Dr. Anthony Fauci is again recommending that people wear masks as Covid cases rise.
Infection numbers are rising as part of another summer surge, though hospitalizations and deaths from the virus remain at record lows.
On Monday, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said: “The message is that if you are in a risk category you need to take this seriously.”
The 83-year-old told people with comorbidities and senior citizens that they “should wear masks” in crowded places.
He also revealed that 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.
Shown above are weekly Covid deaths (blue bars) and the percentage of positive Covid tests (orange line).
The above shows the percentage of positive Covid tests over the past week by region in the US.
According to the CDC, weekly Covid test positivity for the week ending August 3 was nearly 18 percent, compared with 16 percent the week before and 10 percent a month earlier.
Test positivity is the proportion of Covid swabs taken that test 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 therapy.
Deaths have been rising since May but began to decline in the week ending July 20. They are now hovering around 500 a week, compared with more than 25,000 in the fall of 2020.
Older people, people with compromised immune systems, and those with comorbidities are at higher risk of developing severe Covid, being hospitalized, and are at higher risk of dying from the virus.
Dr. Fauci said MedPage Today Editor-in-Chief Dr. Jeremy Faust: ‘You don’t have to freeze up what you’re doing and isolate yourself from society, but regardless of what the current recommendations are, when you’re in an enclosed space full of people and you’re an 85-year-old with chronic lung disease or a 55-year-old who’s morbidly obese with diabetes and hypertension, then you should wear a mask.
‘And they should be careful to avoid crowded places where they don’t know the status of other people and should get vaccinated and boosted regularly.’
Dr. Fauci’s mask guidelines have long been criticized because 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, and an NIH study study Calling the impact of mask wearing on student literacy and learning “very negative.”
Another NIH study They also found that social distancing caused “depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress, and intrusive thoughts.”
And in his testimony before Republicans in June, Dr. Fauci admitted that he did not recall reading anything that supported that wearing masks for children would prevent COVID.
Asked whether mask-wearing for children was an effective way to prevent Covid transmission, he said: “I still think that’s up in the air.”
Despite conflicting guidance, experts remain concerned about the rapid spread.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House Covid response coordinator, said NBC: “If we’re just talking about infections, this is likely to end up being the biggest summer wave we’ve ever had. It’s not as big as the winter waves yet, but it’s starting to get there.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended that older people and people with comorbidities wear face masks to protect themselves against Covid
Dr. Jha said she expects this surge to peak in the coming weeks and subside in September, just as updated vaccines to target the KP.2 strain of Covid become available.
Additionally, at a briefing last week, World Health Organization officials said 84 countries are experiencing an increase in the percentage of positive Covid tests in recent weeks.
WHO officials said: “Covid-19 infections are rising globally… and are unlikely to slow down any time soon. The UN health agency also warns that more severe variants of the coronavirus could soon emerge.”
And wastewater monitoring suggests the spread of the virus is two to twenty times greater than currently reported.
WHO officials added that new waves of infection could spur more dangerous mutations and strains of the virus “that could potentially evade detection systems and not respond to medical intervention.”
The health agency is urging countries to step up their vaccination efforts and promote annual Covid vaccines for high-risk people.
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, infectious disease epidemiologist and head of the COVID-19 response at WHO, said: ‘As individuals, it is important to take steps to reduce your risk of infection and severe illness, including ensuring you have received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the past 12 months, especially if you are in an at-risk group.
“I’m concerned that with such low coverage and such large circulation, if we had a variant that was more severe, then the susceptibility of at-risk populations to developing severe disease would be enormous.”