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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said the political rift contributed significantly to the large number of deaths from COVID-19 in the US, which on Monday crossed the 500,000 mark.
In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Fauci said Monday that the pandemic arrived in the United States while the country was at the mercy of political divisions, where even putting on a mask was more of a political statement than a public health measure.
“Even in the best of circumstances, this would have been a very serious problem.” said Dr. Fauci, stressing that despite strong adherence to public health measures, countries such as Germany and the UK had to face difficulties in fighting the virus.
“However, this does not explain how a rich and sophisticated country can have the highest death rate and be the most hit country in the world.”, said Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and senior adviser to President Joe Biden. “I believe this should not have happened “, he said.
Although the United States has only 4% of the world’s population, it has recorded nearly 20% of all COVID-19 deaths.
Dr. Fauci said the emergence of more contagious variants of the coronavirus, particularly those from South Africa and Brazil that have been shown to lower immunity from natural infections and vaccines, has made it difficult to predict when the United States will be able to overcome it. pandemic.
Dr. Fauci and President Biden have said the United States should return to the almost normal pre-pandemic life around the Christmas period. By Dr. Fauci warned that this could change.
Different variants of the coronavirus also change the equation when it comes to crowd immunity, in which a population is protected from infection due to high levels of immunity from vaccines or infections.
Asked if this is still achievable, Dr. Fauci said: “I think we can gain the immunity of the crowd at least by not getting sick.” / VOA
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