deaths since the summer, Dr Fauci said Americans 'should not be surprised' if a highly transmissible variant emerges as the months get colder.
People spend more time indoors with less ventilation during the winter months, making it easier for Covid to spread. The more the virus spreads and replicates, the greater chance it has at mutating to a new, more transmissible strain.
'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,' Dr Fauci added.
Dr Fauci has been painted by critics as a pessimist with little hope for the US' recovery from the pandemic.
He did not identify a specific variant, but Dr Fauci said past winter surges should be an indication that the US is at risk of enduring another one.
The cases of Covid have consistently ticked up in the colder months when people spend more time indoors with less ventilation and less personal space than when outdoors in the summer months.
'We are entering into the winter months, where no matter what the respiratory disease is, there’s always a risk of an uptick,' Dr Fauci said.
Fauci warned that a new, more transmissible variant with the ability evade immune protections could be on the horizon for the US, which has recorded huge surges for the past two winters.
The CDC keeps track of the seven-day average number of deaths due to Covid, which is currently hovering around 330.
Covid case rates are nowhere near as high as they were during the winter 2021 omicron surge. The seven-day average number of new cases is roughly 44,500.
The likelihood of a winter surge is based on trends over the past two and a half years. The summer of 2021 saw a relative lull in case rates, creating a sense of security nationwide.
The summer lull was the calm before the storm that was the devastating omicron outbreak last winter.
The omicron variant was the most transmissible one recorded at the time due to an unusually high number of mutations on its genome.
